Mo Pichers From My Trip 4

In spite of the cold temperatures and the wind, there were several fishing boats scooting around the coastal waters.
We counted as many as nine at one time.
They worked day and night, setting out nets and lobster traps (depending on which boat you watched) and pulling them in a few hours or days later.
This is one of the fishing boats on the horizon with its big sodium vapor light visible two or three miles away.



That beautiful day that started out clear became partly cloudy then put itself away with an awesome sunset.
The colors changed and moved so many times that I took 28 pictures of this one sunset in about ten minutes.
This is a distant view about midway through the event.
It was taken through the west (duh) windows of our little beach house.






Here is a closeup of the sunset.
My thanks to one of the fishing boats that turned on his light just in time for this shot.
As you can see, the sky was on fire for a few minutes.















Since the formatting here is unpredictable I will simply refer to the next picture as the coastline with fog/mist forming.
This picture was taken from the site of the Heceta Head lighthouse.
You can go here - http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=131
to see more.
Because it was getting colder and darker, we did not hike up to where the other pictures were taken for the website, but we could have.
There is an investment company that uses this lighthouse in its advertising.
I am not sure who.















Here is the lighthouse.

Some Mor Pichers 3

Believe it or not, this is a color picture.
It was just that the day was turning gray.
Dennis pointed out this interesting hole with a rock in it.
We are standing at the mouth of the Yachats ("yaw-hots") river at low tide.
At high tide this area is covered with two or three feet of sea water.





I found the ripples in the sand an interesting pattern.
I took this shot with my telephoto lens to compress the pattern.










Here is the same area of sand from a slightly different angle.












I thought this bird looked cool watching the tide come in on the same area we had been walking on.










Another shot of the mouth of the river area at high tide.
Several seagulls are supervising the festivities.

Mo Pichers From My Trip 2

As the sun rises in the east, it is behind the coastal mountains for another hour or so before the light strikes the water.
Here you can the the shadow of the mountains as the sun rises.










Dennis and Devin and me went for a early afternoon hike along the coast.
The coastline here is very rocky as you can see.
There are lots of channels and holes in the rocks that make for spectacular splashes when the water hits them just right.







As were walking, I noticed the moon rising above the mountain and took a shot at it.
I juiced up the colors a bit to help the moon stand out a little more.











Here is another shot of the coast looking south with no tweeking of the colors.
This was a cool but pretty day.



















This is a picture of our beach house.
It is the pale blue one in the center with the four large windows across the front.



There is a problem with the formatting of this blog.
When I create it, the spacing of the pictures and writage look side by side, but when I publish it, the spacing is messed up.
Sorry.
Maybe the new version will fix this.

More pictures tomorrow. (Unless I forget to post them like I did before.)

My Night Terrors

I occasionally experience a “night terror”.
If you have never heard of this kind of thing, it is a dream similar to a nightmare, but differs in several respects.
I seldom have nightmares.
I have “falling” dreams once in a while, and a couple of other recurring dreams, but very few nightmares.
And once in a while a night terror.

You can check here for the official details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terror

I will tell you about mine.
I do not remember when I had my first one but it was not longer than about ten years ago.
I had them when I lived in Morgan City and I have had them since I moved to Huntsville.
They occur about two or three times a year.
I cannot associate them with any recent event in my life or my emotional state, so I do not know what “triggers” one.
Maybe nothing.

Night terrors for me are always similar.
In each one, I am aware “something” has somehow come into the house and is coming down the hallway to my bedroom to “get” me.
I am very aware of the presence of the “thing” that is about to get me, and I am scared.
In fact, I am terrified.
I can always hear it breathing (panting) loudly, stomping its feet, or talking loudly, but unintelligibly.
Sometimes it seems like there are many voices talking at once.
And the noises are not quiet.
It is not worried that I will hear it.
It is not trying to sneak up on me.
That is one clue that I am having an episode.

Strangely, I know that if I can wake up, I will be okay.
So when these episodes take place, my struggle is to wake myself up from a deep sleep.
I know the thing is coming closer and I need to wake up before it gets to me.
It is really hard.
I try to move, to make myself wake up, but I seem to be paralyzed.

Sometimes “it” comes into my room and stands next to my bed, or hovers over me in my bed before I can wake myself.
All the while talking or yelling loudly, threatening me, but I can never make out any specific words.
I just know I am terrified of this thing and need to wake up as soon as possible.

I am never sure what it is that is about to get me, but it is not human.
The entity is not like a burglar with a gun.
The threat is not from a weapon, it is from the creature itself.
It is either a space alien or some kind of human/animal creature or the Devil.
I am not sure about this last entity.
I do not sense much spiritual danger, the fear is more about physical harm.
But there is some spiritual element to the threat.
I do not know what “it” looks like.
I never actually see anything specific, just a white glow or a dark blur.
And my sense is that it is not the same thing in each episode.
Sometime it is the white thing coming after me and other times it is the dark thing.
The creatures are similar but not the same entity.

But I always manage to wake up.
And then I am okay.
The noise stops and the threat vanishes.
I wake up, look around, usually look at the clock to see what time it is.
I settle down and let my heart rate get back to normal.
Then, off to fairyland I go again, not to be disturbed again that night.

In this way, I am different from most of the people described in Wikipedia.
They do not remember the episode - I do.
I am not disoriented or amnesiatic – I know exactly where I am, what has just happened and what I am going to do about it (go back to sleep).
And most of the time I remember the episode the next morning.

I had a night terror last Sunday night, January 21, 2007 at 11:39 PM.
I was surprised that it took place so soon after I had gone to sleep – which was around 10 PM.
As is usual, when I woke up, I made a mental note of the event, rolled over and went back to sleep.
I slept through the rest of the night and woke up rested.

Thank you for listening/reading.
Sleep well.


(More pictures from Oregon tomorrow.)

Mo Pichers From My Trip

This was a pretty neet picture but lacked color so I pumped it up a little.
This is a telephoto shot looking south toward Point Perpetua (which is actually hidded by the mountain you see here).










I realize the looks like the end of the world for these houses but the effect is mostly because of the telephoto lens and the low angle at which I shot the picture.
There a quite a few houses in this little town and not much open land.
Oh, and guess what, the land is REELEE expensive.

















I thought this was pretty cool, during a sunset a rain cloud drifted by.
I thought the effect looked pretty smooth.


















Here is another shot of the mountain to the south. I put less color change on this one.
















I hope u enjoyed these.
Another installment tomorrow.
(no, I will not post all 200+ pictures)

:)

Yes, I am Still Alive

As both of you may have noticed, I have been taking a few weeks off from the blog-realm.
Part of the reason for this is because I went out west to visit my sister and her family.
Another part of the reason is because I was afflicted with the flu upon my return.
And I also have been suffering from a case of writers block.
I just have not felt inspired to write anything.
But I am recovering.

I will be posting some pictures from my trip.
I love my digital camera and took over 200 pictures while on my journey.

The first picture is of an iPod vending machine I saw in the Dallas airport.
I included the lady in the picture so you could see the size of the machine.















This is us as we were on Christmas eve - Dennis, Marilyn, Steev, Casey, and Devin.

This is how the coast looked out the west windows of our beach house.
We rent this house every year.










As is true most days in Oregon, the rain did not last long and an attempted sunset took place.
Between the weather, my little camera, and some photo editing software on my computer, I am able to present some pretty nice pictures.
My special thanks to the seagull that moved into the light at just the right time.








The next morning dawned semi-clear and bright.
It was windy with the temperature in the 50's.
When I took this morning shot, the wind chill was in the 30's.







This one turned out especially nice.
I am using it for my desktop background now.
Did I tell you that I really love my camera?