If you've stumbled upon this blog at all you've probably noticed that I like foggy nights.

Well, last night, in Orono and Bangor, it was a warm (50 or so degrees), delectably fog-filled treat (nearly as satisfying, albeit much less filling and less fattening than a a sugary treat like a whoopie pie!) of a November night..

Soft Sell

What I want to know is why didn't I get the same personal touch that JKirlin did? Is it because they're more attentive to the (potential) consumer in Times Square as opposed to the area near Madison Square Garden? Does it make that much of a difference if you're a few more blocks uptown? Is it because JKirlin is such an uptown kinda guy?

Blue skies were the norm in August and September

Here in the northeast part of the U.S.A. summer never really arrived this year. We (I was just one of many) complained loud and long about the gray skies and rain that dominated June and July. Since August 1st the skies have looked like they do above much more often than not. It doesn't make up for the lack of good weather (for golf, swimming, boating or otherwise enjoying the outdoors) in June and July, but it helps.

How'd they know just what to get me for the Guiness anniversary?

Guinness Stout turned 250 years old yesterday.

This fine looking truck rolled up just outside my front door in the early afternoon.

What's the time difference between Maine and Ireland?
It might have even arrived here at close to the time that everyone in Ireland was celebrating.

Warning!

Shutterday's theme this week is Bicycle.

Here's one that was tagged (but not yet bagged!) on the University of Maine campus in Orono.

Stalking the elusive Kirlin is very tricky come Festival time and provides great sport!

Come American Folk Festival time our friend Jeff Kirlin, when he's not squirreled away in his warm, dry, wimpy lair in order to avoid a little dampness and cool temperatures, scampers about the Festival site taking photos every few seconds. You can see a small portion of the photos he took on his flickr site and a few selected photos (with commentary, natch) on The Thing of the Moment blog.

We deployed four cameras and four photographers, knowing how rare an opportunity this would be, in the hope that we might capture photographic evidence that he does, indeed, venture out into the wild.

Several of these photos are mine.
Guest photography provided by Jennifer Murphy, Caitlin Murphy and Rose Murphy.

Jeff was the only person at the Festival that had a 'pants' clause.
As evidenced above, he was adhering to that requirement.

Whoa! Dueling cameras and Jeff isn't in on the draw!? Dude...!

Are we synchronized?

This is two years in a row someone's captured him while feeding.
Do I smell a National Geographic documentary?!

No longer in anything resembling his natural habitat.

So, how often have you had your lens(es) licked by a dog?

"This thing ain't going up until you lose a few cameras!"

Decides on LIFO algorithm and says goodbye to newest camera.

Liftoff! How many G's were you pulling?

Wish I could've been up there, too. Cool vantage point!

2009 American Folk Festival Set Up - Thursday

More Set Up photos from around the site.

Thursday August 27th

Still no beer...

Just needed a little touch up!

Can I use the crane to pull my pork?

Not so dangerous just yet...

2009 American Folk Festival Set Up - Wednesday

More American Folk Festival Set Up - Wednesday afternoon August 26th


Penobscot Stage

Railroad Stage

Beer tent set up

During the festival I usually catch Jack doing some heavy duty supervising. He's getting a good workout today and is earning his keep. Too bad there's no beer yet at the beer tent!

More Railroad Stage Set Up

This is about as empty as you'll ever see the Railroad Stage.

Heritage Stage

More American Folk Festival set up

More American Folk Festival 2009 set up from Tuesday (August 25th) afternoon.



Heritage Stage

Two Rivers Stage

Penobscot Stage

Vendor Area

Dance Tent

Steady rollin'

American Folk Festival set up - Dance Tent

A few shots of the Dance Tent being raised Monday afternoon.

A most welcome sign!

I had to run an errand in downtown Bangor today and happened across a crew putting up American Folk Festival signs.

Are you excited for the festival? I am! 17 Days to go!

For more info go to The AFF web site.

Summer finally arrived in August

It took a long time for summer to arrive, but it's certainly welcome after all the rain. We had a wonderful day last weekend with friends on Indian Pond.

Guest Photography on this one by Jenny Why_Me
(I'm the one on skis behind the boat)

Katahdin Building demolition - leveling the lot

One last post of a few shots of the now empty lot. Two from last night shortly after midnight and one, much more level, from today at noontime.

I don't know that I ever took a photo of the building as the main subject. Here are a few photos which have part of the building captured.





Another, somewhat abstract, photo of the Katahdin Building can be seen here.

A nice story in the BDN - WWII Veteran gets diploma

We met this gentleman last summer while we were checking out the preparations for the 2008 American Folk Festival. We had a very nice conversation with him. Nice to see this article about his delayed Bangor High School diploma in the paper and online on the BDN web site. Maybe we'll see him again in a few weeks when they start setting up for this year's festival.

Guest Photography by Jenny Why_Me

Katahdin Building demolition - late night

More photos from the Katahdin Building demolition.

Taken this morning between 3:30AM and 4AM.

Katahdin Building demolition in Orono

I wasn't able to be in Orono on Tuesday to see the start of demolition. Here's what's transpired over the last couple of days when I've driven by on the way too and from work. For more information you can see the Bangor Daily News article on their web site.



Wednesday (August 5th, 2009)

Late afternoon

Thursday (August 6th, 2009)

Shortly after sunrise.

There wasn't anyone around yet, so I was able to shoot from all angles without being in anyone's way.

Thursday

Late afternoon

Black & White photo for Shutterday

I think I like this black & white version of this photo better than the original.
It just seems ever so slightly creepier...

The original can be seen at:

link to the original post

Enjoying the nice weather - thanks Mother Nature!

Mother Nature's finally been kind to us.
We've been able to golf several days in a row now.

We finished our round late in the day on Monday.
Hooray for sunshine and shadows!
If memory serves, I made this par putt.

The shot below is from Wednesday, several days into August.
Even though the course has dried a lot and the ball has started to bounce and roll, Jennifer still managed to plug a ball.

When she hit it, neither of us saw it bounce. She said she'd probably found the only soft spot on that hole. Sure enough, as we got to the top of the small slope we were able to see a mud patch that was maybe 15 square feet that she'd landed in. Anywhere else and she'd have gotten a bounce.

This pretty much sums up our 2009 summer

2009 North Atlantic Blues Festival

The North Atlantic Blues Festival took place on July 11th and 12th in Rockland, Maine. We went down and, as usual, had a great time.

Here are some photos from the event:

Saturday's Performers, July 11th

Homemade Jamz Blues Band's Ryan Perry

Homemade Jamz Blues Band's Kyle Perry

Homemade Jamz Blues Band's Taya Perry

Matt Wigler played between sets all weekend long

Harper

Super Chikan

Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women - Ann Rabson

Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women - Gaye Adegbolola

Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women - Gaye and Andra Faye

Zac Harmon's Bandmate

Zac Harmon

Zac Harmon's Bandmate

Zac Harmon

Bobby Rush

It was sunny during the event all weekend long. However, the inescapable rain we've been getting did pay a visit overnight. There was no place for the water to go, so this is what greeted us at the start of Sunday's performances:

Sunday's Peformers, July 12th

Eden Brent

Mississippi Heat - Pierre Lacocque and Carl Weathersby

Mississippi Heat - Pierre Lacocque and Inetta Visor

Jimmy Thackery

Jimmy Thackery and one of The Drivers

Joe Louis Walker with Linwood Taylor

Kenny Neal

Tyree Neal

Kenny Neal Family

More of my photos can be seen here on Flickr

My wife's photos can be seen here on Flickr

Sunshine, deer and a towel, oh my

I had trouble focusing my eyes when I took this morning shot. We're not used to this much brightness of late.

The sun actually joined us for much of the day today, at least here on the UMaine campus. The top shot from this morning shows that some blue sky and shadow are at least circumstantial evidence that the sun exists.

The 2nd shot is from this evening. It almost looks more like a mountain than it does a cloud with that lighting.

A moment or two later I encountered this deer.

And a few moments later I found someone had forgotten or lost their towel.

Maybe they weren't aware that:

"If you want to survive out here, you've got to know where your towel is."

"A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have."

Sigh... Wet, rainy shots from the drive in to campus

Just what we needed... More rain!

Piering out towards the harbor

Looking out towards the harbor in Rockland, Maine.

Submitted to Unique's photo challenge for the theme Primary Colors.

Caterpillar on the golf course

We ran into this little guy the other day while golfing. He looks a lot more menacing (I know quite a few punks that would dig the spikes!) through the camera lens than he does from a regular human vantage point. He didn't want to sit still long enough for me to get a good focus on him with the macro setting, but these came out ok.

Eric Green - performing on The Blues Bus (WMEB-FM)

Eric Green performs live on my show The Blues Bus on WMEB (91.9FM).

Catch him this weekend at the Myrtle Street Tavern in Rockland as part of the Club Crawl during the 2009 North Atlantic Blues Festival.

Casual Water

It was soggy enough that it could be said that the entire course consisted of casual water.

These are not water hazards!

At least we finally got sunshine and a warm day. There are far worse places to be than on a soggy golf course!

(oh, by the way... That's not *my* ball.)

Gills. We need to grow gills.

Gills.

Forget viagra, cialis and enzyte!

We need a late night infomercial that sells a Gill Pill!

Good thing it's not February. I wonder how much snow accumulation we'd have had if we'd had this much (and we had a lot, anyway!) precipitation in February.

Sigh.

Heavy Sigh.

Belfast at night

Belfast, Maine on our ride home from Rockland.
Looking over the Passagassawakeag River towards Belfast Bay.

I was hoping there would be moonlight left when we got back to Bangor. It turned cloudy, though, as we drove inland. Then it rained (AGAIN! FOR THE 300,000th TIME SINCE MID-JUNE) just after we got home. Sigh.

Brian Templeton at the Time Out Pub July 6th, 2009

Guest Photography by Jenny Why_Me

Brian Templeton (harmonica) and Enrico Crivellaro (guitar) get down (literally) with the blues at the Time Out Pub in Rockland on Monday night.

These shots are from the first set.

What a difference a few minutes can make! The rest of the band arrived late after being held up by an accident on I-95. Templeton and Crivellaro were traveling in a different car and managed to be ahead of the accident when it occurred, so they held down the fort until the rhythm section arrived.

Just when we've gotten used to the gray...

Mother Nature favors us with blue skies and sunshine (note the shadows!).
Is she trying to mess with our minds?
Maybe we're just hallucinating.
Can we have a few more days like this, M.N.?

Fireworks in Bangor July 4th, 2009

I half expected not to see fireworks tonight. It rained (AGAIN!) much of the afternoon and evening. There were even a few drops coming down during the fireworks. A couple of those odd spots on these shots are raindrops on the lens.

Debris from Orono fire

There was a fire at one of Orono's landmark buildings (The Katahdin Building - built in the 1830s) on June 9th. There is still cleanup to be done. These photos (submitted to Photo Friday's Debris challenge) were taken on June 27th.

Evidence...!

Sunset over the Alfond Arena at UMaine in Orono

...that the sun still exists and the sky is not gray!

It hung around most of the day, even.

I was hoping that sunset would be more of a spectacle, given how long it's been since it's made an appearance in this neck of the woods, but I'll take it!

I've seen many flower beds that look like this lately

With all the rain many flowers can't support their waterlogged weight.
These are my neighbor's flowers.

Gray is the official State Color of Maine for 2009

This just in...

A citizen initiative to designate gray as Maine's state color has been approved by the legislature and the governor.

Mother Nature could not be reached for comment.

Fog! Night! Photo Ops! Bangor!

So, after work last night I was able to catch a little of Eric Green's set and quaff a couple of half-price pints at Luna Bar & Grill in Bangor. As I sat enjoying the tunes and the beer I could see fog rolling in over Bangor. When Eric finished I spent a few more hours (good thing I'm a night owl) roaming Bangor.

Here's a sample of the night's shoot - more on Flickr.

Misty sunset over the Stillwater River

I try and take a walk on campus in the evening, especially when it's nice and I can capture some of that golden hour light. Last night we actually had a sunset - something we haven't had in about a week. Often, it seems, following the evening light takes me over by the Stillwater River.

Last night I was just about to turn back and head for the office, figuring I'd taken enough shots recently of the river. I got just close enough, though, to spy some mist upon the river. I couldn't pass up some different conditions to shoot some familiar subjects!

I had originally planned to post these shots from home last night. My next blog entry will be enough explanation (Night Fog!) as to why that didn't happen until today.

It's been wet here recently. Did anyone notice?

Everything's a little bit saturated.

Did you know it's been wet here in the northeast?

And one last time... Has anyone complained?
It's been wet here.

Sweet sentiment

From my father-in-law's 70th birthday.

Submitted to Thursday's challenge for Sweet.

A Nickel and a Nail

With apologies to O.V. Wright and anyone else who's recorded the song...

Submitted to Macro Day's Coin challenge.