Four Corners

Ever touched the corners of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah all at the same time?

Bet you haven't!

The Four Corners Monument marks the point where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet. For a century, tourists have ventured to the spot to straddle them all at once, striking poses straight out of a game of Twister for the best and goofiest Four Corners photos.

Trouble is, the monument is a bit off the mark. Congress designated the meeting point of the states at a longitude of 109 degrees 03 minutes West and a latitude of 37 degrees North. But Chandler Robbins, the surveyor hired to find this coordinate in 1875, picked a spot 1,800 feet too far east, and that's where the Four Corners Monument was plopped down. 

Still, as the National Geodetic Survey pointed out in a statement in 2009, considering the primitive  technology then available to Robbins, "he 'nailed' the location."

Despite the error, the position of the monument officially established the boundary point between the four states at that spot.

As the NGS put it, "In surveying, monuments rule!"

Kick Ass Life

You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer".  I know him on a more personal level. 

We share the same home state of Missouri and he was a cousin of my Great Grandmother. I say that with pride.

What you may not know is how much of a bad ass he was at living life. Here are a few tips of his for living an awesome life.

Mark Twain's Top Reasons for a Kick Ass Life

"It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”
“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

1. Approve of yourself.
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behavior and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want.

This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth. You may have all the right tools to grow in some way but you feel an inner resistance. You can’t get there.

What you may be bumping into there are success barriers. You are putting up barriers in your own mind of what you may or may not deserve. Or barriers that tell you what you are capable of. They might tell you that you aren’t really that kind of person that could this thing that you’re attempting.

Or if you make some headway in the direction you want to go you may start to sabotage for yourself. To keep yourself in a place that is familiar for you.

So you need give yourself approval and allow yourself to be who you want to be. Not look for the approval from others. But from yourself. To dissolve that inner barrier or let go of that self-sabotaging tendency. This is no easy task and it can take time.

2. Your limitations may just be in your mind.
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

So many limitations are mostly in our minds. We may for instance think that people will disapprove because we are too tall, too old or balding. But these things mostly matter when you think they matter. Because you become self-conscious and worried about what people may think.

And people pick up on that and may react in negative ways. Or you may interpret anything they do as a negative reaction because you are so fearful of a bad reaction and so focused inward on yourself.

If you, on the other hand, don’t mind then people tend to not mind that much either. And if you don’t mind then you won’t let that part of yourself become a self-imposed roadblock in your life.

It is, for instance, seldom too late to do what you want to do.

3. Lighten up and have some fun.
“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Humor and laughter are amazing tools. They can turn any serious situation into something to laugh about. They can lighten the mood just about anywhere.

And a lighter mood is often a better space to work in because now your body and mind isn’t filled to the brim with negative emotions. When you are more lighthearted and relaxed then the solution to a situation is often easier to both come up with and implement.

4. Let go of anger.
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Anger is most of the time pretty pointless. It can cause situations to get out of hand. And from a selfish perspective it often more hurtful for the one being angry then the person s/he’s angry at.

So even if you feel angry at someone for days recognize that you are mostly just hurting yourself. The other person may not even be aware that you are angry at him or her. So either talking to the person and resolving the conflict or letting go of anger as quickly as possible are pretty good tips to make your life more pleasurable.

5. Release yourself from entitlement.
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

When you are young your mom and dad may give a lot of things. As you grow older you may have a sort of entitlement. You may feel like the world should just give you what you want or that it owes you something.

This belief can cause a lot of anger and frustration in your life. Because the world may not give you what expect it to. On the other hand, this can be liberating too. You realize that it is up to you to shape your own life and for you to work towards what you want. You are not a kid anymore, waiting for your parents or the world to give you something.

You are in the driver’s seat now. And you can go pretty much wherever you want.

6. If you’re taking a different path, prepare for reactions.
“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

I think this has quite a bit of relevance to self-improvement.

If you start to change or do something different than you usually do then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is coming through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. I think it’s pretty likely that they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

So what other people may say and think and letting that hold you back is probably just fantasy and barrier you build in your mind.

You may find that when you finally cross that inner threshold you created then people around you may not shun you or go chasing after you with pitchforks. They might just go: “OK”.

7. Keep your focus steadily on what you want.
“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

What you focus your mind on greatly determines how things play out. You can focus on your problems and dwell in suffering and a victim mentality. Or you can focus on the positive in situation, what you can learn from that situation or just focus your mind on something entirely else.

It may be “normal” to dwell on problems and swim around in a sea of negativity. But that is a choice. And a thought habit. You may reflexively start to dwell on problems instead of refocusing your mind on something more useful. But you can also start to build a habit of learning to gain more and more control of where you put your focus.

8. Don’t focus so much on making yourself feel good.
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”

This may be a bit of a counter-intuitive tip. One of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to make someone else feel good or to help them in some way.

This is a great way to look at things to create an upward spiral of positivity and exchange of value between people. You help someone and both of you feel good. The person you helped feels inclined to give you a hand later on since people tend to want to reciprocate. And so the both of you are feeling good and helping each other.

Those positive feelings are contagious to other people and so you may end up making them feel good too. And the help you received from your friend may inspire you to go and help another friend. And so the upward spiral grows and continues.

9. Do what you want to do.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Note: Excerpted from thispage isaboutwords.com

Mama Don't Take My Kodachrome Away.

(DRAFT)


But she did...and the demise of Kodachrome color transparency film in 2009 attracted considerable media attention.  Click Here >>> A History of Kodachrome Film

Less well publicized was the gradual withdrawal by the Kodak Corporation of my favorite format, 35mm Ektachrome transparency film.  Extachrome was aimed firmly at the professional market when introduced as a sheet film in 1947.  Perhaps not coincidentally, my own year of birth.

I shot other film but Ektachrome did not require the complex processing that Kodachrome demanded, and the film boasted, in a number of products, a high enough ASA (or ISO) rating to to permit low light color photography for the first time. High Speed Ektachrome, the earliest Ektachrome manufactured in 35 mm format, was, at 160 ASA, the fastest color film available in 1959.  Ektachrome 400, introduced in 1978 (nine years after I purchased my first 35mm SLR camera).  It was the fastest transparency film of its day.  

I have been looking through the hundreds of color slides that I shot in the early days.  There is still something very special about the quality of Ektachrome that I appreciate.  It is totally different than today's digital images.  Or maybe, it is just me being nostalgic.  

Here are a few images that I converted to digital.  When I can remember, I will include details about the photograph.

Life's a Beach

You gotta  love this collection of beach pictures!

Vintage Beach Pictures <<<Click Here

Ticky Tacky

Ever feel like your life is like the words in this song?





Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Letting Go

Letting Go <<<Click Here

Getting up the guts to untie the dock lines and go cruising, or to drive out of the driveway and hit the road in an RV full-time, is often the hardest part of starting a new life of adventure and travel.  Taking that first step — saying goodbye to all that is familiar and comfortable — can be truly frightening.

Stuff

I was buried in STUFF...

A 1977 Nissan 280Z I planned on restoring taking up a spot in my garage that had been there for about six years.
A completely restored 1977 Porsche taking up the other half that I seldom drove.


A 1989 fully restored Chevy Silverado pickup truck that I had put only 3000 miles on in the last four years.
A Class A RV that mice were more at home in than me.
A canoe resting on the side of my garden shed covered with moss and mildew.
A storage area with boxes and boxes of stuff packed away years before.
A collection of at least 100 cameras collected over the years  and never looked at anymore.
Fourteen hundred square feet out of 2800 sq ft of furnished living space that I never used.
A 16 x 16 garden shed stuffed with garden tools and machines that hardly ever saw the light of day.
Mechanical tools that would have equipped three garages.
Six sledge hammers (what one man needs that many)

MORE STUFF  !!!

Probably 30-40 pairs of shoes.
Twenty suits.
Sixty t-shirts ( I counted )
Two laundry baskets of socks.  Some I had literally had for more than twenty years.
One laundry basket of underwear.
Shirts too numerous to bother counting.
A closet full of nothing but winter coats.

AND MORE STUFF  !!!

Pennies.  I took 4600 toCoinStar to be converted to cash.  Could barely carry the bag.
Shelves and shelves  of books that I had never read and never would.
Magazines that probably filled two large garbage bins.

Guy Noir

She stepped right up into the trailer, crimson hair glowing, lips painted a bright ruby red, those Double D's looking like they were going to pop the buttons off her thin white blouse and a yellow skirt so tight I could count the change in her pocket. 

She sat down on the bench seat, thumbed through a magazine I had laying on the shelf then turned and looked at me with those sparkling jade green eyes and said, "Nice RV sweetie, can you track down one for me?"

Guy Noir - "Travel Writer - RV'er - Trailer Trash Fan"

Surprise Me

I have done a fair amount of long distance RV travel.  I started camping in a tent.  Used my brothers Apache popup trailer on many occasions.  Took it all over Colorado.  Finally bought a 28 ft Class A, Itasca Windcruiser.  I have been RVing and camping in most of the Western states.  RVed in my Class A from Banff, Canada to Phoenix, AZ.  I now have a Southwind, Class A ( Jolene <<<Click Here) and a truck with a slide in camper( White Stallion <<<Click Here).  But, I have yet to full time.

I follow a number of full time RVers and try to learn from their experiences.  Here are some that I find quite informative.  I wonder what it will be like for me.

Technomadia  <<<Click Here

Read about "The Ten Most Surprising Things About Full Time RVing" written by Cheri Ve Ard.  It is very interesting.

 Kevin Mimms <<<Click Here

This full timer shares with us some of the things we might miss after moving out of our homes and apartments.  I don't know what I will miss most but I think it will probably be:

(1)  All the water I want to use in the kitchen and the bath

(2)  Privacy

(3)  Hot Tub

(4)  Home Laundry

(5) Workshop  (6)  24/7 HiSpeed Internet  (7) Car washing and cleaning

RV-Dreams  <<<Click Here

These full timers, Howard and Linda Payne, have been on the road since 2005.  They have one of the most informative sites that I know of.  One of the most useful sections of theirs is the financial breakdown of their cost of RVing.

Odd and Even

Did you know that our highways are even numbered starting from the South and ending in the North.
Odd numbered highways start their numbering on the West Coast and end their numbering on the East Coast.  Highway 101 seems to be a contradiction because there is a Highway 101 in both California and Florida.     For an explanation of this phenomenon you can Click >>> HERE

One of favorite highways has to be Route A1A in Florida.  It could have something to do with  the sand, the sea, the weather, and memories of listening to Jimmy 

Buffett's album years ago.

To learn more about Highway A1A you can Click >>>HERE

Have GPS will travel

It would take a long time to travel all these routes, don't you think?  I have been to all the states except Alaska, North Dakota and Maine but the only routes on this map I have traveled in their entirety is # 1 - the Pacific Coast Route and # 11- the Route 66 Route.  Maybe it is time to set some goals.

For detailed information on these road trips, Click >>> HERE

Then there is the Dixie Highway.  For the history of the Dixie Highway Click >>>HERE

... and the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first coast to coast highway!   For the history of the Lincoln Highway Click >>> HERE

Living On The Road

Care to sing along?


Click HERE to hear the song.











Living on the road my friend,                                              

Is gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron,
Your breath as hard as kerosene.

You weren't your mama's only boy,
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye,
And sank into your dreams.

Now, he can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to.
He only did what he had to do,
And now he's growing old