Q's darkness

Yet another view from my bedroom window.

New Topic - "Fourth of July"

Cory wants "Fourth of July." Craig is heading across the pond to hang with the people the "Fourth of July" celebrates kicking out, and Quentin is incommunicado. Everyone have a great Fourth!

Cory points out that the end of the quarter is upon us - maybe next week will be "Best of Q3." We'll get around to "Organized Chaos" once the chaos is organized.

/rl

Ryan's "Darkness"

After many shutter actuations in search of a photo that illustrated "Darkness", I have given up. Instead I give you a moth that is soon to meet darkness. At least, I assume Loki's belly is dark on the inside.

/rl

Craig's Darkness

When I suggested the topic Darkness, I'd hoped it would sit around in the bucket until October. That's when Surly Brewing in Minnesota releases their imperial stout named, you guessed it, Darkness.

However, I'm going to the beer well once again anyway, because this is something I think of when I hear "darkness".

The area in which I shot this was obscenely bright what with all the lights and the light box (thanks, Ti!), and yet the darkness of the elixir remains intact.

It is Guinness. It is Dark.

I'm out for the next three weeks. I may post something just for kicks from my phone if I feel like I get a shot that's worthy, but next week's deadline will find me in Bruges, the following week's deadline puts me in London, and the week after that we'll have just returned home.

Cory's Darkness

Every year, Downers Grove celebrates its town heritage with a festival that is, appropriately enough, named Heritage Fest. For this fest they block of five or so blocks worth of Main street, bring in carnival rides and games, and sell anything you can think of to deep fry and put on a stick. My favorite part of the weekend is walking down after dark with a fast lens and taking pictures of the various food and game booths with their high-powered lights on. The game booths have vividly bright stuffed animals to win with darkness behind them, while the food booths have exciting lit workers like seen above.

Next week: "Fourth of July"

"Darkness" due tomorrow night.

I had considered "Fourth of July" for this week - if you guys would rather do that, let me know!



*******Topic is changed - now "Fourth of July"**********

/rl

Recession

Where once a proud and populous army stood, there now stands a weakened front, and few reserves holding up the rear.

Maddy stole my idea, but I still ran with it.

Also, frogs!

Ryan's "Recession"

Fighting back the urge to be lazy and photograph my own receding hairline I made a trip to the former site of Metro Mitsubishi, a failed dealership near Westroads Mall. The general manager was a friend of mine, but I have not seen him in months. At a stoplight on the way to the mall, I noticed he was sitting in the car next to me! He followed me to the dealership to catch up for a few minutes. I found less to photograph than I had hoped, but I came away with this photo and a self portrait.

/rl

Cory's Recession

Downtown Downers Grove saw a pretty big building boom over the last few years, with several new large condo/storefront buildings going in near the train station. I don't know how the condos are selling, but there are still plenty of storefronts to rent. Anybody want to open a business?

Lis thought that Maddy's hairline warranted a mention for this topic too.

Q's recession

This scene is from my window. The letter "o" in the sign has been turned or burned out for a couple of months now. and for a while, the "l" was, too.

Next week - "Darkness"

Recession due within 24 hours or so.

/rl

Ryan's "Surplus"

Once upon a time Uncle Sam allowed citizens to purchase ammunition that the nation's armed forces no longer wanted. While not nearly the deal it seemed (said citizens had already paid for the ammunition once), it still beat commercial prices for reasonable quality bulk ammunition.

This is not a photo of any such ammunition. In an effort to make things less efficient, laws were passed requiring surplus ammo to be de-milled. This generally involves separating bullet, powder, and primer. After being broken into components, each separate component can be sold for reuse. Military components being supplied by the lowest bidder, no one can tell what sort of powder is used, so it is tossed. The primers probably don't survive the de-milling process (they are rather sensitive to shock and other forms of abuse.) Sevaral companies purchase the remaining components (bullet and case) to reassemble them with commercial powder and primers.

The head stamp on the case facing the camera shows that it was manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in 1969. The bullet is likely of similar vintage.

I've now spent far longer typing background info than I did taking the photo...

/rl

Craig's Surplus

I'm annoyed. Ask me why I'm annoyed. Go ahead. Say "Craig, why are you annoyed?"

...

I'll tell you why I'm annoyed. I was a good boy this week. I planned my shot well in advance. Then, on Thursday, when I was to take my shot, I left my SLR home accidentally. Okay, I thought, not a big deal. My P&S is a pretty nice little kajigger, so let's do that.

So I arrive at my destination, and line up for my shot. And the dude next to me at the bar is freaking out. And he calls the bartender over to warn him that I'm taking pictures of their taps. The bartender doesn't mind, even offers to line them up for me, but by then I'm too weirded out. On top of that, I had my camera in the wrong mode. Sigh.

Anyway, my submission.

I like beer. A *lot*. Every Thursday evening, I spend about 90 minutes at my favorite watering hole, Poor Phil's in Oak Park while Tisha attends piano lessons across the street.

I like Poor Phil's for a number of reasons. The atmosphere is great -- if I ever were to open a bar, I'd want it to look like that. Big wood bar that has stools on three sides, and serves the waitstaff on the fourth. Clientele is generally good, the staff is awesome. They know me there.

Oh, and the beer. Poor Phil's has a surplus of beer. Bottles upon bottles, plus over 30 taps. And every tap has something good (except for one, which you can see in this picture). I thought it would be nice to capture some of the taps to demonstrate this surplus.

From left to right, Smithwicks (Ireland), Metropolitan Brewing's Dynamo Copper Lager (Chicago!), Three Floyds' Gumball Head (Munster, IN), Southern Tier Unearthly (NY), Two Brothers' Hop Juice (Warrenville, Chicago suburb), Original Sin Cider (NY), Goose Island Matilda (Chicago!), Blue Moon (CO), Rogue Dead Guy Ale (OR), Bear Republic IPA (CA), Surly Furious (MN), Hoegaarden (Belgium), Samuel Adams Boston Lager (MA), Miller Lite (Hell), and Bass Ale (UK).

And that's just one section of taps.

Cory's Surplus

The little magnolia tree in our front yard has a surplus of leaves this year. It couldn't find anyplace else to grow them, so it grew two from the base of its trunk.

Next Up: Recession

Let's see some "surplus" soon!

/rl

Craig's Brick

For 12 years, I've worked in the same building. Building 221 at Argonne. It is an old brick building built before I was born. It's the bricks you see on the left.

This campus has a lot of building like this. Red brick buildings, interior cinder block walls painted a glossy off-white.

It does not scream modern.

The forefront of this pic is our new building, to which we'll be moving in 2 months. Nary a brick to be seen, it's made form poured concrete and glass. Alas, the less interesting southern face of the building is what we are seeing here, and not the very cool western, eastern, or northern elevations.

Cory will also bee in this building. I'm really looking forward to it.

Bonus parking violation, too! (That's not me.)

Cory's Brick

After Dad and Kelcey left on Saturday morning, the rest of us took a tour of Graue Mill. Here's a small snippet of wall and window that happens to have some bricks in it.

Ryan's "Brick"

A stretch of the Lincoln Highway between Elkhorn (now Omaha) and Omaha (still Omaha), Ne.

/rl

"Brick" due tomorrow!

Next weeks topic is surplus.

No, I don't mean we have a spare topic. I mean the topic is "Surplus."

/rl