End of May

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Jim Pickley
Jazz Pianist

You know you're getting older when certain things start happening (no, this isn't one of those joke posts).  One of the most distressing is the increasing frequency of deaths among those with whom you went to high school.  Many of you know I lost my wife two years ago.  It still hurts.  One of my closest friends died exactly seven weeks later.  That still hurts too.  

People you're close to become part of your routine,  They're your "go to" people when you want to talk, laugh or joke about something that happened during the day.  They're a safe haven where you don't really have to worry about whether your shirt has a spot on it or you forgot to shave.  It's all ok with them.  I don't really have that kind of closeness at the moment. I have good friends; people I like a lot, but there's still that hole to be filled.   

Today we found out that Jim Pickley, a high school friend, my co-drum major for the Elkhart High School Band, and brilliant jazz pianist, died from cancer.  He started posting about his condition on Facebook a while back, with the last post being April 30.  He was already in hospice care, and said the pain was pretty bad.  We knew what was coming, but it doesn't make it any less sad.  Jim was a wonderful jazz player, who probably deserved more renown than he ever got, but jazz has always been a largely anonymous endeavor.  I was impressed with his ability when we were both in high school as well as when we both attended the Smith-Walbridge drum major camp during the summer of 1970.  He started banging out wonderful music on the camp's out-of-tune piano, and that's when I realized I would never play as well as he did.  But envy turned pretty quickly to admiration, partly because Jim was such a nice guy you couldn't help but like him.  Rest in peace, Jim. 

Photo Weekend

This weekend I attended a workshop with the interesting, energetic street photographer Valerie Jardin.  It was my first time meeting her, and she was just like she is on her terrific podcast, Hit the Streets with Valerie Jardin.  The weather was not too cooperative with constant rain the first day, but Valerie had a number of dryer alternatives, including visits to the Guthrie Theatre, a farmers' market, the Minneapolis Institute of Art and arts district.  No shortage of interesting backdrops or people.  

Street photography is an interesting sub-genre of photography that has become more popular in recent years with the advent of smaller, quieter digital cameras that produce professional results.  I was actually the Luddite of the bunch with my Canon DSLR, while most of the class were using one or another of the newer Fujifilm mirrorless cameras (Valerie is an official Fujifilm X photographer.) . But it didn't much matter when it came to results.    I learned a lot and enjoyed the weekend.  Will see Valerie again at the Out of Chicago conference in June in Chicago.  

Here's a gallery of some of my better shots from this weekend. 

Truck on the road

Somewhere in Elkhart County.  I don't know why this image seemed interesting to me but it was.  

Theatre at the UUFE

Earlier this week, the theatre presented a staged reading of Amy and David Sedaris' play, "The Book of Liz."  This spoof on religion was held at the Unitarian Church in Elkhart, a group very tolerant (even enthusiastic) about the more challenging plays we present there.  "The Book of Liz" skewers religion, primarily fundamentalist cultish sects -- quite hilariously.  Fun night of theatre.   

Dad at 91 in the hospital

This my father about four weeks ago. A cold turned into about of pneumonia and left him weak enough that he fell down in his bedroom and had to be taken to the hospital. He's a difficult patient, to say the least, especially when he is tired. This photo shows him in a quieter moment, but it also gives a sense of his weariness and discomfort. 

I may have found my new favorite band.

While doing some research on a project, I ran across a band called Great Big Sea, from Newfoundland.  Celtic flavor, lots of fun.  Check them out. 

Great Big Sea

Alec Hosterman on a very cool photography podcast

Alec Hosterman apparently trying to clone himself.  

This week's episode of the podcast Hit the streets with Valerie Jardin features my friend Alec Hosterman talking about PR for photographers.  Valerie's podcast focuses on street photography, a genre that's become increasingly popular in recent years as cameras of quality have gotten more compact and unobtrusive.  Some of my photos qualify as street photography, although I never really think about what genre I'm working in.  Anyway, even if you're not a pro (and I'm not one), give Valerie and Alec a listen right here.  This is one of my favorite podcasts (yeah, I'm a nerd).  I hope to be participating in one of Valerie's workshops later this year in Minneapolis.  

New tech to play with at the Bristol Opera House.

Sort of. No, it's not this website, or shiny new lights, or a retractable roof, but it's still cool, if a bit daunting.  Karen and I have been working on another improvement to the theatre's web presence (spearheaded by my daughter Demarée Dufour-Noneman last year).  This time it's a new ticketing system that will give Elkhart Civic Theatre a lot more marketing capability and user convenience than we've had for a while.  It will roll out over the next couple of months and won't really affect this season's sales much, and the public won't really see it until sometime in August, but we're excited.  The system has a number of marketing bells and whistles that will allow us eventually to sell season tickets online, remind patrons they have tickets for an upcoming show, and a lot more.  I know this isn't the typical post for a personal blog but I do think it's cool news and will benefit the theatre greatly.  

Starting Anew

This is a brand-new fresh personal website for my pictures, comments, rants, etc.  But largely for my pictures.  It's on SquareSpace, which is different, but I like the way the site work and looks.  I'm not really doing any major programming or web development anymore, and frankly I wanted to get away from it.  WordPress is great, but still feels like work.  This one doesn't as much.  I could be wrong about that, but I'm here for a year, at least.  This particular theme is recommended for online portfolios, and I think it looks good. so far.   

The old blog is here.  I jumped to SquareSpace because I like the way it works but importing the old WordPress blog is more difficult than just starting over.  Yeah, I can import it, but there were too many things to fix in order for it to look right here, and it comprises content going back to 2000 apparently. Hard to believe.