Upde Designs

Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog this week.  With the birth of Gabby and a busy week at work there just hasn’t been time.  Yesterday I had to be in Maquoketa at 6:15 a.m. for a meeting and that has been typical of this week.  Anyway one of the things I love about the work I do is that I get to be around some really quality people.  One of those quality people is Jack Hanlon.

A bittersweet day yesterday as it was his last day at work.  Sweet because he is going to gets to enjoy retirement and doing what he loves to do.  Of course the bitter part is that we will see him only on an occasional pass through and I will miss seeing and talking with him.  Above Jack, one of his 4 daughters, and his Sainted wife Gayle.

Jack worked for a company in the Quad Cities (the same company his Father worked for) and rose through the ranks putting in 37 years.  Then one year another company bought them out, gutted the company and Jack was out of a job.  They also gutted the pension plan.  Still too young to retire Jack came to work for one of our banks in the customer service department.  Even after what had happened to him and working for 50% of his original income he always came to work with an upbeat, can do, will do attitude.

In the 10 years he was there I never once saw him with a down attitude and he was always one of the first to volunteer for projects.  He worked in a department with  5 younger women and they made him dress up in silly costumes for Halloween,  do crazy skits for training and teased him unmercifully.  🙂  Through it all they developed a wonderful friendship and respect for each other that was evident in everything they did.  If you look at my 365 project around December you’ll see one of the things they talked Jack into doing.

The Bank did a great job of celebrating his tenure with them.  They had an employee breakfast for Jack complete with some funny videos of his career at the Bank and some nice parting gifts.  Then at 2:00 p.m.  They had an open house so all of Jack’s customers could come and wish him well in his retirement.  They served punch and cake.  It was a very nice tribute to a Quality Guy.

After work many of Jack’s co-workers / friends joined him at the Decker House for a final round of cheer and well wishes.  Monday won’t be the same, but I’ll smile when I think of Jack sitting in his chair, reading the paper and thinking how wonderful it is not to have to suit up and work another day.  Enjoy my Friend.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your weekend and be careful.

Say hello to Gabriella Grace Roling.  7 pounds 5 ounces and 20 inches long.  Baby, Mother, Father, and big Brother are all doing fine.  We met her at about 5:00 p.m. yesterday.  I had an eye examination yesterday afternoon and didn’t get done with that until about 4:30 p.m. so Jeanne had to drive as my eyes were still dilated.

Josh went in first with his Dad to meet his new Sister.  He was a little shy about going but he came back with a nice new teddy bear “Corduroy”, which he thought was pretty nice.  Then after a while he and Ben came to get us and we got to meet our little Granddaughter.  She has a healthy set of lungs for only being 4 hours old. 🙂

The new family.  There was a constant stream of medical folks that came and went in the brief time we were there.  It’s good to see the level of care you can get in the hospital.  I got to hold Gabbie before Grandma.  You forget just how little they are.  She opened her eyes just a little while I was looking at her, WOW!!  Talk about instant love.  🙂

Jeanne is such an amazing person.  She spent the entire day entertaining Joshua (which takes a lot of energy), made a wonderful meal for our dinner, got Josh ready for bed and was still going strong when I packed it in.

The beginning of a new life is an amazing event and so special to be even a small part of it.  What will she be like?  What contributions will she make?   What path lies before her?  She has two wonderful, intelligent, and caring parents, a brother who will be her champion and protector, 4 loving and nurturing Grandparents and three uncles to watch over her.  I’d say she has a great life ahead of her.

A little side story about Gabby.  We knew she was going to be a girl but Angie and Ben kept the name a secret.  However they told Joshua her name so that he could be accustomed to it.  Jeanne and I were sitting with Josh one evening and he wanted to go into his old room, which had been converted to the new baby’s room.

When he walked into the room he said “Gabbie’s Room.”  🙂  So we had a pretty good hunch what the name was going to be.

That’s it for today.  Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Be careful.

Today is the day we get to meet Josh’s little sister.  Hopefully all goes well and when I post tomorrow morning I will have a picture of the little girl.  Josh is spending the next few days with us so we will be very busy around here for a couple of days.

If you ever saw the movie Animal House you might remember there is a scene in the movie where one of the protagonist “Pinto” has an angel on one shoulder telling him to be good and not do bad and he has the devil on his other shoulder encouraging him to go ahead and take the risk.   I seem to be having those moments on a more frequent basis lately.  The trouble is I never know which one is going to win the argument.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Gotta run as I’m late again.  With this exercise program I never seem to have any time in the morning for my normal things including posting this blog.  The good news is that I can start to feel the difference.  Actually I can start to feel my legs again.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Say a little prayer for Angie and Ben.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thank God it is Friday.  I am ready for this week to be over.  My friend Ann Burns sent me an email yesterday wondering if I had gotten any images of the large swan population that has been at the Duck Pond this week.  Ann works for the DNR and is stationed at the Hurstville Interpretive Center.  By the way if you live in the area you owe it to yourself to visit the Interpretive Center.  It is state-of-the-art and they have many amazing displays.

I told Ann that I had not taken any shots this week as in the morning I’m always late and I’ve had functions to go to every night this week so I just haven’t had time.  Last night I took five minutes to fire off about 80 quick clicks of the swans.  The problem with shooting at the Duck Pond on the way home is that I’m always shooting directly into the sun and its reflection off the water.  So I cranked the EV down a full stop and was at least able to get some representative shots of the swans. (Remember you can click on the image to make it larger.)

The very first image I took was of 5 swans with their butts in the air as they scrounged for food on the bottom.  I didn’t think that was an appropriate image for a family oriented blog.  🙂

Another challenging day ahead but then the weekend.  Yea!!

Oh by the way I have finished the website for the Mexican Restaurant.  Take a look if you like.  I can tell you it is a great place to eat, the service is good, and the prices are very reasonable.  They are nice people.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your Friday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

I have been a member of Rotary since 1987.  I joined in Dubuque, Iowa.  It is a wonderful service club and does remarkable things around the world.  Since I started with my company 13 years ago I have been a member of the Maquoketa Rotary Club.  It is a much different club then the one in Dubuque but all the clubs are about helping those less fortunate and promoting peace and equality for all.

We meet every Wednesday at the Eagle’s Club in Maquoketa.  I have not been a very good member the last couple of years as I have been engaged in other projects in the community and have focused my efforts on those projects.  Having said that my heart is still solidly with Rotary.

The Eagle’s Club is a good place for our club because there are no steps getting to the meeting room and it is a short walk from the parking lot.  But the real attraction is the magnificent food prepared and served by the women of the Eagle’s Club.  The lady in the middle is Deb Scanlon and she is in charge of the food preparation and perhaps the whole club.  I’m ashamed to admit I do not know the names of the other women even though they are usually there every week.  I have great respect and admiration for these individuals.  They do a great job and get very little thanks.  Deb always has a smile and a kind word.

I told them I wanted to take their picture for remembrance because so many times we take things for granted and then in the blink of an eye they are gone.  Now I have a memory of the Rotary meetings on Wednesdays and the wonderful women who make it so tasty and enjoyable.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day, stay warm and as always please be careful.

Just finished my workout.  Day 78 of my exercise program.  Oh, wait this is only day 5!  Damn!  Well it seems like day 78.  I reconnected with a friend from high school over the last couple of days.  We have exchanged a couple of emails and just a quick over view of what we’ve been doing.  She’s been married for 43 years and the pictures I saw of her on her Facebook page she hasn’t changed all that much.  I enjoyed her Mom and Dad.  If my feeble memory is correct her Mother and my Mother helped with Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts.  Her Dad (I really liked him) was a farmer and my Dad (who ran a garage) repaired his machinery.  Great fun connecting with friends from those days.

I grew up in a very small town of only 450 people.  Since I delivered the paper to the town (twice a day) I knew everyone very well.  In the Winter time people would invite me in for a cup of hot chocolate and cookies to warm up.  Is it any wonder why I have constantly struggled with my weight.  Every once in a while my Dad would have to come looking for me because the paper route that should have only taken 90 minutes usually would stretch into 2 to 3 hours.  I could write a very long journal about my experiences as a paperboy.  I started when I was 9 and still carried the papers my senior year.  I learned a lot about people and myself as well.

Anyway my original point was to say that since it was such a small town everyone knew pretty much everyone else.  Growing up I used to say that if someone sneezed half the town would blow their nose.  🙂  It was a great experience and I will always cherish those days and all the wonderful friends I had

Okay now that I’ve completely forgotten what it was I was going to write about this morning I’m out of time.   I had some lament about my recent photography being only about eagles, Josh and barns.  I was looking back through my recent posts and decided I’ve got to get a change of scenery or subjects to shoot.  Not that I don’t love shooting Josh, eagles, and barns but I’ve got to expand in areas other than my waist.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Wednesday.  Happy Hump Day and be careful.  Great to reconnect with you Melinda.

It’s been awhile since my last post.  Unusual for me as I always have something on my mind to share, worthy or not.  I started an exercise program 4 days ago and that eats up a fair amount of my time in the morning.  But honestly I just haven’t had much to talk about and even less to show.

Last Saturday Angie and Ben had some things to do that were better done without having to keep track of an inquisitive 2-year-old.  So we got the opportunity to have Josh over for a couple of hours.  I know I speak only for myself but this is the great part of being a grandparent.  We played hard and did pretty much whatever he wanted to do with some constraints and then his parents showed up and he left (not happily I might add) and then we took a nap.  🙂  With your own kids you are always on duty.

Busy week ahead with lots of challenges.  I hope to get some shooting done.  The Duck Pond is about 75% frozen over and there are a lot of geese there and 4 swans yesterday.  The geese stand on the ice and look as if they are saying WTH is going on with the ice.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your wintry day and be careful.

I wanted to get some images of the Duck Pond yesterday but it was almost 6:00 pm before I could get out there.  I had to shoot into the sun and quite frankly it was way to windy and cold to take much time with these images.  The good news is there is water in the Duck Pond again.  The even better news is that the wildlife (in the form of geese) have also returned.

I noticed that groups of them were in and around the traditional nesting mounds and it looked as if they were getting things ready for the birthing season.  I hope that more wildlife will come this Spring.  Of course that will depend in large part on there being water in the marsh.

The water level is right at the overflow barrier so there is a good amount of water in the marsh.  The over growth from last Summer is still there so it will be interesting to see how that looks as time goes on.  I’m looking forward to visiting the Duck Pond from time to time and enjoying the Eco-system that will evolve during the months ahead.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your Thursday and thanks for checking out the blog.  Warmer weather is bound to be here soon.  Be careful.

Happy Tuesday.  I was really amazed by the amount of flooding I saw yesterday on my commute to work.  I saw 5 new lakes and I mean they looked like lakes around the two places where I cross the Maquoketa River.  The image above is an area that I have never seen flooded before in the 13 years I’ve been making this drive.

The good news is that the “Duck Pond” has water in it again and as I was leaving yesterday there were some geese on the pond.  I was surprised by the low amount of water in the pond considering all the flooding of the adjacent areas.  I assumed that the pond would be full and it was not.  I’ll try to grab some images of it today.

Short post, running late.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

I’m going to finish up the eagle images from last week today and then I suspect the eagles will be done for awhile.  Jeanne and I intended to get out this weekend and do some shooting but the weather was just so crappy that we opted to not try it.  I was pretty much a slug most of the weekend.  I did take a bunch of Photoshop lessons and learned some new things.

I also spent a fair amount of time on Xbox.  Yes, I’m a gamer.  Have been most of my life but it really got serious when the Atari 2600 came out.  🙂

The image above is the same eagle I have shown before.  After catching their fish they look down to see the size.  If it is small enough he can eat it in mid-flight.  If not then he has to land somewhere, which means there is always the chance he will have to defend his food while he tries to eat it.

Here you can clearly see (click on the image to make it larger) the fish in his talons.  This is the one who flew over my head and ate his catch right above me.  I have about 20 images of that process but I’ll keep them to myself.  They’re kind of messy.  🙂

We had a nice dinner with Angie, Ben, and Joshua last night.  I’ll have those images later in the week.  Hope you enjoy your Monday.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.