Author: mdeanstrauss

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Money for nothin’

There’s a slow rolling environmental disaster occurring in Blackhawk County, IA where I live… The Emerald Ash Borer is boring its way through the heavily populated Ash trees that grow in this region, and sadly, my yard had its fair share of those large trees. The Borer digs into the tree weakening it, which eventually results in the tree’s denouement.

Fallen Ash tree in my yard…

Besides the loss of the beauty that the Ash tree lends to the landscape, the tree itself, when compromised, can be downright deadly. If you’ve ever seen a full size tree fall, there’s no warning and it falls immediately with the full force of gravity. A full grown tree is quite heavy and will kill or crush anything in its downward path. As you will note in the photo to the right, we had one unexpectedly drop a few years ago. Fortunately, it did not hit my house or my neighbors, but took out some new expensive landscaping that we put in the season before and destroyed a perfectly good Oak tree as it fell. Finally, it was an expensive clean up.

Not dead, but mostly dead…

With some anxiety Nettie and I recently concluded that the remaining two Ash trees that dominate spaces in both the front and back yards were dying from the Borer invasion. The typical symptoms of sparse vegetation at the top and new odd sized green shoots emanating from the lower portion of the tree convinced us that those two trees had to get got as soon as practical for safety reasons.

So, I took some bids from tree removal companies. Because Ash trees are dying all over the county, the tree guys have more work than they can say grace over, and they can charge whatever the market will bear.

The first tree guy I spoke to we had used before and his pricing was, in the past, reasonable; however, this time his pricing was almost double from last year… See what I mean about what the market will bear? In the end, we could not use him because he cuts strictly from a cherry picker truck and our tree in the back was inaccessible to him. He informed me that we needed a “climber” to get the tree in the backyard.

So, I took two more quotes. The first quote was really depressing as he wanted many, several thousands of dollars. The next guy also wanted thousands of dollars but he was at least two thousand less than the previous guy! I shook hands on the deal with the second guy and his company Twin City Tree Service would do the job.

The wood chipper arrives…

The tree guys finally arrived yesterday after weeks and weeks of waiting. Being retired, I was around for most of the action. They were a professional group, all wearing company t-shirts, hard hats and with three trucks full of equipment.

As you can see below, they used a portable platform to get up into the heights of the tree and methodically whittle it down. Then the tree was dismembered and the remains hauled away. I am not sure what happens to the wood, but a lot of solid bodied electric guitars could have been made from those trees.

  • Tree removal hardware
  • Whittling it down
  • Hauling it away

It was very nice in that the wood hauler used rubber tracks instead of wheels which was much easier on my grass. The final step in the process besides fine cleanup was the grinding down of the stumps, which can be seen below. It was a pro job with the use of curtains to limit the spread of the ground chips.

Grinding down the stump.

Twin City did a great job, but in the end as the title of this entry states, it was “Money for Nothin'” as Nettie and I poured several thousands of dollars into a process that left nothing but a slight depression in the yard. I will miss those trees but I’m glad they’re gone and the worry along with them…

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North Carolina… nothing could be finer…

with my brother in Winston Salem, NC…

I came of age in North Carolina, so it is a very important location to me… I have two children, three grandchildren, a brother and his family, and some of my oldest friends situated throughout. It was North Carolina to where I drove two days cross-country to spend a week or so with friends and family… I’d been looking forward to this trip all summer and timed it to coincide with the beginning of school back in Iowa… I wanted to be away from that craziness, having just retired… bwahaha…

My first stop along the way was at my brother Brian’s house in the Greensboro, NC area. He’s about 10 years younger than I am, and a retired physician enjoying his life immensely. He loves traveling around the world…

I had great fun catching up with him, as well as with his wife Andrea and his daughter Maddy… We had a grand time at one of Brian’s favorite watering holes, The Wise Man Tavern, a craft beer distillery and entertainment space in Winston Salem, NC. The Tavern is built within an old downtown warehouse… Classic gentrification and renewal of an old mercantile district. It’s an excellent space and the weather was perfect for a late August weekend in the South!

I had the great good fortune to see the new grass band Gipsy Danger playing inspired covers of “bluegrass-rearranged rock songs, such as the Beatles “I Am The Walrus” or Fleetwood Mac’s “The Weight”… They get the house rockin’… and you know what? Tar Heels party way better than the folks do in the midwest… no doubt about it… Click just below the name of the band on their image to follow a link to a Dave Matthews cover…

Bourbon Cask Aged Brewski

The beer was killer too… I had a dark beer that’d been aged in a previously used bourbon distillery cask. Tasted great and went down smoothly which just a hint of bourbon flavoring… pretty high alcohol content; however, I only knocked down one…

After two days with my brother, I took off for Chapel Hill, NC, one of my absolute favorite places on earth… every time I’ve ever left Chapel Hill in the past, I’ve always wondered if it’s the last time I’ll get back, but somehow I manage to do so… I spent the afternoon and evening with an old frat brother, Ron Parks, an artist and long time musician who plays in multiple bands, as well as writing and recording his own songs. We drove to Cary, NC where one of his bands (The Doug Prescott Band) was playing at a local art festival.

Ron ripping out a solo on his vintage Strat…
Doug Prescott Band, with Ron on rhythm (left) and Mike (right) on lead…

In this particular band, Ron serves as rhythm player, but gets the opportunity to sing and rip out a solo lead on occasion. Most of the leads are played by Mike who rode along with us to Cary. I had great fun comparing notes on guitar playing and pedals with Mike. I shot a series photos of the band, post-processed them and loaded them up to my Zenfolio hosting site for the band to use. I you click on the image you can follow a link to the Zenfolio site.

Best of all, that night after Ron and I ate dinner in Carrboro, a twin town with Chapel Hill, we went back to his home and played guitar together into the night. Ron was way patient with me, adding fills while I played my repertoire of old country blues tunes. He played a Breedlove acoustic dread, while I plugged into my little Mustang travel amp and played my Taylor T3, semi-hollow bodied electric.

After spending the night at Ron’s, I tooled over to the Research Triangle Park in Durham, NC and spent a couple of days with another frat brother from days gone by… retired naval captain, Mike Schoedler. I had an excellent time catching up with “Sheds”… we took in a film one night and the next, Sheds cooked up a great batch of seafood gumbo and Ron came over for the final gathering of old TEP’s (Tau Epsilon Phi.)

me, Sheds and Ron…

I am incredibly grateful for the kindness shown to me by my brother, his family and my old frat brothers during my visit… on to Wilmington to see my daughter Sally and her family… perhaps my son Ben will find us too… and Nettie arrives Saturday!

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Road Trip…

Highway 380 on the way to Cedar Rapids…

I’m a road warrior… I hate flying, but I’ll hop in the car without reservation to visit friends and family in the east or travel out west to the spaces in the U.S. that I love the best.

Besides a brief trip to Kansas City to visit Annette’s brother and to see the traveling “Hamilton” musical, I stayed home in Iowa for most of the summer. With the season approaching an end and my old university, where I recently worked, firing up classes next week I thought it would be a great time to get out of town and take a road trip.

This is my first “retirement” road trip and the plan is to visit my brother and his family, hang with two of my old frat brothers from my days at Carolina, and to wrap up with my daughter Sally’s family, including a brand new grandson… This would be a trip across country from Iowa to North Carolina, landing initially in the Greensboro area, then a trip to Chapel Hill, concluding in Wilmington on the coast.

According to AAA, the trip would be roughly 16 to 17 hours by car, so I chose Winchester, Kentucky as my 2/3 of the way point across the country. I like to do the heaviest lifting on the first day of a trip. I took a reservation at the Hampton Inn in Kentucky… my experience is you can travel almost anywhere in the U.S. on the interstate system, stay in Hampton Inns and eat at McDonald’s or Cracker Barrel… Not 5 Star travel but works for me…

So what’s it like driving half way across the country? Initially traveling through Iowa and then Illinois, it’s gently rolling terrain dominated by cornfields and the occasional soy bean plot. I thought late summer, the road traffic would be thinning, but no, I was wrong… still a lot of folks on the road…

  • Cornfields out the right window…
  • Busy roads in late August…

You know you’re making progress when the Mississippi is crossed heading east out of Iowa into Illinois! Then its endless highway for hours and hours where the geography barely changes and the frequent nutcase driver flies by or someone else blocks traffic in the outside lane until you hit Kentucky where small rock outcroppings suggest that the Appalachian Mountain chain is not far off…

  • The endless road…
  • Crossing the Mississippi…

With about 650 miles done, the reward is a meal at the Cracker Barrel and a night at the Hampton Inn…

  • Cracker Barrel porch…
  • An above average Hampton Inn room…

The second day of the trip is dominated by driving for hours through the mountains of Appalachia via Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and finally North Carolina. This particular day I spent much of it driving through pelting rain which made the mountain curves even more harrowing then usual…

Dropping down into North Carolina…

Finally after two days behind the wheel… NC feels like home, but it’s not… I came of age in NC but spent most of my life elsewhere… still feels like home, but it’s not really…

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An Indispensable Companion…

I retired recently, which is several years before my wife, Annette plans to do the same. So most mornings she packs off the university to do her good work as an academic unit director. For me the house goes instantly quiet, which would be a bit unsettling were it not for my constant companion, my dog Nike…

Since my childhood, I’ve always had a dog or two around. In fact, I could not imagine life without a dog… I’m a dog person… I’ve had cats too and they’re fine; however, every cat I’ve ever owned has gone bad, soiling the house… No more cats…

Of the several dogs I’ve had live with me, some have been excellent, but Nike by far is the best dog I’ve ever been involved with. Indeed, as I was writing this piece she interrupted so that I would let her in the house from the backyard and then she promptly jumped onto my lap. She is a most attentive creature.

Nike is a Brittany. As her breed suggests, her gene pool was refined in the French province of the same name. At one time they were referred to as Brittany Spaniels; however, some years ago the AKC decided they were different enough from their Spaniel cousins to drop the designation. Now they are just plain Brittanies. Brittanies were bred to be hunting dogs, specializing in pointing and retrieving game birds. The characteristics required to be an excellent “gun dog” include toughness, endless energy, and intellect. Nike possesses all those characteristics in spades. She is the brightest dog I’ve ever taken into my life. In fact, she’s scary bright. Very little gets by her, she’s exceptionally attentive to her people and quite demanding too. When it’s time for her long evening walk, she will let it be known with a verbal lecture.

as a pup on the hunt…

Like most dogs too, she can be a pain in the ass at times… Stealing food from the kitchen counter, seeking attention by dragging out underwear from the dirty clothes basket, or excavating the yard. Nevertheless, taken in balance Nike is an indispensable companion and member of the family.

I do not hunt, so Nike does not get to express her instinctual gifts in the field, but she compensates… She roams a nicely sized yard bound by an “invisible dog fence” which gives her the freedom to police her kingdom. Living adjacent to the woods, there is enough wildlife activity to keep her in Defcon 1 mode most of the time. In fact, as sweet as she is to our family, Nike is a stone cold killer. She’s recently bagged three ground hogs, two of which I was able to save, and just the other day while Annette and I were sitting on the back porch, she nailed a big fat squirrel and dispatched it before I could intercede!

Fact is, she’s becoming a much more effective hunter over time. She studies the behavior of rabbits, ground hogs, birds and squirrels like a Talmudic scholar and knows intuitively when they make a mistake and expose themselves. Like a P51 Mustang fighter plane going after a Japanese Zero, she goes in high and fast and makes the kill… It’s a bit unnerving but I love that dog and she keeps me good company.

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Stayin’ Alive

“You know it’s alright, it’s okay
I’ll live to see another day…” Bee Gees

When you get to retirement age, like I am, it’s fun when you’re healthy, and you want to stretch that time of life out as far as you can, but it takes work… as you get older, there is less margin for error… it’s bad form to let yourself go as it’s much harder to claw your way back to a healthy level of fitness… On the other hand, moderation is important too… don’t want to injure joints or give yourself a myocardial infarction…

Stayin’ Alive takes time to maintain fitness, and luck to keep away the “undertoad” that can drag you away into a riptide of no return. So you do what you can… try to eat healthy and control your body weight, especially if you have a history of diabetes in your family… ugh… In the end, Stayin’ Alive means staying active… i.e. exercising…

Awesome hydro-massage bed…

During the non-ice/snow season in Iowa, cycling and long evening dog walks are helpful. Year round, going to the gym three days a week, I think, is essential. Most larger towns have gyms available for membership, and one of the great deals is Planet Fitness, or as I call it The Planet… It’s hard to beat… I think entry membership is around $10 and then there’s the Blackcard membership that I have which is an agreeable $20 per month. The Blackcard allows me to bring a guest like my wife or son, let’s me use Planets in other cities, which I’ve done, and gives me access to tanning booths, which are dangerous and stupid to use, but also gives me access to the hydro-massage beds which are awesome and a great way to end a workout!

Another really nice thing about The Planet is that it actively seeks members from all walks of life… It is definitely not a rhoided-up, muscle head joint, with grunting and weight slamming… there are other places in town for that… The Planet frowns upon such unruly muscle head behavior… it’s really quite civilized…

So, if you’re like me and want to stay one step ahead of the grim reaper, meet me at The Planet! There’s treadmills, cycles and ellipticals for cardio stuff… free weights and all sorts of machines for muscle and bone health… Lots of helpful people too… See you there…

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Whaddya Got to Say?!?!

Over a billion people have stand alone cameras or phones equipped with camera, and the world is awash in digital images… conservative estimates are 14 trillion photos per year! What are all these photographs about? Let’s speculate about some common ones:

  • Family and friends
  • Selfies documenting activities, trips etc.
  • Documenting activities and objects observed
  • Artistic expressions
  • and so on… just look at Tumblr, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram

I’ve done all of the above with either an iPhone, a pocket camera (rare nowadays) or a pro-type DSLR Digital Single Lens Reflex); however, the most gratifying are the artistic expressions that I try to create using the camera.

Using a DSLR, for me, is a craft in how the technology of a moderately complex mechanism is brought to bear on a subject, along with the associated post-processing software. But most importantly, it is a medium for creative self-expression.

Creative self-expression is where the rubber meets the road. It’s a combination of the eye for a composition and the execution of a vision by effective use of the craft. Most importantly, I think, for effective creative self-expression one is best served by having something to say with the image. This can be seen on Tumblr, where the most effective photographers exhibit a thematic sensibility with their images. In other words, the most effective photographers have something to say with their photographs about a particular subject. That’s not to say that photographers need to limit themselves to a single subject; however, flitting around all over the place does not give viewers a sense for your identity as a photographer.

For me, one of the best example for what I have to say involves tall grass prairie wildflowers. The countryside of Iowa, where I live is dotted with restored prairies and some ancient relic locations that have existed for thousand of years. Every summer, the prairies bloom an incredible variety of flowers which are quite fun to photograph using close-up or macro techniques.

When a thematic area is addressed in detail, one’s eye may develop to the point of creating a relatively unique view and expression of the subject to the point that a reputation for expertise is developed. For example, I’ve been requested to shoot prairie images for my university’s Tall Grass Prairie Center!

Get proficient and create a body large enough and then you can do an art show… share what you have to say about a subject! Below is an art show of my prairie and landscape (another favorite subject) photographs at our local downtown coffee shop.

Let me wrap up here as this blog entry may be getting too long… Many times I’ve heard others say “I’d like to get into photography”… Here’s what you do: get a camera, learn how to use it, take photographs and demonstrate what you have to say about a subject!

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On the bedstand…

I’ll be with this tome for a while, weighing in at just over 700 pages. Because I read the previous two books in the trilogy, I was pretty charged up when I first noticed this book was to be published and pre-ordered it on Amazon… Despite my early order, it has been sitting around for several months waiting for me… I have to steel myself for a Don Winslow book as they are typically very dark…

The Border is the concluding book in a trilogy focusing on the illegal drug trade that filters up into the U.S. primarily from Mexico, but also involves Central America. It’s a really deep dive into Mexican politics, corruption and the every day people trying to carve out a life who are often victimized. The other two books were, The Power of the Dog and The Cartel. If you ever saw the wonderful film Sicario, then that would give you some idea of the subject matter.

This book in particular, as noted by the title, is particularly topical given the daily turmoil on the southern border of the U.S. According to the reviews I’ve read Winslow offers his own dark insights as to what is really happening, going deeper and on beyond was the mainstream media offers.

I’ll be leaving next week for a road trip to North Carolina with my guitars, and this book will be along for the ride.

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Moving on from Adobe…

Capture One workspace and post-processed image of prairie bloom…

Back in 2005 I purchased my first DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera and was quickly appalled at how flat and drab looking the photographs looked onscreen despite being shot with a “dead-on” exposure value. What I learned quickly was that DSLR images must be post-processed to draw out the essence of the image.

Often fine tuning included adjustments to:

  • Highlights and Shadows
  • Contrast
  • Saturation of color
  • Brightness
  • Clarity

This had to be done using post-processing software and it had to be purchased separately from the camera. At first I used Nikon’s NX, but their support and the functioning of the product became very sketchy, which was a shame as it worked quite well. Then I transferred to Apple’s Aperture which was outstanding, easy to use, effective and, over the course of time, I happily went through several upgraded versions of it and it only got better.

While I was plugging along with Apple’s software, there was an ongoing debate among the photographic cognoscenti about Aperture vs Adobe’s Lightroom and which one was best. Lightroom would eventually dominate the landscape as it worked on multiple computer platforms. Even so, I was very pleased with Aperture and saw no reason to switch to what appeared to be a more clunky Lightroom until Apple, as they do, pulled the rug out from under me and killed support for Aperture, which meant that as Apple’s operating system was upgraded, Aperture would no longer work in the near future.

So… reluctantly I switched to using Adobe’s Lightroom for post processing. Fortunately, my university supplied the Adobe suite to professor’s as a perk and I had copies on my office desk and personal MacBook. Lightroom worked just fine and also recognized plugins that I had been using with Aperture, namely the Nik plugins that are so useful for somewhat fancier post processing, such as local spot changes to an image or state-of-the-art black and white conversions.

Then I retired from the university. Silly me… I thought that as an Emeritus Professor I would still have access to Adobe software… wrong… literally the day after my last day, I got thrown under the bus… I was cut off and no more Adobe Lightroom… I was loath to use Adobe on my own because of the egregious monthly charges they insist upon and it was just not that good… Constantly being upgraded, it never seemed to improve and always remained, in my judgment, a bit clunky.

So I shopped around for a replacement and frankly there are not many. Only one stands out as a legitimate contender. As with the Adobe products you can buy a monthly subscription to Capture One, but Instead I purchased a stand alone copy. My wife subsidized the cost as part of a birthday gift.

So far, I am very pleased with Capture One. It does everything that post processing software should do both precisely and quickly and works well with my Nik Plugins. Since photography is one of my important retirement endeavors I am delighted to have a decent, beyond Adobe, post-processing platform!

Capture One post processed image of a common prairie forb (bloom)
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On the bed stand…

After slogging through to completion a history of the U.S. involvement in World War I, which was actually a rather dry accounting, I was in the mood for a summer page turner… Fortunately, I had one on hand, courtesy of a birthday gift from my son Parker…

This is the second book I’ve read by Blake Crouch… He happens to be a graduate of the University of North Carolina, so I feel a modest connection to him. The first book, Dark Matter, was a sci-fi adventure involving quantum mechanics and multiple universes and it was entertaining enough for me to consider reading his new one. Recursion is about the nexus of time and memory and thus far is a great/fun and interesting read. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart of stories about time travel and the paradoxes it entails, with the possible exception of Star Trek episodes where time travel was too frequently used to solve improbable plots…

Up to this point in my reading, I would recommend this book…

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Not Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock… but good enough…

CVAGA performance at Overman Park bandshell… About my clothes… I was at the gym earlier and thought I would have a chance to change… I was mistaken…

I’ve written before that playing in front of people is equal amounts of stress I and excitement; however, the most important thing about it to me is that performing helps me to take myself more seriously as a musician, such that I am… this past Friday night I had the opportunity to join several guitar players on stage at Overman Park in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The “concert” took place the couple of hours before dark, after which a film is shown on an outdoor screen… that night it was Ironman…

Each musician or group of musicians was granted a 15 minute time slot, which in reality was more like a suggestion, as some players seemed to linger on the stage for much longer…

the Bandshell looking outwards…

The entire experience actually lasted quite a long time. As a player, I was asked to help set up. I arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon and was early, so I took the opportunity to climb on the stage and look out at the park before people would arrive in a couple of hours. The weather was lovely for a mid-August date… Days like that are the payoff for suffering through long, brutal Iowa winters.

  • Sound system set-up…
  • CVAGA Banner at the Bandshell…

It was not long before the other performers and the sound tech arrived for set up. The sound system was a real pro rig, including monitors for the players which I had never used and was delighted to get the experience. You can see in the image above right that the event is hosted by CVAGA or the Cedar Valley Acoustic Guitar Association. Rick Vanderwall, a friend of mine, and original founder of the Association invited me to perform. I was somewhat ambivalent, but he insisted, and I am glad, in the end, that I agreed.

Overman Park Bandshell during set up

You can see from the image to the left that Bob’s Guitars underwrites the concerts. The Bob was there with his wife Avis and their dog Scout. You will most often find them all at his shop when its open. I’ve written about their shop before…

Yours truly awaiting my turn for sound check. Note my pedal array at my feet which allows me to sculpt my own idiosyncratic interpretation of country blues.

It was a bit nerve wracking waiting for sound checks to occur. Here I am on the left patiently waiting for my turn. Despite the fact that the host organization is an acoustic society, I was told there were no hard/fast rules, so I decided to play my semi-hollow bodied Taylor T3, along with my pedal array. My teacher and family all concurred with my decision to go electric. Ah yes… I think that Bob Dylan would have approved too… Other than one snide comment that I brushed off, everyone else was cool with my choice.

I played a 15 minute set of finger-style country blues. Fortunately, I got to play first, which is what I really like to do at open mic events. i.e. Get it over with! Though there are lyrics to each of the tunes I played I did not sing. At this stage of my player development, the finger-style patterns are too complicated for me to sing simultaneously. Further, I am not confident that my singing voice would complement my playing anyway. My set included the following tunes:

  • Corinna Corinna; traditional… arranged by Stef Grossman
  • Railroad Bill; traditional… arranged by Etta Baker
  • Police and a Sergeant; Rev. Robert Wilkins… arranged by Catfish Keith
  • Cocaine Blues; TJ Arnall… arranged by Stef Grossman
  • Shake Sugaree; Elizabeth Cotton… arranged by Stef Grossman

I think I played reasonably well… actually as good as I can at this stage of my development. Iowa audiences are typically very kind and they acted appreciative. My family and friends thought I did well too, but it’s always hard to tell if they are being nice or really mean it… My wife Nettie was particularly pleased with the quality of the sound system and how my playing came across, so that sounded like a legit “mazel tov!” I was most excited that the sound guy, who hears a lot of performances was delighted with the combination of my choice of music, my playing and the tone sculpting that I do with my array of pedals.

Me and my main-man Grant…

In the end I was glad I did it and I was equivalently glad when it was over with. Here I am afterwards relaxing with my main-man and fellow musician Grant, who was kind enough to capture my performance.

All’s well that ends well…

my travel rig the night of the show…