I spent a good part of yesterday on the road to Des Moines and back. There was fog around Grinnell, yet visibility was good. By the time I returned, I was beat — a person only has energy to describe the Iowa landscape as a post so many times. So here are two photos from the state park trail earlier this week. The sun puts on a better show than I ever could.
A few photos from the first days of the year. The moon shots were one night when I couldn’t sleep so I went on a very early trail walk before sunrise.
I decided to call 2025 finished with 71 books read. I set my goal at a book per week and exceeded it. Yay!
Goodreads is great for me because it provides satisfaction when I finish each book and rate it. Likewise, I refer to the historical information often. The above chart came via email last week and tells a story about which I hadn’t thought. June through August is the busiest time in the garden. Likewise September through November are taken up with kitchen work processing the harvest. Seems natural I would read fewer books during those six months. The seasonality just never occurred to me.
I post each book I finish on Goodreads and at the Read Recently page of this blog if interested. I also keep a spreadsheet.
Book reading appears to be a lost art in American society. I understand people are busy taking in information from the large number of sources that exploded after Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. The web was popularized through the adaptation of web browsers in the mid-1990s. We bought our first home computer and logged in via dial-up on April 21, 1996. After that, it was Katie bar the gate with many more words than could be read by a single human. I think even artificial intelligence machines have trouble getting through all of it. All that said, I sort of understand it, yet believe individuals reading books is an important kind of experience that rewards us in tangible ways.
Online apps are not for everyone, yet if you are on Goodreads, I’d love to see what you are reading. Find me here and join my community!
I drink a lot of coffee. At least one cup per day, mostly one pot per day. Each morning I usually post one picture of my daily cup on social media with a saying for the day. It makes a collection.
Are photographs reality or not? My answer is yes, they are, despite all the self-aggrandizing selfies on the internet. Are artificial intelligence images reality? Yes, and are distinct from photographs. Is time spent off the internet reality? Yes, and not distinct from time spent on the internet. If it is possible to evaluate photography in light of the internet and artificial intelligence, we should. However, I believe we will have the same outcome, that all of it is a form of reality.
My belief runs against the pundits who say we should limit the amount of time we spend on the internet. If it is all a form of reality, then what does it matter that a person spends an equal amount of time sleeping, on the internet, and off the internet? There is a case to be made we shouldn’t worry about addiction to the internet. There is also a case to be made that we should. What I know is I need my daily trail walks to breathe fresh air and clear my thoughts while getting needed exercise. I mostly disconnect from the internet when I walk. If I see something that might make a good photograph, I take out my handheld computer, take some shots, and post the best image on social media.
From time to time, I enjoy getting out old photographs printed on paper. They convey a reality I experienced, although a focused aspect of it that hides much of what life was then. I used the photo below on the cover of my autobiography. It’s me standing on the back porch of the duplex where Mother brought me home from being born at a nearby hospital. I don’t recall her taking this photograph, yet I do recall a lot about living here. In particular, I remember the point at which memory began when confronted about something in the recent past I could not remember. This photograph serves as a mnemonic device.
Another type of photograph is the “artistic” one. That is, I took it as a form of creative endeavor with a specific intended outcome. For example, when I first got my Minolta SRT-101 camera, I drove my Volkswagen microbus out to the Coralville Reservoir and took photographs of the vehicle. Someone was with me as there were posed photos of me next to the bus. Those images stand distinct from the “artistic” photographs which were my main intention on the trip. Artistic photographs are a separate genre, one in which I have very little activity in 2025.
I have taken a lot of photographs to capture something about an event.
Like my early printed photographs, this one is a mnemonic device to recall that day in Indianola. The big Harkin Steak Fry had been in 2007 when six presidential candidates stood together on the stage just prior to the First in the Nation Iowa Precinct Caucuses that selected Barack Obama as the party’s nominee. Over the years, I captured a lot of politicians in photographs. These types of posed photographs are ubiquitous in social media. I’ve forgotten more than I remember about politics and these images help me re-live those experiences.
Are photographs posted on social media a throwaway? Often we take a photograph solely to post it on social media. It becomes a way of defining who we are. It also controls our self-image. For example, I rarely post a selfie, yet they are important in defining an “online presence.” I have been very bad at defining a self-image, which is why I don’t take or post many selfies. I could work on it, the way I worked on my restless nights to get better sleep, but why would I want to spend that time when everything, sleeping, waking, on the internet and off the internet are part of the same reality?
I may have more to say about how the internet changed photography. I need to study up, and that will take time. In the meanwhile, I plan to continue to take the kinds of photos I do and hope I won’t ruin them with too much study. Photography has become an important part of my reality.
Some favorite images from the last week. As much as it looks like it is here already, winter begins next Sunday.
While dropping off four fire extinguishers for recycling in the county seat, nature called. The nearest public restroom was in the county administration building. The parking lot was almost empty, so I pulled in and did my business. On the way back to the car, I ran into the sheriff in his dress uniform. We exchanged pleasantries.
I’ve known him since he was elected to the city council in 2008. When he and his family moved outside city limits, I advised him as he started a garden. I worked on his campaign for sheriff. During the 2024 precinct caucuses, he, his spouse, and I were the only people attending on that cold, snowy evening. He is one of the good guys. If it matched his uniform, he would wear a white hat.
The encounter served me to ask, “What’s going on with my life?” That’s a rhetorical question because I know quite well what’s going on. I retired early so I could have some kind of creative life before I get infirm. As I exited the parking lot and turned west toward the warehouse club, I wondered how many more sunrises will I get?
A fierce urgency consumes me, or as Dr. King put it, “the fierce urgency of now.” There is much to accomplish, and given my good health and time left, more than a few things can be done. I need immediate, vigorous, and positive action in my life. The brief conversation with the sheriff informed me there is no reason to wait. The time for good works is now.
Each day I walk on the state park trail I observe my world. Because of when I walk, sunrises are a main feature. Not only can the sky be beautiful at that hour, it reminds us of the promise of a new day. Sunrises are more than enough reason to go on living. And so, I shall, as long as there is another.
After I finished the work table, I sorted stuff in the workshop. In other words, I filled the table with stuff thrown hodge-podge in every nook and cranny. This will be a long process, yet I am heartened by having another surface to use for this work. It is beginning with tools.
The table project was easy, with the radial arm saw and power drill being the main power tools. There were a few hand tools, but all of them are frequently used, and easy to find. That’s not the case with things tucked away in the workshop today.
I brought home a lot of tools when my father-in-law died. That was almost 30 years ago. I never really incorporated them into my workshop. As a result of this neglect, I don’t have visibility of every tool I own. When I’m starting a project I’m running blind. I hope to remedy that.
This tool visibility project began with my red Craftsman toolbox. It has three drawers and a compartment in the top. I took everything out of the drawers and rearranged it.
All the fixed wrenches went into their own tool box. I don’t use them as often as crescent wrenches and I’ll know where to find them when I need one. Crescent wrenches and pliers filled a drawer. One drawer has gripping tools. Most sizes of screwdrivers are on a pegboard, so the ones in the toolbox are either specialty drivers or extra. Screwdrivers get their own drawer, which isn’t enough space to accommodate them all. The solution to that will wait until I see what else I have. When I replaced some tools with others, the idea was to keep thosek most frequently used in the red toolbox.
There are also what I’ll call specialty toolboxes. One is full of drill bits of many kinds. I keep a separate drill bit holder on the bench so I can quickly find common sizes. There is a toolbox with woodworking tools. There are all kinds of them, although I am hardly a woodworker. One toolbox has a set of metric and imperial sockets. In the cabinet, there is another whole set of Craftsman sockets. This is just the beginning.
The main goal of this project is to gain visibility of what I have. I am tempted to acquire one of those tall movable toolboxes with many drawers. I hope that is a passing infatuation. For now, just knowing what I have should be enough to get started on new projects. The new table led to this, and who knows where the forking paths ahead will lead? Being aware of what tools I have is a good start.
I look forward to discovering where this goes.
There was a time when I attended estate and farm auctions and bought things on the cheap for later projects. The years since then can be measured in decades. At a point in my life when I have to either do something with stuff, or otherwise dispose of it, I got out the top and legs of a table I bought for a buck at auction. It was time to make something. Since I rearranged the garage, I have space for a work table that is shorter than the custom-height workbench I made when we lived in Indiana.
I went through the woodpile and found planks to make an apron and five of rescued lumber to reinforce the top. I laid the materials out on this workbench made of sawhorses and thought about what I would do for a couple of weeks.
After looking at local hardware stores and large online retailers, I finally found a packet of figure 8 steel desk top fastener clips with screws. They are not commonly available. To make a recess in the apron for the fastener, I got a 20 millimeter forstner drill bit. $20.12 all in.
After 12 cuts on the radial arm saw, I was ready to assemble. I spent about three hours on the project before my attention began to wander. I am better at recognizing when that happens, so I knocked off for the day. If everything goes together as planned, it will take an hour or two to finish assembly.
I don’t plan to refinish the wood. Inside the garage it will be protected from the elements. I expect it to get scuffed up with heavy use, so what’s the point of a coat of paint or finish? The wood it’s made of has been around for a long time, based on the assembly techniques my predecessor used to build it.
Fingers crossed the final assembly passes muster and I can begin using the new table immediately. One never knows about these things until the work is done and the piece is in operation.
Here is the finished product in the garage.
It’s bigger than I thought, but I will adapt. No adjustments were needed.
This post is about social media and blogging. My perspective on these two technology tools is they both require a creative process of putting together meaningful words and photographs in a way that provides insight to readers. When I use them, I am a content creator, although those two words don’t really capture my vision for what I’m doing. I seek to bring understanding to the complex and ever changing world in which we live.
I joined Facebook March 20, 2008 to follow our child. They had graduated college and moved to Colorado in 2007. While I could easily drive in a single day to visit, it was a long trip to spend much time together. My reaction to Facebook? Yikes! Here is my blog post about joining:
Tonight I joined Facebook. Yikes! Facebook connects us to people we have not thought of in years. In some cases we haven’t made contact in over a quarter of a century. All within a couple of hours. From moment to moment, the number of “friends” builds. What to say on the site? What elements to show? What pictures to place? How much time to spend? When a friend accepts the invitation, it feels good. The wave has broken, now I’ll ride it in. (On Facebook, Big Grove News, March 20, 2008)
In the end, our child quit posting on Facebook and while I developed a Facebook life, it was not good for me. Social media introduced loneliness in my days, something with which I had little experience. It reinforced loneliness. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am aware of being alone yet don’t experience much loneliness. I feel connected to the whole of society. If I continued with Facebook, even with all of the familiar faces and common experiences, I would feel how much apart we are. I deactivated my account in February this year.
After much experimentation, I ended up with an account on BlueSky, which is a text-based social media platform where it is easy to connect with like-minded people. My posts there have been hit or miss, yet I need the creative outlet. BlueSky is my only social media account.
My first blog post was on Nov. 10, 2007. I first titled the blog Big Grove News, then Big Grove Garden, Walking There, On Our Own, and now Journey Home. The purpose was always the same: provide an outlet for creative expression and pull in pieces I wrote for other purposes to make a record of them.
When I began blogging I had no idea where it would go. I wrote at least 5,600 posts since beginning. For a long time, it was the only writing I did each day. It has become a writer’s workshop to test ideas and how to express them. Some days the posts are cringe worthy. Some days I touch the sky. Part of me would return to handwriting paper journals the way I did before 2007. I may yet do that, but not in 2026.
In writing my autobiography I find I repeat topics often. For example, the story of the apartment in yesterday’s post has been written and re-written with different details and posted on my blog at least a dozen times. An early reader of my autobiography commented about my propensity to repeat myself. All I can say is I’m working on that.
I used to write blog posts in the early morning. Lately, especially since I began learning about circadian rhythms and tuning my physiological life to them, my best creative time is in the afternoon work blocks. I still work on creative writing in the morning but it is more the next chapter of my autobiography until that work is finished. I am more alert when I write blog posts. The quality of writing seems better. Like everything, it is a work in progress.
People do read my blogs. It is hard to believe the number of people in real life who identify me as a writer. A lot of this is due to letters to the editor and posts on Blog for Iowa. That type of feedback is rare and precious to me. It helps me feel like part of a community.
Is there a limit to the creative expression I put into my writing? If I have to get a job to make up for the percent of Social Security that will be absent after the trust fund runs out, there will be a loss of time for writing. For now, though, I’ll continue on.
Journey Home
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