The Top Ten Reasons I Did It! « Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

The Top Ten Reasons I Did It!

What’s Up?

Me, early again, as usual. I am getting started packing for the big UK trip. For me, packing begins with doing laundry, completely unpacking my two checked bags, and charging all the camera batteries.

I shot a new video yesterday on some of the finer points of using the FlexShooter Pro head; it will be posted soon. I fly on Wednesday afternoon to Chicago and then catch a red-eye flight to Edinburgh, Scotland to meet the group on Thursday morning. We should be photographing gannets that afternoon.

This image was created on June 11, 2019, by Anita North down by the shore at Basket Lake near Dryden, Ontario Canada. She used the handheld Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens and my souped-up Nikon D850. ISO 250: 1/1000 sec. at f/6.3.

Nikon Focus Peaking fine-tune value: +4. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here.

artie before his birthday haircut

Thinking About It

I had been thinking about shaving my head for a year or two. In late May, I made the decision to do it on my 73rd birthday on my visit to Basket Lake. I knew that Anita North could do a good job; as a brain surgeon, she has shaved more than a few heads during her career. I tooled around Amazon for a bit and ordered a Wahl Professional 5-Star Balding Clipper #8110.

As I was sitting on a chair in Anita’s kitchen with a towel draped over my shoulders it brought back memories of being on a gurney outside the operating room when I had major spinal surgery in the early summer of 1991 — perhaps this is not a good idea. As it turned out, I love my new haircut.

This image was created on June 11, 2019, by Anita North down by the shore at Basket Lake near Dryden, Ontario Canada. She used the handheld Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens and my souped-up Nikon D850. ISO 1000: 1/2000 sec. at f/6.3.

Nikon Focus Peaking fine-tune value: +4. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here.

artie after his birthday haircut

The Top Ten Reasons I Shaved My Head

  • #1: Scott Van Pelt (SVP). Sports Center with Scott Van Pelt: “It’s midnight eastern time and I’m not tired.” Scott is the coolest, nicest man on the planet. He is sweet and kind and clever and smart and humble and funny and knowledgeable. He is highly respected by pretty much everyone, including the very biggest stars in the world of sports. Two features, The Best Thing I Saw Today and 1 Big Thing, often leave me in tears. Love you man. If you think that I might be exaggerating, check out Scott here on raising daughters.
  • #2: James (Froggy) Shadle, good friend, and captain of the Hooptie Deux, aka the Spoonbill Boat. I had long-admired his bald head (fine as frog hair).
  • #3: No more snarls! At times it would take me an hour to get all the tangles out of my ponytail.
  • #4: Twenty-seven years is long enough for a ponytail, even an iconic one.
  • #5: I no longer have to worry about losing my (one, beloved) hairbrush.
  • #6: No more buying shampoo and expensive conditioner (to combat #3).
  • #7: Shorter showers!
  • #8: No more hair blowing in my eyes while photographing on windy days.
  • #9: I look a lot younger, less gristly, and a no longer grizzled.
  • #10: I wanted to do it, to stir the pot a bit if you would.
  • #11 — sorry, I lied about ten: I swim faster. (That’s a joke — nobody swims slower than me).

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