Thanks, Google!

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Way back when I started my blog in April 2012, I wrote a post to articulate the way I see the world and how I expected that perspective to shape my daily (ahem, weekly?) entries. As it so often feels, this post died as soon as it was “published,” slipping away into the ether with nary a comment or “like” to mark that it had ever even existed.

Sigh.

From April 2012–November 2014, my stats for that post, “Up a Chimney Down,” mostly had zero (0) average views per day.

Up a chimney down stats

In November 2014 “Up a Chimney Down” began showing up in my stats now and then.  It was always so nice to see that title pop up, like an old friend dropping by.

Then a few weeks ago that old friend inexplicably started dropping by a lot. (“A lot” relatively speaking, that is, given my blog’s fairly insignificant daily traffic.) Puzzled, I did a quick Google search for “up a chimney down” and “down a chimney up.” Maybe someone was linking to my post or something like that?

Oh, hey—look what came up right below my “down a chimney up” phrase in the search bar. The text in the featured “rich answer box” or whatever that highlighted Google info snippet is called. Yep, those are my words! Pretty cool, I must say! 🙂

Google rich answer box snippet

Posted in Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Three Views of the Val. Blatz Brewing Bottle House (MSOE Campus Center)

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Light changes the appearance of things, as shown in these photos I took yesterday. What initially caught my eye was the gleam that obliterated detail as sunlight hit the stone tiles above the windows.

Val Blatz Bottle House / MSOE Campus Center detail

(Update: I noticed a few days later, when it was overcast, that what had looked like tiles in bright sunlight was actually squares of glass block.) I walked a little farther up the hill and decided to take a longer shot to remind myself of the bigger picture.

Val Blatz Bottle House / MSOE Campus Center

Then I noticed that just this slight resulting change in angle was enough to remove the glare while highlighting the design details more than usual.

Val Blatz Bottle House / MSOE Campus Center window detail

As a side comment, one of the people killed this week in San Bernardino was my second cousin. Taking photos of little things like this that strike me during the day and maybe posting them on my blog feels really trivial until something happens to force reflection on the point of being alive.

You breathe in, you breathe out. You love. You work. You go about your daily routine. Nothing of earth-shattering importance much of the time. You try to treat others well and honor the Creator and all of creation in everything you do. Large and small. Significant and inconsequential.

Rinse, repeat. So mundane. So profound.

 

Posted in architecture, Life, Milwaukee, News, Photography | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Storm’s Coming

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Storm clouds moving in

Taken with my iPhone on a mid-morning Starbucks run. The brief, sunny break between today’s rainy weather systems appears to be ending. Lucky for me that my break between classes coincided with the blue sky 😄

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Grohmann Museum – Twilight, November Drizzle

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Streetlight shining through raindrops on glass canopy over entrance to Grohmann Museum

Photo of a streetlight shining through raindrops on the glass canopy over the entrance to the Grohmann Museum, taken as I left work late this afternoon.

Posted in architecture, Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

November – Sunlight on Silver Maple Branches

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Caught this glimpse of sunlight on the dangling branches of our silver maple this morning. Can’t decide which of these photos I like the most, so I’m just posting all three for now 🙂  Which should I go with permanently?

100_1602[1]

100_1603[1]

Posted in Nature | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Kindness of Strangers: Lost and Found

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Some kind soul found this necklace and placed it in a spot where its owner might be more likely to find it.

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When my daughter lost her favorite stuffed animal in the grocery store years ago, someone did the same for us by setting Mr. Bugs atop a freestanding cardboard display of ketchup bottles.

Like Blanche in Streetcar, I have always hoped for—and usually found—compassion and assistance from others. Not that I’m reckless or (overly 🙂 ) detached from reality and the need to be self-reliant. But thank goodness for good people! Especially when the news every day is so full of evil and corruption and careless disregard.

 

Posted in Life, Milwaukee | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Carved in Stone . . .

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

. . . is no guarantee of permanence, as you can see.

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The carpenters’ union apparently found another home, and their building eventually became a place of support for a new group of people.

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Calatrava Interior, Late Afternoon on a Sunny Day

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

imageEarly September at the Milwaukee Art Museum with the brise soleil unfurled.

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Dontre Hamilton: “Rest in Power”

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

In making the wide circuit back to my office after running an errand on the other side of campus, I decided to swing through Red Arrow Park to pick up a sandwich for lunch at Starbucks.

And this is what I saw.

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Over a year since a memorial to honor Dontre Hamilton was first proposed for the place where he was slain by a Milwaukee police officer (with little official attention since then, possibly because no one wanted to deal with it?), someone has gone ahead and created a memorial anyway without waiting for the wheels of government to turn.

Although I’m sure the official position is that no one should be permitted create a memorial in a public park on their own initiative without going through proper channels, perhaps the county can unofficially sanction this homegrown memorial  by leaving it alone.

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Posted in History, Life, Milwaukee, News | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Light Ricochet

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

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It seems the busier I get in my real life, the more difficult it becomes to produce text-heavy blog posts. Language is my living, and I appear to be using up all my vocabulary at work. Words elude me when I’m tired.

At the same time, oddly, images present themselves to me more forcefully than ever. Look at me! they call from the most unexpected places. Take my picture!

So I was walking down State Street after work yesterday, when I was blinded by sunlight. I was in the shade of the office building across the street, so that shouldn’t have been possible. But it was a reflection of sunlight off the windows. And not just a reflection, but a reflection of a reflection—sunlight that had already reflected off the windows of yet another office building. The resulting light was really pretty, kind of soft and warm. As you can see in this photo, it “glowed” off the glass instead of bouncing sharply, suffusing the trees below with golden color.

Posted in Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , | 2 Comments