Really strange photo

Last Monday I attended an auction where I bought a stand-up, life sized, Elvira. Remember her? She was hostess on a TV series that specialized in horror and weird shows. I brought her home and cleaned the dust off. Then I removed the, now useless, badly torn, cardboard back and replaced it with a stiff sheet of foamboard so the old gal would stand up straight. While I was finishing it up I got the bright idea that it would make a good gag picture if I stood it at the head of our front stairs to the second floor. So I took the figure and positioned it in the turn in the stairs near the top. I then went to the bottom of the stairs and using my digitale camera I snapped a picture. I could tell by the monitor that the picture looked weird, even apart from Elvira. Well, I noticed the battery warning light was on so I went where we keep fresh batteries and put new ones into the camera. Then I went back to the foot of the stairs and shot another picture up the steps at Elvira. Again, when I checked the camera monitor I saw the same smokey abboration that was in the first one. Thinking my camera must be going bad, I stepped into the Livingroom and shot a picture of the fireplace, then one of my little black schnauzer and another of our grey Schnauzer. All of those three shots were clear as a bell; much to my relief. So ,"I again went to the foot of the stairs and shot a third time up the steps. The anomalie was still there, not as pronounced as before; but still there. So I got my film camera and shot a couple pictures to see if it shows up on film. It will be awhile before I can get the film processed. Then roughly half an hour later I tried again to shoot up the front stairs. This time the shot was clear. But this isn't the end of it. My wife was on Auction Zip.com looking up local auctions when she came to an ad by an auctioneer we know quite well. My wife got excited and startted montioning me out of my comfortable chair in the den to come over and see something she had brought up in that ad on line. Reluctantly I got up and went to see what was so interesting. In the pictures this fellow had on line was an old antique foot pedal organ. The picture showed the same anomalie that my stairs shot had. All of his other pictures were bright and clear. In checking with the auctioneer I was informed that he couldn't get a clear picture of that d**n organ. He'd have thought his camera was at fault but all of his other pictures both before and after were just fine. So he put the bum picture of the organ on site becauase you could see what it was in spite of the "smoke". So I guess it wasn't Elvira that caused this anomalie. My stairs pictures are simply faded out by what looks like swirls of smoke. Really weird. Anybody out there have any kind of explaination?

Mystery of the overhead light

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will remember that my wife and I moved into this house back in 1979 we had a terrible time keeping a mirror in the downstairs bathroom wall over the sink. That mirror would wind up on the bathroom floor (once it was found in the hallway outside the bathroom). It was never broken, though you would have thought going over the porcelian sink would have damaged it). We finally gave up because no matter how securely you put that mirror up; down it came. So I placed a full length mirror on the door for my wife. Several years later I came into an unexpected small inheritance and my wife and I decided to replace the old bathroom. It had been added to the house as this house was built in 1857 when such plumbing was outside. It wasn't hard to remove and we replaced it with a nice modern structure. My wife insisted on a fairly fancy medicine cabinet with mirror and, frankly, I was apprehensive about putting it up over the new sink. But it stayed in place and has now for several years. But that is not now the problem. This new bathroom has lights on either side of the medicine cabinet and an overhead light. Actually, if I had known then what I know now, the overhead light would have been excluded. The side lights would have been quite adaquate. An electrician who wired the bathroom first installed the overhead light. Everything was great for the first few weeks. Then I noticed the overhead light was askew. I took off the globe and inspected it. I found several loose screws and remarking to my wife I was surprised the electrician was so sloppy in his work on the light. I tightened the screws and everything was fine for a week or so and then that light was again askew. This went on for several months. I got tired of continually reattaching the overhead light and I started really ramming those screws home. Didn't help, within weeks the light was askew. I just let the blamed thing go and it slowly went further and further askew until it was hanging by its attachment wires. So today, I hauled out the short ladder and discovered the long screws that secure the base of the light to the crossbar that is securely screwed into the ceiling joist were totally unscrewed and lying in the insulation in the lights base. How could screws that long completely unscrew and be lying in the insulation? I put the light back up. I screwed those bolts so tight I bent the bar. But I really expect to see it dangling off the ceiling in a week or two. Any contractors out there tell me how two long bolts can come totally unscrewed all by themselves? My wife says that whatever was playing games with the mirror is now playing games with the overhead light. Maybe she's right.

Dogs again

This afternoon as I was coming down the rear stairs, I distinctly heard the pad of paws. I turned and looked back, expecting to see one or both my dogs. There was nothing on the stairs but me. This has happened before; but it never fails to get my attention. It sounds so real. A friend suggested "rats", heaven forbid. but I doubt that. It would take a whale of a rat to make that much noise coming down the stairs; besides if it wasn't on the stairs making that sort of sound; where would it be? We haven't had a lot of footsteps this year but the animal steps seem to be making up for it. By the way, both of my dogs were asleep in front of a fan we have on the floor of the kitchen.