Tag You’re It !!!

I was tagged by Anita (Suz) and Sheila just last week, and I am responding also to Snoop’s challenge. I have to admit, I was tagged sometime ago by BH (remember him anyone?) and another person who’s name escapes me right now. Being tagged is funny to me, that’s what they do to um dead people and bear hides around these parts, yikes!

Here are the official "Rules" really they are guidelines, I say-do what you want to! (I do)

Post the rules on your site.

Tag your prey, ahhh…I mean friends (let them know)

Send them back to your post.

Spill it (he he Ellen I liked this)

Here are my things about me (yes I can count but hey! I was fivetuplifiedley tagged!

"no brag just fact" (ok who said that and what was the TV show? Anyone?)

1. I believe that we are all connected in some way. I came up with a theory (or is it hypothesis?) I called the "attraction expansion" theory long ago in college (gotta think of something while putting off studying don’t you know). This theory builds on the classic theory of gravitation, that all bodies in space attract all other bodies (aka Newton’s Law). Simply put, every action we take affects, to some degree, big or small, everything and everyone in the universe.
2. When I die I want to be cremated, I wouldn’t want to take up the least bit of real estate on this earth just to hold a body I don’t occupy anymore, I consider that a waste and would be arrogant, and I want to return my ashes to mother earth, as it should be.
3. I was born in Fairbury Nebraska (where both my parents went to high school, and don’t blink as you drive through it or you’ll miss it), and lived in Grand Island Nebraska ’till I was 5 1/2, when we moved to Idaho. Yeah! an Aquarius sign of water in the dessert, what’s up with that? Well I guess it is natural selection test, to see if I could find my way back to where I am centered. I lived in Idaho Falls, Nampa (named after chief Nampa), Moscow, Troy and McCall (over 5,000 feet in elevation) Idaho, and I now have lived in Alaska for longer than anywhere else, since in 1975. Well my dad moved us to Idaho, so it was a natural thing to come up here!
4. My occupations have included farm hand, welder/steel fabricator, pizza maker, engineering lab technician, surveyor, computer design, assembly and sales business owner, unemployed bum (my ultimate goal, though I am not very good at it, too much to do!), engineer, project manager, now photographer and once again a small business owner.
5. Besides living in houses in regular subdivision property, I have lived in tents, the back of a pickup truck, a fifth wheel trailer, a quonset hut (glorified culvert pipe), and an empty building. Not just camping, but living, you should see some of the places I’ve camped!
6. I like to cook although I don’t do it as often as I used to. I used to make my own Tofu and can make quiche from scratch. I don’t bake much but I am a sucker for cake with chocolate frosting or chocolate chip cookies soft and hot out of the oven. On the other extreme I can go with very basic food when needed, like eating cold chili right out of a can during a pouring rain huddled up under a poncho (though I have avoided that now for some time).
7. Friends are important to me and space friends are real friends. If I fall off a space friend’s list I always try to find out why, and this had renewed and strengthened several friendships this last year. On spaces I have a few simple criteria for accepting a friend invite;

   they must be 21 or older,

   have a public space,

   show solid evidence they are a real person,

   generally have content rated G or PG, and

   they have to play nice (this doesn’t mean always agree with me or be a cheerleader).

   This year I have opened up my space to many more friends. I still have most of my original friends on spaces from 2006, one isn’t on spaces anymore but is on flickr, one is moving and will return to spaces in September. I have a several friends on both Spaces and Flickr. I have more friends on flickr though I don’t have a hard count, maybe a couple dozen, and I meet with some of them here locally for photo shoots and shows. To me friends are people who share something, it can be similar experiences or different, doesn’t matter that much. How much is shared is variable and hopefully comes naturally and easy. I count my self as very fortunate to have the friends on my list, on flickr and elsewhere.

8. I am very driven toward things I want or want to accomplish, and will work hard toward a goal I believe in. I have been called obsessive in this regard and wouldn’t argue against it.
9. I am what is called an analyst by nature. That means I do a lot of research before reaching a conclusion or decision, left to my own devises. Before buying say a new camera lens I will research lenses and figure out the best option for me to pursue. I like to optimize!
10. I like to be innovating and invent new things or methods. One of my current innovations (obsession) is taking photographs of the northern lights with multiple medium format cameras, to produce very large and very sharp images.
11. I plan to publish a book in 2009. It will be mostly outdoor photography and maybe some writing. I haven’t decided what the title will be or the specific theme, I will work on all those details this winter. My short term goals are to get my photography out there, and to that end I am doing photo shows, I have a gallery set up in town, I have entered one competition and am considering others, and I am considering other publications, such as magazines. I will publish a price list for photographic prints soon on my space.
12. I seldom read novels but I read and study the equivalent of at least one text book a year. This year I have been studying photography (what else?) technique, equipment, printing technology and also marketing.
13. My first camera was a Kodak Brownie when I was maybe about 10. I started using an SLR when I was a teen and still have that camera (a Kodak Retina Reflex S). It wasn’t until the mid 1980’s that I got a camera that had automatic functions. My work benefits from my knowledge of basics I learned early on, and I stress basics to any would be photographer.
14. I don’t affiliate with political groups such as Republican or Democrat parties. I prefer to be simply an American citizen. Didn’t we fight a fricking war to be independent people?
15. I have been through a life changing experience or two in the latest few years. I now count each and every day as a blessing and a bonus round when I awake. Some details will be in my forthcoming blog "Walking in Tiger Country"
16. I expect to get chided by my vernacularly stilted vociferous nonconforming (i.e. smart ass) friend from Hurricane Lane. Ok I enjoy humor and good natured kidding from good people, No Kidding LOL

Oh and here are 10 more things from the last time I was tagged

Somebody Stop Me!

1. I once killed a bear before he killed me (upcoming blog-The Killing at Bartell Creek)
2. I once won a 35 mile bicycle race, because the guy that should have won had a flat tire and then got lost!
3. I once had a girl (or should I say she once had me?). She told me that my first love was the mountains, and I have always believed her.
4. I was born under the sign of Aquarius, the Water Bearer. I need to near it to thrive…oceans, lakes, rivers.
5. I have been an avid photographer since before I was 10 years old. I had a Kodak Brownie camera then.
6. I arrived in Alaska with $50 in my pocket and no job.
7. I believe that beauty is never far away, and neither is evil.
8. I believe in the saying "Enough is Enough, and More isn’t better"
9. I learned to whistle from our parakeet Bobby when I was young.
10. I wrote these waiting for a Lunar eclipse August 27 2007, there are 47 total. Yes I can count, I just wanted 10 !

Enough? Did I mention I can be an over achiever?

OK I spilled it (ha ha again Ellen, the Resident Crazy Girl)

One more thing, and I mean this;

Thank you to all my friends, all the readers and all the viewers that have graced my space here.

Without a reader a writer would be a raving lunatic.

Without a viewer a photographer would be merely tilting at windmills.

Now I tag just a few of my friends…

Ellen (from Norway)

Tanja (from Slovania)

Life in the Arctic (Arctic Wolf in the Canadian Arctic)

Ann (Kentucky Girl)

Katia (Vielle Ourse, aka Old Grumbling Bear)

Captain Ron (Sealog & Other Stories)

Kimmy (Tennesee Nature Lover)

 

And of course I extend a standing invitation to all my friends, each and every one!!!

Please let me know if you take this invitation, I do want to follow up.

Photo, self portrait of me in the alpine June 8, 2008.