Tag: photo friday

Photo Friday, No. 865

Current Photo Friday theme: Sand


I shot this on film from Venice Beach looking toward the Santa Monica Pier in California in 1998. My favorite ocean and a view I loved so much that I wrote it into a pivotal scene in my work in progress. The pier was different for my characters in 1974, but the vibe was the same, and the sand on the beach is timeless.

Time is like a handful of sand – the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.

— Henry David Thoreau (attributed)

Photo Friday, No. 864

Current Photo Friday theme: Stair

Likely part of the walkway to the graves of the Sharp family, including Estelle Boughton Sharp, widow of Houston oilman Walter B. Sharp. Born in 1873, died in 1965, she was a renowned philanthropist who, as the cemetery notes, “devoted her wealth and talents to social welfare and world peace.” Good footsteps to follow in.

I took this photo in July 2010 when we went to Glenwood Cemetery with Jim while he visited.

Photo Friday, No. 862

Current Photo Friday theme: Boat

On the horizon: Just one day shy of six years since I took this photo while we vacationed with family at the Gulf of Mexico. We got some weather thanks to Tropical Storm Cindy but had a great time despite that. I’ve visited the Gulf of Mexico from the Keys, the dividing line between the Atlantic and the Gulf, around the shorelines of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, all the way down to South Padre Island. Love the North Atlantic coast and every bit of the Pacific coast I’ve visited, but the Gulf of Mexico is wired into my personal history, hurricanes and floods included.

I asked my go-to source for marine vessels if he could make a guess what this boat is, and here’s what I got (thank you! and OMG, I’m always impressed by people’s knowledge): It’s likely that that tug actually functions here as a type of push boat. There’s some way it’s mated up to the barge it’s pushing, but it could disconnect once it gets the barge to its destination. It appears to be a work barge of some sort. Maybe it lays pipe, or builds/services some sort of facility. It has the slanted bow of a vessel designed to handle rough water, to a greater than usual extent. The tug has its full crew. The barge is probably lightly staffed until it gets to its work site, at which point a full corps of workers are transported to it. The reason the tug is pushing instead of pulling is that by being behind the barge it’s in its lee from rough seas. If towing, it could be at the “mercy” of the seas, which when towing isn’t necessarily a great place to be.

If you have an interest in boats and ships in the Gulf of Mexico, this is a site that tracks that area or, if you zoom out, the whole globe, to show locations of Containers, Tankers, FSO Tankers, Cargo, Car Carriers, Passenger, Military, Tug & Pilot, Fishing, Sailing Ships, Ferries, Autonomous, Submarines, Icebreakers, Tall Ships, and Super Yachts. Just in case you were hoping to run into a billionaire or a spouse in hiding somewhere on the high seas. (Does that make you wonder if at least one of those plot lines could be in the Neverending Saga?)

Back to the Gulf of Mexico, if I ranked my favorite songs by John Mellencamp, “Pink Houses” would definitely be in the Top Five. It also joins the canon of songs misused because people don’t listen to/think about the lyrics. I chose this particular live video because he’s using my favorite of his guitars, a Gibson Dove acoustic (with “Fuck Facism [sic]” scratched onto the body).

Well, there’s people and more people
What do they know, know, know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico
And there’s winners, and there’s losers
But they ain’t no big deal
Cause the simple man baby pays the thrills
The bills, the pills that kill