Lonely Day at the Beach

I apologise to everyone for being missing in action lately.

Life intervenes on the things we really would rather be doing sometimes.

I've been down, hurting, and now sick. Can't get much more pathetic than that.

I am alive and kicking, somewhat.

I'll be trying to get around to everyone over the next few days, and I want to say thank you to everyone who has been by to visit and comment here lately.

I appreciate it very much.

Today's photos were taken at the beach here a couple of days before Christmas. Christmas Eve Eve, you might say.

You can see that I'm the only fool on the beach as far as the eye can see. I liked how the high winds were blowing mist in from the ocean and how that looked like fog rolling in.

Same day as the full moon photos I posted on Christmas Eve. I mentioned that a red tide was in the area and how it affected me that day.

CG left a comment and asked what a red tide is.

"What is red tide?

Red tide is a naturally-occurring, higher-than-normal concentration of the microscopic algae Karenia brevis (formerly Gymnodinium breve).

This organism produces a toxin that affects the central nervous system of fish so that they are paralyzed and cannot breathe. As a result, red tide blooms often result in dead fish washing up on Gulf beaches. When red tide algae reproduce in dense concentrations or "blooms," they are visible as discolored patches of ocean water, often reddish in color."

When red tide is in an area it can cause breathing problems in people who go to the beach. I don't have asthma or anything like that, so I went down there for a bit that day.

Grant, Florida

That top photo is just a small town's sign in the area. As the sign says, they have a seafood festival every year, but I have never been. I don't really like crowds and if I want some really good seafood, there are lots of laid back seafood restaurants around here that I'd rather go to for that.

Yeah, I'm the original party pooper.

The second one is a favorite of mine, though it drives me nuts just how bad I blew the exposure. As the original is a JPEG, I couldn't try to save it from being so overexposed like I can with RAW images.

That photo more than any other had me switching to RAW mode soon after getting my digital SLR.


Merry Christmas everyone. God Bless all of you and thanks for coming to visit here this year. I appreciate it, and I appreciate all of YOU too.

Full Moon, Red Tide

I went to the beach late this evening (Sunday afternoon).

I hadn't been in a while, and have put it off because we have had a bit of red tide here lately.

There's not enough red tide to really color the water, but the wind from the ocean will have the particles in the air and as soon as I opened my car door and stood up out of the car, I started coughing.

At first I wasn't sure if it was red tide in the air or if it was the lighter fluid being used to excess by the one family there in the park that was lighting and old fashioned charcoal grill for charring some animal flesh. The smell of lighter fluid was strong in the air.

I went on down to the beach and kept coughing, so I figured the red tide was still in the area.

But the sky was so beautiful as the sun was setting that I had to stay for a little while, and although the sunset was in the "wrong" direction for photographing on the east coast of Florida, it was lovely on the beach.

As I stood and soaked up the view, waiting as the sky changed colors, some clouds began to approach the moon and I ended up taking about 100 photos of the moon alone, hoping for a few really good ones.

These are a couple from this batch today.

Old Melbourne Florida

These were taken in the old downtown section of Melbourne, Florida.

I loved the way the wall is painted in the top photo.

This is a great place to walk around, with lots of interesting shops.

I Hope This Is Ok

A few months ago, Lovely Wife "volunteered" me to try to repair a photo for a total stranger.

There's an exchange list for people in this area. For example, if I had a working TV that I no longer wanted or needed, you can find people on this list that need one, get together with them and give them the TV.

Similarly, if you have need of a service and little or no money, or if you have money but don't have a clue who to ask about your need, you can post that on the list too.

Lovely Wife saw that someone had posted an inquiry about having an old family photo digitally repaired.

That is the one that Lovely Wife volunteered me for.

When I got the file in my email, I was bummed out. I had never tried to do this kind of repair where someone's face was involved.

I prayed about how to do it, and then started getting ideas on trying things in Photoshop Elements that I had never even thought of before.

I worked on this for about two hours, and even managed to amaze myself.

Thanks, God.



All I know about this photo, is that it was a photo of a local woman's mother. A friend of this local woman had posted the request for someone to repair the photo as a surprise for her. I never met anyone involved and have no idea who the young lady in the photo is.

It was as much a blessing for me to do this as for her to have her mother's photo repaired, I learned some neat tricks, nothing earth shaking, but the pressure and the prayer resulted in a cool transformation.

For Jeanine

OK folks, I know I'm pathetic. I haven't been posting or visiting much lately. Sorry about that, but although there's nothing in particular that's wrong, personal issues have kept me from being the quick posting, happily commenting blogger that I was in times past.

I just hope the blues go away soon, and I thank all of you for your visits and comments.

Jeanine left a comment on one of my older posts today where I had shown and talked about a train bridge in my old home town of Monroe, Louisiana.

I looked for others that I had thought I put on Least Significant Bits or on this blog in the past to point them out to her.

I think they are out there somewhere, but I couldn't find them so I'm re-posting them both.

Forgive me if you've seen and remember these, but Jeanine, here's my two all-time favorites of the many photos I've taken of that train bridge over the Ouachita River.

These were both taken at about 3am, after working at the Johnny's on McKeen Place in Monroe, and couldn't get to sleep. (I still have insomnia a lot, even all these years later. It's just harder to deal with at 45 than it was at 20).

Actually Jeanine, as I look at these two photos, I think the top one is the old DeSiard Street bridge that swiveled in the middle. These are two different bridges. (bonus!)

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I have posted photos on my other blog today if y'all want to go over and see them.

How The Other Half Lives

These are a couple of beach homes near here that I have always loved.

There are two photos of the second one, my favorite of the two.

These would be a couple of really high-dollar homes for this area, and both are on the Atlantic Ocean.