I ran a bunch of errands today and took a few pictures. I wanted to take a few more but got distracted while I was doing stuff and failed. Oh well.
Scenes from Today’s Errands
Tag: methuen ma
Methuen Vaccine Clinic
Methuen is setting up a vaccination clinic of it’s own. It’s at The Loop and it’s open on March 2nd. I just looked at the appointment sign up and it’s all booked solid. If you qualify, keep an eye on this site and maybe you’ll stumble on a cancelation or something. I don’t see anything about it being open beyond March 2nd, but I guess we’ll have to see. There are only so many vaccine doses available, and anyone with a brain wants one.
The Long Way Home
For the second day in a row I did some car vocals. Last night I wrote up lyrics for five more songs, all while watching The Bruins let game two slip away. I thought they were going to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat as Tampa Bay completely outplayed them, but no such luck. The Lightning took it in overtime.
So I had five more songs ready for bad singing and I drove to the movie theater again and cranked ’em out. There were no weird spectator moments like yesterday, but I did manage to wrap it up quickly (simply by choosing to not add harmony parts to one of the songs) so I decided to take the long way home.
Welcome to Flood Season
This is not an April Fools post. I know it’s on the internet, so statistically speaking you wouldn’t be wrong in expecting an April Fools post, but this one is just a normal boring Rob post.
The weather channel reported that there is a flood watch in effect for my neck of the woods. The flood level for The Mighty Spicket River is eight feet. As of this morning the river was at 8.1 feet. One of the spots being watched is the Hampshire Street bridge. I left the house early this morning and paid a visit. I should have brought my real camera but I didn’t. I only had my iPhone.
0.1 feet might not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to spill pretty far over the banks.
Forgiving my stupid shadow, you can see that the water is almost up to the bottom of the bridge. It’s not enough to worry about yet, but it looks like we’re one rain storm away from closing the road.
Here’s the view from the other side of the street.
The area right at my feet is usually dry land.
Again, pardon my stupid shadow. This makes me wish I had my ND filter so I could take some long exposures. Maybe tonight after work?
Most of what you see here is usually dry land.
I parked my car in what I believe is a bus company’s lot. I didn’t even notice that the back end of the lot was under water until just before I left.
One more for the road. Yet another lame attempt at being artsy. Urgh.
Long Exposure Tests
I took advantage of my new Monday telecommuting day by going to the gym (laugh), going to the store to pick up a loaf of bread, and by pulling into the Methuen Music Hall parking lot to do a couple more long exposure pics of the Spicket River.
This time the plan was to take the same pic multiple times, using different exposure times. First though, my house has central air. The AC was on most of the night. When we woke up today it was pretty chilly inside. Outside, however, it was already pretty muggy. Do the math… cold inside plus muggy outside equals foggy camera lens. Grrr.
Before I could start the experiment though, I had to rush through de-fogging things so that I could grab a picture of our friend the huge ass heron, who was just up river from me. He hung around for quite a while. He’s a good guy (assuming he’s a he and not a she, in which case she’s a good gal).
Next we have the just-when-you-thought-you-knew-what-you-were-doing moment where I forgot that I had the ISO setting up really high from yesterday. Woops.
Now that the silliness was over, I could begin the experiment. First I pointed the camera at the little waterfall and took four pictures. The first was a 30 second exposure.
The second was a 20 second exposure.
The third was a 10 second exposure.
And finally, a 1 second exposure.
Cool! Can you see the differences? Longer exposure means more light entering the lens and hitting the sensor. It also means more pronounced blurring. Shorter exposure means less light and less blurring. You can actually see it! I can’t decide if I prefer the 30 second or the 20 second.
Next I turned the camera down river toward route 28 where the river goes under the road. Again, four pics with four different exposure times.
30 seconds.
20 seconds.
10 seconds.
And finally, one second.
Again, the differences are pretty clear. Can you see the blurred cars on the bridge in the 10 and 20 second pics? I was so focused on the river that I didn’t even think of the road. Pretty cool.
Now that I’ve done this, I need to figure out what to do next. There’s always the Merrimack River, right?
Spicket Falls Dam
So let’s see here. I posted the long exposure pics from Tuesday. I posted the normal Forrest Lake pictures. I posted the Grove Street pictures. All that’s left is the non-long exposures from the Spicket Falls Dam. Guess what’s coming now!
I’ve seen the flow over the dam both much lighter and much heavier than this. Doesn’t matter, I like it no matter what.
I still haven’t been up on the walkway. Somehow it feels to me like I would be trespassing if I did.
Even with the light flow over the dam, you get a pretty good rush of water underneath.
The water on Tuesday looked pretty dirty to me.
A lot of the old mill towns in the Merrimack Valley have converted their old abandoned mill buildings into condos or apartments. This, I hear, is Methuen’s mill-turned-apartment. Not 100% sure of that, but I think that’s true.
And that, kids, is everything worth sharing that I took on my little walk around on Tuesday. Just a little touch of my town, Methuen, Massachusetts.
Forrest Lake
Methuen, Massachusetts has a town lake. It’s called Forrest Lake. There is a little swimming area that is roped off. There are picnic tables with hibachis. There’s a boat launch. It seems like a nice little place to bring the family to hang out. Unfortunately we have yet to take advantage of it. One of these days.
Yesterday was the first time I went there with my camera. I was there a couple of hours before it opened so, with the exception of the dude fishing over by the swimming area, I pretty much had the run of the joint. I took all of these pictures from the boat launch area.
The fog on the water was cool, but I would have preferred some sunlight.
What are the flowers on the lily pads called? Lilies?
This makes me want to buy a boat.
Geese, Canadian.
I did notice this guy hook something. Something big. It flipped out of the water and made a really good sized splash.
Fish tales told here.
This also makes me want to buy a boat.
Picnic table graffiti, romance style.
Ralph has a Last Name
On June 25th I entered a post that showed a photo of a headstone with some kind of moss growing on it.
Yesterday, while on my 30 second exposure photo shooting bonanza, I stopped by the cemetery on Grove Street in the hopes of finding a last name to go along with Ralph’s mossy headstone.
I was successful. Ralph’s last name is Harris.
Unfortunately there are no dates listed for him or his brother Jackson, only their parents.
His father, Samuel, was born on May 3, 1794 and died on June 1, 1874. Samuel’s wife, the former Roxgeny Woodbury, was born on April 4, 1798 and died on December 27, 1880.
There are actually five people in the family plot. There is father (note, a grounds keeping crew was cutting the grass while I was there. These stones will be looking much better kept by now):
Mother:
Ralph:
Jackson:
And Elizabeth, who I hadn’t noticed the first time I visited this family plot:
Elizabeth has dates on her stone, 1836 – 1910. I wonder if that implies that Ralph and Jackson died at birth? I hope not.
I have never met these people. I have no idea who they were or what they were like. It’s been over 100 years since the last date shown on the plot. Still, I just want them to know that some one is still thinking about them. Gone but not forgotten.
Feed the Flickr
I have this crazy need to upload pictures to Flickr and post them everywhere. I’m just pleased by the whole thing. I have always enjoyed clicking around on Flickr, and now it will just look 100 times better every time I do. I just want to feed a bunch of new pics to the machine, you know?
Here’s some old pictures that are probably already on this page somewhere, but what the hell, you know? Pics of my town.
I don’t know… maybe this is just me thumbing my very large nose at all the people who are so afraid of change that they are bitching and moaning about their online photography site placing it’s focus on photos. Really… how dare they, right?
Inside the Red Head's Head 