photo

    From Above & Holding The Line

    Auto-generated description: A helicopter is dropping water over a forest fire to extinguish the flames.

    These are two of my favorite pictures. I was extremely lucky to be driving down the highway and catch these guys working in the hills. I had my 200-500mm lens, which allowed me to take these shots. It was all shot out the window. I sat there for hours, watching these guys work. I would like to do this after I retire. I respect these pilots greatly. I was able to contact the pilots via social media and made sure they received copies of the prints.

    A helicopter drops water over a forest fire, creating a dramatic plume of smoke and mist.

    2025 Here We Come

    Auto-generated description: A colorful abstract display of blurred lights and shapes resembling a cityscape at night or a digital interface.

    I’m a Waking Up meditation app user, and Sam had a good New Year resolution conceptual frame to place around everything in 2025. I’m paraphrasing:

    Filter everything you do this year through the lens that this is your last year of life. It’s a clarifier of sorts, a filter for what you will do and not do. Would I do this? Would I care about this? Would I pay attention to this? A great example was, would you take the time to watch a lousy movie alone? Certainly not. How about watching a bad movie with your kids? Absolutely yes!

    Time with family, even during a bad movie, is precious. We will all have our own do’s and don’t do’s, but It struck me and made me think really hard about the things I’m going to do in 2025. 

    You can listen to the whole 8 min message here.

    Another great post about some life lessons and what you can apply to this new year comes from Maria Popova with her post 18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of the Marginalian. I love how beautifully she writes. I’m striving for many things on her list, like #14, “Choose Joy,” and #13, “In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again.”

    Wishing you all a fulfilling and productive 2025 filled with joy. Cheers.


    Welcome to cliff538.com

    Welcome to cliff538.com, I’m glad you’re here.

    The scaffolding is up, and the orange cones are out. We are fully under construction (well, aren’t we all. It’s a process… even at 55+ years old, I’m still under construction). Lots of changes coming as I figure out this Hugo blog generator and dust off some ancient HTML and CSS skills. This is my main landing page and a small blog for everyday stuff (I think, maybe just a landing page. Keep it simple, Cliff…), along with my micro.blog. The primary blogging will be done over at Exposed To Want.

    I just don’t know about design yet and how this is going to work, but that’s half the fun, figuring all this stuff out!

    My life quote right now is from Rene Descartes:

    “You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing" 

    Find me across the interwebs at these locations:

    My primary blogging is done at: Exposed To Want

    You can find my Photo Stories at: Exposure

    Take a look around my Flickr and check out my photography

    My Micro.blog is here

    Finally, GitHub