A Budding Young Expert

One thing that I’m passionate in my life is horns.  Just ask any passenger that’s ridden in a car with me…  And here’s the interesting (or not so much) part about it all:  I feel the same draw to all horns.  So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when I say that I was pretty much constantly interested in blowing the huge-freak horn that the yacht I worked on was equipped with.  And in the same vein, it also shouldn’t surprise you that the skipper was rarely in mood or situation that just couldn’t have been made better but to let old Jason blow the horn.  So I didn’t get to very often.  The end.  

This fine piece of equipment is used to guard the sides of the boat from what ever might scratch them, in the case of this photograph, the lock walls.  During my month working on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, our frequent use of the locks enabled us to master certain skills that we had a keen appreciation for, namely tossing ropes and tying up fenders with finesse, style, and above all, a collected coolness that would make any onlooker drop their jaw in wonder.  It was our goal at any given moment to be the best rope handling crew on the Columbia River.  And I feel pretty sure that we were.  We had our shares of trials, and mishaps, and man overboard drills simulated by fenders that we’d dropped in the water, but these are the things that legends are made of.

Prosper (1st Born Son) and Me.  This photo is strange, and I really like it.  

Note the super contrasty processing as mentioned in a previous post.

My second summer in Alaska, and quite a surprise welcome.  The previous summer, these homey little cottages had been perched nicely on their wooden rail foundations.  However, the winter of 06/07 had dumped a record amount of snow (in excess of 30 feet) upon the lovely little warm-springs equipped bay in Baranof Island.  This was the result.    

What can be fair in farewell, dear?

London, England.  This is a stern warning, and it presented a situation to me that I never would have even considered, until the City of London’s finest had suggested it to me.  The sign had the same effect upon me as the sound of running water.

Anyway, I’m proud to admit that I am a law abiding citizen, and had no desire to be dealt with by the Police or watched on video surveillance.  It would have seriously depressed my short visit to London.

Rockefeller Plaza, Fall 2007.  It always surprises me how the City of New York has received such a bad rep for having unfriendly people.  I’ve experienced generous, door-holding, direction-giving, locals more often than not (except working in the coffee shops).  

To illustrate my point, I’m reminded of an interaction that I had during this trip to NYC.  I was sitting on a bench with my love, minding my business, smoking a cigarette and chatting of the days events. On the other side of the bench was a boisterous, but not entirely obnoxious man talking to a young woman who was selling art at the market we were visiting.  I couldn’t help overhearing his conversation which had drifted toward manicures and how he needed one and how the women the salon always looked at him strangely.  I piped in and agreed that it was my experience as well.  We went on to compare nails and talk about the excessive growth of his cuticles before turning back to mind our own businesses.  

Next thing I overhear is him describing his love of music and beautiful women that he developed in college, and giving his female companion advise on how to improve her appearance as well describing alternative means of bringing in extra income.  Finally, he warned her not to tell her mother that she had been talking to him.  He said that he’d be checking in on her again soon.  I couldn’t believe what had just transpired.  

Shocking, but who said the pimps in NYC aren’t friendly?  

When my job was to float up and down the Columbia and Snake River, we would pass through a series of 8 locks and dams, which were created to “harness the river’s power”.  And that they did.  The effect of approaching one was frequently what I imagine it would be like to be eaten by a gigantic monster and the engineering marvel that the lock and dam pair are is second to none in my book.  Many of the locks that we rode on the Columbia have water displacement levels in excess of one hundred feet.

Rockefeller Plaza, Fall 2006. This was one of my first times to NYC, and it soon won over my heart a found it’s place in my top favorite cities.  The opportunities for picture taking were unlike anything that I’d experienced up to that point and I found myself very inspired.  

And if I’m not completely mistaken, this was also the trip that I stumbled across the guy on the subway that had stolen a Christmas tree (see picture below).  He was Jewish, and the whole situation wreaked of the ironic.  I started chatting him up about his stolen tree, and he said that he had no use for it but was just going to take it a dump it on the doorstep of somebody that he hated.  I mentioned that if he was so anxious to get rid of it that I would take it off his hands, free of charge.  He refused, but said that he’d sell it to me for $25.  

At this point another fellow passenger piped in and said that it was a mitzvah, and that in order to make up for the theft of the tree it should be given away.  Long story short, the Jewish man wasn’t having anything to do with it, and promptly took his water bottle filled with vodka and his Christmas tree and left at the next stop.  

I slept well that night knowing that I’d given it my best shot.