Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

Dory: [Reading a sign on a door] Hey, look. “Es-ca-pay”! Hey, it’s spelled just like escape.
- Dory the Blue Tang fish in the movie ‘Finding Nemo’ -

I always thought that Ford Motors should have used Dory’s mispronunciation of ‘Escape’ to promote their Ford Escape.  ‘Es-ca-pay’ sounds so much more daring than plain old ‘escape’.

When we were living in the Middle East, I drove a bright red Jeep Cherokee. One day a British women approached me (and my Jeep) and said, “Oh, I just love your Chur-o-key!” It took me a few seconds to realize that she was referring to my car. (Cherokee, to me, starts with a ‘chair’ sound, to her it starts with a ‘chur’ as in church sound.)
The lesson I learned from my years overseas is that there is more than one way to pronounce a great many words, and the sooner you accept that, the more fun language becomes.  I can ‘es-ca-pay in my chur-o-key’ – what words are you willing to liberate?

There is a hill behind the cabin and at the very top is a huge pasture. We often see horses up there, yet we never see them down in our valley. I don’t really understand why they don’t escape from their confines – the fence is down in many places.

I suppose, to the horses, the grass is simply not greener on the other side of the fence. They do not want to ‘es-ca-pay’!

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Other barbed wire photos: Macro Monday – Poked

Surprise in the Ditch

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Other Photos for this Challenge: Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique

Long way… wrong way.
- A Golfers Lament -

This is a ‘two for one’ unique photo. The fountain in the background is in Fountain Hills Arizona. When it was built in 1970, it was the world’s tallest fountain. It is now the 4th tallest. When it is running with two pumps, as it is here, it rises to about 300 feet. If the third pump is used, it is 560 feet high. (91 meters and 170 meters – but that doesn’t sound nearly as impressive.)

In the foreground – a group of Disc Golfers prepare to throw.  The Fountain Hills Park is home to an 18 hole Championship Disc Golf Course, but it is also a public park. We spent a whole afternoon watching the golfers throw their specialty ‘frisbees’, but also watching all the other users of the park wander about. Some, like us, were actively trying to skirt the course and stay out of the way. Others either didn’t realize, or didn’t care that they were in the direct path of an incoming object that is moving at 50 to 75 miles an hour over a distance of 300 or 400 feet.

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Another type of golf – my golf story: As the Crow Flies, so Goes the Pink Ball

As the Crow Flies, so Goes the Pink Ball

If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
- Jack Lemon -

They call it ‘One Tough Nine’. It is the Golf Course my friends and I play once a week when the weather allows. Three large ponds bring water into play on seven of the nine holes. (Water hazard is just another way of saying mosquitoes.) Large flocks of Canada Geese patrol the fairways and greens – leaving fertilizer calling cards. There is  ample habitat for gopher holes, which are always the right size to lose a golf ball in, and will sometimes grow big enough to take your foot or leg. Sixty eight sand bunkers (most clustered near the greens) provide ample beach time if you tire of trying to find your ball in the grass of the long rough.

Yesterday I discovered yet another hazard. I had an extra good drive off the 5th tee and could see my nice pink golf ball sitting on the top of a small rise at the top of a hill. I lost sight of the ball when I stepped down off the tee box. When I was about half way up the hill, a large crow flew overhead – something pink was clutched in her bill. “That looks like a golf ball,” I thought.

I got to the top of the hill and realized that my golf ball was gone. The crow flew by again, still clutching what was now clearly MY pink golf ball. She continued to circle over head for the rest of that hole, and most of the next one. At one point my friend saw her land, drop the ball, then pick it up again.

There is no penalty if you lose a golf ball to a predator, unless, of course, you keep score like we do. We don’t count our strokes, we just keep track of how many golf balls we lose. The thieving crow meant I was down one. But I had found a white ball earlier in the round, so technically I was even, though one white ball does not equal a coloured ball in my view.

I won’t go into the laws of probability, but I have to wonder – what were the chances that a crow would pick up a golf ball at that location on the golf course at that particular time? Did the colour of the ball affect the crow’s choice, or was the colour the only reason the crow picked up the ball at all? If I had shot another pink ball, would the crow have dropped my first ball and picked up the second one? (It was unfortunate that I had run out of pink balls or I could have found out the answer to that last question.)

When I got home I rummaged through a cupboard in the garage and found the box of pink golf balls that I had got for Christmas. I’m armed and ready for the hazards of the course next week!

My game went so bad today, that I lost two balls in the ball washer.
- Author unknown -

Addendum: I golfed again the following week. I was talking to the course marshal before our tee time.  “Watch out for the crow”, he said. “We had a tournament here a few days ago, and the players were using pink golf balls.  The crow stole at least 9 of them.”

I used my pink golf balls anyhow, but kept an eye out for crows before I teed off. I only lost 2 pink balls that day – none to the crow, though!

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Golfing at the Red House – similar game, different hazards: 144 Years Old and Going Strong!

What is Your Risk Tolerance?

The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.
- Winston Churchill -

I’ll keep this story short, then, with a few photos -not risqué, just risky.

Risk Tolerance and Comfort Zone – two concepts to think about now and then. At our house, The Car Guy is working hard to get back into his Comfort Zone, which for him is freedom from pain, and getting his neck brace off. (See A Perfect Storm.) Once that is achieved, he can start to think again about what his Risk Tolerance will be when the motorcycle is repaired!

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
- Anais Nin -

We live in an area of the country called Hail Alley.  These white lilies have been in my garden for ten years or more, and without fail they get hit by hail either just before they bloom, or just after.  That doesn’t stop them from blooming as best they can, though. Plucky little flowers.

The concept of reducing risk is not new. People have been managing risks in some form since human beings first decided to keep their hands out of the cookfire.
- Risk Management – BC Fire Academy -

Summer bonfires (with marshmallows) at the cabin.  The grandchildren are old enough now to whittle sticks with sharp knives and use said weapons for tasks that bother timid adults. (This is the best I can do for a bonfire photo – I was never at the cabin on the evenings the extended family had a bonfire. It was just that kind of a summer.)

Adventure without risk is Disneyland.
- Doug Coupland -

My nephews little boy has a bike now and while he can’t keep up with the big kids on their bikes, he can sure park it where they do. He wears a helmet, of course, but the pot holes in the roads at the cabin have unseated him on more than one occasion, and he can show you the bruises to prove it.

I’m stepping out of my Comfort Zone today – I’m going to the dentist. Yes, I am a risk taker! How about you?