Malia and I went out for a walk yesterday and had a great time. This time I took my camera and enjoyed the cool late afternoon light.

She started doing jumping jacks at one point for no explainable reason.

Then she wanted me to shoot a picture of the flowers just coming into bloom. Spring is on the way here in Texas, and the buds are already appearing on the trees. But the afternoon shadows are still long, and it's a month yet before the weather here is reliably warm.

One of my favorite houses, 8923. Love the numbers.

Then we went to the house with the bowling balls. Amy wasn't in, but we still enjoyed her wonderful yard decorations.

We took this picture after we rang the doorbell and nobody answered. It's a beautiful sight.

Malia wanted to pose inside the bowling balls. Maybe I should have had her do jumping jacks then...

The first deals with photography. I realized today while watching a biography of Iooss on CBS Sunday Morning that photography really is a lot like gambling. Lots of losses and OK runs, but it's when luck, the elements, and everything else combine to produce a fantastic shot that makes a photographer's day, what gives him a story he loves to tell over and over.

Just like a guy that hit a jackpot one day in Vegas, the photographer knows the lucky shots really are just that - lucky. Sure, they have skill in knowing how to do the lighting and in setting up shots, but it all comes down to luck in pressing that final shutter.

Like the time I was talking to my friend Martin... he'd just found out he'd gotten a job with Microsoft. I was taking a picture of him when, WHAM! A woman in our group suddenly kissed him full on the lips when I snapped the shutter. I later used it as the basis for a drawing, and it became this:

Like I said, photography is like gambling.

The second thing was something totally unexpected. I was taking a walk with my daughter Malia today, and we found some neat things in our neighborhood. On the way back, I had a sudden thought to go down an alley. There was no real reason to do that. It was just one of those wild hairs we get in our minds from time to time.

So we turned down the alley and met Amy.

She had a little puppy named Zoe that Malia liked, but we absolutely fell in love with the art in the place! She decorates with bowling balls! That's so wonderful - it was like walking into a magical place... and Malia liked it, too. She wants to go back on Wednesday after school to the place she says has an easy address: "Bowling balls!"

Once again, right near my own home is a treasure I did not know about until I went deliberately exploring. I've walked for exercise and I've walked to think, but when Malia and I walked to explore today, we had a reward for it like we never imagined.

I don't think I'll ever exercise again. Life's too short to be so self-centered. I think I'll just take my camera with me and walk for art.

Setting up a Facebook page has made me decide to post here. Here, I can put things in the order I want them to appear. There, no control. It all stacks up in reverse order like some crazed reverse polish notation of personal information. It's not at all ideal. It's a McDonald's sort of affair, where it's guaranteed to be at a certain level of quality, but not much more. Geocities (remember them?) dumbed down with some stock widgets tossed in. Ecch. It's making my reflux act up, just dealing with the stresses of not having it do precisely what I want it to do, which I can do with the tools I've chosen for my website. I edit in plain text, test on the server itself, and use elegant solutions to creating my pages. I want them to be just right. Facebook doesn't give me that option. Honestly, if I could just have that page redirect here, I'd be fine with it. People would say, "where's your Facebook, dude?" and I'd shoot 'em a link that would take 'em here. Slam and dunk.

I mean... I've been on this Internet, on one site or another, since 1995. I've learned how to hack HTML and use a CSS and SSI. I can FTP, TELNET, and all kinds of other things to get my site and email tested and running just right. I've had this site since 1998 and this blog since 2003. By the way, since the program I use to write my blog doesn't do an RSS feed, I'll probably have to change to a new system. So it goes... I may go with Thingamablog, as that's what I use for AOHell.com.

Maybe I'll get used to it. Maybe I won't. My wife enjoys it very much and this is one way of sharing that with her. I do want it to work out because I love her ever so much.

Ah, the things we do for love!