After That What's Best


It's having fun with friends on a wet Saturday afternoon on a lakeside shelter...hot dogs and mud.

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What Has Worked;

Hut for a Blue Tractor and a Red Grass-Cutter

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     Many of these farm structures that I live around out here in Central Virginia near Lovingston are made from wood that has been recycled from earlier farm buildings.   I am almost certain that a lot if it may just go back to the early days of European settlers locating here in Schuyler.   One can just take a quick look and even without carbon-dating one can see that the wood is old and weathered by the elements.   It is very heavy older hardwood that these folks used in making their farm structures.   One can also see how the buildings were shaped for the needs of the farm at a time and then torn down but not discarded but reused again for another purpose..   The sizes of the buildings are small.   They may house one farm implement or two but they are not like those northern Atlantic barns that have lofts and large areas for animals, these buildings are built to suite a single purpose and generally aren'...
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"1984" All Over The World

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Today is our last school day for this year of 07-08 and I'm looking forward to seeing all the students off for the summer and then going to a teacher unwinding party at the High School. One thing that seems to have been done lately is to put cameras into the High School as a way of cutting down the trouble they have in curbing the problem of violence and just "bad behavior".. It's been in place for a couple of years I it's done that, but in thinking about it, would you want yourself to be on camera at all points when you were out in public spaces? Would you feel ok about it? What if those cameras were being manned by a group of people who wanted to keep citizens from gathering in groups of three or more and exchanging ideas? I know, it's not that way right now, but what if society changed so that it was, their cameras and computers which watched those cameras for suspecious signs could be in place by the time they took power, then what would you d...
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Front Street Study

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Front Street in Lovingston is a smaller almost deserted community on the main highway north and south down the middle of Central Virginia. There is no reason why these streets aught to be without many people taking a stroll or riding bicycles except there just isn't that much business going on. So its like that in Lovingston, and that leaves me plenty of undisturbed time to paint the scenes and buildings in this little town. It has some buildings that were once stores that now sit in need of repair, such is this building which was not so long ago a Drugstore. Its in a prime location right in front of the County Courthouse and other Nelson County government buildings which are active. But still with all that said, there still aren't that many people around on foot. At least that I noticed in the few hours I've spent drawing and photographing its buildings, I wish I could say different but the few signs of life I saw were all inside a metal and plastic bubble calle...
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"The Blue Moon Diner": Redesigned and Repainted

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There are cheap places where you can have a low cost breakfast and then there are those places where you can have a "made in-store" low cost breakfast that is well worth the money spent, the Blue Moon Diner has always been one such place. It has had a 'make-over' recently but it still holds its own even after putting on a new look. The diner has been around as long as I have so its at least more than thirty years in its lifespan. Yeah, I guess its nothing more than a much longer lasting restaurant than others are and have been in this town, and I too must admit it is a 'greasy spoon' but its a good greasy spoon. In as much as the restaurants around here have gone over to a healthier menu eliminating food high in HDL and cholesterol this type of place has outlived its style of food fare. Yet it hangs on and almost an historical location now that its been existing for so long. I liked the older building which I too painted a canvas of (and one ...
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Heading Out For Camping

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I'm headed off to campout in the mountains this weekend with a friend from work. We're going to be on Skyline Drive in the Blue Ridge Mountains and it should be a good dose of what fall is for all, since the leaves are changing and we are expected to have much cooler temperatures than we had been getting it should be very nice. My liking is for cooler autumn temps and hues in the foliage around us. This is such a great area of the country for this time of year with all the leaves changing into such wonderful variety of colors. I am looking forward to walking through it all and taking some really good photos which I will share with everyone once I return on Sunday. We will campout up on the mountains and there is talk about the black bears being so prevalent near where people frequent up on the trails so we might have some unexpected visitors on our campout up on the hills. I'm interested in getting some good photos so I will have a good number of them when I re...
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