Three Beautiful Things 09/10/15: Prince George's Paint Branch Trail, Photo Contrasts, Salad Buffet and LEGO Tutorial

1.  The temperatures dropped into the 80s today and so I took a walk.  My goal every day is to try to take at least 5000 steps and today I took over 10, 000 steps.  Just so you know, in this area where I live, there are two Paint Branch Trails, one in our county (Prince George's) and one in Montgomery County (it runs near Molly and Hiram's home). Today, I drove to the north trail head of the Prince George's Paint Branch Trail, right off Cherry Hill Road. I walked south through areas recovering from the deadly Sept. 24. 2001 tornado that struck this area, skirted the edge of the Paint Branch Golf Complex, and continued to just north of the University of Maryland.

2. Before going on this walk, I grabbed my Nikon and equipped it with my 50mm/1.4 prime lens and after snapping a few pictures, I remembered that I'd told myself to work on being more mindful of contrast in my pictures.  So I looked for light and shadow, natural objects juxtaposed with unnatural ones, contrasting colors (not a strength of mine), life and death, and any other contrasts I could find. Here are some of my pictures:

3. Mid-afternoon a text came in from Molly informing me that dinner tonight was at her house. Molly made a terrific Greek-styled rice salad and she stove top grilled some chicken tenders and I brought over leftover salads I made the last two days here at home.  So we enjoyed a modest salad buffet together. Before and after dinner, David, with the aid of a catalog and a magazine, instructed me in the fine points of new Star Wars LEGO spaceships and Ninja-themed LEGO mini-figures and structures.  I had no idea.