Abandoned Places – Calera School

Last year when the tornadoes blew us out of the house and on the road, we visited family in central Alabama. Within walking distance of the house was this gem. Constructed in the 1930’s, the Calera School was the combined elementary and secondary school for farming community.

The complex is now in a state of arrested decay. The main building has been used most recently as a haunted house attraction and municipal storage. Adjacent to the brick and mortar building is a large two room school house, which was moved to this site for renovation. Plans for that seemed to be on hold for a while.


( School's out for-ever )

I'm not dead yet..

Just feel like it from time to time.

I keep telling myself and everyone else, I'm going to update more and life keeps jumping in front of traffic and I have to chase it down to keep it from getting hit by a bus.

Family - Chris is overseas visiting his mom and seems to be having fun. His grades came back and pretty much had straight A's for 7th grade. He's now gotten very tall for a 12 year old (5'7" already) and growing. He even has the wisps of a mustache. Brenna's home from college and working on a B average. Now we're trying to figure out how we're going to afford sophomore year. My step son Michael is also doing decently well too.

Work - there's too much of it? I'm apparently the go to person at my full time engineering job. Its scary when you consider that as a contractor in the place I work, I don't have the authority to tell anyone to do the stuff they need to do. When I don't come home brain drained from that, I either can look forward to a heaping helping of photography related work (catalog sets for small businesses or private requests). I took my assistant and well adopted daughter (for all practical purposes) out to a local rock show and showed her some of the finer techniques. The bands loved having two professionals shooting their gig. When not dealing with that job, I'm helping Tammy try to keep our sewing machine store afloat. Oh yeah, when BERNINA USA closed all their corporate stores, like hers, we were recruited to open it as a dealership. Yeah, we bought the store...

On another note, I've been increasing hearing the siren's call from California. Soft and steady but there none the less. Little things keep reminding me of the place and the people there. For example, two weeks ago a pair of F-16s came roaring over my house. I've not seen an F-16 in four years here, let alone two running in full afterburner. Reminded me of Edwards. Songs keep popping up on XM Satellite radio that are not part of the normal rotation. Even the insanely hot weather here now. It's a dry dusty heat.. Sound familiar? I won't even go into the dreams and visions. Too many people already question my sanity. I keep wondering if it's a sign of things to come or my past calling me back. Don't know... It's like lingering over an old photo. I have to live in the now while treasuring the good memories of then.

SCA - nada. I've effectively stopped playing in the past 6 months. Despite my best attempts to get motivated and go play, it's just not there. Either the weather thwarts my desire to go to events, or I'm dealing with work related scheduling issues (it hurts trying to be in three places at once), or I'm dealing with things at home. In each case, my motivator isn't powering up. I'm not going to fool myself and force the matter. I'm probably going to play at the edges for now and at least stay engaged but not be the active SCAdian I once was.

Misc. My Sony Alpha 350 is slowly giving up the ghost. Its got over 40,000 exposures run through it and some of the functions aren't working the greatest. Some of it can be fixed with a cleaning and service (which I'll do soonish) but much of it is wear and tear. I found a great deal through Amazon for one year no interest financing so I jumped on it and bought a new Sony A65 medium format digital camera. It is incredible. It's got the same incredible color as my old cameras but its faster and more sensitive in low light. I'm still learning its in's and out's but I'm a happy camper there.

There's a quick update. I'm not sure who's left out there beyond a few regular readers and several passers by. If it's any consolation, I do read through the friend list posts pretty much daily. I comment here and there where time and available brain cells still permit.