This started off as a post about engineer "types" and their emotions regarding things and people. But it got uncomfortably personal, and I'm surprised I've left it up, because it was something I worked hard for most of my youth to keep secret. People have commented favorably, so I guess it serves some purpose beyond self-absorption. What a relief to get old and finally not give a damn.

First take on recent Huntsville exhibit of some of my stuff. People seemed interested. Business was unexpectedly brisk. Learned a lot. Actually smiled. DON'T TELL ANYONE.

Top three vote getters get in. My decision is final, except when it's not.

This blog originates in New York, but collects news items from all over. I've only been hassled a couple of times, but we can all count on it happening more and more as my country becomes less and less free. Secure yet?

www.unclaimedmysteries.net is the main site.
unclaimedmysteries.blogspot.com is for photo discussion.
whatdoesayellowlightmean.blogspot.com is for other words.

Yerpla,
Corry

The flickr site remains the priority this fall. Future plans for this site include reworking it into something more coherent, with more focused essays and a place to display and sell photo prints and services. One more reminder: now www.unclaimedmysteries.com and www.corryleesmith.com also point here.

A home for wayward photographs, maybe more in the future.

September 01, 2007: The Flying Monkey's Crash Boom Bang Theater opened with a bundle of short skits before The Pine Hill Haints took the stage.

A unique setting for a show featuring designs by The Monkey's own Iris Joanna Billiter.

While I repair the listgarden generator, Flying Monkey and Lowe Mill folks in particular can get updated images from the blogger account.

More pictures from the Flying Monkey at Lowe Mill, this time in infrared for enhanced spookiness. Yer welcome.

Hot music on a hot night in Alabama. Pictures added as time permits.
Here's a wallpaper for ya.

Live! Absurdist Burlesque (say that three times fast) from the basement of Lowe Mill, Huntsville, AL. May 2007. The subdued lighting meant running the Nikkor f/1.8 50mm lens wide open most of the time. Processed to simulate hand-coloring, people seeing the prints said they liked that.

Huntsville's Crash Boom Bang Theatre production of The Bhagavad Meat Loaf, a true false biography. Images in Flash gallery format.

Youtube links are not a regular feature here, but this contains good practical advice about the little cities that exist inside your television. Also, Björk reminds you to not let Danish poets lie to you. Wow, I guess everybody does lie.

This image turned out pretty well. Pretty well, that is, if you go around all day imagining what the Apocalypse would look like.

FEEL the RAW POWER of REALLY SMOOTH MUSIC!. Okay, I also added the great Adrian Belew and his frequently updated, entertaining blog. But Yacht Rock is teh smooth unclaimed shiznit. (Some videos contain harsh yachtish cussing.)

Okay, better late than never. Last summer's performance by Majestika and The Skip Heller Trio at the Old Lowe Mill, now home of the Flying Monkey Arts Center. in Huntsville, Alabama.

Updated the .sigmata hall of fame page.

Been slacking off from making new pictures, so here's a selection of older IR images featuring interesting skies. The featureless, black infrared sky isn't always the most dramatic. In each of these pictures, clouds make the shot.

I'm trying out ClickCaster, a podcast service. The immediate goal is to get familiar with this service and put it to work over at the Flying Monkey Arts Center, which needs one more than I do. I'm just going to put up some odd audio and video clips from time to time.

Huntsville's own utterly unclassifiable Sex Clark Five, right here. A treasure - just ask A. C. Newman of the New Pornographers. Also found on the Links to Unindicted Co-conspirators.

I am a well-known HATAH of gratuitous Flash content on the WWW. But I'm trying out the elegant Simpleviewer package to organize some of these essays and galleries. Go to http://www.unclaimedmysteries.net/gallery.php and see what you think.

On Tuesday I went to the Monte Sano Fire Station in scenic Hunts-a-lulu, Talibama to cast my ballot, thankful that I lived in a free enough country still. I had no warning of the trauma that was to come. A Diebold voting machine detected my intent to write in a name or two and quickly reached out and grabbed me with several of its Freedom Tentacles(TM). I fought mightily against the machine, which stood up on its previously unseen legs and revealed its tripod nature. It released the Black Smoke upon the nonagenarian poll workers who rushed to my aid; they fell within seconds. Then a dozen or so firefighters came upon the hideous scene and tried to ram the beast with a ladder truck. The diabolical Diebold unleashed the blazing fury of the Heat Ray and soon they too were vanquished. It appeared that I had but seconds to live when suddenly the machine's large screen - which I assumed was also its "eye" - turned a bright, unearthly shade of /blue/. Still in its grip, I strained to read words, English words no less, in the center of the eye:

"Updating your computer is almost complete. Your computer needs to be restarted for the updates to take effect. Windows will restart your computer automatically in 4:56 minutes."

The grip of the tentacles was becoming unbearable. I had no time to lose.

"Do you want to restart your computer now?"

Frantically I clawed and strained my arms out from the tentacles' cage and slapped a finger into the center button labeled "Restart Now."

The next thing I remember, I was crumpled on the floor surrounded by charred pieces of the alien voting machine. To think that these unstoppable invaders could be felled by that most humble of Man's creations, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition! I was delirious in my good fortune, and knew that the Republic would be safe after all.

Vote Libertarian. Sometimes.

Yerpal, Corry

To get images such as this you need a little more than an infrared camera. You need to 1) get above most of the atmosphere's water vapor, and a good fraction of the atmosphere while you're at it, and 2) world-class adaptive optics. Gemini North on Mauna Kea does the job quite well. No, it doesn't fit on my belt like Mojo, Jr., but it'll do in a pinch, I suppose.

I had a visceral hatred of disco in the 1970s. I guess it was because: 1) Like Sir Nose Devoidoffunk, I do not dance, and 2) There was just too much mass-produced disco unleashed all at once. Even Dolly Parton made a disco song (Baby I'm Burnin'). Decades later, it appears that some of it will remain in pop music history, and the rest - I hope - will die horribly and STAY DEAD.

I'm not sure how to judge this song, "Boogie Nights" by Heatwave. If it's just the music, well, it's catchy enough. But the video, discovered during a random walk around youtube.com is the stuff of Lovecraftean nightmares. STEEL YOURSELF VIEWER, because it is not for the squeamish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxXEn8avvJI&NR
(or search youtube.com for Boogie Nights Heatwave)

NOT RESPONSIBLE for your inability to function or even think for up to three days after viewing.

A woman once told me I looked like songwriter Joe Jackson. I suppose that beats the usual "you look tired" or "you look sick." Ladies and gentlemen, I do know what I look like. Why do you suppose I went into *radio?*

"I finally accept myself for the celebrities I resemble." - Zippy the Pinhead

The main crater from the Jaggar Museum. This IR image shows just how barren this new land is. The right edge of the crater features active sulfur vents, which show up lighter in tone.

Signing on with Verizon for another two-year term meant getting to select a new phone to replace the ancient Nokia hammer/phone. Both the Motorola RAZR and the LG VX9800 came with VERY attractive rebates so I tried them out. I might have selected a pink RAZR but I couldn't convince anyone to promise to address me hereafter as Mr. Pink. So I tried a gray one. I don't need a stylish camera phone, I thought to myself as I left the store, but within 15 minutes I was trying it out.

Not bad performance overall, but as the day wore on it felt more and more like a non-intuitive slab of bling. I don't do bling. So I returned it for this monster: the VX9800. Verizon customizes it to drive you to their portals, but it still has a lot of versatile doo-dads. One thing that caught my attention was the quasi-macro setting on the 1.3 M camera. It works pretty well, allowing a pretty sharp image from about 4-6 inches. Then I saw a "night" entry in the camera menu. You don't think ... I mean, could I use it for IR? Is that a Mojo Jr. in my pocket?

If all goes well, I'll be sticking with ListGarden for now. Running locally, I can publish updates that appear both in the .rss feed and in the page called updates.php.

Summer project: Kudzu in IR. I hope to capture some good kudzu monsters with the Mojo Eye.

The IR Mojo Eye flies over the Coosa River. Not bad for an overcast day.

An ever-shifting list of music I wouldn't mind being caught dead with. No apologies, just a snapshot.

He's got a very enjoyable journal going. You, the reader get to follow Mr. Big Suit and his trusty camera phone on all kinds of scientific, aesthetic and geeky adventures in NYC and beyond. Check out his art installation "Playing the Building," where a keyboard activates blowers, vibrators, and electromechanical solenoids inside walls, beams, conduit and other parts of the room enclosing the exhibit. Whew! Also a terrific streaming music channel on the radio page (changes monthly).

This particular RSS is being generated by ListGarden, running locally. People have asked for an RSS from my irregularly updated site, so here it is.