Trying To Learn From Bernie

Yesterday I wrote a lot about Bernie Cohen before I told you about his son-in-law Steve Gear hart's death. I am going to try to do what i think Bernie would do, I am going to do something I am good at, namely get some of the photographs I have been taking since I got the digital camera and share them with you. If I have your picture, don't worry. If promised not to publish it, I won't. I hate having mine published too. So, like CMHL says, I am lighting the candle so as not to curse the darkness. A small description follows most pictures.



Dr. Josh Felcher is the surgeon who operated on me and ultimately saved my life. I had lost enough blood on two occasions in a one week period of time to warrant getting 9 units of blood, twice. They finally found the place where the blood was leaking from, and in he went. I got out of bed the next day. The man's a walking wizard. I think Wicked H had something to do with it, but she's not talking. He and his wife had just had a baby 3 weeks before I took this picture, which was BEFORE surgery. I was confident.




This is Pat Hancock, the man who teaches me t'ai chi. He has more trophies than I have ever seen in one place at the same time. They come from International Competitions in Taiwan, China, and Japan. He still goes to Taiwan for some tournament. He is quiet and pretty unassuming. We have no uniform, and he teaches for about the same or less than everyone else. The setting in the countryside is quiet, and pretty amazing lending itself to concentration and meditation. It is amazing what doing t'ai chi has done for me. I cannot begin to recommend it enough to anyone.

I was a heavy smoker for 43 years. When I was in the hospital, before the powers that be will let you be operated on, you must have a stress test to make sure your heart will stand up to surgery. They do this will chemicals. I don't have a lot of endurance yet since I was such a heavy smoker (minimum of 3 packs a day, most of the time a chain smoker). After a year of t'ai chi, I looked like any other normal person. The cardiologist, who didn't know me, asked me why I was concerned. I said that I had been a smoker. He looked back at his data, and asked me, "for how long?" When I said, "43 years" he said, "no way" and I broke out laughing.

Thank you, Pat.



Does anyone know a UN Weapon's Inspector? Meet Jack McGeorge, who has been a friend of mine for about 15 years now. I took this picture in March when Jack had just returned from Iraq. If you look closely, you can see that his lips are still dry. He had that problem for months. He called it a job-related hazard. Like in-coming mortars. This is not a job that I would want to do, but Jack is very good at it.




For all of you that think that photographers can't make a living with their cameras, this is Sterling Hoffman and his wife Linda. They are like Judy and I in that they work together and live together in their home. It's only recently that Judy went to work on her own. Sterling does portraits in the Washington area, and he is in constant demand. Last year, he billed almost $1.3 million. He's been doing it for years. The reason I know I'm a pretty good photographer is that he handed me his camera at Jack Hauber's Retirement Party to take pictures of he and his wife. I also got shots of he and the other photographers there, a coup!



This is Diana Adams, another Portrait and fine Arts Photographer in the Washington, DC area with a wonderful reputation. One of her pieces of fine art is hanging in my home. I see Diana regularly, and we talk about Sales and Marketing oppotunities. She lives in Arlington, VA. while Sterling lives about 25 minutes away from me.


You have seen the birds before, and the picture of Holmes is one of the thousands.

Cardinal


Female Cardinal



Holmes


Holmes



Bkuebird


Woodpecker





This is a silver lace red maple close up. It has spread out in the front of the house. I love it, and think it is simply gorgeous.



This is the actual silver lace red maple dwarf tree in front of the house.



This was my nephew Jacob Perkins, taken from a picture taken at one of the last girls basketball games he attended.



Flo Carrol is Judy's aunt from Atlanta, and this was taken when she was up in February.



This little beauty is called a bleeding heart plant. Let's please remember that I am a moderate.

I started writing this piece Wednesday morning at about 9:30 am and worked on it pretty steadily until midnight. I had written the piece about Bernie yesterday trying to write an antidote to existential angst, not knowing that we were going to get the phone call that we did about Steve at the end. This scene has been deja vu here. Me blogging, Judy answers the phone, and suddenly she is talking at the top of her lungs saying, "What".

I have listened to Bernie and CMHL, and things are fine. They did understand existentialism. I am going to take the next few days off. I have so many things to do. I will be back next week some time. See you then. And have a great weekend. Go visit Odat, she is akways there to put a smile on your face and make you glad you're alive!