Nearing Extinction

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Payphone

Rarer and more difficult to find, the once-ubiquitous payphone is headed for extinction. Obviously, the proliferation of the cell phone is the leading cause of this relic’s demise. It will be a sad day when the last payphone accepts its final coin, and that nostalgic sound of the coins dropping through the slot and into the pile of coins is never to be heard again. Goodbye to these rough and tough phones, so many have used to connect with a loved one or seek assistance when stranded out on America’s roads.

Flow Control

JWise Photo of the Day

Electricity meters and lines entering a commercial building in Phoenix, Arizona

Up against the wall, almost out of view, seldom considered and often taken for granted – the electricity meters. As a kid, I could watch the little sliver of a wheel turn inside the box and when someone turned on a high voltage power-sucking something-or-other another, the wheel would race around and around, making me wonder if it could ever spin too fast. Today I am denied that childhood pleasure as meters are going digital. With an intrusive prong, the invisible meter reader whom I swear I have never seen even once in 43 years, is able to jab the meter to download the undecipherable codes blinking on the LED display. I want the silver disk back where it belongs.

Stealth and Fluorescence

JWise Photo of the Day

Inside a fluorescent grocery store in America

With no regard to the warning not to photograph, make a recording, shoot videos, or otherwise capture images in my local grocery store, I threw caution to the wind, risking who knows what for the chance to bring you this shiny picture of the ugly, genetically modified, prepared and over-processed fluorescently packaged stuff we Americans call FOOD. I tend to make it a practice not to shop at these giant conglomerates that have become bastions for the boring masses, instead opting for small markets, farmers markets, and ethnic grocery stores where usually I get to know the owner and find great tips and good conversation from my fellow shoppers. But it does happen that I need something I can’t otherwise find, such as Woolite or that colored watery stuff we put in our dishwasher to stop water stains. Other than that, these stores are off-limits, just like Walmart.

Snap Crackle Pop

JWise Photo of the Day

Lightning over Phoenix, Arizona

Maybe five drops of rain fell with this storm. Certainly, more rain fell nearby as we could smell it, or rather, we could smell the wet creosote bush. Creosote is one of the absolute pleasures of living in the Arizona desert. When creosote gets wet it gives off the most pleasant of aromas. Much of tonight’s lightning was cloud to cloud with outstretched fingers of electricity licking at the undersides of the towering thunderheads that must be above us and out of sight.

Dusty Streets

JWise Photo of the Day

Dust Storm in Phoenix, Arizona

The wind kicks up and quickly fills the streets with blowing dust as a monsoon brushes the city. Open lots and construction sites are the main culprits in creating the brown-out conditions when we have these small localized dustups. Big storms that originate in the south kick up the top layer of the desert and under those circumstances a wall of dust half a mile thick blankets Phoenix. For a moment the blowing dust looks cool and then the reality that people might freak out while driving as visibility falls grips you, bringing you back to normal paranoid driving.