Egoscue Method, Day 5: Keep Moving

Warrenton, Oregon ~ November 2, 2010

I did not keep moving, and I'm here to tell you, today it made an unfortunate difference. I'd gone in to Lucy's Books the other day to ask for a book I "couldn't put down." She found one for me: a murder mystery/relationship story called In the Woods by Tana French. I sat in the chair at Starbucks (the photo above was taken as I got out of the car) and read for two hours, then came home and read for many more hours. I'm a slower reader, and I could NOT put it down, so it added up to a lot of hours.

I put my exercises off, but I DID finally do them just before going to sleep. I had waited until so late in the evening that I didn't do them slowly with breaks as I said I was going to. But I had more stamina for them than yesterday and they came easier. Part of this is that I remember how to do each one more and more without reading the instructions, and partly my muscles are being trained. There was a little back pain, and I'm not sure if it's from the original twist in my body or from muscle pain from the exercises. It wasn't bad, just irritating.

So I jumped back into bed and read a bit more before going to sleep. (See next post.)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

End of the End-of-the-Day Office?

This is the office I use at the end of the day - the best seat in Starbucks. I'm not sure how I'm going to give up that cold, ice-crunchy, sweet, chocholaty frappuccino, but I feel a change coming on. We'll see. Now that I've described the frap, I really don't know how I'm going to give it up. The end of the day is when I kick back, read something that isn't digital, and answer a few e-mails and calls if the mood strikes. If it were not for the calories and the checkbook, I'd have no problem with this scenario, especially as the evening afterwards often includes more work at the computer. As I said . . . we will see.

By the way, I won't say A History of Iowa is a gripping read, but it's interesting as research for this project that I've been working on.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Dec 31, Part 1 - Bend, Oregon: Weekend Reflections, "Warm Inside"

We were supposed to drive to Portland today (three hours, crossing the high desert and the pass over Mt. Hood), but a snow storm started early with anticipated freezing rain still to come, making today one of the worst driving days all year if it pans out. I took this photo at Starbucks around 8:00 a.m, while we were still discussing whether or not to hit the road. Now at 10:48, I'm home, still watching the flakes turn into inches. We'll put off the drive to Portland until tomorrow. The photo? Nothing special, just a reflection of the day, but I've always liked these hanging orange lamps.

See more Weekend Reflections here . . . but I'm a day early. You may have to wait until Saturday.

Dec 26, Bend: Splashes of color in a black and white world

We drove into Bend last night in the dark, and weren't able to see the fairy kingdom made by frozen fog on trees and bushes until this morning. I took all of the photos in this post in color, and I didn't change the color in Photoshop. A few of the photos came out really well. Others are included to help me remember the day.

There was only a dusting of frost on the ground - no snow - but every branch and needle were covered in lacy white, making the green of the trees look more black than green by contrast. After this week, I won't be back to Bend for a number of months, so I've included a lot of photos in today's post. It was magical being out in these conditions.

First stop, Starbucks, where the papers were full of the news of the fizzled "device on Flight 253. This is when I realized what an entirely different feel the day would have had if the thing had gone off - not only for family and friends of the passengers, but for everyone. Of course, the news continued to be filled with bits about airport security failures, failures to make use of information in databases, etc. The consequences will not be over at the end of the day, even though (thankfully), the passengers touched down safely.

We stopped in a parking lot, because we wanted to take photos of various plants we'd seen along the roadside. There were a few colorful leaves on this dark green bush.

This one came out really well. It may help to enlarge it.

I took this because I liked the shape of the small trees. When I saw it, I liked the color in the otherwise-monochromatic scheme.

Heh. Iced mocha today? Actually, I've been getting cold coffee drinks lately, but not at McDonald's.

Aesthetically, I could have left this one out, but I like the variety of trees covered in frost.

Approaching the traffic circle.

This is one of the things I wanted to photograph. I like the deer in the wreath and the feathery white background. Bend has sculptures of one sort or another in every traffic circle in town, or nearly all of them. Some are realistic and some are not. I think the city has done a nice job trying to beautify the sterile new streets.

The exposure isn't quite right here, but I liked the sun glow on the trees that were painted on the door to Pine Mountain Sports. It looked very nice as we entered.

We stopped at Strictly Organic for some breakfast burritos, and this was the view out the window in front of the counter where you can sit down to eat. I've had their coffee before, and I think it's the worst I've ever had anywhere. In fact, after much consideration, I threw it out. But their burritos were fantastic.

The bell-shaped lights are reflections from inside Strictly Organic.

The "numbers" they give you that correspond with your order aren't numbers at all, but countries. Funny that we got Tanzania, because Lee will be there on his upcoming trip, so he was able to show me his route and where he'd be staying. I'm certainly looking forward to the photos.

More reflections, more frost. I like the shape of the arch in the bricks, too.

I took this out the other window. I like a number of the elments here, but the first thing that caught my eye was the unusual coloring of the trim.

Again from the cafe window: red, red, nice shapes of the bike rack, and a square within a square.

In the corner of the room behind us as we were eating, was this nice tree painted on the wall.

The counter where we ate was cool. I think it must be palm wood in laminated rectangles. The next photo shows what nature can do in Creative Design class.

Isn't that wonderful? The smaller dots look like a jaguar's coat.

I'm not sure why I included this one. It was just part of the moment.

Strictly Organic supplies water for dogs. But today a dog would need an ice pick.

Frosty bike. Cool bike rack design.

I've taken pictures of these grates before and liked the color better without the frost, but this time I noticed the type: It says, "Bend, Oregon - Est. 1905."

Oak leaves. I love the pale brown.

This is one of my favorite pix of the day. I took it through the windshield of the car, looking at the lacy white-on-white trees on the right, but it turned into a nice composition, and and love the colored sign, too. We were almost home.

Aug 9, Bend, Part 2: Starbuck's

En route to Starbuck's. Why did they build something this ugly, when they could have designed a more pleasing exterior? Its selling point is that it's an energy-efficient design. We went inside one of the models a few months ago, and it felt like being inside something that should have been sitting on a shipping pallet. I don't mind industrial at all, and in fact, I've enjoyed living in industrial neighborhoods, but I failed to find the charm in this home. And they don't seem to be selling, but maybe that's the market. Looking at one is sort of entertaining. I can only imagine what it will look like when this corner is filled with these horrible brown boxes.

The entrance to Starbuck's. Just clicking the shutter for the memory book. It was nice outside.

Just out front of Starbuck's in the landscaping. A tripod is needed here, so it's not sharp, but I like the purple flower with this background. It was nice to look at, and it's nice to remember.

More purple blowing in the weeds and the breeze outside Starbuck's. Natural landscaping. I like it.

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Oct 13, Part 1 - Portland to Boston

Blogs read backwards, which is fine most of the time, but if you're trying to organize a long series of photos in order and then have the days make sense, it gets messy. I don't like to put more than 5 or 6 photos in a post. People do it - I've done it - but it's harder to work with. I like the idea of making a post for each location, and there are going to be days with a lot of locations. I can make a whole day read forward, but then I guess you just have accept that the days themselves read backwards. I only wish that blogs had a "forward" switch for chronological stuff. Google, are you listening? Anyway, we'll try this. It worked pretty well for the part of the Belize trip I've posted so far.

The wake-up call was what time? It seemed so early, I think it was 4:30 a.m. Our flight was at 7:00. This is PDX. I've always liked our airport. It's small enough that it's easy to walk the whole thing. It's clean and it's attractive. It's also about as functional as they get.

Yeah. The obligatory first cup.

. . . and breakfast. We've been trying to eat healthier and on the low side of the glycemic index the past couple of years, and we hadn't give up yet. We were still trying to make good choices. It seems Starbucks has something they are now calling "oatmeal." It was probably better than having a muffin. Choices would get both better and worse over the next 10 days.

I love looking out the window. Lee likes aisle seats so he can get out easier. I vote for having to pester my seat-mate(s) to get out and having the view. I never get tired of it unless the cloud forms get monotonous. Best, of course, is seeing the ground. I think this must be the Rocky Mountains or something near them, based on the time stamp on the photo, which was 9:04 a.m.

This was taken at 9:45 a.m. - maybe Kansas? Nebraska? Iowa? The earth forms change so fast when you're flying. If I can look out, I rarely get anything else done, like reading or crossword puzzles. And thank god for digital cameras and not wasting a bunch of film. The plane windows are often a big impediment, but this one was almost perfect.

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