Dan Kistler Studios

New book published on lulu.com

I have just completed and published a book of photography from the Spring 2009 Greece Abroad program. Photos of our time in Turkey and Greece. Photos focus mainly on the group. I will later publish a book of photography of landscapes and fine art photography from this trip as well.

Four Crows

My morning routine is a set pattern of events all based on getting my son to the bus stop at the right time. I drive the same road to and from the bus stop. I leave the house at almost the same time. Of course a great deal depends on how sleepy my son is and how fast he is moving the morning. I really think teenagers and mornings do not mix or go well together. But that is another story.

What I find almost a bit unsettling about this morning routine is not the early hour, not the sameness of the morning or the fact my son listens to music while we drive. No, it is the fact that after I drop him off and head back to work I find four crows on the exact same piece of road each day. Two crows are always on the road. Two more are on the telephone wires next to the road. I round a corner in the road and there they are. This has happened not once, not twice, not even three times in a row. No this has happened for two weeks in a row. And I swear it is exactly the same four crows! What does this mean?

Iraklio - overrun with cars

I have had the opportunity to visit Iraklio on the island of Crete and have come to the conclusion that unless you love demolition type driving don’t plan on driving in and around this city.

My most recent brought this home in no uncertain terms. After getting off the ferry from Santorini and meeting our tour company contact, picking up the three very large vans needed to move our large group around the island we were to follow our tour contact to the hotel. This seemed like a great added bonus since the contact was there really to just get us our vans. The sun was going, it was a beautiful evening, warm with a hint of a breeze and what could be better than being on a Greek island in May.

The tour contact zipped off on his scooter and we followed along. He was zipping along through streets clogged with cars—cars parked in every single open space, in all lanes of traffic and even places where there were no lanes and more. We zipped down one street that was wide enough for one car in one direction but that really was not how the street was used  because up ahead I could see a bus, a city bus headed my way. How we passed without contact is still a mystery to me. After about ten minutes of harrowing streets, almost hitting this, that and everyone out for the evening we finally made it back to the main street down by the water front. This was a real road with lanes and everything even lines on the road. This was easy but it did not last.

We turned up yet another street that appeared to be just slightly wider than an alley to get to the hotel. Then came the turn that nearly did us all in. Imagine turning down a small street with a huge van full of college students who are crammed in with all their gear, you cannot see out any window except straight ahead, the van in slightly underpowered and it is dark in a city where you cannot speak or read the language. And turning onto a street once again filled with cars and far too narrow. Only solution is to go over the sidewalk and just hope the tires do not explode.

We made the turn after backing up a couple of times to try the turn again. Of course this brought out a chorus of horn honking from everyone we held up and that seemed to be everyone in this part of town. We stopped in front of the hotel to unload, nowhere to park so you just block the street and get the horns all over again.

Dump the students and gear and drive down to the parking area which was just a block down the street. As soon as I got in I could hear the lot attendant yelling at the first van about something and hearing lots of no’s. Apparently this was only for local residents. So back out on the street headed toward so other parking area somewhere to the right. I followed the other van down to the main street only to lose them there and then I was on my own.

I was lost, really lost. No idea where this garage or parking area was. I could get back to the hotel but what good was that. So I drove and drove and drove some more hoping I would find this place. Finally I gave up and returned to the hotel and by some miracle the tour agent was there and was to lead us to the underground parking garage. We arrived at the garage and dropped off the vans and left them there for the next day.

My advice. If you find yourself in Iraklio and want to stay there for a day or two do it without a car. Ride the bus, walk, run or get a scooter. This place was not meant for cars and it has been overrun by cars. It is meant for walking. And if you insist on having a car use it to drive out of town. I dare you to park anywhere near the Kastro Hotel without putting your life in danger. I love to drive and I can handle traffic. But this experience was so intense, such a shock to the system I think it left a mark—tire tracks across my back. Never in my life have I encountered such intense traffic, narrow streets, near-death experiences at every intersection, seen so many cars stacked up in every direction on the sides of the roads and so many people intent on getting from place to place in their cars.

Limits

I am not one for rules. Rules are made to be broken, rules must be enforced, and we cannot hope to all agree on all the rules. And it would take too many rules to really make any changes. We all ignore rules anyway. And rules really never change anything.

But I think a better way to bring about change would be to agree to impose limits on certain daily activities that we all do in our days. Here are my ideas for limits we need.

1. A limit on how many people can be stupid in one day. Nothing more needs to be said.

2. A limit on how many people can drive under the speed limit during any given day. This is especially needed on weekends. What is it about a weekend that makes certain drivers forget where the gas pedal is? They drive so slowly and with such a lost look about them they are a hazard to everyone who needs to get somewhere before next year. If someone is in front of you looking totally lost and driving 20 miles an hour under the speed limit I say you should be allowed to ram into their car and drive them into the ditch. It is only fair. I can only imagine a great number of those lost drivers will, after they have extracted themselves from their mangled cars, finally wake up to fact that they can’t drive worth beans. And maybe, just maybe they will stop driving altogether.

3. A limit on how many people can be in the same aisle in the grocery store. Find what you want and get out of the way. Similar to the driving limit in that when some people get behind a shopping cart they suddenly lose the ability to think and act with any swiftness. It would be so easy for a grocery store to hire aisle bouncers. They could toss you out of the aisle for lingering or hesitating when making a selection. Delay for a split second in the cereal aisle and you suddenly find yourself tossed over to aisle 21 staring at bags and bags of dog food. Imagine an aisle in the grocery store free from lingering and lost shoppers.

4. A limit on how many kids can cry in public on any given day. Give it a break kid—suffer in silence.

5. A limit on how many times a parent can tell their child “Because I said so” in public. So few parents are really good at the art of the argument. A sad fact in life today.

That should about do it. I am sure more than five limits are needed but these are the limits that would have made my shopping trip today so much better.If a way can be found to impose these limits on the American public life will certainly change.