Category: People

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Experiencing Nature

My newest photo book is my cheapest ($8.83), smallest ( 6×9 in, 15×23 cm) and shortest (30 pages) as an introduction to why I retired in Costa Rica with 47 photos demonstrating my nature photography here. It’s not exactly a portfolio because of the cheaper paper, but . . . it actually is a cheaper version of a portfolio 🙂 and it also describes the 5 ways I experience nature and share it. As with all my books there is a FREE PREVIEW electronically of all pages in the bookstore at:

https://www.blurb.com/b/10782574-experiencing-nature-retired-in-costa-rica

Or click the front cover image below:

My Newest Book

This will become my “give-away” book to guides, lodges and others here in Costa Rica, since some of my other books are too expensive to keep giving them away as I have been. But I’m still not in the photo-selling or book-selling business. I’m retired! 🙂 I make my photos to share with others online and the books become ways to do that physically on occasions. Prints and wall art are available in my gallery with no profit for me, just a good service of (and profit for) my gallery host. 🙂

And while you’re in my bookstore, check out some of my other photo books! They have free previews too!

🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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My CANCER Adventure Book

Mostly my real time journal and blog posts plus photos and other information that is meant to be inspirational for someone else going through cancer, especially my specific Parotid Tumor Cancer with 68 pages and 87 photos, including a few of my nature posts during that time. 🙂

I also emphasize the value of nature in healing for me. And the title “True Grit” is explained in the book and on back cover, kind of funny! 🙂

You can see a free electronic preview at https://www.blurb.com/b/10778284-true-grit Or click the cover image below:

Me in front of Radiation Machine on book cover.

You can also browse through all my nature photo books while in the bookstore or click on Bookstore on the menu bar above.

¡Pura Vida!

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Flowers! – what more could I ask?

When I walk through my garden of by others in the neighborhood, I think of Victor Hugo’s statement in Les Misérables . . .

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”

― Victor Hugo

Torch Ginger or El bastón de emperador, My Garden contrasting dead and vibrant one.

See my little Gallery of Saturday’s walk among the flowers, 8 in my garden and 3 from the neighborhood . . .

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Butterfly & Holiday/Health Report

Like me recovering from cancer and the just-as-bad cancer treatment, this pitiful-looking damaged butterfly is still flying and eating! 🙂 He is a Ilus swallowtail or Dual-spotted swallowtail, Mimoides ilus (Wikipedia link) and note that it is very similar to another butterfly that I originally labeled this as, the Emerald-patched Cattleheart. The main difference is the Cattleheart has emerald or light-green spots on the upper wings instead of white as this Swallowtail has. (And by the way, Cattlehearts are in the Swallowtail family!) See my Dual-spotted Swallowtail Gallery or all of my CR Butterflies. Note that in the additional photos below this feature image there is one of a non-damaged Dual-spotted that got in my house on the window screen before I opened it and let him fly out.

Damaged Dual-spotted Swallowtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

And some more shots including of one not damaged (+ health update) . . .

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Post-Radiation Funk

Some have written to see how I am since I’ve only posted twice since completing my radiation treatments (radiotherapy). Simply put . . .

I haven’t felt like writing!

Tomorrow will be two weeks since they rang a bell and showered me with gifts and a certificate and even my mask to take home after the last session of radiotherapy. Now here’s my update on the last two weeks . . .

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Pre-Rain Walk

It was cloudy before the rain (better for my radiation-damaged skin) but I could see, hear and smell the rain coming. Soon after I was back from my “Country Lane” Walk, our afternoon shower started which has become regular now, meaning that the rainy season has really started, after severa false-starts. 🙂 The above feature photo is from my terrace with rain in the hills behind Atenas Centro and soon it came all over. I never tire of trying to make a photo of those hills which are never the same. This one is a 4-shot panorama.

One of my favorite shots from the walk . . .

Cacti along the entry wall of Hotel Colinas Del Sol.

And four more shots from the walk + . . .

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Another Summer Concert & Health Notes

Friday and Saturday (after I’ve gone back to Atenas) the hotel is hosting another concert weekend featuring Debi Nova singing on Friday night from the stage in the swimming pool! Since the Ministry of health is not allowing public venue concerts because of Covid, the hotel gets around that by renting rooms with balconies overlooking the swimming pool, priced by quality of view! 🙂 And a max of 4 to a room. The above link on hotel’s site has photos of earlier concerts with people watching from balconies and below is this Friday’s singer Debi Nova . . .

Debi Nova

There won’t be a crowd of thousands but a fun experience for a lot of young adults I’m sure and a tiny boost to one of the many hotels suffering from the Pandemic lack of tourists. Below are my photos of the setup as it looked on Thursday and I won’t be here to photograph the concert. 🙂 . . .

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June is Cancer Survivor Month

At least that is so in the U.S. that has a month or week for almost everything! 🙂 And surviving cancer is a big deal worth celebrating!

I’m still in radiation therapy through June 10 and to be honest feeling terrible much of the time, tired and especially not being able to eat much with a constant bad taste in my dry mouth most of the time, even gagging on some food – But this too shall pass! 🙂 And now I’ve got pain and drainage in my left ear near the surgery that no one has identified yet. I may go to an ENT independently to see what it is if no answer soon. All that to say it is not always easy, but today one can survive cancer! Celebrate Cancer Survivor Month!

Feature photo is a Hibiscus Flower from one of my walks to the clinic. Flowers say “hope!”

¡Pura Vida!

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Many Beautiful Things

Surely I’m describing Costa Rica and I could be . . . though this time it is the title of a documentary biography I found on my new streaming service, Curiosity Stream, that replaced Netflix for me, permanently this time with a whole year of streaming costing less than one month of Netflix (a stripped down version for Costa Rica).

The full title of this bio is Many Beautiful Things, The Life and Vision of Lilias Trotter. (Link to Wikipedia description) In brief, she was one of the world’s best unknown painters in water colors (late 1800’s to 1928) who was befriended by John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the Victorian era who promised to make her the “greatest living artist” in England. She repeatedly turned him down while continuing to paint beautiful nature scenes and landscapes simply to praise God.

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