I wandered down to the beach one night on a break from working late and the soft cyan glowing "AT O" spoke to me.

A discarded sign on the sidewalk.

Peace sign in pavement down by venice beach, complete with green drinking straw.

Another picture on the way home from work. I am always on my way home at what photographers call "the golden hour", so its hard to resist the urge to snap a few. : )

We've turned the weekend routine of doing laundry into a pleasant weekly ritual. In that rat race of everything it is actually a comfort to have some rituals. We go to a laundry mat and have been going early in the morning and getting coffee and a bagel for the wait. While our clothes spin away in the antiquated machines we sit and talk about whatever comes to mind. I have found myself looking forward to it each week.

On a side note, after a few comments about wondering what I looked like. It got me thinking about doing an "about" page. I was happy to point out a place where I actually do show up in the pictures and I appreciated the comment, but I decided I didn't want to put up such a page. Seemed to undermine why I started doing this blog in the first place. (I am worried this is going to sound like arguing, when really it just brought up a train of thought) The whole page is about me. Every picture is a self portrait in a way, a very real way. I grew up in a fashion that always made me feel like I was an intergral part of the environment and vice versa. The Forgotten Grain title was based around that feeling... you know.. when you are a little kid and you are moving.. or just going on a car trip with your parents and you look back at your house and watch it go... you appreciate it in a whole different light. You even notice things you never did before. This site just gave me a way of looking back at them again, those moments. Its funny but I bet I frequent this site more than all others combined. : ) Staring at the pictures of the tracks where I grew up when I feel homesick or the picture of Cal everyday because... well ... just because.

I really appreciate all the comments lately. I have been amazed and suprised anyone even looks at these besides myself. I always feel like I take pictures that are only interesting to myself. I just realized yesterday that two of my all time favorite photoblogs have links to mine. What a compliment! It made me realize I need to update my links section. : ) I went immediately and revoted for them at photoblogs.org. You should too. They are perpetualkarma and shutterbabe.org. Another one of my favorites is waytoblue.org. At any rate thanks all.

Outside of work, I appreciated the texture of the sign.

"White" in red where the grass is greener.

Something in the trees had reminded me that I always felt like I was silently screaming back then in a way ordinary people couldn't hear. Those screams seem to have not stayed with me, but with that place. When I go back there I hear them through my attachment to it even though I have become one of those ordinary people.

When I remember being that person and being in that situation, my life is easy to appreciate. It is the gift of then. The effect of standing there so many years later was to look at myself and realize.... I did it. I had survived, escaped and defined myself. I have achieved something mundane and ordinary, but extraordinary to the kid back then.

The country sure is beautiful in this area. I took this picture just north of where I work back a couple of months ago when the wheat fields were golden. Summer is gone. I don't feel like I took as much advantage of the area as I could of. I had hoped to get out a bunch.

Ah well... no use having regrets. I am looking forward to winter (but not the cold). Nice thing about the area is that it doesn't go totally grey. I noticed last winter when I took that train ride to visit my brother Chris and his family, how much of a contrast there was between the evergreen country and the grey Minnesota and Illinois areas. I am hoping to get a bunch of snowy landscape pics and the like.

Haven't been taking that many pictures over the past month. The weather has been very bland. I missed the week or so of leaves turning. It was colorful and beautiful, but I just didn't feel the urge to pull out the camera.

Starting to feel like taking pictures again. I am waiting for a good opportunity and some good light. I am back to carrying my camera with me everywhere. Feels good to do that... though I think it hovers that border of being a dedicated artist and a male tourist type fellow (ie gadget man). I try to keep it simple. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't study photography exclusively when I was in college. I took a lot of photography classes and spent a ton of time in the dark rooms. I love it so much. Its about being out there and in it. It my two favorite things rolled into one, hiking and art.

I want to get used to shooting people more and not just landscapes. I need to get more comfortable with it. Living in a inner city for years, I got in the habit of not being overly friendly to people on the street and avoiding too much contact. I think to get into doing street photography, I would have to gain back some of that small town mentality I grew up with.