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You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road and In Your Backyard

On The Road and In Your Backyard

by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)|  July 18, 20175:00 am| 30 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

So far, this feature has been about travel, with the occasional “local” picture or two. I think limiting this to just travel is just that – limiting. So I’m changing this up a bit to include neat, colorful, funny, interesting, poignant, etc. pictures that don’t require travel – for you!

As always, if you’re on a trip or have a story to share, you can just pitch in below. Please hold off sending new pictures as we’re in the final testing stages of a submission function to make this feature less error-prone and a bit more automated. I hope to have it live by week’s end, and have plenty of pics until then!

Final maintenance note – in order to best support both desktop and mobile users, and especially those using older systems, I’m launching a new plugin later today to show pictures. It will show one picture at a time, allow you to zoom in to a full-size version, and will work the same on both desktop and mobile sites. Once that’s in, there will be one or more galleries per submitter per day. Should be snaz-zy.

Travel safely everyone, even if it’s just down the hall for that second cup of coffee.

 

And….I cannot upload pictures. <insert exploding-in-anger-Cartman> >

 

Have a good day folks, I’ll figure out what still needs resetting during the workday and not now, post-9pm.

 

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Previous Post: « Late Night Open Thread: Shameless (But Stupid — Very Stupid)
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Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    July 18, 2017 at 5:10 am

    If anyone sees Insomnia walking around, please kick him in the nuts for me. Thanks.

  2. 2.

    raven

    July 18, 2017 at 5:11 am

    Thanks, mon . . .

  3. 3.

    Baud

    July 18, 2017 at 5:12 am

    So I’m changing this up a bit to include neat, colorful, funny, interesting, poignant, etc. pictures that don’t require travel – for you!

    Nooooo! That’s how you dilute the brand!

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    July 18, 2017 at 5:36 am

    @Jerzy Russian:
    I don’t know, man. Insomnia sounds more like a girl’s name to me.

  5. 5.

    satby

    July 18, 2017 at 5:44 am

    Good morning early risers / insomniacs and good evening Amir!

    Alain might not be getting enough on the road pics, but where we all live is a road or plane trip away from the rest of us. So I’m cool with the expansion as long as it doesn’t bleed over into constant garden pictures or our Sunday garden chats will suffer.

    Amir, it would be great to see pictures of your country.

  6. 6.

    raven

    July 18, 2017 at 5:45 am

    Snow in San Anselmo

    The pancake house is always crowded
    Open twenty four hours of every day
    And if you suffer from insomnia
    You can speed your time away

  7. 7.

    Hal

    July 18, 2017 at 5:51 am

    Star Wars, but all the lightsaber sounds are Owen Wilson saying wow

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    July 18, 2017 at 5:52 am

    Ain’t WordPress fun?

    Painstakingly (heavy accent on the first syllable, there) designed by Murphy, plug-ins by de Sade.

    Missed this when it first appeared a couple of months ago – a little feel good story to start the day: Keep on keepin’ on, Mr. Motes. More power to ya.

  9. 9.

    raven

    July 18, 2017 at 5:55 am

    A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a fellow who I served with in Korea 50 years ago. He picked up my address from a site where my email was attached to a comment and he recognized me. There are now four of us who have a little Facebook page where we have been sharing pictures and memories. We had a sergeant who was a Korean war paratrooper and he impacted all of us so I set out to find more information about him. It turns our he died in Vietnam from an infectious disease. Anyway, as I searched around, I found a post from a woman asking if anyone knew him and asking about him because he was her grandfather and she had no pictures and knew nothing about him. I drilled down and found an address for her and sent her an email. She wrote me back and I was able to send her a couple of pictures and tell her a little bit abut him. Pretty nice to be able to fill in some blanks for her and her 5 sibs.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    July 18, 2017 at 5:59 am

    Having failed to buy myself an electric guitar for my birthday because Pubic Bank is for some reason not sending me the code I need to complete the online transaction (I’ll have to take that matter up with them) I have decided to use the online vendor’s cash-payment option — they give you a transaction number, and you use it to pay at any 7-Eleven. This will require splitting up the purchase to get under the cash-payment maximum: First, I shall get the essentials: guitar, thumb picks, amp, cable, gig bag, copy of Rock Guitar For Dummies*, essential setup tools. Later: other luthier tools, cleaning supplies, etc.

    *I hope this works.

  11. 11.

    raven

    July 18, 2017 at 6:04 am

    @Amir Khalid: An interesting little James Jarmusch film with a sub plot abut buying a guitar and a lesson CD online.

    Paterson

    “This is truly director Jarmusch’s ode to the artist/poet in each of us and in ordinary life. Creating art as best we can is a very personal thing, and for some it’s a need – while for others it’s one of life’s simple pleasures. Regardless, a “normal” life with daily routines is not to be scorned, but rather embraced, should you be so fortunate. If you doubt this, Paterson asks, “Would you rather be a fish?”

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    July 18, 2017 at 6:07 am

    @Amir Khalid

    So the bank is, shall we say, stringing you along?

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    July 18, 2017 at 6:09 am

    @NotMax:
    Yeah, and I’ve been banking there for 25 years. I’m so mad at them, I’ve left the L out of the first word in their name.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    July 18, 2017 at 6:17 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Pubic Bank

    Banking is … different … in Malaysia.

  15. 15.

    Quinerly

    July 18, 2017 at 6:26 am

    @Amir Khalid: @Baud:
    I’m glad we clarified this.

  16. 16.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 18, 2017 at 6:31 am

    @Baud: I don’t remember the gf mentioning this…but it sounds like your kind of bank, Baud. I’m guessing you don’t need to dress (up) to do business there.

  17. 17.

    Just one more canuck

    July 18, 2017 at 7:26 am

    @Amir Khalid: @Baud: @Quinerly: they could have some interesting marketing phrases

  18. 18.

    debbie

    July 18, 2017 at 8:04 am

    @raven:

    That is really great!

  19. 19.

    satby

    July 18, 2017 at 8:08 am

    @raven: that is nice, and very nice of you to do that for her!

  20. 20.

    J R in WV

    July 18, 2017 at 9:16 am

    @raven:

    Looks like she learned about a good looking, hard-working man that was her grandfather. Good deal~! that’s always good to know for anyone.

    My maternal grandpa died in 1951, which meant when I was under 1 year old. So All I got was mostly pictures of him dressed up, as opposed to the real him who was a mechanic at a big coal mine, and part time farmer with 3 kids. But there was a basement full of tools that he made, old dusty hardhats and dinner buckets, etc.

    And he was a blacksmith in WW I shoeing mules all day long to be shipped to France on cargo ships.

    So hardworking, could use his hands, built a farm, house, family and business while working for the man. Loving father and husband, nice smile.

    What more can a young man need to know about his absent grandfather…

  21. 21.

    J R in WV

    July 18, 2017 at 9:26 am

    @J R in WV:

    And later on I learned something else about 1951, Grandpa’s hospital bills to die of lung cancer and black lung ran about $16.00/day with a small added fee for his oxygen. For 2 weeks. So 14×17=$236 – in 1951 dollars, of course.

    Thanks, Raven, for the history lesson, and helping the young woman learn about her background, always helps to know where you come from.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    July 18, 2017 at 9:28 am

    @raven: There appears to be something in my eye. Both of them, in fact.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    July 18, 2017 at 9:30 am

    @Amir Khalid: It’s still your birthday week. :-)

    Do you really have 7-Elevens there?

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    July 18, 2017 at 9:32 am

    @J R in WV: Seems to me that a lot of that description applies to you, as well. Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree?

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    July 18, 2017 at 9:34 am

    @J R in WV: Years ago, I found the hospital bill of my birth in my mom’s “cedar chest”. I don’t recall the amount, but it was truly laughable. Perspective!

  26. 26.

    MomSense

    July 18, 2017 at 9:39 am

    @raven:

    You did a beautiful thing, Raven.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    July 18, 2017 at 10:04 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Definitely Poco’s kind of bank.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    July 18, 2017 at 10:19 am

    @WaterGirl:
    … And Starbucks, and McDonalds, and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and IKEA, and Tesco’s*, among many others. But no Walmart, thank God.

    *Great big British supermarket chain

  29. 29.

    Quinerly

    July 18, 2017 at 10:25 am

    @MomSense:
    Poco does give good goose.?

  30. 30.

    opiejeanne

    July 18, 2017 at 10:56 am

    @WaterGirl: My sister was a premie in 1952. I never saw the bill but insurance paid for everything including the three months she lived in the hospital because she was so tiny. 3 months early, 1 pound 9 ounces, a record low weight at that hospital for many years. In an experimental incubator for much of the time she was there because she wasn’t expected to live, and because of that incubator she isn’t blind like so many premies before her.

    Mom said they broke even on me but made about 30 dollars on her birth. They tried to point it out to the insurance company who told them to keep it, their bookkeeping would be messed up or something. $30 went a long way in 1952.

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