August 2012

August 23, 2012

Team Mug Shots

The first time I went out to shoot a high school team’s mug shots for The Missourian, I took individual photos of each player. That was a chunk of change at five bucks a head. Unfortunately, jBlue balked at paying that much.

“Shoot the whole team in one photo. We’ll crop the individual mugs from it,” he ordered. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Chuck Murdoch brokered a compromise

That might have made good sense from The Missourian’s standpoint, but it meant that I had to spend an hour or more driving to the school, setting up the pictures, collecting IDs, plus another hour in the darkroom for the five bucks. The other problem was that each head was significantly smaller than a dime, which was considered the minimum size any face could be to show up clearly in the paper.

Break ’em up into fours and fives

Sports editor Chuck Murdoch, worked out a compromise: I’d break the team into groups of four or five and get paid $3 a shot for mugs. That would give Chuck faces big enough to reproduce and would make me enough money to be worthwhile. (I didn’t know in those days I could tell somebody to take a hike if I didn’t like the price.)

I got better at it

I got better and faster with experience. First off, I learned how to control the situation: I wouldn’t let a coach dictate how I was going to shoot and I wouldn’t take any guff from the players. I’D pick the location to give me the best light to work with. Then, I’d enlist the coach or someone else to help the guys write their names on a sheet of paper and line up. I’d pitch a coin on the ground or floor and say, “Kneel on the coin. I’m going to take two shots. In the first shot, hold the sheet of paper under your chin like a jailhouse booking photo. Then, drop the sheet and give me an expression that’ll make your momma proud.”

It wasn’t art

Once I realized that nobody was looking for meaningful portraits that captured the soul of the player, I could knock off a team in about 30 minutes. All the sports department wanted was a reasonably sharp photo that showed two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears (if the player had all those parts) that they could run 1 column by 3 inches to break up the type. (These aren’t examples of when I had my act together, by the way. I was still learning.)

August 22, 2012

Malcolm’s New Tree House

Grandson Malcolm’s eighth birthday is coming up this weekend. His party was held at a skating rink last year, which gave me an excuse to write about the rinks in Cape and Jackson. His parents, Matt and Sarah, teamed up with Neighbor Will Hill (he’s the guy without a shirt) to build a “tree house” in the backyard.

Will actually knew what he was doing. I built something for Sons Matt and Adam when they were a little younger than this. It started out as a simple platform with a sandbox under it. Before long, a fireman’s pole and a slide were added. The original structure used a rope ladder with PVC pipe rungs. It could be pulled up to keep Adam from climbing up to the level where he might be tempted by Matt to see if he could fly by flapping his arms.

Building a monkey bars gave me an excuse to add a swing to the mix. There was no overall plan – stuff just got added whenever the posthole digger cried out to make a new hole in the ground.

Time-lapse video

Matt set up his Nikon DSLR to take a photo every 60 seconds so he could condense a 12-hour project into a three-minute video. The structure could be more properly called a play house rather than a tree house since no trees were harmed in the making of the building, still, we CALLED it the tree house. Here’s what a REAL tree house looks like.

Mat made from shopping bags

I described how Mother had turned into a bag lady, making all kinds of stuff out of plastic shopping bags. One of her projects was to make a mat to go under Malcolm’s sleeping bag when he’s camping. He said that something like that would made a really nice rug for his new tree house (hint, hint).

Trapdoor leads to roof

Malcolm was already talking about how it would be nice to have a trapdoor in the floor, too, “just in case.” It’s a gender-neutral tree house. Neighbor Will’s two daughters and Malcolm are joined at the hip every waking moment, so there is no immediate prospect of a No Girls Allowed sign going up.

Photo gallery of tree house pictures

I was no fool: I showed up after all the heavy setup work had been done, and I left when it looked like a thunderboomer was going to roll in. The rain never materialized, but it was close enough that temps dropped to a comfortable level and Matt and Neighbor Will pushed to get the roof on before knocking off for the evening. So, you get to see the middle part of the project.You’ll have to click on Matt’s video to see the whole deal.

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

August 21, 2012

A Customer Service Save

I have two usual routes for getting from Cape to West Palm Beach, depending on my mood. If I want to take the scenic route, I’ll go Cape to Cairo to Wickliffe to Mayfield (KY) to Benton (KY) to Cadiz (KY) south on I-24 to Nashville, where I’ll pick up I-65 to Birmingham and Montgomery. There, I’ll get off the Interstate and cut through Dothan, (AL) until I cross over the Florida line at Mariana. If it’s a busy holiday weekend or bad weather with lots of traffic, I’ll ride I-10 to just east of Tallahassee, where I’ll drop down the center of the state on U.S. 27. Traffic’s generally not as heavy nor as crazy as on the Interstate. In the days when the speed limit was 55 mph, that was my preferred route because I could run about as fast there as the Big Road and there were fewer speed cops.

If I just want to make speed, it’s I-24 to Nashville, climb over Monteagle Pass, then pick up I-75 in Chattanooga and blast on through Atlanta until I pick up the Florida Turnpike in Wildwood, which takes me all the way home. I guess I should amend that. I’ve never “blasted” through Atlanta. Every time I go through that town, I’m more convinced than ever that General Sherman had the right idea.

(By the way the Cadiz sign above has nothing to do with the story. It’s on a nice family-style restaurant off the main drag. I just wanted something that said “Cadiz.” You can click on any of the pix to make them larger.)

All roads lead through Cadiz

All of those routes take me through Cadiz, which is about the place to gas up no matter whether I’m heading west to Cape or east to Florida. I’ve been hitting the same Shell station for probably 20 years. It used to be on the north side of the road, but has moved to the south side and has added a nice gift shop. Many moons ago I won 50 or 75 bucks on a scratch-off lottery ticket, so I always buy another try and pick up some local Kentucky Lake area newspapers. They also have clean bathrooms.

Great, they’re the cheapest station

So, when I was eastbound home and saw my tank was getting lean, I looked at the gas prices signs. Good, my preferred station was $3.59 and the two other stations were a dime higher.

When I stuck the nozzle into my tank, though, I saw the pump price was $3.69, not $3.59. Some stations display a higher price if you don’t pay cash or use a company credit card. I pressed the go button. The price didn’t adjust downward. While it was still dinging away, I walked back to look at the sign and take a picture of it. Yep, it showed $3.59 to eastbound traffic. Curiously, though, it showed $3.69 to the westbound folks.

When the pump shut off, my receipt showed that 15.127 gallons had been pumped at a cost of $3.699 per gallon for a total of $55.95.

“Oh, the sign is wrong”

I went inside to speak with Nice Cashier who said, “Oh, yes, that sign has been wrong for about a month. We keep reporting it, but nobody comes to fix it.”

“That’s not my problem. I pulled in here because I’ve been doing business with you for years and because your advertised price was a dime less than the other stations at this location. I want a refund for the difference.”

“I can’t do that. My drawer would be out of balance.”

“Who CAN do something about it?”

“You’ll have to call this 800-number.” I did. After I had explained the situation to Very Nice Woman, she asked to speak to the cashier. The cashier asked if it would be OK if she walked outside with my phone. I followed her and watched as she looked at the sign and at the pump. She verified what she saw to the woman on the phone (mouthing to me “I believed you”).

How about putting a check in the mail?

Very Nice Lady on phone said SHE wasn’t authorized to give me a refund, but she’d have her boss call me. I said, “Look, we’re only talking about a buck-fifty-one here. I don’t want to have a conversation with anybody while I’m rocketing down the road at 78 miles per hour. How about when I get home in a week I’ll find a letter in the mail containing $1.51, and I won’t have to research which Kentucky agency deals with misleading advertising at gas stations.”

I got home and waited nine days for my letter. Three days ago, I called the station in Cadiz and asked, “Anybody fix your sign yet?” The answer was no.

I called the 800-number, but Very Nice Lady was on vacation. I was put through to Gerald White, vice president of MaxfuelXpress. We had a pleasant chat where he said that somebody should have just given me the lousy $1.51 (not his exact words, but it came across.that way).

He gave me his personal assurance that a check would be in the mail to me that very afternoon. “By the way,” I told him, “the station says your sign is still showing the wrong price today.”

The check WAS in the mail

True to his word, the mail came today. It contained a check for $1.51, along with the following letter: “Thank you for taking the time and effort to let me know about our poor service with the sign and price at the pump at Broadbent’s Shell convenience store. Please accept my sincere apology and this check for the difference in price. I am embarrassed that it took this long for it to be rectified and really appreciate you giving me the chance to make it right. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any further issues.”

So, I guess I’ll be gassing up at Broadbent’s Shell on my next trip through, replenishing my stash of junk food, picking up a couple of local papers and hoping lottery lightning hits again. Had the mail not come, you’d have been reading a much different ending. Thank you, Mr. White. Good luck on the sign.

August 20, 2012

Bow Hunting in Cape

Whether or not to allow bow hunting for deer inside Cape’s city limits has been a big controversy for the past year. Reader Steven McKeown sent me a couple hundred family photos a few months ago; I spotted these three photos of backyard bow and arrow practice. They appear to be after targets, not wild game.

If you click on the photo to make it larger, you can see some interesting objects. First off, look at the shadow of the clothes line in the lower right of the frame. Check out the large silver bell above the target

Looks like a backyard garden

Steven’s family was active in Scouting, particularly Troop 2. He didn’t provide me any info with the photos, so I hope he or someone else will chime in with IDs.

I see a metal trash burner on the left, above the target. Were the stakes sticking up behind the man part of a backyard garden?

A cool day?

Looks like it might have been a bit chilly. The trees have lost all their leaves and both boys are in their winter long-sleeve uniforms. The man and woman are sort of scrunched up like their cold. The woman’s neckerchief is blowing in the wind. There’s metal fencing around the small tree behind the woman, probably to keep rabbits or other animals from nibbling on it.

The Boy Scout is from Troop 2, but I can’t see the Cub’s Pack insignia. It looks like it starts with a 5. I had forgotten that Scout pants had a button on them so you could fold it down for easy access or button it up high for security.

Thanks to Steven for letting me publish these.