The Weekend ...well, ends.

I've been contemplating, mulling, thinking, you know that thing one does with his gray matter between the ears. It became clear to me that once a week, I should get to wax poetic about whatever I feel like, be it politics (oops, scratch that one), cameras, philosophy, writing or just plain whatever I feel like.

So, from this Sunday on, I'm going to do just that. In what may appear as random Kerouacian train of thought, I'm just going to practice in writing what I do best...whacky ramble. Hopefully, some of it will amuse and sometimes even make one think about stuff. (Stuff, incidentally was made famous by the late great George Carlin.)

One thing that capped my month off was a.) the cover on ShutterBug. (I'll have the comp' issues in Tuesday and, unlike every other magazine I've been published in, I plan on keeping these somewhere safe) and b.) the check was nice, too. I really want to thank George Schaub, editor of ShutterBug, for giving me that cover. It came at an opportune time for my ego.

I want to thank Diana for all of her hard work making appointments, keeping the books, being my "bud" and keeping the websites straight.

Of course, my number two and three fans, Justice and Lucas. Two great kids they are! I get sunburned a lot from their erroneous thinking that the sun rises on Dad.

Finally and certainly not least, all my friends who would call themselves "clients" who have supported me over the past years. You guys are awesome! You've been there, too when my head got a tad large and I love you all.

We actually got out of the house today and drove up to Alpine. It's a cutesy little town east of San Diego up in the dry air about 2,000 feet. We took our cameras. I took it all as usual feeling a bit like the proverbial mule.

We had lunch at a Bistro...Bistro translates to expensive. Just as Ristorante also translates to expensive. This was a ristorante/bistro. Even a 'burger was 12 bucks. So I opted for a salad and Diana, as usual, observed "It's all so expensive." Ya gotta love this girl. This is the lady who reads a menu from right to left. No it's not a Dutch thing, it's price to food index. She shops for everything that way.

I looked in my pinhole camera bag (see how I sneaked that in?) and lo and behold, I only had two rolls of Superia left. For me, that's about enough for an hour of shooting. To quote Herman Munster "Darn. Darn. Darn." You see what digital does to your brain? YOu forget that you can only use film once. It doesn't reuse well.

The clouds that were at home on the ocean had disappeared. The wind was non-existent. Not boding well for pinholes. But, we put about 110 miles on the Jetta just roaming around the San Diego mountains getting lost and enjoying the incredible sunset.

And then! We drove home. We got back about 8 p.m. and both just crashed.

Now does it get any better than that? The best things in life really are free. Well, about $3.09 a gallon, but I didn;t count that. We drove. We talked. We planned.

In fact, we are planning a shoot in Pima Indian country, Coolidge, Arizona, after Christmas (we have a little gadfly to swat first) and then we are spending a few days on the reservation (Thanks, Cathy O) photographing these wonderful native Americans. We hope to get a book together and publish that in 2010.

So, tomorrow, I am back in the office, looking through another form of lens and looking forward to seeing some old friends (who are better, I hope) and seeing new unmet friends who we can encourage to get better.

All in all...it's a pretty good life. (I do miss Italy, though). Gadfly be damned.