Photo Contest - Memory Sticks (2/23-3/1)

[ZapperZ]

Memory Sticks

This week, we focus on scenes or locations that bring lots of memories back to you, whether it was good or bad.

The main subject of your photo must not be a picture, an article, a printout, a written page, a sketch/painting/print, etc. even though those may also bring back memories to you.

Contest Rules:

1. Any digital photo or digitally-scanned photo relevant to the theme will be accepted within the contest period. In case there's a gray area, or you're not sure if the picture is suitable, check with me first.

2. Please resize your digital photo to no more than 800 x 600 or 600 x 800 pixels. You may also crop your picture if you wish. You are also allowed to adjust the brightness and contrast of your picture but these should not dramatically alter the look of the picture. But other than those, any form of picture editing or modification is not allowed. This is a photo contest, not a picture editing/special effect contest. You may add a watermark or your name/nickname to the photo for identification purposes.

3. Upload your photos to any of the photo servers such as imageshack or photobucket. Then post it the relevant contest thread and link your picture using the img command. PM me if you do not know how. Alternatively, you may simply upload your image file to PF, and then have the full image displayed in your post.

4. Only ONE picture per member per contest. Once a picture is posted, it cannot be changed other than a total withdrawl by that member from that week's photo contest. Exceptions will be made for modification to comply with the rules, such as resizing.

5. At the end of the contest period, I will open a poll and every PF member can vote for the picture they like best.

6. Note that in case we have a large number of entries, I will do the polling in more than one thread. If that's the case, you can vote in each of the polling threads. The photos will be assigned in the polling threads in the order they were submitted.

7. The photo of the subject must be something that you took directly, not via in intermediary medium, and not taken by someone else. Unless otherwise noted, a photo of another photo, painting, print, etc. does not qualify.

8. You can use a picture only once. Once it is used in a contest, it cannot be reused in another contest.

9. Please post only pictures meant for submission in this thread. Photos not meant for submission must not be posted in the contest thread. Posting of more than one photos by a member may result in an automatic disqualification from the week's contest.

Zz.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Last year, in July, I fell seriously ill. It was some unknown illness; later it was identified as post-viral arthralgia. Much later we realized that hospitalisation was completely unnecessary, but the doctor treating me at that point of time stressed on it. However, the doctor under whom I was admitted, was ill-behaved and ill-mannered. It was because of him that my diastolic pressure remained over 100mmHg throughout my stay in the hospital. Actually, becoming a doctor is by far the best profession in terms of money. People might not visit a physicist, but every single person has to visit a doctor at least once in life. And doctors here make use of that and have turned their profession into a business.

The five days at hospital are perhaps the worst days of my life till date. It was a difficult time for my parents as well. After the visiting hours got over, I was left alone, with nothing but a mobile. Food was horrible, so was the staff. Sleeping at night was a nightmare due to my fellow patients in the room.

This is a photo of the corridor that I took one night when I was unable to sleep:

 

[Janus]

The house I spent the vast majority of my preteen and teen years in. Tons of memories of all the hard work we put into this house. When my folks bought it, it had been abandoned for a long time and really wasn't fit to live in. Over time we turned it into quite a nice home. My wife and I drove by it last summer and it made me sad to see that it has fallen into disrepair again, after all that work we put into resurrect it from the dead. I took this picture in High school for my home improvement project in Vo-ag ( I pretty much built that carport/garage myself. Dad had started on the project but then had some health issues which left me to finish it)

 

[epenguin]

View attachment 239227

That looks like all the hospital corridors there have ever been. ( at least in modern or semi-modern hospitals.)

 

[jtbell]

I spent about 23 years in this office.

 

[kuruman]

I spent about 23 years in this office.

View attachment 239283

I spent more years than that in a similar-looking office with the obligatory 1970's chic off-white cinder blocks. Your retro CRT monitor is precious!

 

[morrobay]

From a Skytrain station in Bangkok where I traveled everyday while living there two years
The only way to go: First world transportation over third world traffic

 

[jtbell]

When I first glimpsed the upper part of the picture as I was scrolling down, I thought, "Chicago", then I looked more closely.

 

[berkeman]

I have many fond memories of riding dirtbikes and motocross bikes with my son James (aka berkeboy). This is from a motocross practice day at Club Moto in Livermore. It takes some extra skills to learn to ride the mud well, but once you figure it out, mud riding can be a blast. James is in his early 20's now, standing about 6'2"...

 

[jtbell]

obligatory 1970's chic off-white cinder blocks

The entire floor was remodeled a couple of years ago, a few years after I moved to a different building (which I'm no longer in, either, now that I've retired). The hallway walls are now smooth plaster instead of painted-over cinder block, as are the walls in the new offices and other rooms that were carved out of old rooms. My old office suite is still in the same configuration, but I don't remember whether its walls are now plastered. I'll have to stop in and take a look. I still live about a 15-minute walk from the building.

 

[berkeman]

My old office suite is still in the same configuration

Why is the phone turned around backwards? Inquiring minds...

 

[jtbell]

Why is the phone turned around backwards?

Probably because it was most recently used by someone (e.g. a student) sitting or standing in front of the desk, and I was too lazy to turn it around until I needed it again. There was a visitor's chair just to the left of where I'm standing in that picture.

 

[jtbell]

My old office suite is still in the same configuration, but I don't remember whether its walls are now plastered. I'll have to stop in and take a look.

I took a look while I was walking around this afternoon. That office suite now has plastered walls, and all-new furniture. The two bookcases on the left side of the picture have been replaced with a whiteboard. Unfortunately I couldn't get a new picture. The current occupant was out, so I could only peek through the window in the door.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Factory of Sadness, from 5 miles away:

 

[davenn]

I spent about 23 years in this office.

View attachment 239283

Why is the phone turned around backwards? Inquiring minds...

haha and I was going to make the comment ... for 23 yrs you got up and went around the desk to use the phone

 

[morrobay]

When I first glimpsed the upper part of the picture as I was scrolling down, I thought, "Chicago", then I looked more closely.

A few more Bangkok memories where your not in Chicago:
Ex on the Chayo Praya river boat. Songran chaos above Banglamphu.

 

[Rubidium_71]

The place we stayed in St. Maarten for our 15th anniversary.

 

[phinds]

Fond memories of my early adult life in Sounding Rockets at NASA. Such pics are WAY harder to get with a handheld camera than you might think because those little buggers come out of the tower like a bullet. I spent 16 years designing the on-board and ground-station electronics for them.

 

[kuruman]

This house was part of a camp where I spent several happy summers. My first night ever I was assigned to a bed in a room for the "little kids" right next to the window on the lower right. It was an agonizingly sleepless night not so much because I was in a new and strange place, but because the mattress exuded the smell of stale urine from a previous occupant and, sadly, I didn't have the presence of mind to flip it over. I revisited the place more than fifty years later and took this picture. The house is now locked up and stands unoccupied at the edge of a resort complex. I spent two nights there specifically to rekindle my childhood memories. They were rekindled alright, but also diluted by the sight of the other guests most of whom weren't even born when I was there. And so it goes.

 

[epenguin]

This house was part of a camp where I spent several happy summers.

Can you say roughly where that is? You are down as being now in Texas, but that's not an image of what comes to mind when you say 'Texas'. (At least not to people who, like me, have never been near the place.)

 

[kuruman]

Can you say roughly where that is? You are down as being now in Texas, but that's not an image of what comes to mind when you say 'Texas'. (At least not to people who, like me, have never been near the place.)

You are absolutely correct. I transplanted myself to Texas after my retirement. I grew up in Athens, Greece the yearly temperatures of which are closer to Texas than the U.S. Northeast where I spent my professional life. The house (villa) is on the gulf of Corinth about 120 km from Athens.
https://www.sikyoncoast.com/en/discover/villa

 

[ZapperZ]

Spent many long hours sitting at this beamline station at the old NSLS at Brookhaven while running various measurements. It was 3 of my most productive years of my life as a postdoc. I took this photo 2 weeks before the NSLS closed for good, to be replaced by a bigger, newer, shinier NSLS II. The place was definitely showing its age, but I look at it today with very fond memories.

Zz.

 

[jackwhirl]

The place was definitely showing its age, but I look at it today with very fond memories.

What's the story behind Big Bird, Barney, Kermit, and Elmo?

 

[epenguin]

The entries in this thread are about personal memories, here pictures by themselves hardly tell a story, so explanations have been added. The explanation of this one, probably the oldest memory here, is about 10 years ago I revisited the area and took this photo of the elementary school in North Wales where I spent a whole three months or so as pupil very many decades previously. (The only school of mine of which I have photos - who thinks of taking them at the time? - and kids didn't have cameras.) At the time of the photo it was no longer a school but had been turned into a youth centre.

I think now it was a survival resembling a bit what I have seen in documentaries of Victorian or Edwardian public elementary education in Britain. There were the three classes in the wing you see about half of to the left of the opprobrious and incongruous modern door fitting - but no separate classrooms! Somehow three simultaneous lessons scarcely interfered with each other, I think the desks of each class faced a different way - mine between the other two and facing towards the left window you see. Further to the left at the end of the building I remember a large stained-glass window (and underneath a large copy of the the painting 'The Boyhood of Raleigh'which I think was in most British schools). The school does have a somewhat ecclesiastical aspect. In fact next to it is a church built in the same style, due to an architect who enjoyed some fame in his time. Which was, as you can see, 1871. Date I surely noted when I was there, and when I saw that today, on this pic I can't say it actually came back to me yet I did have a strange feeling of this seeming somehow just right. The forgotten feature that did come back to me when I saw it 10 years ago is the rather fine roof (also a feature of the next door church). The area was noted for slate quarries. In my schooldays there, I noticed it and well, it just was, things of the adult world, built environment and every other such fixity, just were. But despite the style and church connection I don't remember religion particularly insisted on there, yet somewhat pervasive as general background there in Wales.I much disliked the school at first but in the end have not a bad memory. I don't think I learned much there. I do remember in what class and from what teacher in other schools I learned many things, like addition of two-digit numbers, long division, vocabulary or various history, etc. Two things I do remember speak of an inefficient educational style. We had to learn the names of all the Welsh counties - but it didn't occur to anyone to tell us where any of them were, so I'm still a bit hazy about this, but anyway it would now have become out of date. Similarly we learned a Welsh poem or hymn and I can still remember the words of a verse. Similarly I still don't know what they mean, no one thought to tell us, and I don't think any of us kids were Welsh speakers, I never heard it spoken. Back to religion, there I learned and we sang 'Jerusalem'. The worst thing was the school dinners and especially the lumpy semolina or revolting tapioca puddings. Best was the nature walks (maybe there were only one or two of these) where the teacher showed us birds' eggs in their nest, and a lark cooperatively fell like a stone as they are supposed to do. Or walking home, preferring to spend the bus fare on a scrumptious hot bun (about 2 or 2½d.)

Comes to mind a charming and evocative essay by the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, on revisiting his old school. And his old schoolmaster about to retire says "...and boys turn out pretty much as you would expect." I wonder...

 

[jtbell]

NSLS at Brookhaven

That brings back a memory for me, too. One of my students went on to grad school (I've now forgotten where), and spent time at BNL c. 1990 working on an experiment on the NSLS. My wife and I visited him there once on a trip to Long Island and he gave us a tour. That lab looks familiar, so we were probably in there. I may even have a picture or two somewhere on my archive disk.

 

[ZapperZ]

What's the story behind Big Bird, Barney, Kermit, and Elmo?

I don't know. They weren't there back when I was doing my work. Maybe it was just decorate the place and not make it look so sterile?

That brings back a memory for me, too. One of my students went on to grad school (I've now forgotten where), and spent time at BNL c. 1990 working on an experiment on the NSLS. My wife and I visited him there once on a trip to Long Island and he gave us a tour. That lab looks familiar, so we were probably in there. I may even have a picture or two somewhere on my archive disk.

Keep the photos. I believe the old NSLS may be demolished, if it hasn't been done already. It was definitely showing its age when I was there last. Since it was about to close down, they haven't done any maintenance on it (there were leaks from the ceiling from the rain the day before). So it looked really sad, especially when compared to the brand new NSLS II. But it was still where I cut my teeth as a true, practicing physicist.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Final day to submit your photo for this contest.

Zz.

 

[AlexCaledin]

Meow!mory of all the playing, purring and fighting in 1992 - 2010

 

[ZapperZ]

@epenguin : Unfortunately, your photo exceeds the maximum size specified for this contest.

Zz.

 

[epenguin]

@epenguin : Unfortunately, your photo exceeds the maximum size specified for this contest.

Zz.

Is it OK now? Rules say deadline exceptions allowed if en in order to comply with formatting etc requirement.

(Not very Computer proficient I used to use a picture hosting site, but since there has been on PF a direct uploading button I usually just click that and as far as I remember it only gave options "thumbnail" and "full-size" which had been okay till now.) I returned now to the hosting site which allowed me to impose 800x600 pixels and in fact it looks less big than before)

 

[ZapperZ]

Is it OK now? Rules say deadline exceptions allowed if en in order to comply with formatting etc requirement.

(Not very Computer proficient I used to use a picture hosting site, but since there has been on PF a direct uploading button I usually just click that and as far as I remember it only gave options "thumbnail" and "full-size" which had been okay till now.) I returned now to the hosting site which allowed me to impose 800x600 pixels and in fact it looks less big than before)

Unfortunately, I caught it too late, and the polling thread has already been made by the time I notified you.

Zz.

 

[epenguin]

Well nevermind about votes, couldn't it at least be there so this memory is less forgotten?

 

[ZapperZ]

Well nevermind about votes, couldn't it at least be there so this memory is less forgotten?

It's already in this thread. Having it in the polling thread will only create confusion.

Zz.