Uncle Sam and I (and you) are now invested in Tesla Motors. What? That’s right, according to gas2.org, every tax paying American citizen is helping keep one of the slickest green automobiles alive. Tesla Motors announced the $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy in June 2009, and the deal is now official. “This loan will allow us to further accelerate the production of affordable, fuel-efficient electric vehicles,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Production is scheduled to begin by 2011.
This evocative image, created by Gene Aker, a friend and former colleague in Santa Fe, transforms a lonely road in Lamy, New Mexico into a quasi-inebriated dreamscape. Or maybe a stormy sunset when the skies are tinted with soot from forest fires? Gene explains how he created the image: “shot old school. 5×7 Korona camera (100 years old). Hp5 sheet film, D76 developer… I selenium toned the print. Then when I scanned it, I hit the sepia button — then cranked up the shadows to darken. Everything digital is a lie! but the print looks pretty cool–a 5×7 contact print.”
Today’s Heron Dance is haunting and mysterious. Artist and via Heron Dance founder, Roderick MacIver, shares some journal excerpts about his creative process, and Archibald Campbell plunges into the snowy forest…
“Before it’s too late.” This advertisement from the WWF is on Ads of the World http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/wwf_lungs and was brought to my attention by Nicholas Patten (@nicholaspatten on Twitter) in his tweet: “52 Most Interesting and Creative Advertisements.”http://bit.ly/8Mxizm
Today’s National Geographic Photo of the Day, though an unstaged, unanticipated photo opportunity, is oh-so-compelling. Admit it? Or not? We’ve all felt that way. Probably looked that way too!
“Intensely active older men and women who have the means and see the twilight years as just another stage of exploration are pushing further and harder, tossing aside presumed limitations.”
Kirk Johnson’s inspiring article (NYTimes.com, January 7, 2010) reminds us that our golden years aren’t just our golf years. Retirement means more free time to explore and challenge ourselves and the world beyond the gates of our familiar community. It’s time to take the risks we were too cautious to take earlier, to chase down some of those dreams we’ve kept wrapped up for so long.
While some latter day adventurers “pursue challenges close to home, mastering a headstand or the perfect side crane balance on a yoga mat. Others go far afield.” Johnson describes Tom Lackey who started wing-walking in his eighties! And Betty Beauchemin, less than a decade younger, felt inspired to parasail. She learned how and even picked up skiing again.
Isn’t it foolhardy for octogenarians to court danger like this? Actually, some experts suggest that “older people might in fact be safer in adventurous, high-exertion activities and environments than their younger counterparts, or at least no less safe. And some use an old-fashioned word to explain why: wisdom… ‘It’s still the same knuckleheads getting in trouble or coming unprepared; young people, mostly,’ said Sgt. Bob Silva of the Eagle County Police Department in the central Colorado Rockies, who regularly gets called for search-and-rescue duty.”
Although Johnson sidesteps the obvious, aging is the ultimate adventure. Whether we surrender the yearnings for adventure which fueled our imagination and hopefully our lifestyle during younger decades, or whether we throw ourselves into life – the adventure life – with grace and enthusiasm reflects just how hungry we are to live. Just how unwilling we are to archive ourselves with all the other farts bitching about memory loss and joint pain…
Beech bark damage, inflicted most likely by a bear. We saw many similar marks during our Champlain Area Trails snowshoe outing at Poke-o-Moonshine’s Lost Oak Valley this past Saturday. Much damage, but no bears! (I’ve posted additional photographs on flickr if you look for the Lost Oak Valley set…)
