All Hands Report For Duty - The Eldership Prepares For Another Mission

 The word has been passed. 

Leave has been cancelled. 

All hands (all two of them) have been required to report for duty immediately. 

The Eldership must be put in shipshape condition. It must be supplied. The mission must be understood. What will be the rotation between Wife and de-I as to who is Commander and who is Number One. 

How many unwitting people can we recruit to be 'red shirt extras' for certainly there will be times we need someone to be sacrificed?

And where the heck is the Eldership off to this time anyway?

All will be revealed. We are too busy getting the Eldership ready for its scheduled departure on Thursday. 

STAY TUNED.

(And fear not. I suspect strongly, photography and gastronomy will be involved.)

Return Of The Muse - Writing Again

I kind of thought it was gone, as in gone forever. The muse, the undefinable upwelling of creativity that had led to me writing my great epic fantasy series (ha, ha, I mean if I don't think it is 'great' who will?).

It all started in 2014. I had just settled into my transitioned state with us getting into our wild Eldership world travel mode. There was time to do something. I looked at a book I had written in my late 20's when I was big time into sci fi and fantasy. I felt I could do something with it. And them it hit, the muse. Suddenly, the entire framework of a much greater creation came out. Not just came out. It DEMANDED to be written. Between 2014 and 2016, I could barely stop writing. I put down over 1,500 pages in four books during that period. And I completed the cycle of the story. 

But I still felt a desire to write. I had tested the waters on getting published by sending my some of my work to an agent. The response was 'there is potential but you are going to have to make a lot of changes.' I went deep within. This sounded like getting a job. Besides what the agent suggested I needed to change went against the values, emotions, and feelings I wanted to portray. Besides, my real motivation for writing was I wanted a story where IT ALWAYS TURNED OUT THE WAY I WANTED IT! Nothing else I've ever read does. They are always killing off the character I love, or having them not get the woman I want them to, or any of a number of things that piss me off about reading or watching others' stories. 

I made the decision that I was writing for an audience of one - me. I thought through how to extend the story and started on the fifth book. This one came out much slower. There wasn't this almost same coming from another place aspect. Between 2016 and 2019 I finished this fifth book and another 400+ pages of writing. Now I'd written over 2,000 pages, all following the same fantasy world and general story line. 

In 2019, I started Book Six...and creativity came to a screeching halt after about a hundred pages. I suspect my throwing all my creative energies into Theodora had a lot to do with it. Occasionally I would go back and write a some tortuous pages. But the big problem was I couldn't see where the story was going. In many ways I had written myself into a box canyon because of a insidious tendency to have my villains redeem themselves. Well if you keep doing this, you run out of villains. No villains, no tension/conflict and no story. So I put Book Six on hold and didn't really look at it for a number of years.

Then earlier this year, I realized, I had Theodora to a point where it didn't need anywhere near the energy I had had to put into it. So I went back to the book. I figured out a way to create a new villain, and damn it an nonredeemable one! And suddenly the creative juices began to flow. The muse was back. I outlined a massive amount of story in just a few weeks. I don't feel that same pressure to 'get it out of my head' as I had in 2014-16. But each night I am cranking out a couple of pages. 

And it is fun.

Weird

 It is close to 10pm. I am awake. I have energy. I am writing. What is weird about this? Well for one, I am not fighting like a berserker to stay awake. 

My normal sleep pattern is I get up between 4:00 and 4:30 in the morning after about five hours of sleep. During the day I will usually get one or two 20 to 30 minute naps. Then by 9:30pm I am fighting the urge to sleep. I usually fight until I can get to 10:30 to 11:00. If I go to sleep any earlier, I will be up even earlier! Not acceptable.

But things have been different the last few weeks. Upon our return from our driving trip down south, I incurred an incredible pain in my left thigh. It 'literally' was the third worse pain in my life (after the kidney donation aftermath, and my uvulectomy. After five days of trying to soldier through, I sought out my doctor who said, "Agh! it might be a blood clot. That can be life threatening. Get your ass to an Urgent Care now. (Actually she didn't actually say 'Get your ass to...' but that's how I took it..) So at 5:30pm on a Friday night at 5:30pm I arrive at the Urgent Care. At 1:30am they haven't gotten all the tests. I've suffered hypothermia from the frigid hospital like environment. I've gotten my pain ridden sorry ass out of the hospital bed three times to ask "What the hell is going on?" But they have enough information to tell me I don't have a blood clot. YAY. I can still travel. As long as I can walk. 

At my doctor on Monday, she does a bunch of range of motion and strength tests and says with a great deal of authority, "It's not muscular and it is not your hip joint" (We had gotten X-Rays on that while at the Urgent Care.) When all else is eliminated, what is left is a nerve inflammation (which I've had before elsewhere in my body). There are a number of recommended treatments. One is a drug especially formulated for nerve inflammation. It has so many nasty potential side effects you have to ramp up the dosage by a third every three days. I've had no ill effects. Acupuncture is also advised. I have an acupuncture doctor and we've been successful with other nerve pain in the past. Between the two, I am light years better. Not normal, but certainly functional.

That leads us to today. While this has been going on, the nature of the nerve pain made sleeping extremely difficult. It also was debilitating to my leg strength. So I am on the mend now and working on both of these. This afternoon, just before 4pm, I am going to take a nap. I figure it will be the 30 minute normal nap. I don't get up until 5:36! I think there is a lot of healing and catching up to still be done. 

Please stay tuned much good content coming up. A whole new chapter and update on the Theodora Project plus the Eldership has been refitted and brought to the launch pad for another Old Folks Who Don't Know Better Adventure.

NM Ghost Towns - Finale - Pinos Altos & Silver City

 Well we are finally finishing up this epic photographic journey. Hard to believe that only two days could lead to this many posts! But this is what happens when the spirit of Espouses Fotograficus fills you. As I have always believed, "Beware the Newly Converted."

After the long drive back from Hillsboro ( I failed to mention earlier, I think, that we had to drive way more than we thought because the main road between Silver City, our base, and Hillsboro had been washed out and closed) we went to a small Ghost Town right outside of Silver City called Pinos Altos. It was small and like some of the other communities was coming back in a small way with people developing the properties. Then we finally stepped out into the historic center of Silver City where our hotel was located. By then it had been a very long day and we were beat.

In Pinos Altos, I was still using the fish eye lens. No triads here . There are some comparisons of black & white vs. color of the same image, and some just my impression of the best shot. Silver City, I switched back to my regular lens and shot mostly in color because the city is so colorful. Though there were a couple of scenes that seemed appropriate for black and white.

Pinos Altos

 The town had an opera house. It has been converted into rental space for events. They were going to have a band and dancing the evening we were there. We really needed a bathroom. The managers were nice to let us use the facility and then roam around to take pictures.

 Chatting with the proprietors, they told me of a legend of photographer who was supposedly obsessed with the property and whose ghost inhabits the building. I decided to my paranormal filter on my lens to see what would it would catch. 

Would you believe!

Sure enough. The Ghost Photographer. I even got a shot of her when we went into the bar/restaurant next door.

 

 Finishing up Pinos Altos

 

 Finally taking our exhausted bodies out to Silver City itself, there are a ton of historic buildings, well marked with signs describing the history. And all maintained now in a very colorful state.

Then, as we were walking, I saw this old truck and thought using black and white would capture the image of the town of old.

 

 One last whimsical take. There was a huge Ice Cream Emporium with a big ice cream cone sign which we were going to finish our evening. As we approached, its reflection was on the window of a fitness place. The irony had me laughing.

 

NM Ghost Towns - Finishing Up Hillsboro

 I've got two more posts to go! I took more pictures on this two day trip than any other I've been on. But I guess since the whole purpose was photographic that makes sense. This time no triads, just black/white vs color comparisons (for the most part).

NM Ghost Towns - Photography Triads

We are continuing on with the results of the great photographic experiment adventure. 

Seeing the results of the black and white photos from the first day, I was inspired to use our fish eye lens. This is a lens that magnifies and distorts. It is great for panoramas and also for catching detail. I have never been that enamored with it. Wife has loved it and uses it all the time. But there was something about the idea of the additional distortion and greater detail that seemed to me to be ideal for the kinds of experimenting I was doing. 

So I finished up our time at Lake Valley using it. Then we ventured up the road to Hillsboro where I used it exclusively. This post will only include part of the Hillsboro pictures as I want to keep the number of photos limited per post. For most of the images, there are the three versions I was shooting. They were:

• Black and white at normal exposure
• Black and white under exposed three stops
• Color under exposed three stops 

I am very interested in your feed back. So I've numbered them to make it easier to comment. Remember this is just an experiment on my part so whatever you say is good for me to hear. 

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