BEST WAY TO CLEAN TILE

Ancient Rome had its magnificent arches, which you'll see copied a lot in modern Vegas. Those of you who know your World Civ will surely remember that Rome eventually collapsed under the weight of its own decadence. Could we apply the term "decadent" to Las Vegas? Depends on who you ask. All the fast food workers in Vegas would say, "What's so decadent about fast food? It's just the American lifestyle to save time by not having to cook yourself", while the mostly short-ish people handing out GIRLS DIRECT TO YOU flyers, publications and trading cards on the Vegas Strip are all Peruvian and wouldn't understand the English word "decadent" in the first place. After all, I once asked one of those Peruvians if the publication he was passing out was The Watchtower, and he appeared to not even get the joke. But, to get back on track, if there is in fact a parallel between ancient Rome and modern America, beyond Vegas even, then I'm sure the Romans would have envied us for our credit cards, while we would have envied them for their domestic (and other types of) slaves. Let us not forget that the USA built its initial mega-wealth in sugar, cotton and tobacco largely through the use of slaves. Keep labor costs to a minimum and you can maximize profits. If you think working at McDonalds for low wages is hard, try working for no wages except a shack to live in and some variation of gruel for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meanwhile, the slave owners lived and ate considerably better. The South, center of the slave activity, used to be far richer than the North, until the Civil War when the North trashed the South and somehow ended up with all its money. After all, we're truly a liberal, God-fearing nation at heart, so we abolished slavery, and even left the South in ruins just for being un-American, i.e. slave owners. Never mind that they basically set the American economy in motion. As Honore de Balzac so aply put it, "Behind every fortune is a crime." Nowaways, the only slavery that exists is our slavery to credit cards and fast food. Some could also be said to be enslaved to gambling, which is really decadent. Darn, there's that Rome parallel again. So are you free or are you a slave? is carrying a big debt around with you really that different from carrying a ball and chain? Ok, it is cleaner at least, but you still don't really own your own life. What great progress western civilization has made in 2000 years. Ancient Rome... Modern USA...IT'S ALL CONNECTED!!! I say, bring on the Star Wars era already (unless some other planet further along in the evolutionary process wants to make us all slaves, or even worse, make us their snack). We need to explore new worlds where we can be missionaries spreading the gospel of credit cards, fast food, and gambling.

After 12 hours of photography the day before, we decided instead of pitching the tent, we'd just sleep in the Honda Element overnight at Peninsula State Park and head over to Sand Cove for sunrise. Unfortunately the phone which we were using as an alarm clock decided it wanted a lay in, the battery died! We had planned to wake at 4.45am to get to Sand Cove for sunrise, instead we got up at 5.45am and where on the road by 5.50am! After a hasty drive from Peninsula State Park over to newport State Park, we hoofed it through the dark woods to Sand Cove. We knew where to go as we'd been here in May so following the path in a pretty dark wood wasn't too bad. By 6.40am we were in position for sunrise just after 7am.

Unfortunately there were no clouds in the sky, so sunrise was fast, but the nice thing about Sand Cove/Duck Bay; which this in on the edge of, are these rocky outcrops. They allowed us to shoot back into the trees which still had some fall color, and a cloud even appeared for us.

To be honest of the trip it was this shot that I was waiting to import from the card. Often images that look good on the LCD turn out crap and visa versa on the big screen. This looked good on the LCD and I figured there would be no issue with the scene on the large screen, other than unless I screwed up the exposure, focusing, polarization, ND Grad etc. Luckily I was good on all fronts, the image only needed sharpening and dust spots cleaning up, nothing more.

I should give some credit to Mark Baldwin who I was shooting with and had made the trip to Door County with me, as he found the shoot spot first on this one, nice one Mark, I need one of your custom made frames now!

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