Kevin Atkins

Photo of the week: Spring at Cedar Bluffs

What I'm doing here...

• Waiting for Brood X, the 17 year Cicadas. Here are some more resources: College of Mt St Joseph Cicada site, the Great Lakes Cicada page (plays Cicada sound when you open it), a U of Kentucky site on the Cicada Killer wasp, and here are a bunch of Cicada recipes. Here's the website of the IU Cicada Project.
  
• Getting Moira Smiley back online.
  
• Finally getting Sam Bartlett's web page running.
  
• Worrying a bit about the ecological cost of a computer.
  
• Helping out a little with the 10th Annual Soupbowl Benefit.
  
• Editing video for Carrie Newcomer, my favorite singer/songwriter.
  
• Getting very tired of corruption in state and federal politics. I suggest that we all take a read at these information gathering sources: The Center for Public Integrity, The Institute on Money in State Politics, OpenSecrets.org, and the IRS's tracking site for 527 filings for political organizations.
  
• My cousin Lacy is a real photographer -- you can find some of her 2004 photos with this search and here are some 2003 photos.
  
• Taking pictures (what else?!) for the 10th annual Lotus World Music Festival. Photos from previous years are up in some locations around town thanks to Rich Remsberg, Levi Thomas, and especially Tom Stio.
  
• Settling into our new (1930) house.
  
• Helping Malke Rosenfeld get her website (www.drumwithyourfeet.com) running. Her old band Cucanandy is on hiatus, but they still have CD's available at this site.
  
• Thinking back on our conference trip to a Martinique.
  
• Shooting pictures at, and enjoying the 10th Annual Bloomington Early Music Festival.
  
• Celebrating the finishing of Kelly's Dissertation and PhD!
  
• Janiece Jaffe our local jazz diva has her own website now.
  
• Tiling our back room.
  
• Wishing I'd gone with Kelly to Mexico.
  
• In awe at The Claw.
  
• Listening to Spring -- the early days of the season were warm, in the 60s and 70s and in the front and back yard I thought I was hearing mice or worms or snakes or something, but I looked and looked, and couldn't see anything (besides, there were too many noises to be any of those in my back yard, given that I don't live in Washington DC). I finally figured out what it was -- it's plants pushing their way through the leaves! The leaves are dry and crackly, but the soil is moist, and the plants are moving the leaves around as they pop out! I've been told you can hear corn and bamboo grow on sunny hot days after rain, but I've never heard spring flowers grow before. You can sort of see how fast some plants grow, looking at these ferns on April 16, 17, and 18
  
• Shooting pictures at the Lotus Blossoms World Music Festival.
  
• Being warmed inside and... well, inside by the performance of friends and neighbors, a mid-Winter Welcome Table. This will stand out as one of the best performances of the year, I'm sure.
  
• Enjoying the wealth of local folk talent we have at the WFHB fundraising concert, Acoustic Hrvest.
  
• Doing a little web maintenance on local musician's sites, like Carrie Newcomer and Grey Larsen, Nils Fredland, Fiddle 'n Feet, Malke Rosenfeld and Cucanandy, Moira Smiley and Anima Fortis, and Sam Bartlett. Hoping to bring you Erica Rubis, Abby Ladin, and The Monks, soon.
  
• Drowning in spam! This week I've received 189 spam messages, 10 viruses, 15 hoax virus warnings, three messages spoofed as if to come from my own account, and three 419 scams. Thanks guys.
  
• Admiring pictures done for an ecological purpose: photos of the entire coast of California
  
• Seeing Carrie Newcomer and Tim Grimm perform at the Buskirk-Chumley
  
• Hiking and swimming on North Manitou Island and visiting Sleeping Bear and Interlochen
  
• Trying to stay cool... well at least trying to keep my computer cool, for which a found a great tool -- the "Just Cooler Twin Turbo TT-900" 5.25" drive bay cooling fan -- it is almost silent and moves huge volumes of air through your computer case (the link is a Google search for it)
  
• Playing with a couple new toys: a Boreal Designs Saguenay sea kayak and a Greenspeed GTO recumbent tricycle
  
• Parading -- July 4 parade in Bloomington
  
• Paddling -- testing kayaks at the JL Waters Monday Night Paddle at Lake Lemon
  
• Shooting the Bloomington Early Music Festival
  
• Paddling where we normally would be pedalling
  
• Shooting Dar Williams and Kris Delmhorst at our local Buskirk Chumley Theatre
  
• Shooting the Lotus Blossoms 2002 world music education outreach concert series
  
• Enjoying our two kittens (believe it or not, they're the same age)
  
• Working to create a Bloomington Area Recumbent Riders club
  
• Following the Adventures of Dan -- my former housemate Dan works on Scripps Oceanographic Institute research ships in the Pacific, and sends us messages about life at sea.
  
• Trying to figure out how to reduce our energy use a lot. Here's a fantastic site with huge amounts of helpful information and links: http://www.energyideas.org.
  
• Dreaming of flight... everyone remembers Larry Walters, right? Well, the concept of Cluster Ballooning is, er, taking off.
  
• Riding on two new recumbents, a Bike Friday brand recumbent called Bike Sat-R-Day (laid back, eh), and one of the last of the Trek R200s. The SatRDay folds into a suitcase!
  
• Shooting thousands of pictures at the 8th annual Lotus World Music Festival.
  
• Learning a little about Quebecoise culture and life in Montreal.
  
• Driving around Lake Michigan, including Door County, the Keweenau Peninsula, and Interlochen, among other places.
  
• Going to the Farmers Market on Saturdays, yay!.
  
• Shooting camp pictures, at the performances of Malcolm Dalglish's Ooolation! music and dance camp.
  
• Shooting concert pictures, at the Bloomington Early Music Festival.
  
• Sadly attending Terra's farewell concert, May 11, 2001.
  
• also sadly attending Vida's farewell concert, April 26, 2001.
  
• Attending Kelly's commencement, from IU. IU has now put the commencement ceremony videos on the web!
  
• Enjoying watching people test ride my tandem recumbent trike at our Earthday 2001, as celebrated in Bloomington.
  
• Watching how the weather has affected our Spring.
  
• Enjoying our cat's antics. Don't tell Rob...
  
• Taking literally thousands of pictures with a digital camera and scanning old slides and pictures. I've been over-documenting my life this year, so pretty much all the viewable significant events can be seen on this linked page. Here are some of my favorite, recent, or at least most frequent subjects:
  
  • A Cappella music including Terra, the young women's group coached by Moira Smiley, Monkey Puzzle, who sang at 7pm on Saturday January 13th, at the First United Methodist Church. (Here, tentatively, are some pictures and music from the show.) Also Malcolm Dalglish's Ooolation camp, Acappellooza 2000 and Vida
  • A photo archiving project at Interlochen Arts Academy and National Music Camp.
  • Irish music at Borders on 1st, 3rd (and if there is one, 5th) Fridays.
  • The Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from April through October.
  • The 7th Annual Lotus World Music Festival, and several related concerts: Frifot from Sweden, Carrie Newcomer and Vance Gilbert, and many others.
  • The 6th Annual Lotus Festival.
  • The Bloomington Early Music Festival 2000. BLEMF 2001 is coming up in May
  
  
• Riding my Greenspeed tandem recumbent trike, my TerraTrike, and my Linear Recumbent bicycles.
  

• Thinking about politics, economics, lifestyle, and the environment.
  
• Travelling! Here are many photos from our trips to Boston over Thanksgiving and Vermont, Quebec, and Interlochen in August. Here are some other trips and wilderness trips.
  
• Listening to friends... Uh oh! Men really do hear differently than women!
  
• Gathering information on freshwater jellyfish, which we have in Yellowood Lake in Indiana
  
• Struggling with various household problems. It is perhaps ironic that the Thumbnailer software I use to make these picture web pages is by a company called Smaller Animals.
  
• Singing! Here are some Village Harmony Youth camp performance pictures from July 2000 in Vermont, and also pictures from the Village Harmony Adult Camp (first session 2000). And here's the VH Adult Camp 1999 I attended.
  I also play tuba in my spare spare time. Long ago I was a performance major in the IU School of Music.
  

• Looking at maps... Here's something nifty: topographic map of Bloomington, from www.topozone.com. And even cooler is this version on Microsoft's TerraServer -- you can see it as a map, satellite photos, or a relief map. Ooo, look ma, I can see our house from here! And here's my hometown (hint: scroll up one click to see why it was a great place to grow up...). And here's a customizable view of aerial photographs of Bloomington. If you're travelling in Indiana, it can be handy to look at the INDOT map of construction projects which might get in your way. Here's a satellite image of Interlochen Arts Academy, another favorite place of mine.
  
• I've finally gotten slides and pictures from my 1986 exhange program in China digitized and webified.
  

• Working at the IU Student Loan Administration department, in the Poplars building, doing LAN Administration, tech support, database support, etc. Here are some recipes from our recent food fest.
  

• Cleaning up this damned old home page! Here's some stuff I've moved and rearranged.
  

• Looking for lost friends... (Are you on my list?)
  

My favorite things about Bloomington

• Music,
  
• food, and
  
• calming places
  

My favorite people

• Family
  
• Friends
  
• Coworkers
  

Things that have had a big influence on me

• Music -- both the practice and performance and the people, and going to Interlochen and to the Village Harmony camp, and the 1981 North Carolina School for the Arts (NCSA) summer orchestra tour of Europe
  
• Spending a semester in China
  
• going to Indiana University
  
• wilderness trips, especially canoe trips with my uncle, to Quetico, the Missinaibi River, the Churchill River
  
• travelling around England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland
  
• marriage and divorce, and serious relationships
  
• deaths of friends and family (here's a brief mention of my old friend Kert Fox who died 20 years ago this Fall)
  
• Here's a little bio of me, with some repetition of the above...
  

Go see the movie Amelie!

• Maybe the best movie I've ever seen. The web snippets don't at all do it justice -- they're brilliant if you've seen the movie, and the site is really well done, but you'll have to take my word that it's a must-see.

Perhaps you were looking for these other Kevin Atkins's?

Dear spammers and scammers

1. I never have and never will respond to spam or scams.
2. I bounce all spam to the FTC ( uce@ftc.gov ) and all 419 scams to the US Treasury office ( 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov ).
3. Since I use a unix email account, they get your original headers, unaltered, and my email client is too dumb to open inline URLs or graphics or other confirmation techniques. So, you get nothing, and, it looks like you have emailed the FTC or the US Treasury office directly.
4. Your spiders and 'bots are probably so stupid that they picked up the email addresses of the two offices above.

last updated April 30, 2004