Thomas W.P. Slatin

A long time ago while I was in my first year of college, I learned quite a lot about efficiency as it relates to computer programming and automation.  Since the advent of computers, life as we know it continues to advance in efficiency.  Efficiency is of course, getting what you want as quickly as possible with the least amount of work/cost/etc.

So, from my standpoint, being that I try to be as practical and efficient as possible (it doesn’t always happen), it’s quite obvious to see that when people around me are exceedingly inefficient, it tends to annoy me.  Take for example my recent visit to the grocery store.  Not only are the cashiers notoriously inefficient, they constantly ignore me with their backs turned while at the same time, engaging in mindless conversations with each other.  But believe it or not, on this particular visit, it was a fellow customer that put my limits to the ultimate test.

I was on my way to the water dispensing machine to fill up two 1-gallon jugs.  By the way, 30¢ a gallon is very inefficient when compared to the water I drink which comes free from a well.  I’m content with well water, but Angie will only drink bottled water at a cost of 30¢ a gallon.

Another fellow customer decided to leave her cart in the middle of the aisle I was trying to get through on my way to the water machine.  But instead of simply leaving her cart in the middle of the aisle, or preferably, on the side of the aisle, this customer (whom I will refer to as the cart lady) placed her cart at a 90-degree angle dead-center in the middle of the aisle.

A store employee blocked the opposite end of the aisle with a cart loaded to the ceiling of boxes, of which were now being unloaded and placed one-at-a-time on the floor.  For some reason, the box he needed to stock the shelves with was placed at the bottom.  I was now trapped in the grocery store, and the only chance of escape was to try and get past the cart lady.

“Excuse me.” I said.

There was no response whatsoever from the cart lady.  Several awkward moments passed as cart lady stood stoic with her cart in front of her as if she were a troll blocking a bridge.  She was wasting my time.  Precious moments of time were now wastefully flying out the window.  I might add that extremely inefficient (and/or inconsiderate) people have a tenancy to only make their presence known when I’m in a huge hurry.

“Excuse me.” I said politely, only a little louder this time.

Again, almost as if nothing happened, the cart lady continued to stand there.  When she finally did look up from her long gaze into her empty cart to see me doing everything I could to keep my cool, she moved her cart.  An inch.  I’m no rocket scientist, but an inch of clearance probably isn’t going to be enough for me to squeeze myself and a shopping cart through.  A foot or two, perhaps, but an inch would be some kind of magic trick.

“Get out of my way, you stupid fucker.” would have been my next statement, but Angie called me on my cell phone and asked what was taking so long.

I told Angie in a hushed voice that I was stuck waiting for some lady to move her cart out of the way so that I could get her water.  Suddenly out of nowhere, she moved her cart clear across to one side of the aisle, giving me enough room to drive a small car through.  It seems that involving a third party, even by phone was enough leverage to get the lady to move her cart out of my way.

As I was filling the water jugs, it occurred to me that folks who are employed as industrial efficiency experts really have an easy job that never ends.  For example, when a company decides that it is inefficient in some way, they call in an expert and pay them enormous amounts of money.  The expert then goes around and educates the employees about how they can do their jobs more efficiently by not talking, taking shorter breaks, not going to the bathroom, breathing, etc.

What the management doesn’t realize is that the experts have a stranglehold on their company, because as long as the expert is present, things run in an exceptionally efficient manner.  Once the expert is paid-up, the expert leaves for their next assignment, and things return to the way they always were.  I know this because I worked at a company once who hired a team of these experts over and over again.

And it dawned on me…  Why are we trying to teach efficiency in the work force once folks fall into inefficient patterns, when we should be teaching these valuable skills in grade school, so that as we progress into adult hood, we wouldn’t have to be faced with so many inefficient people slowing down our day-to-day lives like the cart lady did?

A Murder of One by Counting Crows has become my latest musical obsession.  The last time I had a musical obsession, it was Stolen Car by Beth Orton.

What draws me to an obsession about this song is when they sing don’t waste your life, the way I waste my life.

It gets me thinking, did I waste my life?  And if so, am I still wasting my life?  Not sure if I was getting the right meaning out of the song, I headed on over to songfacts.com.  Some guy from Chicago claimed that the song is about a girl who’s trapped in an abusive relationship.

I noticed rather quickly after browsing the site that my theory in high school honors English class had been finally proven, now over a decade too late; everybody has a different reaction to music, which is really nothing more than poetry which is sung instead of read.  A lot of emphasis is given towards the meaning in which the author / poet / musician is trying to get across, but what we fail to realize or care about is the fact that the meaning, or reaction to it, on an individual or societal level, is equally as important.

I could debate and analyze lyrics or poetry for hours (and I have) just to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the songwriter was trying to convey a specific message, but there’s really no reason to, in my eyes, because no matter what your reaction to it, someone else will ultimately have a different one.  It’s all a matter of our personality differences and a mash-up of our past life experiences that not only influences our tastes in music, but our reactions and emotions associated with the music.

The truth is that for me, no matter what I have accomplished so far, or what projects I am currently working on, whenever I am not faced with an enormous challenge or undertaking, I feel like I’m wasting my life.  This song just touches on that emotion for me, and that is why I’m calling it my latest music-related obsession.

Not playing by the rules for me, goes far beyond fun and games.  It’s a lifestyle I live in which I tend to ignore warnings on products, read the instructions without actually following them, and generally take risks when I can be assured that there is no actual threat of danger.  An experienced therapist might classify this behavior of mine as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, but I see it as simply examining the risk verses benefit and taking a chance.

We as Americans over-emphasize safety so much that it’s getting pathetic.  I call it The Pussification of America.  Try and think of a day when you went about your daily life without seeing a dubious warning label or sign that stated what, in reality, is just common sense.

The same rules apply to my photography.  I don’t play by the rules a lot of the time, which is why my some of my photos are of places that nobody sees.  In order to get “impossible to obtain” pictures, I’ve had to sneak into places where I probably shouldn’t, ask favors of folks to let me access areas that are off limits to the general public (such as one time when I photographed a CSX locomotive, inside and out), and on occasion, trespass (Tanker Cars).  I’ve even gone into places where I probably shouldn’t have ventured into mainly due to safety concerns (Ghost Train), but if I hadn’t ventured, nothing would have ever been gained, and the pictures and experience of doing so were well worth it.

Ask any great photographer and they will tell you that sometimes they are forced to take enormous risks in order to get the pictures they want, and likely need in order to stay ahead in the business aspect of photography.  A lot of photographers are willing to risk getting slightly injured or arrested in trade for that one perfect photo.

Take this above photo, for example.  I took this photo of a busy alley behind a bunch of local businesses.  In the photo you will clearly see an illegally parked van, a tipped-over ladder, and an unattended box of dangerous goods.  What could possibly go wrong here?  Well, who’s to say for sure; I just stopped and got out of my car to take a picture.  The right thing to do would have been to walk over, pick up the ladder, and move the box to a safe location, but in doing so, I would not have had this awesome picture to help tell the story.

As soon as I snapped the photo, a man sped past me in a pickup truck.  He was in a huge hurry; so much so that he almost hit me as he drove by.  He was too busy cursing at me for standing in the alley taking photos that he failed to see the obstacles set directly in his path.  He then slammed on his brakes, got out of his truck, moved the box and ladder, then began cursing at me for not warning him.

This is an example where I took a risk, things didn’t go quite as I planned, and somebody ended up getting pretty angry over nothing.  Oh, and I did get a really great picture out of it, and a funny anecdote to go along with it.  But the best part of this story is that nobody got hurt.  I’m sure I came up later during a conversation over dinner, and I feel honored that I was able to provide one of those stories that starts with the words, “The craziest thing happened to me today…”

Not too long ago, I wrote about preserving what we have through photography, but never did I think that it would actually come to pass that something I photographed might not exist in the not-too-distant future. 

All that changed today, when around three in the afternoon, I responded in the ambulance to see this old abandoned house fully engolfed in flames!  It turns out that after all these years of being abandoned, for whatever reason, it caught fire and burned to the ground (almost, not completely).

Lots of folks were taking pictures of the house as it was on fire, but nobody I talked to had any pictures of it while it was still standing.  Nobody, that is, except for me.  Turns out that I have two black & white photos, and because I’m really nice, I’m releasing the full-resolution version to the world.  It might be of use to the media, the historical association, or the general public.

The other photo, which was taken of the front of the house is also available by request only.  I will more than likely return to this place to take a few more photos before it’s gone completely.  It’s a shame, though, I liked the house and I thought it had a lot of history behind it.

 
Abandoned Farmhouse Photograph by Thomas W.P. Slatin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.  Download It!
You can use this full-resolution photo for any purpose, including for commercial applications, so long as you give me credit.  If you do use it, please email me or post a comment.  Thanks!

One of my favorite facts about me in my profile is the one where I state that I like to collect notes and pieces of paper I find on public sidewalks.  It says a lot about me, both as a person, and as a writer.  Perhaps it makes me appear to be a bit of a voyeur or something, though this is hardly the case, I can assure you.

Writing is a form of creativity that comes from within.  All good writers will tell you that they have at least one source of inspiration.  Mine just happens to come visually, or through my life experiences (also sometimes known as tactile); I do a lot of listening and very little talking because I’m an observer.  Picking up pieces of discarded notes, paper, photographs, etc., gives me an anonymous glimpse into someone else’s life experience.  We as humans can only see the world from our own perspective, and when you see the world from the perspective of someone else, this can be an amazing source of inspiration.  I’ve often said that I’d like to see the world from another angle; this is what I’m trying to do.

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Can you recall the last time you saw gas for $1.28 a gallon?  I remember back in 2004 when gas was $1.99 a gallon.  Apparently, this gas station hasn’t been open for several years now.  Only time will tell when it reopens as another business, or slowly decays and falls to the ground after years of neglect.

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A long time ago, I wrote that I embraced technology but missed some of the old things from the past. Recently it occurred to me that what I miss the most is reading hand-written letters from my friends and family.  In today’s age of instant communications, it’s fair to say that traditional letter writing has become a bit of an ever-fading form of art.

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Today I saw something gigantic out in a field. I couldn’t be sure what it was. And of course, no one was around to tell me. I decided to take a picture of it using my telephoto zoom lens, and all of a sudden there it was in my view finder, but I still couldn’t tell. It’s strange that when you zoom in close on something that big, you can’t see anything at all.

What is this thing? Please reply with your theories as comments (below).

Awhile back, I wrote a post and at the end, asked readers to contribute their thoughts, ideas, and whatnot on what topics I should write about next.  Unfortunately, nobody has done so.  A writer asking for ideas and topics is not the most original idea ever, but I’d like to believe that I’m the first one to put it into a blog.  As luck would have it, Talea has done just that.  In all fairness, because I’m discussing her blog post (and possible copycatness), I’m obligated to now shamelessly plug her blog.

She did, however, have a really good idea, which I will now steal from her as a form of revenge.  That idea was to post a cute photo of yourself in the same post where you are asking for ideas.  So, here goes.

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Back in the early to mid 90’s, my best friend and I would stay up all night trying to come up with new and creative ways to write our own computer software and games.  I was the creative one, who came up with all the ideas, and my best friend at the time was the technical one that excelled at writing computer code. Read the rest of this entry »