Photo LOAF

It’s about Baseball – Five-Tools and no snow shovel

05.03.2012 Posted in Sports

Spring. Baseball. Perfectly matched together.

I grew up in Central New York where springtime meant shoveling and cleaning up the local baseball park of all the debris leftover from where the township dumped what winter deposited on our roads, just so we could play ball.

Spring once meant that the Triple A Syracuse Chiefs would come home to the farm with the future New York Yankee stars for all the locals to see.

This spring I look forward to my first Washington Nationals game.

I am a season ticket holder of a mini-package. I feel a connection back home since I now get to see “The Kid” as National’s Manager Davey Johnson calls Bryce Harper. Harper only spent a few weeks in Syracuse – not enough time to enjoy the farm club. But Davey Johnson must know better about time spent in Central NY and the Triple A clubs, he spent a long year with the Rochester Red Wings (Baltimore Orioles) in 1965 before being called up to Baltimore in 1966.

I have been fixated to news feeds and MASN these past 5 days to follow “the Kid” as he makes his way to and in, DC. I will eventually turn my camera lens towards him but for now I want to sit back and enjoy his youthful exuberance for the game. He just may possess those coveted five-tools. A player that excels at hitting for average, hitting for power, baserunning skills and speed, throwing ability, and fielding abilities.

I am glad he left the farm club early this spring without using a snow shovel; he’d probably excel at that too.

Follow me for Slice of Life moments on Twitter @Photoloaf – as I report on Bryce Harper’s play at the Saturday, May 5th game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

by Master

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Lauderdale Air Show – Going back in time

04.29.2012 Posted in Celebrations, On Display, Oven Fresh

My wife and I were in Ft. Lauderdale FL this past weekend to attend a friend of family wedding. It occurred on the same weekend, April 28th as the Lauderdale Air Show. The Air Show had been postponed for 5 years due to financial issues. Those in the South Florida community appeared to be ready for this revival Air Show weekend.

The good part to the Lauderdale Air Show is the practice runs – which started on Thursday, April 26 and went to Friday, the 27th. Both days were picture perfect. We were staying at The Westin on A1A and the performance was over a stretch of the Atlantic beach along the Lauderdale waterfront. Most displays as some point flew in front of or over Westin or the nearby W. I was able to pull out some shots with my 120mm lens but I was ill equipped to get close enough to make out the details of the planes.

But I was able to get some framed shots that gives you a flavor for the event. I decided to color most of the following photos in a vintage filter to give them a tropical setting – reminiscent of a WWII setting. I also used the filters due to the Saturday, April 28th overcast sky.

Here are a few of my favorites from that slice of time.

Thursday, April 26th – jets streaking skyward – over the Atlantic along A1A - at Fleet Week and Lauderdale Air Show

Vintage Vietnam Era jets flying over The W on A1A

Vintage WWII planes in formation over The Westin heading East out towards the Atlantic

The LUCAS Bi-Plane leaving a smoke trail as seen from the pool deck at The Westin

by Master

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Photos of the Week – Lake Placid, MD – April 2012

04.22.2012 Posted in Celebrations, Oven Fresh

Every now and then you come across an event that tugs at your heart. That occurred on Friday, April 20 at the dedication ceremony for the Public Safety Memorial in Gaithersburg, MD at a place called Lake Placid on a street named Edison. I was invited as a local member of the press.

First a bit of history about this photo setting – the PhotoLoaf version.

The National Geographic Society former owners of the land and building set on a bucolic meadow in what was at one time rural Montgomery County named the lake outside of their “remote” office and printing/shipping plant – Lake Placid. For future readers the NatGeo’s HQ is in DC just blocks north of the White House.

The building and site changed hands as NatGeo consolidated staff and got out of the business of printing their own magazines and books. General Electric bought the land years later and used it to move what was a former “time-sharing” GEISCO computer operation from it’s Rockville location to a new Gaithersburg campus site they named Edison Park Drive.

Now Montgomery County MD owns the site and is centralizing public service staffs and operations to the campus. For 10 years the county wrestled with creating a memorial for service members who died in the line of action serving the citizens of this Metro DC urban/suburban/rural landscape.

Ah – Lake Placid – a perfect confluence of meeting of time and place.

And so on April 20th – a beautiful Spring morning – city, county, national leaders, civic and business leaders and families of the fallen gathered on the “eastern” shore of Lake Placid to dedicate the home of a permanent Public Safety Memorial.

So on a street named for the GE scientist, Thomas Edison, along a shore line of a still body of water named by National Geographic for that picturesque upstate New York venue – came a slice in time for all to experience and return to on occasions to reflect – at a memorial for the ultimate sacrifice of our public hero servants.

Ofc Edward E. Paden - Recipient of Congressional Badge of Bravery

Mrs. Fran Daly - Representing the Families of the Fallen Heroes

And go to Media at

And go to http://www.creativemoco.com/public-art/public-safety-memorial for more on the memorial.

by Master

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