Is This Thing On?

Yeah, I know -- I've been away for awhile.

Let's start with the pressing business: Marie's condition has been deteriorating rather quickly over the last couple of weeks. She's sleeping a lot and losing muscle tone, and now she's not eating at all. I called Carl and Susan late last week. Susan and Brad were here over the weekend, and Carl got in last night.

I guess I better go buy another tree.

The hospice social worker called me today, just to make sure the cumulative effect of losing Paulinas wasn't getting to me. It's not -- Marie's quality of life hasn't been good for a couple years now, and I think she's been working on getting out of here for the last year or so.

Meanwhile, I'm still planning on going to St. Louis this weekend. What's that, you say? Why am I going all the way to St. Louis? Well, her name is Yvonne, and I've been seeing her for a couple months now. Weekends have been lots of fun, but I keep pretty busy doing all my weekend chores during the week. She's smart, compassionate, and socially conscious, and we're enjoying one another's company.

On one of our weekends in St. Louis, we went to an art fair, where I saw some photographs that really caught my eye. I little research on the internets pointed me to High Dynamic Range photography -- you take multiple shots at different exposures, and then use a computer to put them all together. Right up my alley. This photo of da Woods is the best of my first efforts.