Category: My Photos

Caveat: Tree #1467 “The past is a beach on a distant sea”

A Daily Tree / Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

This tree is a guest tree from my past. It’s a tree among others on a rocky beach on 무의도 (Muui Island), which is an island off the west coast of South Korea southwest of the Incheon Airport (I believe it’s here on the map). I visited this tree in August, 2015, with my friend Peter (who subsequently has visited me here in Southeast Alaska.

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I had a very unhappy day at work – one of those days when I am reminded that I never had any actual training to be a “matting and framing guy”, but rather, I’ve always been in a kind of “fake it till you make it” mode with this job. I made many mistakes, working on challenging projects. I made mistakes with cutting mat board, which I corrected but always is wasteful of mat board, I made mistakes with cutting glass, including an oversize piece that had high visibility since I needed help from my boss Chad to make it happen. I’ll have to go in tomorrow and try to cut the oversize piece again. Anyway, I felt incompetent all day. Such a salient feeling.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr; breaking glass, 4pieces]

Caveat: Tree #1464 “San Juan Bautista”

A Daily Tree / My Photos

This tree was near a little notch in the trees at the top of the 10-mile hill. Down in the notch you can see in the distance the flank of San Juan Bautista island.

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The island was named by Spanish explorers, and when the Russians and then the British and Americans came through, they were using the Spanish-made sea charts, so a lot of the Spanish names stuck in southeasternmost Alaska. You can tell who among the locals is a xenophobe because they will use the English translations of the names, though the Spanish versions are on the official charts. Thus “Saint John”, not “San Juan”, and “Saint Ignace”, not “San Ignacio”. Etc.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]

Caveat: Tree #1461 “Patien(ts/ce)”

A Daily Tree / Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

This tree existed.

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You can see the treehouse in there. It’s still structurally sound, though it suffers a leaky roof, which I need to fix sometime when things dry out and I feel a sufficient motivation.

It’s been weirdly warm the last few days. Highs in the low 50’s. Though still quite drizzly-rainy. More typical of July, here, than January.

Along with our weekly Thursday shopping trip, today, I went to the dentist. I hate the dentist. Not personally. I hate the experience.

My jaw hurts. In fact it’s hard for me, post-cancer, to keep my mouth widely open. Too many cut tendons or missing nerves in my mouth and jaw for things to work quite correctly. So that’s a layer of unpleasantness for dentist visits that maybe sets it apart.

I survived. And for once, Art had to be patient and wait around for me, rather than the usual other way around.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 3km;]

Caveat: Tree #1460 “A wintery haze”

A Daily Tree / My Photos

This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture in January, 2016, as I walked home from an appointment at the National Cancer Center, through Jeongbalsan Park.

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CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing 8hr]

Caveat: Tree #1458 “A blur”

A Daily Tree / My Photos / Treehouse

This tree saw its view blurred by heavy rain.

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The rain was so heavy that the leak-catching bucket in my treehouse overflowed, even though I’d emptied it yesterday.

There was a small flood in my treehouse.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo[daily log: walking, 2km;]

Caveat: Tree #1453 “A new spring”

A Daily Tree / Life in Korea / My Photos

This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture in May, 2011, near my apartment in Ilsan (Goyang City), South Korea. I had just moved to my new neighborhood to start my new job at Karma Academy, where I stayed working for 7 years – the longest I’ve ever had one job.

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picture[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 7hr]

Caveat: Tree #1451 “Before the sun”

A Daily Tree / My Photos

This tree was there before the sun.

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This was posted as a joke on the internet, but it made me think of trying to have a conversation with Arthur:  “Everything will be fine if we stick with the script of the conversation we’ve already had in my head.”

picture[daily log: walking, 2.5km;]

Caveat: Tree #1449 “The distant ones”

A Daily Tree / My Photos / Quotable

This tree witnessed sunlit, snow-covered mountain in the distance.

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“Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.” – from an Assyrian clay tablet, circa 2800 B.C.E.

picture[daily log: walking, 2km;]

Caveat: Tree #1448 “Some days are harder than others”

A Daily Tree / Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

This tree (slightly blurry foreground) is going to be gravely disappointed when winter comes back, which it will.

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Art tried to take a walk and fell down on his face. Not really a cognitive failure this time, as far as I can tell – more likely just stumbled on a rock – bad luck (Friday the 13th, as Jan pointed out).

This was just on the road (Port Saint Nicholas Road AKA The Expressway), only steps from our house. I had been out on my own walk, with the dog, so I found him lying in the middle of the road when I got back to our house. At first I thought it was a log that had fallen out of someone’s pickup truck, because of his brown coat. Then I realized, and in the moment I found him, he was unresponsive. He did finally respond. It took about 10 minutes to get him to stand up – he’s too heavy for me to simply lift (and he resists my effort to try to lift him because he claims it hurts his shoulders, which is no doubt true, but having him cuss at me while I’m trying to help because it hurts isn’t helpful).

Finally I got him to the car. I got my wallet and such and we drove to town. We got him to the clinic (the sorta kinda “emergency room” on the island) after a 30 minute drive. He was still bleeding.

They cleaned the wounds (sorta), did some xrays, checked vitals. He’d broken his nose and there was gravel embedded in a deep gash between his eyes, and a large patch of missing skin on his forehead. After two hours (I suppose it’s just a matter of being “under observation” but of course he complained repeatedly at how long it was taking), they gave us some prescriptions and gauze and antibiotic ointment and sent us on our way. They want us to keep the wounds as uncovered as possible but keep them moist with the antibiotic. For the broken nose, they gave him an anti-inflammatory.

I knew he wasn’t feeling too terrible since he decided to spend the drive home criticizing my driving.

When we got home, I walked up to the spot where he’d fallen down 5 hours earlier. There had been so much blood. The drizzle had washed some of it away, but some blood was definitely still visible in the mud of the road.

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Some days are harder than others.

picture[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]

Caveat: Tree #1447 “As seen from above”

A Daily Tree / Banalities & Journaling / Life in Alaska / My Photos

This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture looking down from my apartment window in February, 2013, in the Juyeop neighborhood of Ilsan, South korea.

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It was a dumpy apartment, but I liked that it was very close to work and the subway. It’s where I was living when I was diagnosed with cancer later that year.

Today I spent part of the morning fixing the septic tank aerator pump. Well… not fixing, exactly – more like replacing. The old one seems to have died, so I put in a new one, that I ordered on Amazon. The new one is installed, below – the old one is already removed.

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picture[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 4km]

Caveat: Tree #1445 “The dead deer”

A Daily Tree / My Photos

This tree had a deer skeleton lying nearby.

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I really feel it’s quite discourteous of people to leave animal carcasses lying by the roads. It shows a lack of respect for neighbors and community.

picture[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 7.5hr]

Caveat: Tree #1440 “A view toward Bukhansan”

A Daily Tree / Life in Korea / My Photos

This tree is a guest from my past. It’s alongside some metro rail tracks between downtown Seoul and Ilsan, where I used to live. I took this picture in January, 2009.

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The mountain in the background is the prominent Bukhansan. The large, highly-visible sign on the roof says “Dream Tree Daycare”.

picture[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]

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