Buckeye, AZ

Department of Credit Where Credit Is Due

It wouldn’t be a good idea to start off my first blog post by plagiarizing someone else’s blog title. It just so happens that Bob’s blog was one of the catalysts for beginning this blog series, along with my son, Joshua, who blogs on The People’s Press Project (The People’s Palate). Joshua’s blog is located here:

Until today, I didn’t know Bob’s last name. Mr. Lowry’s blogs, as I receive them via email, don’t usually mention his name, but I found it when I looked at his website. In any case, I feel like Bob and his wife, Betty, are old friends. Shortly after we retired, I stumbled upon his blog while searching for information about living in, and adjusting to retirement. If you are contemplating retirement or are already there, I could do you no better favor than to recommend that you subscribe to Bob’s “A Satisfying Retirement” blog. You’ll find his latest blog entry here:

Department of Why am I Writing This, and Why You Should Read It (Hopefully)

After a rewarding career in education and information technology spanning over 33 years, working with many colleagues who have become our friends, my beautiful wife, Lynn, and I decided it’s time to change direction. We would become snowbirds, Arizona in the winter, and back to our home state of North Dakota in the summer. I can now more fully embrace my hobby of photography. What fun is a hobby if you have no one to share it with?

We’ve been blessed with good health (so far), an adequate retirement fund (up to now, anway), and the time to travel and see the country, and even parts of a few other countries. As a lifelong photo hobbyist, I’ve had my share of good and bad cameras, taken my share of good and bad pictures, and lost, on purpose, many more photos than I’ve kept.

The function of this blog is to share some of those photos with you, provide some historical and geographical background of the locations featured, and even include some technical details on the photos for those who give a damn about that sort of thing. On occasion, I’ll even share some of the photos that I should have deleted immediately, in the hopes that sharing my mistake will keep you from making the same mistake.

Almost a year ago, Lynn and I made our first visit to Monument Valley. In a future blog entry, I will tell the story about the 3.2 mile hike around the closer of the two stone monoliths pictured. The monuments, known as the Mittens, and the trail presented a challenge to us novice hikers. After our hike, a passerby offered to use my camera to take our picture.

I hope you enjoy this blog, and look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions. Thank you for reading.

John Steiner