Manual Mode Part 3

It’s 20 minutes to 11pm and I am still up. I need to be getting to sleep soon because that sunrise is going to be here before I know it and I needs me some sleep. Still, I wanted to get the last round of pics from today’s Manual Mode Adventure out. I think it’s safe to say that nothing I took today is very good, but at least it’s all there.

Note that even if I was trying to sleep right now I wouldn’t be able to because one of our neighbors just set off a roman candle and it sounds like the Union Army artillery during Pickett’s Charge.

But I digress. These are all from Walnut Grove Cemetery. I tried shooting on film at this spot, but this is where the camera jammed on me and I fucked up my first attempt at a roll of my own (my first actual roll of film, what I will call my zeroeth roll because I am a programmer, was the one that Dad loaded back in the 80’s. I can’t really count that as one of my own even though almost all of the shots were mine. I will hopefully getting those images back early next week. Fingers crossed), so there are not going to be any film shots to compare against. It’s okay though, I just like this spot.

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.

My 2012 in Pictures – Part Deux

Yeah, I did a my-year-in-pictures thing the other day. It was fun. What the hell, thought I, why not do it again? This time I’ll run fast and loose with the whole one-pic-from-each-month thing. I’m crazy like that.

We have to get our pics of the Sands Bridge in Methuen before she collapses. Or maybe I should say before she finishes collapsing. It’s already started. Also, I don’t think I found a relative in the Grove Street Cemetery, but who knows?

In February I finally finished an RPM Challenge on time. It only took me five tries. We also got a new bed. Jen’s penguin approved.

In March, the kids and I became wilderness explorers. Hipstamatic came along for the ride. Actually, we just wandered around in the woods behind our house for a little while. It was fun.

April in San Diego. I want to go back RIGHT NOW!

May gave us baseball, Bar Harbor, and my first up close New England Lighthouse.

The picture pickin’s are slim in June, but we did get a new Rush album (and it is awesome) and we got another fantastic piano recital from the kids.

July offers more choices after a spontaneous trip to Boston, and a week long stay in Maine that included some time in the mountains of New Hampshire.

In August we went to the Top of the Hub for the first time in my life. The views of my city were spectacular. We also spent some twilight time on Hampton Beach.