So on a recent trip to Vermont I actually found a way to entertain myself at a local antique shop. Usually, when I’m dragged to these types of shops, I wander around, staring at the ceiling, hoping my wife or family doesn’t take too long. I just don’t have the antique bug. I take nothing away from people who love antiquing, but it bores the hell out of me.
So at this recent visit I started checking out the various plastic dolls and statuettes, specifically their faces. And the more I …

If you thought watching television through a kaleidoscope would give you a headache, you’d probably be right. However, it just might put this parade of mind-numbing entertainment in perspective.
On my recent trip to Minneapolis, I was surprised that in addition to the squat tubes of soaps and lotions, a ubiquitous white robe and an overpriced minibar, there was a small kaleidoscope in the room, perhaps there to help adulterous trysters pass the time while they wait for their pot brownies to wear off. Because having looked through it at the …

I’ve been holding on to these photos.
Back in the summer, one rainy day I noticed as I was walking my dogs that the wood grain in the Adirondack chairs on my back patio looked like fish scales. And while when they were dry the chairs were gray, when wet the green moss in the cracks and hidden brown in the wood stood out.
I also took a few photos of a wet sawhorse I had used a few times to hold bed frames as I spray painted them white. With the …

Maybe you can help me find the name of this house plant, but what’s clearly my favorite detail about it is the almost painted-looking splotches on its leaves.
It was earlier in the summer when I took a couple of photos of the plant, captivated more by the living-ink blot pattern than the plant itself. I soon found that by switching the photo from color to black-and-white the contrast of the daubs of white on black leaves made for a fantastic image.
But this morning I tried something else. I dropped one …

I can’t paint.
I know I can write, and for the most part I take decent photos, though my subjects are still limited. I can draw a little, but all of my sketches are cartoonish and abstract. Realism, no chance.
But painting, no way. Luckily I have some prowess with digital mediums, so maybe, just maybe, I can satisfy my canvas craving that way.
Here is my first attempt.
The other day, as I was sitting in my office cubicle, I knocked my coffee mug with my elbow, which launched a bulb of the …