Random Connections – Page 124 – A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

Snow Days

January 12, 2011 Tom No Comments

All the weather forecasters were predicting it – a whole bunch of snow late Sunday night into Monday with significant accumulations. It was certainly cold enough. Laura and I did our regular trek to the grocery store on Sunday, and, of course, certain sections were seriously depleted in anticipation of the storm.

It stayed sunny for most of Sunday. I was a bit surprised when our district called off school so early, but I guess they were taking the forecasts seriously. They turned out to be correct. Monday morning we awoke to a blanket of snow covering everything.

Rescuing Rose

January 10, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

Family, Local

We had quite the neighborhood adventure Sunday afternoon. Our lake levels have been lowered so that we can do some annual maintenance, and Laura had spotted a new, very elaborate beaverdam just upstream from us. I had walked down to take a couple of photos when I spotted some blonde fur in the mud in … Read More “Rescuing Rose” »

2011 Lowcountry Unfiltered Congaree Swamp Stomp

January 10, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

Travel

It was the first second Saturday of 2011, and my friends from Lowcountry Unfiltered decided to brave another swamp stomp in the Congaree Swamp National Park. We did this once before in January a couple of years ago. At that time it had been raining all week, and we had one of the coldest, wettest hikes we’ve ever experience. This time around it was cold, but fortunately much dryer.

Last time we wandered around with a vague notion of where we wanted to go. This time we had a target, or, more appropriately, targets. We were looking for champion trees, and we wanted to see how many we could find before we wore ourselves out.

RIP Percy

January 4, 2011 Tom 3 Comments

Family

A late night phone call or knock on the door is never a good thing. That was definitely the case this evening. Our neighbor from across the street said that he thought he had found our cat, Percy. I stepped across the road with him to find that Percy had apparently been hit by a … Read More “RIP Percy” »

Media Literacy and Tasteless Advertising

January 3, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

EdTech, Miscellaneous

Back in the 1980s I used to teach a unit on propaganda techniques to my seventh grade students. We would study Edward Filene’s seven techniques of propaganda, then analyze print and television ads to see how these were used. The students would then try to write their own ads using these techniques. Today this would now fall under the standards for Media Literacy, but essentially it was the same thing.

Over the holidays we watched more junk TV than we usually do, and there seemed to be lots of ads for products from the National Collectors’ Mint. This company specializes in private minting of commemorative coins, and their ads are so over the top that they seemed like a perfect candidate for one of these propaganda technique lessons. In particular, I kept seeing ads for this 9-11 commemorative coin…

I’ll say up front that I think this is a tasteless scam. It plays upon emotions and tries to get people to invest in something that is relatively worthless. I think that anyone that falls for this is an idiot, and I find it appalling that there are some many of these advertisements on television – TV Spam. That aside, though, let’s take a look at some of the specific techniques this advertisement uses.

New Year€™s with Family and Helicopters

January 2, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

Family

This year our family wasn’t able to get together for our annual Christmas gathering. Schedules were just too crazy. We made up for it by getting together for Thanksgiving, then again for New Year’s. Even so, the whole group was able to join us, but it was still a nice gathering. We consumed collard greens, … Read More “New Year€™s with Family and Helicopters” »

2010 €“ Paddling Year in Review

December 31, 2010 Tom 1 Comment

Paddling

2010 certainly had its ups and downs for our extended family. We lost a family member to cancer, several of my family and friends had other health issues, and the lingering financial cloud presented challenges at work as well at home. Laura and I weren’t exactly able to take a vacation, but we were able to take advantage of conferences and family visits to do some traveling.

The one thing we were able to do in abundance this year was kayak – and we did A LOT of it. Apart from quick run-outs to Lake Cunningham or our local lake in the backyard, we participated in over 20 paddling expeditions this year. We explored some new areas, and I was able to make new friends and set up new paddling associations with folks. Here’s just a quick run-down of some of the trips:

Indian River in Florida at Christmas
Lake Jocasee (multiple trips)
French Broad River
Lake Hartwell-Little River to Newry
Lake Cunningham (multiple trips)
Lake Robinson (multiple trips)
Saluda Lake (multiple trips)
Saluda River
Edisto River – Greenpond Church to Cannadys
Edisto River – Stokes Bridge to Mars Old Field
Edisto River – Mars Old Field to Messervy Landing
Burrows Bay, Washington State
Sparkleberry Swamp
From Lake Moultrie through the Pinopolis Lock to the Tailrace Canal
Intracoastal Waterway from Lady Island near Beaufort
Lake Oolenoy
Tugaloo River

Anniversary at Kissimmee Prairie

December 28, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

Travel

Monday Laura and I celebrated our 22nd anniversary. We usually like to get out and travel a bit on our anniversary. It was cold and windy, even in Florida, so a paddling trip or boat ride was out of the question. Instead, we decided to head inland to the Kissimmee Prairie, a 54,000 acre nature preserve north of Okeechobee.

Our directions from Amy were to drive down to Orange Avenue in Fort Pierce, then head west until it ended at Highway 441. It was 25 miles of the straightest road I think I’ve ever seen on this side of the Mississippi. It was another 20 miles on 441 through some of the most desolate countryside in the state. There were large ranches and orange groves dotted with small single-wide trailers. I couldn’t imagine living out here, especially in summer.

When we got to the Prairie we found a large flat area that alternated between palmetto scrub, grasslands, and wetlands interspersed with palm tree and live oak hammocks. A couple of dirt roads traversed the area, but for the most part the only way to see the place was on foot.

Christmas in Florida

December 26, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

Family

There were rumors and reports of snow back in Greenville. It wasn’t exactly my definition of a “white Christmas.” To me, a white Christmas is when you wake up and everything is covered in snow. However, I wasn’t going to be picky – snow is snow, and I would have enjoyed it all the same. The simple fact was that I was going to miss it all together. It was a warm 70 degrees down here.

The day began with the Wright family tradition of wrapping everything under the sun and putting it under the tree. They love to wrap/unwrap packages. It’s fun. This year Santa brought me life vests so I could take friends kayaking and a cool remote helicopter with built in camera.

Christmas Paddling

December 23, 2010 Tom 1 Comment

Paddling, Travel

It’s Christmas. That means a trip to Florida to visit Laura’s sister, Amy. Using the new kayak racks Laura gave me for my birthday, I brought down the tandem that we got last summer so that we could paddle it out on the Indian River. After an 11 hour drive, I had to hit the water as soon as I got there.

The water was quite calm, and sun was just setting as I paddled out into the channel. Since it was dusk I decided I didn’t want to get out into the main channel, but paddled out far enough so that I could watch the sun set. It was a short paddle, but enough to improve my mood immeasurably.