A Day at the Beach

A day at the beach
I found this neat little bit of graffiti while wandering around the old Quincy Mill site near Mason. This was in a hidden building which used to be the power plant for the mill. The inside was covered with graffiti, but most of it was the usual: random names, numbers, "Hoton" (you know, because being from Hoton makes you so much more ghetto), etc. This one caught my eye because it was much more artistic. A lovely beach scene -- on the massive cement support for an old steam turbine.

At the same time, Kyle and I had to watch our backs carefully, as a paintball war was going on in the old mill buildings and the forests around it. Some people don't care about the history of the Keweenaw, I guess.

Watery Leaf

It's fall!
... and you can order a print of this photo!

... so it's time for photos of leaves! The colors are coming along pretty well here. This leaf was in Quincy Creek, which is a well-hidden creek out near Mason. The creek also has some lovely small waterfalls -- photos of those are coming soon. My next goal is to get up to the Cliff lookout when the colors are at their peak!

Sunset Silhouette

The Quincy roundhouse at sunset
Like this? You can order a print!

Old ruins + sunset = abstract. Also, Quincy is within a stone's throw of my house (ok, I'd need to spend some time at the gym). So I tend to spend a lot of time there when I want to get out of my house.

The Door Out of Summer

Looking back to summer
It's past Labor Day, so that means school has started again: I'm teaching Calc 2, taking Statistics, preparing for Comprehensive exams in January, and recovering from a bike-induced shoulder injury which is keeping me from doing almost any of my favorite activities. Dangit, where did summer go?!

Bonus points for anyone who catches the reference in the title of the post.

Nails

An old Quincy roundhouse door
I grabbed this shot randomly while at the Q&TL Railroad presentation early in August. I think it's a nice example of depth of field, and how that can be used for interesting effects.

Dancing Tree

Dance, tree, dance!
Yet another photo of trees in the pine groves along the old Q&TL railroad. One of these trees is not like the other ones, one of those trees just isn't the same...

Another interesting fact which we noticed: the various pine groves are all standing on very steep hillsides, but the tops of the trees are all at almost the same level. I don't have a good photo of it, but the trees at the top of the hill are noticeably shorter than the trees farther down the hill. The trees all appear to be about the same age. Any ideas?

The Great Nerf War of '08

Sergeant Sommerfield prepares to face the enemy

I love my housemates...

... but we're still finding broken nerf dart heads under the furniture.