An announcement

1. Some months ago I entered a photography book, Where the Spirit Left, in a contest sponsored by blurb.com and Photography.Book.Now.

2. On Wednesday, I got an email that the book had been named as an honorable mention.

3. Yesterday, I got an email that included things like "egg on our face" and "database error" and "isn't cool" and the news that my book wasn't, in fact, any kind of a winner.

4. What a bunch of idiots, specifically Mike Barash (mbarash@blurb.com).

The racetrack on the south side of town

The concession stand at a racetrack on the south side of McCamey, Texas

Old Chair in a Sad House

A flock of vultures rose from a dead tree, spiraling skyward, complaining all the way.

The brown lizard guarded the gate to the abandoned house, but the gate was redundant: the fence on either side had fallen over and a single high step could grant admittance to the yard, the house, the ghosts.

Sears bills from 1970 were scattered on the floor in a room that no longer had an outside wall. On the other side, this chair, pushed close to what had been a window, suffered the ill effects of decades of rain, and mice.

County Road 219
Hays County, Texas

Somewhere in Central Texas

near Manheim, in Lee County, Texas

National Ranching Heritage Center

A stone wall, and a roof made from logs.

National Ranching Heritage Center

Lubbock, Texas