Southern California had it's power grid knocked out yesterday and as of when I wrote this last night, power had not been restored. (Power was finally restored this morning).
With numerous large pillar candles, my home is glowing. It does sort of remind me of a religious chapel and I am enjoying the mellow glow and the sense of well being.
My thoughts ( after many others I assure you) went to ActiveRain. No comments today and no post. I called a couple AR members only then realizing that my cell phone was nearly out of power and no way to recharge it. God forbid, what if I needed to call 911.
It's a little after 10:00PM and I thought of Abe Lincoln reading by candlelight. Surely if people did that back in his time with no electric power, I could certainly capture my thoughts on paper using candlelight as well. Now that I am here though, I am not sure what I want to say. I can feel something wanting to get out so I will just write until it occurs to me.
I could mention that this morning, I attended the ActiveRain Camp. There is lots to write about on that subject and it's deserves it's own post so I won't mix it in here. I could also tell you I am a committed photographer but most of you already know that. Being a photographer, one is forced to see life in new ways and today was no exception.
While at my RE/MAX Associates office today, setting up and decorating my new office space, the power went out as I finished and I had to take extra items that I didn't need in the office to the car. While passing by the side of the building I saw this 6 or 7 inch insect that I had not seen before. I thought I better get a photo. I had my iPhone in my pocket and I went about getting his photo.
What was this thing? I had a plastic baggie in the car and decided I would collect him and take him home so I could photographe him on the black background of my light box.
When I finally got home and carried everything in out of the car, I neglected to remember about the plastic bag with this big bug in it. ( the highways were packed solid moving only inches because of the power failure and I traveled the 12 miles in one and half hours). An hour or so later, I remembered the big bug in the plastic baggie and I rushed to the car to retrieve him. He wasn't moving. Did I mention that our temperatures the last couple days were in the triple digits. I was thinking that maybe I had cooked him but I brought it in, opened the bag and dumped him out on the black surface of the light box. He was weak but upright so I ran for the camera.
By this time, I was losing all the daylight and with no power, I had to rush to get this photo believing that I could possibly lighten the photo in post processing if need be. Done. No power to download anything so I will check out the photos when the power is restored.
While I was on the phone tonight with one of my ActiveRain friends, Myrl Jeffcoat, I was discussing the day and I described the critter that I had taken a photo of. She immediately said that this was a Walking Stick. If the photo came out, his picture will be below.
Editorial: Not a great photo but I need it for the story, LOL
As I mentioned earlier, I am writing this post by candlelight. It is really hot here by the candles but we bloggers always have a story even if it is going to be impossible to post this until power is restored. The will always finds a way and by the time you are reading this the power will be on and all this will be history.
It is time to sign off but before doing so allow me to give a shout out to Abe Lincoln and Ben Kinney. Thanks to Abe's chronicle of reading by candlelight, I have taken it a step further by writing this post by candlelight. I can hear Ben Kinney in my mind saying, " Find something that works for you and then tweak it ( optimize it). Lesson from RainCamp today. Another day in the life of a REALTOR® made better because we pay attention to the little things in life and then tweak them. And I suppose if Ben reads this he might even feel a sense of honor being mentioned right along with Abe, then again, maybe not.☺
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