Landscape of Virginia

Seeing this city from the air was a real thrill for this bike rider. I saw so much green around here with a few exceptions of what was mainly the shopping malls and the large roads connecting parts of the city together. I took one picture of Barracks Road shopping center that shows 29 North heading right up towards the horizon which looks more like a drag strip than any typical road. Like I said it was a real eye opener for me to see all of this town from the air as I did last Friday afternoon. I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon. With this trip taken over head of where I usually drive I can see the need for another connecting road other than just a north south connecting route.

I went flying over this little college town yesterday in a Cessna, quite a bit different than flying out on a commercial plane. We were flying at 2,500 feet altitude, it was a little bit hazy but the sky was clear enough to see for some distance but not on and on. We packed two planes with our students and some teachers too in order to take them on a flight. When they returned we packed up the same planes with three passengers a piece then they headed out again for another half-hour flight over Charlottesville. I was able to get some good photos of the land below, I was even able to photograph my own apartment from the air. A student who really loves watching planes going over head and telling anyone who will listen just what kind of plane it is was able to go on my flight up airborne with me. He actually was flying the plane for a short time, he was thrilled by the experience believe me, I know this not only because he has been talking about Cessnas for the past year in ...

Another day done , another successful day clean another day at work being a Hobart programing master teaching his trade to an apprentice, it's been a good day all said and done. We have thirteen days of school left in our school-year. But who's counting! I had time to draw a little today. I'm glad after all the sadness in the global news with the serious earthquake in China and the storm in what was Burma, it's quite frightening if you really think of it. We seem to have a planet that is saying "enough in enough, I'm hurting you for what your doing to me". When calamity becomes commonplace something is wrong with us, with people, with governments, with our life choices maybe...I just hope, just hope we can find a better less harmful way to live our lives on Mother Earth.

Working on my own projects at home can be harder work than I do during my day job at school. I cleaned the livingroom, the bathroom and recycled my dry trash. I began working on another Japanese painting too. And this was all in just the beginning of Saturday afternoon, I have another whole half of an afternoon to go. Lot's to do. Where it's all leading seems to be the expression of my choosing, I chose to paint. I chose to recycle. I chose to clean. All because of my own wants. This new painting is of a main street in the town I grew up in overseas. I included myself on a tricycle in this one. It's kind of a fun thing to see oneself that long ago in another part of the world and I was acting as if the world owned me. It's kind of ironic since I felt so honored because the Japanese people treated me with such kindness and it wasn't so long before that our American people were demonized by them during the Second WW II. I am glad to have had that...

It was a walk in the woods that I used to do to feed my addiction back when I started feeding it. I use to buy a pack of cigarettes for thirty-five cents at a local country-store then go into the woods with a friend by the name of Tommy Beale my cohort in crime and we smoked them all. We smoked the whole pack between the two of us in one "sitting" or more like "walk in the woods", it's amazing to me that we could do that in just an hour or so without getting really sick. After those early days of not ever getting enough even after half a pack of smokes in a short time, I turned to beer as soon as I got to college. I was legal then but I still couldn't get enough, the one (beer buzz)I was about to have was going to be so much better. And on and on....I couldn't ever get enough and seldom felt good and if I did it was short lived, a few moments at best Last weekend, I walked in the woods with other men who suffer from the disease of addiction, ...