The Casual Blog

Today I took my first ever photography class: a three-hour session on macro photography. It was offered by the Raleigh Parks department at the Sertoma Arts Center at Shelley Lake. The teacher, Eric Krouse, was pleasant and knowledgeable, and an even bigger gear hound than I, and possibly as great a lover of dragonflies. After discussing theory, we went down to the lake, where we didn’t see much, but I got a couple of dragonfly shots I liked. The others below were taken at Raulston Arboretum yesterday.

It was a big soccer week for us, and I do not mean the World Cup. We went out to Cary on Wednesday night to see the Carolina RailHawks take on Dallas, a major league team, in the U.S. Open cup quarterfinals. The RailHawks played gamely, but finished the first half down 3-2. That turned out to be most of the story, though Dallas scored twice again in the last few minutes. In truth, Dallas had a couple of very speedy, impressive scoring threats, and we did not have a good answer. It was a good game, but after a long stretch of home wins, painful to lose.

It’s been good to see the world enjoying World Cup soccer. Soccer is a pleasing sport in many ways, with speed, agility, grace, and force. Why hasn’t it become more popular in the U.S.? I would guess it’s mostly a matter of custom and tradition, with most people happy enough with what the games they learned about as children and a little fearful of trying to learn the rules of a new game.

On Saturday we saw the RailHawks lose again, this time to Indianapolis. We led at the half 1-0, but the Indianapolis team had a better attack, and ultimately prevailed 3-2. Again it was painful to lose, but good to be see great athletes.