For you folks that think old and dated is bad and new and fresh is good, if you’re still married you better not let your spouse hear you say that. For us older gents, surely some young ditzy coed that giggles at all of your old worn out jokes is going to provide a more satisfying relationship than with your tried and true spouse of however many decades.

With everything new and improved, there’s usually a teeter totter relationship with what it replaced. For example, my mom paid $50 in 1949 for her heavy, metal Sunbeam electric mixer. 50 years later I gave half that for a nice plastic cased one from Wal Mart. It was quieter, lighter, more speeds, couple of glass bowls and so on. A year later my son used it to make bread and stripped the plastic gears. Mom’s old Sunbeam was still running.

CHG Canon just keeps firing away! He also has some very original lines!

One thing he missed is the environmentally conscious people buy electric cars to save the world. I’m sure going mirrorless will also save the world one way or another. Maybe put the mirror making military industrial complex in their place when nobody wants mirrors.

Rat killings, now that takes skill! In a dairy barn cows were fed twice a day and cows tend to be sloppy eaters with grain falling out of their mouths. That makes for easy pickings for rats and they multiply profusely. Us kids had our favorite clubs, heavy sticks or paddle shaped boards. Go into the barn about 10pm with the lights off, one would man the light switch and the others ready to throw open the lids to the feed bins. On “go” the lights came on, the lids were thrown open and we started whacking startled rats. The rats are very fast and smart, making the Superbowl look tame in comparison. It was all fun and games until a big black snake moved into the barn and the rats moved out.

I’ve mentioned it here before but like the time I was at the Milwaukee Museum of Art. There was an empty, clear, hollow acrylic cube approximately 12-14 inches square setting on a pedestal. It was empty and initially I thought they had removed the piece of art inside. No, it was named “Nothingness” and the void on the inside was the artwork, if you can call the absence of anything art. Even throwing paint has more thought and effort invested than buying a hollow cube and claiming that you created art.

You are quite right in saying that photography is art. And it is probably easier to draw or paint some figment of your imagination than it is to actually photograph the same. Anyone can draw a unicorn but to photograph one is far more difficult.

Don’t think art is lost on me. Trains go by my house everyday and I see the rail cars tagged by someone with a can of spray paint. Some of it is really good, especially considering the size of their “canvas”. Too bad they can’t apply their talent in a more constructive manner.

I turn table legs and such on a wood lathe. To make one look good, it certainly takes an eye for shapes, contours and perspective. So I think I know the difference between something done in an artistic manner and merely throwing paint or displaying nothing and calling it art. Instead of spending a lot of time and effort sanding and varnishing a piece of furniture I just built, maybe it would look better if I just slopped on the Minwax from a distance. Maybe make some varnish water balloons. That would undoubtedly have a good effect upon something I’ve invested $800 worth of walnut I’ve milled myself and invested countless hours of labor.

Great shots!

Why are old barns so cool? For us that grew up on a farm in the old days, the main barn was the sun that the rest of the farm’s world revolved around. That’s where cows were fed and milked, where calves were raised, sick animals tended to, hay and grain stored and where we kids spent a considerable amount of time playing.

Yes the smaller satellite buildings served more specific purposes and helped support the main barn, but the big barn was where the whole family bucked hay bales in the loft, where we kids played hide and seek and had our nighttime rat killings, scooped ear corn and is where we help deliver live calves from difficult deliveries and had loved animals die there.

Is it any wonder that when a newly married Amish couple set up shop so to speak, the big barn goes up first, even before the house gets built. Without the barn, the farm is nothing. That’s why I hate seeing old barns fall down, they used to be the beating heart of the old time diversified livestock, grain and hay farm.

How right you are! You don’t need to have any artistic talent as long as you are a good salesman. Don’t believe me? Jackson Pollak. He literally throws a bucket of paint onto a canvas and calls it art and then gullible people pay big bucks for it. A monkey could throw paint, forge JPs signature and nobody could tell the difference.

Maybe I’m just envious that I didn’t think of throwing paint first.

As for proof, look at the post named “Sandpiper” two spots down. Yes, that’s what your legs look like.

My kids would appreciate the next to the last with the guy in shorts. My kids ask why I don’t wear them and I tell them it’s because old guys have such ugly legs and knees.

And for all you guys on this site that wear shorts, yes your white skinned hairy legs with knobby knees ARE ugly! And any woman that says your legs look just fine is lying and either wants to spare your feelings, wants you to buy her lunch or mow her lawn. Growing old with dignity includes admitting that no one in the world wants to see your toothpick legs!

It looks like the old barn is still pretty solid structurally. The roofing doesn’t look too hot so hopefully they will fix that before it goes bad. Once the roof starts leaking, it’s lights out in short order for old barns.

The Nikon manual even tells you how to do it but I’m not brave enough to try it.

One time I got a telemarketer to tell me how much of the money I gave would actually go to the charity, in that case a support group for the families of police officers injured or killed in the line of duty.

First off he was not a policeman or anything, but a paid solicitor. And only 10% of any donations went to the charity. I said no thanks.

If that was true, Washington DC would be burned to the ground.

Funny! In that case I just hope they never put a processor and wi fi into toilet paper. I don’t really want people knowing my bathroom habits! Gives a whole new meaning to calling someone an “ugly ass”!

I hope the electric toothbrush my son gave me for Christmas doesn’t have a processor and gps. They could tell everyone in which room I was standing when I brushed my teeth. As if anyone would care.

I’m waiting for someone to put a gps into a 9/16” box end wrench. I could use an app on my phone to find it because I never can.