Nothing new on camera

Unless something shows up on the film camera; I got no artifacts on the digitile camera during the autumn equinox. Needless to say, film has to be sent away for processing so I have no way of knowing whether or not something could have been picked up on film. I have, in the past, picked up artifacts on both the digitile and film type cameras. But As I got nothing unusual on the digitile camera during the equinox I feel pretty certain nothing will come through on the film either. If anything does; I'll report it here. The village idiot is tearing down a historic structure here in the village. Built at the very end of the 18th century, the frame rowhouse had to be one of the oldest structures in this pre-civil war town. At first, the owner complained the structure obscured anyone seeing his wonderful ultramodern garage. When that didn't go over well with local history buffs he changed his story to "The house is dangerous because it is eaten up with termites". Hiring local Amish workers for the demolition, he was going to have the structure down and gone in 3 days. That was three weeks ago and the structure is only half demolished. The workers have had problems bringing this structure down because of its extremely tough construction (no termite damage has come to light yet). Saying its the best built and strongest structure they have ever encountered, the workmen actually marvel at its construction. Being Amish they know good construction when they see it. History, once demolished cannot be brought back. This is the second historic structure the village idiot has destroyed. Soon everyone will be able to see the village idiots eyesore garage so at lest, he, I suppose, will be happy. This village is unique in that most of the main part of town was built prior to the Civil War. That uniqueness is slowly being whittled away by uncaring, ignorant, individuals who are distroying it.

Autumn Equinox photos shot

I tried taking photos as the Autumn Equinox came in (a little after 11:00 am, September 23). I used the digitile camera and no artifacts appeared on the pictures. I will make a new attempt around midnight using both digitile and film cameras. Otherwise the house has been unusually quiet. This is the begining of the seasons when the house typically acts up. I guess time will tell. Halloween is coming.

Film from camera back

Whatever the smokey artifact was that showed up in three of my digitile camera shots did not come through on the camera using regular 35mm film of 200 speed. I still do not know what caused the anomaly. The film shots were abnormally dark. My wife has made a joke of the many pictures that I have shot of those stairs since one shot showed what might be a "ghost-like" head of a woman (A lot of debate on whether its a face or not). Because of these many shots I have a really good expectation of what a picture of those stairs should look like. These pictures are much darker than they should have been; however, I realize there could be several possible explainations. I would think that my next most logical date for trying to photograph something unusual will be Sept. 21st. tomorrow., the autumn equinox. But the next best date is Halloween which is fast coming.

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.

Bookcase sneezes

Last post I said I didn't expect any activity until Autumn. I guess I was a bit premature. Last Thursday my wife and the older dog were in the library, my wife using the computer and the dog snoozen beside her chair. I was directly across from my wife in the Den working on a drawing with the younger dog sitting with her nose almost touching the TV screen in the far side of the room. The TV was turned low as the dog follows the action not the sound anyway. The younger dog is a TV freak whereas the elder male could not possibly care any less. Anyway, it was relatively quiet when the southern wall bookcase sneezed. It wasn't my wife, it wasn't the sleeping dog it certainly wasn't me or the other dog. "The book shelves sneezed", my wife said, "Did you hear that?" " The bookshelves?" I replied, I figured it was her. "I didn't sneeze" she protested. Hurriedly I jammed on a pair of shoes and quickly left by the western side door of the house, ran around back and checked out the area where those bookshelves front the exterior wall. Nothing, nobody anywhere to be seen. Had someone sneezed outside the house I doubt we would have heard them anyway unless a window was open and we haven't been able to open a window into the Library in years. I came back in reporting nothing to report. "What area of the bookcase did the sneeze emminate from?" I inquired? Pointing at the second glass door from the west or directly south of where she sat, "There". We've been through this before. Several years ago, while being visited by a friend we all heard the bookcase cough. This was during winter and we had a good coating of snow on the ground. The friend remarked, "I think we have some snoops". He wanted to go out and try to track them down; he thought he knew who they probably were. So we left, this time by the eastern rear door which opens directly out behind the eastern wing of the house where the Library is located. There was not a trace of footprints in that virgin snow, not even animal tracks. This time there was no snow. I drilled behind the bookcase shortly after the first episode to see if I hit any hollow areas; I didn't. We do not know who or what coughed then and we certainly do not know who or what sneezed this time. One interested party suggested that perhaps we have or had an animal in the walls that caused the sneeze. For those of you who are not familiar with this house, it is brick and it would seem an opening large enough to admit a raccoon would be easily spotted. I won't say it couldn't have been an animal; possibly that is the answer. But how?This house, built in 1857, has solid brick walls several bricks thick. The early builders plastered (what they used for plaster back then was pretty close to concrete by todays standards) right over the brick, The floors are local hardwood and we have found that the use of wood studs in this house, originally, was pretty sparse except for the floors and the dumwaiter shaft. The roof has huge walnut rafters as well, but not much wood in the walls except for rooms that were added. If there are hidden areas in the house that I haven't found they must really be well concealed. We have 5 hidden (rooms)actually not big enough to be rooms but great places to conceal loot. Two of them are filled with insulation (Blown in insulation filled these speces before we were able to determine where in heck all of that insulation was going) There is one innerwall tunnel that leads from a crawlspace under the stairs all the way up to the attic but the exit in the attic was closed off and plastered over, from the looks of it, very early in the houses history. So I suppose anything is possible.Old houses can be a lot of fun....if you're not easily scared.