One block at a time

I'm making slow progress.  The second unit from the New York Institute of Photography (NYIP) arrived yesterday.  This afternoon I pressed on with Lesson Five, bent over the lesson book with the CD playing in the background.

It so happens I am familiar with much of what has been presented in the first four lessons, but I appreciate the methodical and disciplined curriculum thus far.  My hope is that I will be forced, not only into learning new things, but into seeing in new ways and into trying new types of photography that don't come as naturally -- as the closeup of lichen or the veins of a leaf.

Building blocks.  The review will be over shortly.  Reinforcing the foundation's just what I need. 

More than meets the eye

This photograph of Lake Erie was made in the early afternoon from the mouth of the Welland Canal at Port Colborne, Ontario.  Most of the day had been overcast, but not gloomy.

I don't know what I'd expected the view of Lake Erie to be when we exited the canal.  Probably sparkling, bright water, high billowing clouds in a clear blue sky, lovely houses dotting the shoreline.  Whatever those expectations, an expansive wall of grey had not been among the options I'd considered. 

I stood on the upper deck for a long time -- watching, straining my eyes -- having trouble distinguishing the horizon line.  The occasional ship in the distance was a help.  I made several images, wondering what I'd get and how the various shades of blue grey would be seen by the camera's sensor.

It was only this week that I began looking at the photographs from that day.  Pretty subtle.  Lots of layers of grey.

As I began developing the image, however, lovely things began to happen.  Normally, I wouldn't push the post processing quite so far, but, oh, the intricate colors and textures that emerged.  The nearest water looks a little like a beach (which it isn't).  There is a ship out there.  The clouds are a bit billowy.  I especially like the wisps of cloud descending on the right side.  Clearly, the camera saw more than I did.

How often that is true.  And, not only the camera.  I simply don't see.  I can stand on deck, as it were, looking, watching, peering into the gloom -- seeing nothing, thinking "there's nothing here."

I so it with ideas.  I do it with people.  Dismissive.  Because ...  Because of what?  Hair style, grammar, interests that don't jibe with mine?  Without benefit of interaction I seem to feel free to categorize, to judge, to exclude.  Snobbish and conceited, without doubt.  I almost despair thinking about it.  But, I also understand that my tendency doesn't have to be absolute.  Seeing, seeing differently and deeply, is my choice, a choice I can -- and even sometimes -- make.   

This image, however over processed, reminds me that there is more than meets my oftentimes haughty eye.  There are layers and colors.  There is depth and interest.  Almost always, there is much to learn and to appreciate.

Form

Tuesday was a tough day.  Facing the truth is oftentimes very hard.

In the conclusion to my post that day I wrote this:

All I really want to do is ... feel proud of the handful of images that are really good -- and there are a few.

This what I am talking about. 

A pitcher. Yes.  Part of an exhibit at the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse NY.  That, too. 

Are there things wrong with the photograph?  Yes, again.  The object is too close to the right edge.  There's a paint brush on the flat surface along with the pitcher.  I could go on.  But ...

What's right?  For me?  The way the light falls on the pitcher.  And, on the left edge of the handle.  AND, along the closest rim.  It seems to glow.

I like the curve of the pitcher, the out of focus curtain letting the viewer know the proximity of the window. 

It's all about the form.  The curves and the light.  The actual object could be anything and it could be anywhere.  Why it's part of an exhibit in a museum in Syracuse doesn't matter at all.  (A good thing since I recall none of those details.) 

A photograph doesn't have to be "of" something and it doesn't have to be static.  This one captures a moment during which I, myself, was captivated.

An image can extend a experience.  I am satisfied.

Back from the brink

It has been a difficult day.  Nothing earth shattering.  Just what has felt to me like a long slog.  The house is clean, so having to try ignoring dust on the lamps and dog hair on the floor (for a change) isn't what has been gnawing away at my equilibrium.  Almost everything on the drafted-this-morning "to do" list has been highlighted.  I'm not beating myself up for having procrastinated.
Actually, the problem is no mystery.  It's just that I have been resisting owning up to it.

Here's the deal.  I have finally begun work in earnest on the photographs from what I'm calling the "Waterways Trip."  While we were away I did manage to download images every day, but I did nothing to or with them.  No key words, no captions, no editing.  (I described the current process of doing that in the post for July 11th.)  Until today, things have hummed along.  Today I met up with disappointment.

Many and I mean many of the photographs I made on May 23rd, our first day on the Erie Canal, are just terrible.  The composition is OK, but they're either muddy or slightly out of focus.  Initially, I tried "fixing" some of them, a process I don't actually know how to do, a process very different from what it takes simply to "develop" an image in the software program I use.

Gradually, I realized it wasn't worth it.  That the images themselves weren't worth the time and the energy I was expending.  And, beyond that, that they weren't worth the sadness and the sense of failure I felt building up inside me. 

My friend Sarah to the rescue.  No.  Not a visit or even a telephone call.  For Christmas Sarah gave me a page-a-day calendar written for busy women.  It didn't take many days into January until I began looking forward to the morning ritual of tearing off the old page and reading the new one.  About every four-to-six weeks the author, Anne Wilson Schaef, makes a distinction between perfectionism and excellence.  I have kept a few of them to ruminate over:

Excellence is being willing to take risks.  Perfectionism is being overly cautious and fearful.  (February 20th)

Excellence results in feelings of personal power.  Perfectionism results in anger and frustration. (March 31st)

Excellence is spontaneous.  Perfectionism results in control and conformity. (April 11th)

Excellence results in giving.  Perfectionism results in taking.  (Didn't write down the date for that one.)

And, here's today's page, that one brought me back from the brink:

Excellence results in quiet confidence.  Perfectionism results in doubt.

All I really want to do is put my photographs in order.  All I really want to do is (1) be happy with the memories they bring back of a marvelous time Tal and I had together and (2) feel proud of the handful of images that are really good -- and there are a few.

With all that in mind and with great calm I returned to my task, assessing what I had before me and simply deleted what I could not save.  Dozens.  It was like ripping off a band-aid, to use an over-used expression.  But, it's over.  Well, at least for that particular day.  I've not looked ahead ...

I don't know what I did wrong halfway through that pretty day, up through the Waterford Flight, the clouds puffy-white and huge, the sky a bright blue.  But, something was amiss with me or the camera.  The truth is, though, it doesn't matter.  The lost photographs don't matter at all.  Being miserable about it isn't going to help anything or anyone, least of all me. 

Yes, I want to make pictures I like.  I want to enjoy the process.  But, I'm not going to obsess over getting it right all the time -- or ever, come right down to it.  I will strive for the best I can do.

So, I'll end with one more quote.  This one -- from Maria Schriver -- a little less heavy than those from Ms Schaef.

Perfectionism doesn't make you feel perfect.  It makes you feel inadequate.

Amen to that.

Sun stars

Yesterday morning dawned soft, the sky a rich shimmer of sherbet orange.  This morning was simply brilliant.  As I walked through the first curve on Woodridge Road, the low sun's rays pierced the trees.  Dazzled, I was grateful for the billed cap I was wearing and wished, although briefly, for my sunglasses.

It was only a thought, really ...  Sun stars.  Could I remember how to set up to make one with the camera?  A small aperture -- f16 or smaller. The most important thing.  I focused on the clouds, metered off the sky and recomposed. 

Ta da.

For another and slightly later effort, check out this link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarboxje/7583772228/in/photostream

Go, Ronnie!

Not until the local evening news did I have any idea of the honor held by the third Sunday in July. With six hours still to go before the day ended we jumped right in. Spoons poised.

It's National Ice Cream Day!

Seems Ronald Reagan's sweet tooth was not limited to jelly beans.  He declared the third Sunday in July to be set aside to honor ice cream.  Who knew?  In fact, the entire month of July is ice cream month!  I'm pretty far behind, it being the 15th already.

According to NBCNEWS.com it's also National Gummi Worm Day and National Tapioca Pudding Day.  Do you see any photographs of those two delicacies?  We're letting those two go.  Completely celebrationless.  Not making any promises -- not even a maybe -- for next year either.  It's ice cream or nothing.

Define art

Somewhere over the past several days a quote skittered before my eyes.  Had to have been on a computer screen, come to think of it, part of an email message.  Finger poised, I'd had to stop myself from pressing DELETE.  In fact, I stopped all together for the time it took me to decide not only not to delete the page but to reread, to really read the quote.  I wrote it down.  Then came the click of death.

Today.  Going through the images I made while Tal and I traveled earlier this summer.  Images of the Hudson River.  I thought of that quote again, now several pages back in the journal.  Find it.  Find it. 

And, get this, 9th grade English at Winyah High School in Georgetown SC came to mind.  Our text book was "American Literature," a 1965 Houghton Mifflin publication, edited by Schorer, Jewett, Havighurst and Kirschner.  I know that because, moments ago, I plucked it from the shelf above my desk.  I could make such an easy grab because I loved that volume so much my mother gave me the money to buy it at the end of the school year.

Photographed at the Hudson River
Maritime Museum, Kingston NY

It was that delight-filled class period which introduced me not only to the likes of James Fennimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving, but to the Hudson River artists of roughly the same era -- Frederic Edwin Church and Asher B Durrand perhaps the most recognizable names.  I remember being smitten with the quality of the light in their paintings and wondering if it really could be so.  I didn't see the Hudson River in person until the mid-1990s.  The light they depicted some 150 years earlier was just as I'd held it in my 9th-grade memory.

So, this week, today.  Holding in tension a quote, my memory of some 40 years ago, images from late May just passed.

Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.  -- Seth Godin

Art.  I grew up in a fabulous place filled with art -- representative American sculpture.  None of those 300+ works changed me, inspired me like what I saw in my treasured textbook.*  Part of that is the fact of living with all those bronze, aluminum, stone sculptures.  Too familiar.  And, for a creatively, artistically challenged child, completely out of reach.  Those hugely idealized landscapes (also unattainable for someone like me), on the other hand, were of places I'd never been.  There's a certain amount of romance in the faraway. 

What's ultimately true, however, is that one changed me, another didn't.

That's why there's all kinds of art, I suppose.  The creators -- courageous as they are -- produce something that is part of themselves and put it out there for others to look at, to like or not, even to disparage.  I think that is the reason Godin's definition of art kept me from an hasty delete.  There's nothing about beauty in it, or it having to be aesthetically pleasing or to be generally within some set of rules.  Art, whether it pleases or not, has the capacity to change. 

Recall that scene in "Mona Lisa Smile" when Julia Roberts' character, teacher Katherine Ann Watson, introduces her students to a Jackson Pollock painting.  It's wasn't of something, so it was somehow wrong, even unacceptable.  Look closely at the scene.  The students look confused.  Their lips even curl.

Art can change the viewer, changes us.  It's no wonder controlling art and the tussle over who controls art is such a hot (and grim?) topic.

The Hudson River at the Storm King

Still wandering

Since I wrote the post about Sunday's hymn and my response to it, a friend sent me a cheerful message on Facebook.  She referenced a photograph of a woman walking away from the viewer with the caption "Not all who wander are lost."  Made my day!

Off and on since then I wondered about that affirming caption.  Had I heard it before?  Where?  When?

Well, it comes from JRR Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."  Ah, that explains all the niggling, restless throat-clearing in my subconscious ... 

So, here's the the poem from whence the line came:

All that is gold does not glitter,

not all those who wander are lost;

the old that is strong does not wither,

deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

a light from the shadows shall spring;

renenwed shall be blade that was broken,

 the crownless again shall be king.

Reintroduced

When Sarah called this week to remind me that the sunflowers at White Oaks were in full bloom, I had a moment.  It was more than a just moment.  For a vivid split second I felt myself -- I was -- probably younger than five and standing near my father's fenced garden.  So tall sunflowers bloomed along the fence.  Dad's voice was saying something about how large the flowers are and how they keep their faces to the sun.  Before I recognized what was happening I was back.  Wow.

Early memories are few.  I do in a vague sort of way actually remember the garden and the sunflowers and my father's explaining.  It must have been very early.  Time for leisure activities like a vegetable garden and sunflowers didn't last long in my father's life.  But, after that encounter I could recognize a sunflower when I saw one.

So, today, while on errands along "the Ridge," I stopped at White Oaks to make pictures.  Alone in acres of yellow saucers, loudly a-hum with bees, I let the 55-or-so years compress, stepping back and forth between locations, realities, looking at sunflowers as though I'd never seen one before. 

Wondrous.  Simply wondrous.

Unfurled

The editing process for the photographs I made on our recent historic waterways trip has provided most of my post on this 4th of July.  I ended up with more images of the American flag than I'd realized as we traveled from Warren RI to Chicago IL for a couple of reasons.  First, it was windy and the flags were doing more than simply hanging there.  Second, I was playing with shutter speed, fast enough that I could handhold the camera and have stationary objects clearly in focus and slow enough to convey a sense of movement.  Flags were just the thing ...

Enjoy the flag waving and happy Independence Day.

at the locks, Oswego NY

Post Cemetery at Fort Ontario, Oswego NY

the Grande Mariner on Lake Ontario
between Oswego NY and Rochester NY

the Grande Mariner on Lake Erie
approaching Cleveland OH
(on a very windy day)

Cleveland OH

the Grande Mariner on Lake Erie
between Cleveland OH and Wyandotte MI

Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
at the mouth of Lake Huron

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island MI



The Field Museum, Chicago IL

The Field Museum, Chicago IL

Same ol' same ol'

Tal and I, wanting to fish in advance of the day's heat, were up early Saturday morning.  The pre-dawn was, indeed, cool, gloriously so.  To put aright the first bird's nest of fishing line I managed to make on the spool (grrr) my headlamp came in handy.

I didn't fish with my whole heart though.  The rising light was giving the sky shades of color that coudn't possibly be named and the clouds mesmerizing definition.  I set the rod and reel down frequently to take up the camera.

It wasn't until I began processing those images that I noticed something beyond the pretty morning and the fish on Satcher Pond.  It's disconcerting.  I take the same photograph over and over again. 

See for yourself ...

The subject of each image might be different, but it is the same pattern:  lower left to upper right, subject in the foreground, Satcher Pond in the distance, rule of thirds strictly employed.  Sigh.

I will make an allowance or two for myself.  To use the camera one-handed requires a finger of the right hand to depress the shutter.  So, the bluegill had to face left.  In the case of the swamp rose mallow, had I photographed the other side (1) I would have had to wade into the pond at least knee deep and (2) the light would not have illuminated the veins in the pedals or outlined the anther and stamens. 

Those excuses aside, though, I'm wondering if I need to mix it up. 

While we do read left to right, is that the way we see everything?  How hard would it be to make photographs the other way  -- upper right to lower left, for example?  Would it be as difficult as my using a pen with my right hand?  Might that adjustment slow me down, make me see as though through new eyes?  How would the images I moved from the sensor of the camera onto the computer screen be different?  Could the change of direction be confusing or awkward for the viewer?

Photography questions aside, I suspect I see life and produce opinions the same way I use a camera.  Perhaps I need to apply my questions to more than the way I compose an image. 

Leading lines

Every Wednesday evening this part March I participated in a photography class led by Jon Holloway, owner of the Sundance Gallery in Greenwood SC.  The four sessions were interesting and I enjoyed a distinct take-away each week.  The best part of the experience, however, came during the following month.  Jon asked us to complete a project to share with the class at the end of April:  at least 10 images, printed 5X7, matted and titled, and an artist's statement to introduce ourselves and our work.  I have been meaning to post the images and statement, "meaning to" being the operative term.  So, here on the first day of July, I am at long last making my move.

Lines: leading and otherwise

Janet E Tarbox

 This series of photographs is a concluding assignment for a class I participated in at the Sundance Gallery in Greenwood SC during March of 2012.  The title, “Lines: leading and otherwise,” is intended to provide the viewer a vantage point from which to observe the images.

As children we are taught to color inside the lines.  And, we spend a lifetime trying to learn when not to.  If we’re lucky we reach old age knowing – at least sometimes – when we’re being fed a line.  In the intervening years, verbally or not, consciously or not, we draw lines in the sand, as it were, and then dare anyone – even ourselves – to step over them.

For me, more than anything, lines are connectors.  Sometimes they are difficult to see – like the bonds of love among people.  Oftentimes, though, they are like those lines connecting towns on maps – the better the map the easier it is to plot one’s course.  It is lines such as these – connecting lines – that run through a photograph.  Like maps and relationships, too, some photographs are easier to read than others.

My interest in photography began almost before conscious memory.  My dad always had a camera with him; there was nothing better than being his assistant.  In the decades since I blissfully held the camera cover or fetched filters, photography has become a daily contemplative activity through which I explore the landscape of my life, a lens which helps define the path I tread.

I hope you enjoy identifying lines in these photographs.  It is my wish that they inspire you to consider the lines running through your days.

"Signs at Key Bridge"

"Along the Edge"

"Live Oak Allee"

"Ridgeline"

"Bottomland"

"Funnel Web and Resident"

"Paper Wasp Curl"

"Rose in Profile"

"Solomon's Seal"

"Dragonfly"

"Clouds and Contrails"

"Window View"

"Deer Fence"

"Words on the Page"

"Three Arrows"

Photograph: Late afternoon on Country Club Pond

I never tire of this scene -- the shallow end of Country Club Pond viewed from the dam.  The afternoon I made this photograph the sun was lowering rather fast and the clouds were dramatic.  I like the whitness of the winter-time tree trunks.

Super moon

With all the news and talk about the super moon scheduled to rise early this evening I had myself all organized to try out the various articles I have read about photographing the moon. 

It's difficult to get a superior single shot because of the disparity between the moon's brightness and the night's darkness.  One either gets good detail in the moon and nothing else but black or a clear night shot with the moon completely blown out.  The solution to that problem is to make at least two exposures, one metered for the scene and the other metered for the moon and then merge the images into one.

My plan was thwarted by the weather.  In the late afternoon the day's clear skies began to give way to high clouds and by dusk it was overcast.  Shortly after 9:00 with a noisy storm building in the west, however, I noticed moonlight outside the east-facing front windows.  Indeed, there the super moon was in a break in the clouds, but situation was changing quickly.  Because of slight fog the moon was not clear, so I didn't set up for multiple shots.  Rather, I took advantage of the trees to provide atmosphere and some texture to the scene.  Within ten minutes my opportunity was over.  Whew.

The storm is plowing through now -- loud, bright and wet.  I'm glad to have the image to prove to myself that I saw what I saw. 

Just a regular day

Indescribable.  This day.  Several obligations were on the calendar, a meeting here in the morning and a doctor appointment for Tal in McCormick during the afternoon the most notable.  It's something of a rarity, though, for a day to be as purposeful as this one.  I felt in some sort of a zone.  Not rushed at any point.  Clear.  Connected.  Able to enjoy everything as it came.

Late in the day we went outside the fence to put out corn for the ducks.  There are eight residing at the head of Country Club Pond, by the way.  Quite a crowd.  I had the camera with me, knowing that wood ducks are elusive and that I'd likely not get a shot, which I didn't.  The afternoon rain, though, had intensified the colors and textures on the forest floor.  A treasure trove of richness and beauty.  I got my knees wet.  

Simply super

Well, yes, the game was pretty super.  And even though I'd not breathed a word of it prior to kick-off for fear of jinxing the outcome (delusional to think I have that kind of power, I know), my preferred team actually won.  Something about a city-owned team ...

But, before that ... super started long before the football game.

I like the distinct shadow cast
on the second green by the tree
along with its indistinct
reflection in the water.

The sun was out all day.  After three inches of rain on Friday and total grey yesterday I found myself having to shield my eyes when I went outside, which was a often as possible.  With the air clean and clear the light was brilliant, illuminating things in such a way that caught my breath again and again, and casting dramatic, dark shadows. 

Our two walks -- one early, one late, one to and around the golf course's edge at Pine Ridge and the other along the promenade here at Willowbank, resulted in many photographs.  That activity I probably don't need to mention slowed our progress rather much.  But, Tal complained not even once!


Along the water's edge in the late afternoon

Football final or not, I'll take a day like this any time I can get it.

Closed doors

Tal and I had a plan.  After canoeing the Allegash in September and touring Utah's national parks in October, we had decided we would take only one trip during 2011.  That trip was going to be a long-talked-about train trip across Canada from Quebec City to Vancouver.

Yesterday afternoon I settled in front of the computer to sign up for the trip.  I was met with a single word:  WAITLIST.  Wrongly, we had thought four months to be enough lead time.  I cannot begin to describe the disappointment.  We had been so pleased with the prospect of that trip.  And, disappointment isn't even an adequate description of how I felt as a sat there, the news sinking in.  It was a state of bewildered inaction.  Plus, I was going to have to tell Tal.  Further, now what?

At some point during the remainder of the day, from the recesses of memory, the Erie Canal came to mind.  A short online search ensued accompanied by rising hope.  It turns out we are going to have a pretty terrific adventure after all. 

Seems to me that more frequently than not disappointment doesn't have to mark the end.  An end, perhaps, but not the end.  It was the mother superior in The Sound of Music who advised a disappointed postulant Maria that God wouldn't close a door without opening a window.  In that story and in her real life story Maria ended up with a family and a life she could never have imagined.  A convent it wasn't.  Her life's calling it was.

Likewise my photographic efforts.  Generally, I set out to photograph something specific.  If I am not concerned about time or personal safety and if I let myself get involved in the process, it often happens that eventually I see something else entirely or that I see the original subject or some aspect of it in a new way.  When that happens the results of my time with the camera bear little resemblance to my initial intention, more pleasing almost without fail.

At play

While Tal played a round of golf today, I played, too.  I went wandering in our woods with the camera.  Wandering with a purpose.  I was looking for vines.  Specific vines.  The kind that twine tightly around slender trees.  I found plenty. 

As it happens sometimes, what I was looking for ended up not being nearly as interesting as other things I spotted. 

Like vines not twining tightly around slender trees, but around each other. 

Like a chameleon doing a credible vine impression.

Like a view under our screened porch.

Because of a tenacious cold today was the first time he's been on the golf course since the first of December.  He is better, but his game is rusty.  His play today wasn't much fun.

Mine, on the other hand, was the best. 

Still alive

Elizabeth H Fitch at the
Kanuga Photography Retreat
during her illness
(image by KB Johnson)

The funeral of my friend, Elizabeth H Fitch was to have been at St Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Atlanta this past Tuesday.  Given the weather and all the resulting travel problems and given the number of mourners from places other than Atlanta who wanted to attend and needed the airport, the service was postponed until today. 

I had Elizabeth on my mind this morning while Tal and I drank coffee, read the newspaper, ate breakfast, those wonderful early morning rituals of which both of us are protective.  Later in the day it seemed uncommonly right to come across these words from Mignon McLaugheon: 

The death of someone we know always reminds us that we are still alive -- perhaps for some purpose which we ought to reexamine.

Still alive, I am.  And taking pictures. 

The day was bright and almost warm in the sun.  Tal and I bundled up and took advantage of this marvelous turn of events with a long, rambling walk.  We both managed to get dirty.  He slid down an incline on his rear end and into a ditch trying to reach an abandoned golf ball.  Successful and unhurt, by the way.  Getting this shot of a sweet gum ball I had to stretch out flat, resting my chin on the still very damp ground. 





Soggy knees and elbows. Fair photograph.  Unaccountably happy. Still alive.

Rest in peace, Elizabeth.  And, thank you for blessing my life with your presence.



My own "X"

A friend and I are reading a book together, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, by Barbara Brown Taylor.  She's an Episcopal priest who now teaches at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia.

It's going to be one of those books that ends up heavily highlighted.  That started two pages into the introduction.  There Ms Taylor managed to identify and illuminate the very thing I've been mulling over for months now:  the longing for something, the longing for something that seems just out of sight or out of reach, the longing for the something more that I, and I suspect lots of people, would like to understand  -- or understand at least a little.

No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it.  The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company.  All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need.  The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are. (xvi-xvii)

Looking toward the 14th fairway
at Pine Ridge Country Club
The yellow tree demanded to be noticed.

There's way too much to say in response to that paragraph in a single day's posting, especially late as it is.  Perhaps these images made since the first of the year shed light on my own "X."



Belle's feet front feet during a nap

Ice patterns on our front sidewalk two
days after the January 2010 snow


Looks like I'm standing in a pretty good place, huh?  I just have to keep looking around.