Ballard

Walked around Ballard - could not find anything, could not see anything.  Maybe it's cause I'm to chicken to lie on the ground, maybe it's cause I have not been out taking pictures for quite a while.  Whatever the reason Federal Way, Ballard, Kent, Auburn, Tacoma just seem to be miles and miles of houses and yards and parked cars and busy streets.  There is no space, no small and forgotten areas.  Trash everywhere.  Puddles and rain - can't get the camera wet.  Can't go out.  It takes hours to get away.  Away from people and traffic.  There is no stillness.  Just wet pavement and city lights.

Taken at the Flood

~~~

Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe:
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Where will the currents serve?

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out
to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.
And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.

Getting Started

Drove around some today, drove up north, drove down south. Drove and drove and drove. Traffic and lights and nowhere to go. Short on ingredients. Wanted to take pictures - could not get started.


I have a car that won't start. An old trooper. I love that thing. I used to drive around with a sleeping bag and a change of clothes in the back - hoping, waiting for adventure to strike. Took it over Steven Pass once - one of the last cars over before they closed it that weekend. The heater was dying - glass was fogging real bad, had to rub my hands against the glass to keep sleet from turning to ice. I have always wanted to put a bike rack on the top of this vehicle. Drive as deep as I can drive then ride till I can ride no further. Then start setting up a base camp for hikes and pictures.

But it does not start these days. Something is broken deep in the block - I've heard rumors that it could be the spring that maintains tension on the timing chain. So it sits. 300 miles away.


Won't go.


I can want it to go - but all the want in the world can't make that car go.

I could sit in it and pretend that it works. I could close my eyes and dream of far off adventures. I could sell it - I could go out and try to find one just like it. Red with dinged up doors, new seats, a shift knob I made from a chunk of Madrona, and a Maglite holster. I could search in junk yards and used car lots and find something close, 1990 Isuzu Troopers are not hard to find these days - they are not the easiest cars to own.



I could sell it, I could give it away, or . . . . or I could drag it out of Karl's driveway - park it, and start saving the 2,000+ dollars I'll need to get it repaired. It could take a while. It could take a very long while. I may find a year from now that I no longer am so attached to it. But in the meantime I'm saving up looking forward to all of the hard work that engine repair entails.


It will take lots of hard work someday, and some planning on my part now. I don't know if I'll ever get it started again.






I hope it will, but even if it never does, all those places I wanted to visit - they aren't going anywhere soon.

2009 in 13 minutes

2009 from Neil Jeffers on Vimeo.

2009 - A year I won't soon forget.

The year in pictures - most all the pictures I have (about 1000 were misfiled and did not make it in). Sorry none of them are photo shopped, lots of them are of people I don't know. There are some from a few jobs, a few taken while I was working for the city. The weird thing is that I can tell you where each shot was taken, all 8,891 of them. It took forever to piece them all together as the file sizes were starting to get huge, even longer to upload. It's a long piece - 13 minuets so I don't expect many hits. Each shot is only on screen for .125 of a second - so if something seems paused - it's not - it's just several shots in a row.

If you get tired of trying to let it stream - you can download it here

Mr. and Mrs. Marston!!!

Engagement Shots

Rehearsal

Booth-Men

Sometimes the rehearsal can be longer than some would like

Big Day!!