Wilbo is Friends with a Rock Photographer

If you are looking northwest across the Gulf of Mexico, you would be looking in my direction. I'm still "domiciled" in Royal Oak, Michigan, but my employer sent me on assignment to Dallas, Texas, where I'm administering databases at a convenience retailer's headquarters in midtown Dallas, Texas. It's fun to sneak down to the cold drinks laboratory and fill up for free with a new shaved ice concoction. I've been staying here since the middle of May. So I'm a little closer to your home in west Florida now. It's an indefinate assignment, and to be honest, I am more likely to relocate permanently any where else but Texas. Florida is hot like Texas, but it's water-rich and filled with mysteries of two oceans.

I took a moment to review your latest pictures, and I am amazed not only by the quality of your work, always evoking the extra dimension of imagination for me, but also the sterling names in your schedule of shoots. Since I'm permanently a tourist for now, I'm researching the purchase of a camera to document what I am seeing on my roadtrips and witnessing by keeping my eyes peeled widely. Two weeks ago, I had the entire ranch property where Dwight D. Eisenhower grew up in Denison, Texas all to myself, and making notes helps, but it doesn't preserve a visit as well as pictures. So if you can recommend digital equipment for a newbie as well as a source, I will greatly appreciate the tips.

I'm having a good time in the evenings, liking the job and the co-workers, taking the 1.5 hour long lunches that are so typical of Dallas's office culture, but curing my hankering for a day of vacation on a large, genuine Great Lake is a tall cure. I've been out to Lake Lavon, White Rock Lake, Lake Lewisville, Lake Ray Hubbard and Grapevine Lake, and these pent-up resevoirs in the Trinity River Valley are lesser substitutions for the endless waters of Erie, Huron or Michigan. (Forgive my whining).

I was consulting at a nuclear power plant from end of August 2005 to April 2006, the Nuclear Power plant on Lake Michigan's shores, and my hotel overlooked St. Joseph's working harbor and train trestle over which the Pere Marquette ran on its way to Chicago. Every night, I could see the tallest buildings of Chicago melting in the sundown fireball from my hotel's window. I'm staying in Dallas's funky Greenville Street neighborhood and hanging in the winebars and restaurants on the chic-chic West Village, but I'm heading north with my carpetbag at earliest convenience. But maybe not. I'm liking the people, the wine-bar women and the Texas men brought along to pick-up tabs!

I saw you were on earlier this morning. Thanks for taking the initiative and sending a note.

Best,

Wilbo (It's my south of Dixie nickname !)