Dance After Dark Photography

My uncle passed away this afternoon. Greg lived in New York with his family, so we didn’t see each other often. I can’t say that I was as close to Greg as other members of my family, but he was still one of my favorite uncles. He was like a big kid. I first got to know him at my cousin Ric’s wedding. I’d met Greg before that, but I was too young to really remember and too young to carry on much of a grown-up conversation. Greg played guitar as part of the ceremony. Bluesy, very nice. He taught me about poetry slams, and for a few years after that we e-mailed back and forth regularly. That’s when I really got to know “the Foz.” Greg was a paramedic, and we were afraid we’d lost him as part of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. As it turned out, he was across the river responding to the indirect backlash of the catastrophe, and he had no way to let the family know that he was okay.

We still don’t know exactly what happened. Greg had been sick, and he was finally admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. They had to induce a coma to keep him from struggling to take out the breathing tube. He showed signs of coming around two days ago, rolling his eyes when his brother and sister were joking and talking to him in the hospital room. Yesterday he took a turn for the worse, and at 2:00 this afternoon he passed away.

I love you, man. I’m glad I got to know you.

What does it look like to kayak down the Wekiva River? Well, if you’re the #2 man in the kayak, it looks like this:

Here we see the back of jeweldevil’s head as we paddle downstream. I took a minute to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, it was so blasted bright and hot that only two of the photos came out at all. I’ve got a few other shots of paddles, but this one and a shot of the sky were the only two that I liked.

We had fun, but I definitely prefer the downstream ride. We went downstream as far as we could go, and we fought against the river to get back. Daniel and I agreed that if we’d gone any further we might not have made it back at all. The original plan was to kayak peacefully downstream to Katie’s Landing and then get shuttled back to the state park. Alas, they don’t do that on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That little fact wasn’t posted on the website. The good news is that it was a lot cheaper, totaling about $24 instead of $40. The bad news is that it took us 3.5 hours, and I still hurt. My muscles have recovered, but I forgot to put sunblock on my legs. They’re crispy.

The best part was just as we left the beach. The water was clear and deep, letting us see all the way to the underwater forest on the bottom. It was gorgeous. You should try it sometime.

More kayaking pictures

P.S. We discovered that you can’t do a damn thing from the front. I don’t remember canoes being so hard to steer.

I was gone this weekend, visiting Melissa in Tampa. On Saturday night we went to Clearwater to see a bunch of her friends twirl flaming things, and much fun was had. I wanted to go several weeks ago, but I got so sick that I missed the chance. Here’s the first photo from the extremely large batch. I took about 650 pictures, though a lot of them will be discards or repeats. Toward the end I got tired of barely missing some particularly interesting action and started shooting continuously with faster exposures, which made for some great photos and a whole lot of in-between shots. More in the Fire Dancing gallery.

I went kayaking through the canals leading to the intercoastal waterway in New Smyrna Beach. I have to say that the little crabs were the most amusing part of he trip. I wish I’d taken my camera, but I didn’t want to risk dunking it. Lining both banks of the canal were scores and scores of tiny crabs. Some were no bigger than the tip of my pinky, and the largest were about as big as my thumb. I think they’re fiddler crabs, but I could be wrong. And why were they amusing? Well, I’ll tell you.

As I was paddling along, I noticed a wave of motion along the shore. At first I couldn’t figure it out, but then I realized that all of the little crabs were running up the beach and away from the water. I stopped paddling so I could watch more easily, and they stopped running away. They watched me nervously, but they didn’t move. I raised the paddle, and they took one collective step backward. This means, of course, that I became drunk with power.

I started paddling from one side of the canal to the other, zig-zagging in a crooked path of crabby terror. I imagined myself as an omnipotent deity of crabby destruction. I swept along to my new battle cry, “Fear my crabby wrath! Flee for your chitinous lives!”

*contented sigh* Good times.

The sun was awfully bright today. Maybe I should have worn a hat.