chuckography

counting up..and down........

The count is now up to five printed, hardbound volumes of my blog!

VOL. 5 was just delivered as Chuckography 2015 - 2018.

Found a company called Blog2Print and that is exactly the service/product that they offer.

Click on its link because they even gave me a nice plug a few years ago when printing an earlier compilation of my written efforts.

Now I have saved all of the blogs I've written in the 12-years since I started blogging,

Years ago I realized how disappointed I would be if my blog crashed or disappeared suddenly!

Surely, there must be a way to save all this effort if the worst happened.

And, of course, there was an answer that makes me very relaxed now with that concern taken away.

Blogging has allowed me to have a venue, a platform for my writing about my varied and checkered past and  - naturally - my photos.

I've mentioned before that a photo lets you "time travel" back to exciting and profound days and events.

You can immediately relive those bits and pieces of your life.

Over and over as you look back.

 I can recall taking a photo of planes waiting in line for takeoff at JFK airport in New York.

And, many years earlier, my photo of the real JFK, President John F. Kennedy speaking at the San Diego State commencement just 5 months before he traveled to Dallas.

Memory-floggers.

Some sad, some almost historic and others just plain fun to revisit.

Like watching your children again back when they were small. And, watching them change as they grow older.

I also have photos of Senator Kennedy when he came to San Diego to campaign for President against Nixon.

I was the new "official" photographer for the University of San Diego (on a photo scholarship) and worked my way through the excited throng downtown.

I gained a spot on the raised platform and snapped away as JFK spoke to the crowd.

My blog since March 2006 has been a platform where I could, for example,  recall past experiences I had in the Marines

Such as a night spent at GITMO in Cuba when "hitchhiking" back to the continental U.S from Vieques where I was attached to a tank battalion for 4 months as a photographer.

Because I was not actually a "tanker," while they spent weekends cleaning their tanks, I asked the Colonel in charge if he had any photo needs Saturday and Sunday.

Usually, I was free to get over to mainland Puerto Rico and enjoy "civilian" time in San Juan.

Didn't save much money during that four months but one day I arrived on a Monday at the permanent camp and saw all the ships were gone from the harbor! There went my ride.

Castro had threatened to cut off the water to Guantanamo Bay and it was felt a tank battalion cruising off his coast would nudge him to a different decision.

My blog covered ALL of my time with the Union-Tribune, starting at 919 Second Avenue when I had split days off while I continued school working in the wirephoto room and, later, after I became a staff photographer out on the street.

(Here is the NEW location for the paper, back downtown in a true highrise. My big surprise was the lack of a photo lab. Well, no film to develop, nowadays it is all digital.)

The blogging countdown continues.

This is posting 996, moving me closer to the 1,000 mark of entries in my blog. It's been a fun endeavor so far!

So, click on the photos and links for more details. I have many more memories to share as I glide past the one thousand mark. Be sure to stop by again. Thanks.

Oh, here's the view now from the new home of the Union-Tribune.

Nice mural of the future. Look at that circulation!!

Much better than the view we used to have at 919 Second Avenue, standing on the metal fire escape, heading over to the Copley News offices.

Labels: 000 postings, GITMO overnight, nearing 1, new U-T location, Two views of JFK, USMC memories, Volume 5 of the Print2Book series.

posted by chuckography @ 12:48 PM