Overfalls

Overfalls, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

The Lightship Overfalls under a perfect early June sky at Canalfront Park, in Lewes.

Come fishing

Come fishing, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

The fishing fleet in Lewes Harbor on an early summer morning.

A Hot Day on the Fairway

Fairway, a photo by mmahaffie on Flickr.

I played a practice round at Old Landing Golf Course outside Rehoboth Beach today. It was a very hot day. I didn't carry my clubs, but I did walk the course. I'm glad I took along enough water.

Just Because This Picture is Simply Charming

Gee-Up!, a photo by josefnovak33 on Flickr.

This is from a great flickr group called The Smiling Victorian. Found via the cool web editor at NPR's Fresh Air.

"Make Up Your Own Rules"

It's graduation season and I am enjoying watching a variety of graduation addresses. Here's one from author Neil Gaiman, who is one of my favorite writers and who is modeling a new way of living as an artist and writer... on social media and the web.



Here's a part of the speech I found very interesting. It comes at the end when he has already given advice about akin art and living as an artist.

We're in a transitional world right now, if you're in any kind of artistic field, because the nature of distribution is changing, the models by which creators got their work out into the world, and got to keep a roof over their heads and buy sandwiches while they did that, are all changing. I've talked to people at the top of the food chain in publishing, in bookselling, in all those areas, and nobody knows what the landscape will look like two years from now, let alone a decade away. The distribution channels that people had built over the last century or so are in flux for print, for visual artists, for musicians, for creative people of all kinds.

Which is, on the one hand, intimidating, and on the other, immensely liberating. The rules, the assumptions, the now-we're supposed to's of how you get your work seen, and what you do then, are breaking down. The gatekeepers are leaving their gates. You can be as creative as you need to be to get your work seen. YouTube and the web (and whatever comes after YouTube and the web) can give you more people watching than television ever did. The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. 

So make up your own rules.

Blackbird Creek, From a Canoe

Blackbird Creek Canoe Trip, 5/17/12, a set on Flickr.

On Thursday, I took the morning off for a naturalist-guided canoe trip on Blackbird Creek, in New Castle County. It was a part of the outreach programming from the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve, a part of DNREC. My boss took the morning and came along, as did several members of the staff of a company called Delaware Interactive, with whom we have been partnering on several eGovernment projects lately.

Our Purple Tree, Spring 2012

There's a purple-flowering tree in our yard. I think, technically, it is called a Redbud. All I know is that each spring it goes through a purple phase before turning green.

A Walk Through Historic Williamsburg

The second part of our Williamsburg visit was a day spent doing the historic part of Williamsburg. It's important to note that a single day isn't really enough, but it is a very nice way to spend a day and we had nearly perfect weather.

We saw the key things we wanted to see and returned in the evening for a lovely meal at the Kings Arms Tavern, where nearly a quarter century ago (!) I proposed to The Lovely Karen.

A Visit to the College of William and Mary

We're in Williamsburg, Virginia, for a few days of spring break. We wanted a get-away and we've taken advantage of the visit to start Christina's college search process with a tour of the College of William and Mary.

William and Mary is a tough place to start, I expect. It's such a lovely campus and seems a desirable place to go to school. I worry it might spoil the game for the other schools.

On the Street Where You Lived (Part 2)

I spent some time this weekend searching through the newly-released 1940 Census records for information about my parents' childhood households. I didn't find anything really new about my family, and there's nothing here that they couldn't easily tell me themselves, but I'm a data geek, a history buff, and a former Census Liaison for state government, so this was fun.

Part 2: The Farrars of Meadow Road
My next search of the 1940 Census was in Greenwich, Connecticut, where my mother grew up in the neighborhood of Riverside. Her family lived on Meadow Road, at the apex of the triangle it forms with Tower Road. They were part of Enumeration District 1-62.

My mother, Judith Farrar, was nine on Census Day in 1940; she would turn ten later in the spring. She was the youngest of three children of John and Roberta Farrar. Her sister Joan was 14 and her oldest brother, Robert, was 16 that spring. Their parents were both 41 years old.

The household included a nurse, 48-year old Edna Bullock from Massachusetts. She was there for Joan, who was unwell. There was also a maid, Geneva Lumpkins (I think), a 20-year old from Alabama. My mother tells me that Geneva was not there much longer. As she put it, "The war changed a lot of things." Robert and their father would both enlist; Robert became a navigator on B-17 bombers out of England.

Before the war, though, my Grandfather was making films. The Census form lists his occupation as Movie Director. My brother John found a listing for his company, Mercury Pictures, in a 1948 edition of the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. He also owned a hardware store and wrote jazz music.

Among the other occupations listed in their neighborhood in 1940 was an interesting mix of the wealthy and people who work for them. There were lawyers, publishers, and bank vice presidents, as well as maids, cooks, housemen, and a butler. That neighborhood is still very high rent; last time we visited we had to get special permission to go through the gates.

In Part 1, we looked at my father's household.