The End of "My Little Blog", or The Meta Post.

I haven't given it a lot of thought, being so busy and all this time of year and just trying to hang on, as it were, to what's left of my sanity, but as of this final post, the Braincrampery Blog is fini. This will be the Metapost.

Meta, from the Greek, to mean self, about, or after, is a prefix, usually to an adjective, that creates a concept that is an abstraction from another concept, the classic example being the making of a movie within a movie. The Urban Dictionary defines meta as "a term, especially in art, used to characterize something that is characteristically self-referential."

Ergo, the Metapost: the blog post about the blog.

I started out, just feeling my way in the dark, on January 3rd, 2011, by posting three times: a picture of Sandi and me in Cape May, a post about the blog, and a picture of a waterlily on Cape Cod. I originally thought I might post just a picture a day with a story and ended up posting 32 pictures in January, of all kinds of different people and things. In February, I posted 33 photos in a second month of odds and ends.

In March I did a month of pictures (59) from our many trips to Cape Cod, and in April, in honor of Spring, 55 pix from my Flora folder. I finally got really rolling in May, leaving any picture-a-day idea behind for good as I posted 90 pictures from our visits to the great Bloomsburg Fair.

In June I did our 2006 trip to Alaska (167 pix), in July our 2010 family reunion trip to Washington State (169 pix), and in August the infamous (and fan favorite!) Potty Pix (144). In September, I posted 193 photos from our trip to Nova Scotia, in October, 174 pictures from the many fine dining establishments we've had the privilege of patronizing, and in November, 153 photos of our cats and cats we have known.

Finally, just this month, I posted a record 217 photos to wrap up the year--all or almost all of those I couldn't fit in somehow elsewhere and just wanted to share.

After the initial day of three posts I neither missed a day nor posted more than once a day. Oddly enough, with no effort whatsoever on my part to do so, I posted, counting the single picture from today, exactly 1,500 images. There were perhaps ten or fifteen that I didn't take--maps and the like that illustrated a story-- and the thirty from the Glass and Hardin archives just a week or so ago--so around 99% of the photos were of my own creation. I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting all the photos and the circumstances around their capture.

I saved a final picture, from a September vacation to the Cape. On the first day away from home we sometimes stay overnight in New London, Connecticut and visit Harkness State Park in nearby Waterford, right on Long Island Sound. The sun is out, the air is warm, the breeze from the Sound is up, the flowers are in bloom, and we are giddy with gratitude at not being at either Bloomingdale's or Doylestown Hospital. As ever, God is in His heaven and all's right with the world.

Bye-bye.

Sandi and Bob (Two).

Cape Cod.

Nova Scotia.

Cape Cod.

Green Lane Park.

Waterford, CT.

Cape Cod.

Lake Nockamixon.

Lake Galena.

Sandi and Bob.

Sandi and Bob over the years. These are in order, oldest to newest, if you couldn't tell from the inexorable greying of my mustache.


 Cape Cod.

Cape Cod.

The shore.

Cape Cod.

Captain Scott's Lobster Dock, New London, CT.

Cape Cod.

Moby Dick's, Truro, MA.

Cape May, and one of my favorite photos. I love that girl.

Odds and Ends.

After almost a year, a few odds and ends.

I asked this man if I could take his picture, at Renninger's in Kutztown, PA.

Also at Renninger's.

Zerns Farmer's Market, Gilbertsville, PA.

Also at Zerns, The Wig Emporium.

Doylestown in the morning: Fonthill at sunrise.

Doylestown during the day: our resident homeless man mumbling to himself while wearing crazy signs on his cap and chainsmoking. I asked him if I could take a picture, and endured a long speech to get it.

Doylestown at night: the County Theatre.

Van Sant airport, Bucks County. No story, I just like the picture.

Here's the blogging nerve center the week we bought a new computer and migrated over from the old one. My brain kinda looks like this the week after Christmas: a little on the cluttered side.

Winter.

In honor of winter, some pix from over the years.


Sometimes we get 25 or 30 inches of snow at one time. Dawn of a day that's gonna wear my butt out.

Lake Galena.

Right in Doylestown.

Water.

We love just being around it: lakes, rivers, and the ocean.

From Alaska.

Also Alaska (although the gull is from here and I photoshopped him in).

Lake Galena in Peace Valley Park.

Tohickon Creek; in fact, pretty near where my camera and I took a nice swim one morning.

Owl's Nest Park pond, Plumstead Township, Bucks County.

Lake Nockamixon, winter...

and summer.

Bike Race.

We usually miss the professional cycling race held every September in Doylestown but got to see it in 2010. Here are just a few of the pix I took that day.

Merry Christmas.

I took this photo August of 2007 when I pulled into the church parking lot for some kind of evening gathering. I was surprised and pleased (but not prideful, Lord!) to see it on the cover of the church directory the following year.

Have a Merry Christmas, all.

Family.

One minute these kids are gawky, sullen teenagers and the next they're drop-dead gorgeous young women. Sandi's nieces Laura and Sarah.

To be honest with you, I don't appreciate how old they make me look by comparison.

Larry, Sandi, Lola, Clif, and Beth, June, 2011.

 Mom and me, 2006. I never told my siblings this--and I hope they're not reading it now--but Mom told me once or twice  many  countless times that I was her favorite, that if she and Dad had it to do over again they would have had just one kid, and that it wasn't necessary for her to have to tell me who that kid would have been. She was sensitive and classy enough to have never given even the tiniest hint of this to my brother and sisters and there's no good reason to make it known now. Let's just drop it.

Patty, me, and Mom, February of 2007. She had been sick and, in fact, had just gotten out of the hospital and had yet to get her hair done. Looking pretty good though, for being just shy of her 85th birthday.

She died the summer of '07 and her family gathered to say goodbye.

With apologies to my favorite brother, who was born in 1958, my favorite family photo, from around 1957.

And 53 years later.