Electric Heliotrope Theater light show

Tonight I photographed a cool art project presented at Jazz Central on East Washington Street here in Syracuse. Essential there are motion sensors "read" your movements and translate them into an endless array of light patterns. It is most spectacular. This is one of those cool things I get exposed to via my job that I probably would not check out on my own. I am not sure how long this will be at Jazz Central, but while it is there you can walk in and move about the screen and create your own personal light show. Jazz Central is located at 441 E. Washington St., Syracuse. Their number is 315-479-5299

You can see more <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/09/crave_festivals_the_electric_h.html">photos here.</a>

Photo of Bird Skeleton

I went up into the attic of our Chaumont house to try and find location of a roof leak and discovered a bird skeleton. It appears it has been there for a long time. I find it visually interesting and snapped a couple shots with the iPhone. The brightly colored rendition of one of the photos was created by increasing the color saturation with Photoshop.

Chicory Weed Flower

Some times, for no explicable reason something catches my eye and I am compelled to photograph. Such is the case with the Chicory Weed flower. I was taking the ladder down at my Frankin St. house when I spotted the purple bloom. (Or is it blue?) So I snapped it with the iPhone V.

Roof leaking and more painting

I use a 2"x12" pressure treated plank as a scaffold to work from. One must exercise caution when working in such a way.

Painting continues at the Franklin St. rental. I decided to rig up a scaffold to get at the side of the house where the electric service comes in. Those big electric wires make me nervous. Working off the plank I was able to get the area around those wires scraped and primed yesterday. This morning I was going to put a finish coatr on before I went to teach guitar. However, those plans were foiled because of a heavy rain and thunder storm last night. It was still raining heavily this morning. Most depressing. We have had a lot of rain this Summer. I am sick of it. On top of that a roof leak revealed itself in our Chaumont home. I know the roof is old where the leak showed up, but I inspected it earlier this year and thought it would be OK until I completed work on the Franklin St house. Now I have to do something quick about the roof.

Setting up this plank to work from made it easier to scrape and paint around electric service wires. 

Incidentally, look at the ladder in the upper photo. You can see I have laid a ten foot, 2 inch by 12 inch plank against the rungs. I then wrap a chain around the plank and ladder and pad lock it. I put it there before I leave for the day so as to deter any kids who might happen to wanna try and climb the ladder. It also makes it more difficult to steal the ladder which costs me $325.00 about 5 years or so ago. The alternative would be to take down the ladder and plank and set it up again when it's time for the next coat of paint. That ladder is heavy and cumbersome to handle. By the way, if you are interested, the plank, a ten foot 2 x 12 cost twenty bucks at White's Lumber in Watertown.

House painting continues

Yesterday I got the first coat of finish paint on the front lower section of our Franklin St. house. I also scraped and primed the side of the house with the electric meters. I spent seven hours on the job yesterday.

The Franklin St. house August 21rst at left, yesterday, September 8th on the right.

I  also scraped and primed this section that has the electric meters.

House painting continues

This morning I put in two hours if guitar practice. Then I went to my Franklin Street apartment house and put the final coat of paint on the upper front section. (All told it was scraped and caulked, some siding boards replaced then primed and two coats of paint. ) Next I took care of my mother's banking. All of that done by 12:30
Now I am off to photograph for the Post-StandArd and syracuse.com

Cazenovia high school football practice

I spent a part of the afternoon photographing high school football practice in Cazenovia, NY. These two photos were from that.

These football photos were taken Tuesday September 3rd. Yesterday, the 5th I attended a funeral for Doug Wood, musician in Watertown, NY. Doug died at home. He had health problems related to drinking. He was 57 years old. Doug leaves behind a wife and two sons. Doug was well known in the community, an excellent musician, played piano, guitar, and oboe. He taught music and was the organist at St. Anthony's church for more than 20 years. I met Doug around 1980. He and Ron Sacci founded Black River Music store. I met them both when I went there to take guitar lessons. We became friends and eventually I started teaching guitar there. Doug was always even tempered and never seemed to get rattled. He was always ready to lend a hand. When one of his sons became bed ridden with serious medical issues Doug became his full time care giver. So we gathered yesterday and paid our last respects.

House painting with Glidden Paint

For the past month or two I have been working on my rental house at 807 Franklin St., Watertown, NY. I am trying to get the exterior painted. It has really deteriorated into an aye sore in the last 3 or 4 years. The inside is pretty nice. I spet agood portion of today there replacing sections of missing wooden sideing and other odd and ends. However, it rained off and on through the day slowing things down considerably. Here are some photos of the front paint job:

It has been slow going. The upper section you see in these photos has been slow because I must be cautious working up high off a ladder. I am scraping the loose paint, priming it with Glidden Gripper primeer and finishing with Glidden exterior latex house paint. Musically I have been working up an arrangement of Neil Young's song Harvest Moon. Beautiful tune.