Quote de jour
"Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing.  It is not customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total."
                                                                                                                                                                 ~Forsyth and Rada, Machine Learning

I have blooms not books on the brain this week. How's that for alliteration? I confess to being blooming mad for the cherry blossoms. I even oops (Freudian slip) tagged my photo file "Cheery" and not Cherry blossoms. Bear with me for the next week until every last bloom is documented. I've taken an insane amount of photographs. Can you say obsessed? Too many to process but what I hope to eventually do is to show the progression of several trees from the same location in different light, weather and stage of blooming. Ready? Come join me for a cheery time.
This is the entrance to Marion Woods convent and Harts Brook Park. I know it's a weird combo: public park, labyrinth, conservation area and retired nuns but it works.



The flat road curves gently revealing one glorious view after another.
This is the one scene I photograph every season throughout the year.

It's hard to believe but these are no where near peak blooming.



What's shocking is how few people visit.  Here's a visitor from Canada.


And a rarely seen other species: one of the nuns.


For the first time in months, there are no Obamas on any cover but I did have a dream about president Obama last night. He strode over to our car, reached in shook my hand firmly. "I've never shaken hands with a president before.", I said. It felt good and I couldn't leave well enough alone. I turned his palm over and examined it like a palm reader. I do happen to know a thing or two about reading palms and noticed some very unusual markings which I won't get into here. I did mention to the President about the need to watch his health. Hmmm. Now to the reading stack. Yellow is the new black except for this week when it's all about green.





I confess to not having begun to read my two new books this week. What I think I'll do from now on is to include the first sentence of novels. It's what I always do when browsing for a new book anyway. If a first line doesn't grab you, what will? The Lemur by  Benjamin Black (pen name of John Banville) is a slim 132 page thriller. Does this grab you? The researcher was a very tall, very thin young man with a head too small for his frame and an Adam's apple the size of a golf ball.

Okay, the rest of the page continues with his physical description. I hope it gets better. I'll let you know.

Alice Schroeder knocked her massive in size, scope and successful bio on Warren Buffett out of the park. I love the guy and wish I had time to read the whole 800+ pages. Who has time when there are more cherry blossoms to breathe in and capture on film. And never mind all the other blooms. Magnolias, anyone?