As I walked out the door into still another gray day, I was beginning to wonder if I was imagining things.
Nope, I checked.
Every weekend since some time in September, when I have the time on the weekend to finally walk out the door to do some wandering around, if it was blue skies out they would soon be gone. The blue was rare enough, the days usually started out gray and stayed that way all day.
It’s getting harder to appreciate another gray day. I need sun, shadows, color, even the muted colors of winter.
Weekdays seem to be faring better, but who cares. I get to catch a glimpse of it as I walk past an office window. I always step outside on my lunch break and if I’m lucky I get a few sun rays, but by the time 4:30 rolls around, the sun is pretty much gone and if it was a blue sky kind of day, I wouldn’t know.
I hear they may finally abolish the archaic and inane daylight savings time next year. It was done away with in the late 70’s and brought back from the grave a few years later.
They should have left well enough alone.
In the mean time, another gray day.
I go for a walk. It doesn’t seem to last that long.
I take some pictures. They all look so flat.
Three more months of this.
This is not going to go well.
bob
7 Dec 20141. gray stinks for images, but one thing you can do, we all should do, is shoot with the flash and set the exposure for one stop darker than the sky. that will darkened the sky and pop out the foreground. Unless you just don’t fee like being bothered, which is always a possibility with you.
2. get a sun lamp. for real. don’t suffer needlessly, when there are already enough marvelously good reasons to suffer as is.
3. i do wish we had trout in flowing water in illinois, so i wouldn’t have to travel 225 miles into southwest wisconsin, which i refuse to do when i can catch steelhead and browns right up the coast of lake mich.
4. tenkara. it has limitations, although i could use the word challenges. but i kinda’ have come to hate the word challenges. it is so over-effing used. still, smallies in rivers, creeks and streams on tenkara is fun and a satisfying way to fly fish. I don’t know why. I’ve ceased to seek answers; just enjoy the feeling something gives me, e.g., I’ve no real understanding of why sex is so good. don’t really wanna’ know. really don’t need to know. knowing really won’t make it better. just is…. nuff said.
5. am i off on a tangent? well, i must confess, as tangents go, this one has promise.
6. are the ducks we eat in restaurants, the same ducks out there in your pix? do they taste better when you blow them out of the sky than when you shoot them in the refrigerated meat section of jewel, etc.? why isn’t there a woman named Jewel in Jewel? Then it would be Jewel’s, which is what most people actually say.
7. sometimes at work, on my lunch, i go out to the car in the parking lot and, if the sun is shining, i sit in the sun-warmed car and catch a nap. I do it for the natural heat, and because I don’t wish to hear the sound of people’s voices.
8. I just turned 65. fuck. I am a senior citizen. beats the alternative, but still, i often find myself to be the oldest summa-ma-bitch in the room. I’m going to have to start to kidnap and drug some senior-seniors and take them with me, so as they sit in stupor, drooling, and peeing themselves, I should look pretty damn good by comparison.
9. isn’t is apparent? the winter loonies have set in early?
Ken G
7 Dec 2014Geeezzz Bob.
1. I’ve played with the flash to do just that over the years. I hear with this new camera I can adjust the intensity. I tend not to like how lit up the foreground then looks, so you’re right, I don’t bother. But might.
2. I’d have to install it on a hat and it would need to be battery operated so I can wander around with it all the time.
3. Rumor has it that just somewhere above Galena are little streams with trout. Not stocked trout, the real thing. But then, look at all that smallie water you have to drive over to get there. What’s the point.
4. I have it in my head to use nothing but a fly rod on the creeks in the spring. I have a feeling that won’t last long. Flick of the wrist, a lure sails 30 or more feet. A smallie hits it, at that point my choice of rod doesn’t matter. What is the simplest way possible to accomplish that task. You should know. You’ve fished with me. Either you have the enjoyment of fishing in your head already, or you don’t. A fly rod and a fly brings nothing to the equation. The superiority of fly fishing, what it brings to the art of fishing has been beaten to death. Now reading about it is just annoying.
5. It’s winter, in June I’d still be out fishing at 7:55 PM. Instead, I’m sitting here responding to you.
6. No, not the same and yes, there is a taste difference. It’s Chicago, that’s why we have a Soldier’s Field.
7. Ditto.
8. Except for one woman that’s 80 and works 4 hours a day, which I will never understand why, out of nearly 50 people, I come in 3rd or 4th oldest. PLUS, in the section I work in with 30 people, I am one of two males. We hide under our desks a lot. Don’t forget our private club, The Last Fishing Trip. Whenever you need it, just let me know. Retire already.
9. For me, it set in really early, some time in October. I am having a tough time of it this year. My bones have become painfully aware of how much I despise the cold. So, more than the lack of light, it’s the pain and discomfort and no amount of sun lamps can fix that. Been talking to the bosses. Since nobody knows where our server is that we all work off of and since we have no face to face contact with customers and everything is done via email, why not move the graphics department to Puerto Rico?
Negotiations continue.
RK Henderson
7 Dec 2014Chin up, brother. Two more weeks and you qualify for Washington State citizenship. Also, I well remember in 1973 when NIxon extended DLS into winter, in a bid to save electricity. (Fuel crisis.) Didn’t save a thing, but all us kids did have to have reflective tape sewn all over our coats and carry big flashlights to school, because it was pitch black in the morning.
Same year we were all urged not to put up Christmas lights, and my parents had us string cranberries and popcorn to wind around the tree instead of lights. That year I learned 3 things:
1. It takes forever to string popcorn and cranberries (needle and thread job).
2. You’d think the birds would be ‘way into that when you put the garlands on the trees in the yard on New Year’s Day, but they could give a crap.
And 3. Popcorn and cranberries are in no sense a substitute for Christmas tree lights.
I guess what I’m saying is, things could be worse.
(Scottish encouragement.)
By golly; I think I have my Christmas post!
Robin
Rusty Ring: Reflections of an Old-Timey Hermit
Ken G
8 Dec 2014Being Catholic as a kid, I was going to say was, but apparently once a Catholic always a Catholic, they didn’t believe in the reflective tape and flashlight thing. I guess we were supposed to get run over in the dark. Same with that whole duck and cover thing in the 60’s. Quicker ways to meet our maker, I guess.
It is funny how we all did the same types of things cause we were supposed to. Now they have plastic popcorn and cranberry stringers.
That’s also an old Polish saying. I think they came up with it after Genghis Khan stopped by for a visit.
Jim McClellan
8 Dec 2014Ken, I feel the same way after a few days of no sunshine, no matter the season. However, for hunting (and fishing), I’ve found the gray days are usually better than the brighter ones for some reason. So, while the lack of sunlight is a little depressing, catching a mess of fish or bringing home a buck is usually enough to snap me out of it.
Ken G
8 Dec 201460’s and gray I can handle Jim, it’s these temps in the low 30’s with stiff north winds that ruin the day.
This time of year I used to head out carp fishing. Amazing how active they are this time of year. Then I found out they’re just as slimy in the winter as summer and gave up on the whole idea.
Howard Levett
8 Dec 2014Quit whining old dude. There is nothing wrong with your photography skills. Not everything happens in broad daylight! iv’e noticed a certain change to your photos and they snap.
Ken G
8 Dec 2014My inner curmudgeon is hard to keep at bay lately Howard.
It’s the DSLR I got a few months ago. I haven’t shot with a SLR in nearly 15 years, so I still have a lot to learn and relearn. Amazing how much I’ve forgotten. The options in this camera are mind boggling at times.
Creekfisher1
17 Feb 2015Ken G.,
Are you into Fly Fishing Guiding for Great Creek fishing? Your Journals have three unnamed Creeks with pictures with locations of interest to me. If you are I would love to get together this 2015 fishing season for hitting a Creek or Two. Having seen your journals since last year (2014) I would be 100% “All In”. The Du Page River in Plainfield has been my primary river. Also Hickory Creek for Smallmouth Bass my preferred fish. Creeks having multiple types of fish interest me greatly.
Let me know your feelings on this.
Creekfisher1
Ken G
17 Feb 2015Hey Lorenzo, got your email too. Will respond to that in the next few days. I no longer guide, but I could lead you in the right direction on some smaller water. Will get in touch.