A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
I had originally planned to ride to Congaree National Park. However, the thought of riding two hours in both directions down to Columbia was just about more than I could tolerated, even if I do have a nice vehicle. Instead, I headed northward toward the mountains. While the distance would be about the same, at … Read More “Blue Ridge Westward” »
Saturday night the Roper Mountain Astronomers and Furman University’s Physics Department hosted a star party at the Furman observatory near Cleveland, SC. I decided to load up my telescope and head on up that way. I arrived to find the party in full swing. Jerry Polsinelli had brought the club’s 14in Dobsonian and had it … Read More “Star Party” »
The requisite six months has passed for me to have repressed most of the memories of my last trip to the Jockey Lot. It was time for another trip with Paul, and we had new victims Brian and Greg are the newest Furman Chemistry faculty, and was high time to introduce them to the … Read More “Heart of Dixie” »
Driving home from work on Friday I saw a peach orchard in full bloom. I decided that it would be a nice target for some photos in the late afternoon light. Driving over a rickety wooden bridge in Duncan, the way the sun illuminated the railroad tracks also caught my eye
I get tons of spam comments on this website. That’s just part of living with a blog that accepts comments. Some of them try to flatter and fool you with a phrase such as, "I found the information on this website to be very useful." Then they post tons of links to everything from dubious … Read More “Polite Spam” »
One of the most useful tools I’ve found for my recent geographic projects has been the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) from the US Geological Survey. Users can search on both foreign and domestic names and receive a list of potential hits based on that name, with a description of the geographic feature (stream, town, … Read More “Just Name the Place” »
It’s back! The websites formerly known as "Bob Jones a Go-Go" has returned. The URL is now www.nobojo.org, but the content is the same. The tagline is "A Look Inside the Wacky World of Bob Jones University," and that should give you a pretty good idea of the site’s flavor. Written by a former BJU … Read More “The Return of NoBoJo” »
St. Patrick’s Day slipped right past me this year. I didn’t listen to any Celtic music. I didn’t drink any green beer, Irish coffee, or even any Bailey’s Irish Cream. Worse yet, I didn’t even wear any green all day. There was a time in my life when such a lapse would have been unthinkable. … Read More “Missing Holidays” »
My normal breakfast is a cup of coffee and a low-fat power bar. However, once in a blue moon Laura and I like to go out for breakfast on the weekends. We fluctuate between one of the Stax places or Denny’s. This morning, it was Denny’s. There, it became evident that Denny’s blatantly encourages gluttony, … Read More “Encouraging Gluttony” »
My camera has the shakes. It’s a combination of high magnification and my cheap lenses. I’ve been experimenting with higher and higher levels of magnification, and I believe I’ve hit a limit. Even using a rock-solid tripod won’t help me with this. My Celestron C90 is listed as a f/11, 1000mm lens when used with … Read More “Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture” »