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Here and There…Now and Then |
Julia
It was a short week, with only three days of school for Dorothy and of work for Cathy and me, but somehow it seemed like a long week. We were all tired and ready for a break. When Wednesday evening finally came, Dorothy asked if she could go hang out with Julia, who was home for a few days from college. We dropped her off and then went out to dinner, but of course we stopped in for a few minutes to visit, first. Visit and take a few pictures.
Tail Light Reflections
I hope you aren’t tired of reflections. I really like them so perhaps they show up here more than you’d like. Well, I suppose you could start your own photo blog and take the pictures you want to see online and I’ll keep taking the pictures I enjoy. It rained heavily most of the day today and the lights were reflecting more than normal off of the very wet roads.
There’s a portion of my not-too-long commute where the traffic almost always slows down to a crawl and often stops for a few moments. It isn’t took great a distance so I don’t mind it terribly and it does, on occasion, give me the opportunity to snap a few reflection pictures while I’m waiting. I took a few that show more cars but I like this one, which is mostly reflections.
Water On a Windshield
We had a little rain today. There was talk of more than just rain but it was never cold enough that it was going to happen. School opened on time and there wasn’t really any problem out on the roads today. When I left work, I noticed the patterns that the water was making on the windscreen and decided to take a few pictures. This is the one I like the best. I think the patterns are cool. I also like the organic shapes and shades of color made by the various thicknesses of water. Maybe I’m just easily entertained.
Erasers, Pens, and Pencils
I was looking around the house again for things to photograph. Dorothy’s vast collection of colored pencils, pens, markers, and paints often catches my eye in such circumstances. This time, instead of focusing on the pens and pencils themselves, I looked at the erasers.
Something new and with its own set of colors, muted and transferred in the process or removing colors from drawings.
Venetian Blinds
Do you know how to make a Venetian blind? Poke his eyes out. Old joke and not terribly funny. Sorry about that.
I was looking for things to photograph this afternoon as the sun was streaming in the windows on the back of our house. The first pictures were of windows with the blinds open. The sunlight was strong and it was just a little bit hazy and the windows, which frankly could use a bit of washing, actually made an interesting study. Then I noticed the color on these blinds and decided I liked this picture quite a bit more. Also, it doesn’t make us look like slobs quite so much.
Actually, the color is on the blinds themselves. I’m not sure what it is. It looks a little like rust, but I don’t think that’s what it is, because they have a painted coating and the color is on the outside of that and can be washed off. The blinds are pretty old and could probably do with being replaced, but that’s another story.
My Photo Table
As I think I mentioned, I had a vendor table at the WCA Christmas Bazaar today. It’s something I look forward to every year and I had a great time. Of course, many of the people that I saw are old friends but I usually meet a few new people or get to know some that I’ve only just met recently. I sold a fair number of cards and prints and enjoyed all the visiting. Thank you to everyone who stopped by. Dorothy took this picture of me, so I could show you my display. Nothing fancy, of course, because I’m not really a fancy person.
Weird Cloud Pattern
I was at the school today for the Christmas Bazaar when two friends came to my table and asked if I had my camera with me. Of course I did. They said that’s wait at my table for me and that I should go outside and look at the clouds to the north east. This is what I saw. I have no idea what might have caused this pattern. The rest of the sky was filled with a thin layer of clouds like the surrounding clouds in this picture, except to the west where it was clearing up. Strange.
UPDATE: A friend of mine identified this phenomenon for me. It is called a Fallstreak hole and the formation occurs when part of a cloud of water droplets freezes into ice crystals. Here is the relevant page on Wikipedia and also a page at The Cloud Appreciation Society.
Assorted Candles
After work I met Cathy and Dorothy at the school. Cathy had reserved a space for me for the Christmas Bazaar and Craft Sale tomorrow and when I got there they were working on sorting and pricing things for the Attic Treasures, basically a huge garage sale, in the gym. I brought in some things for my table and will bring the rest in tomorrow. Then I went to the gym and took pictures of people getting ready. These are some candles that I thought would make a colorful picture.
Cellophane
On May 26, 1914, Swiss chemist Jacques E. Brandenberger applied for a patent (awarded on May 21, 1918 as patent number 1,266,766) for a method of producing composite cellulose film, a.k.a. cellophane. Actually, I have no idea if this is true cellophane or some other film, but I think of it as cellophane, in any case. I spent the evening assembling and packaging photographs for the upcominb WCA Christmas Bazaar on Saturday and this is my trash bin, full of wrapping material.
Ravi Zacharias
This evening I took Dorothy and four of her classmates to Johns Hopkins University to hear Ravi Zacharias speak. For those not familiar with the name, Dr. Zacharias is a Christian apologist and defender of traditional evangelicalism. Rather than simply copy his bio here, I’ll link to it on the RZIM web site. He was speaking this evening on the topic of “The Problem of Suffering and the Goodness of God.” We got there about a half hour before the program started and were fortunate to get seats, much less seats all together. It was a good talk and worth the effort. Of course, you can also hear him online or on the radio without driving to Baltimore. Still, it’s nice once in a while to actually see and hear people speak in person.
Chain Mail
Chain mail, that is. In a few weeks I plan to visit the fourth grade class at Dorothy’s school and talk about knights and castles. When we lived in England we loved castles and I still find them a lot of fun to visit. I plan to talk about some of the design features that are unique to castles. We’ll also talk about armor and I have borrowed a chain mail shirt and a few other things from Steve to bring with me. This is a section of chain mail — actually, it’s more than one thickness of mail, lying on a table. Pretty cool.
Cathy, Pancakes, and Syrup
In the continuing story of the celebration of Cathy’s most recent birthday, the three of us went out for dinner this evening. It wasn’t what you might call a fancy dinner. We had thought to go to a small Italian place that we like pretty well. Unfortunately they are closed on Mondays so we had to fall back on Plan B. That, as it turned out, was a trip to IHOP. Not gourmet, particularly, but it was good and it was and is always nice to be together, just the three of us. Happy continued birthday!
Japanese Maple Leaves
Most of the leaves are down from most of the trees but there are still some that are holding out against the approach of winter. This Japanese maple is in Cathy’s mom’s yard and it’s got quite a bit of color yet. I took quite a few pictures of leaves from various angles and with various aperture for a range of depths of field.
I like the combination of orange and red in this picture, as well as the out of focus background.
Leaf Cookies
We had some friends over this evening and had a wonderful time talking about all sorts of things. My dinner turned out well, although it took a bit longer to cook that I had expected. Still, we had a few munchies in the meantime and no one suffered unduly. Cathie brought a plate of autumn leaf cookies, which were not only beautiful but also delicious.
Thanks to all who were here. We had a great time.
Pilgrim Celebrations
Cathy’s Birthday isn’t quite here yet but we celebrated it this evening with her mom and brother, who flew into town yesterday for a few days. I took a few pictures around the house and of Cathy blowing out the candles on her cake (and boy were there a lot of them).
This picture is of one of the celebrants, a wooden pilgrim man wearing a festive, paper party hat. He teetotal wife, also made of wood, had none of it. Actually, I think she didn’t quite approve of the gift that Dorothy gave Cathy. I think, though, that when the xylem starts to phloem, she can party with the best of them. Or maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
In any case, we had a wonderful meal and a good visit.
Reflections On an SUV
Today’s picture is another taken from the car. I was stopped at a traffic light and liked the bright red reflections in the black SUV next to me. Sometimes people paint simple stripes or occasionally flames on the side of their car. I think it would be cool to have reflections painted on the car so I looked like this all the time. Maybe it would be hard to make the painting bright enough, but it would be nice if you could.
Evening Traffic
There was quite heavy traffic this evening. Usually it’s only heavy in the direction I’m going (more’s the pitty). This evening it was heavy in the other direction, as well, due to a small accident blocking one lane on that side of the road. While stopped in traffic, I took a few pictures of the lines of cars. Getting the exposure right on a picture like this is a little iffy and of course, I didn’t have a lot of time to fiddle about. In consequence, it’s a little darker than it actually was.
Sunset
Cathy called me at about 5:00 today and said there was a nice sunset. When I’m at my computer at work, which is most of the time, I’m facing away from the windows. Also, my window faces north, so I don’t usually see the sunset. This time, there was orange outside my window. I took a few from there but decided this sunset deserved a bit more attention, so I ran downstairs and out into the parking lot. There are trees that blocked the horizon but I still got a pretty good picture of the sky (I wonder if I could get on the roof of my building). What colors!
Tail Light
Cathy and I often drive to work together on Mondays because she doesn’t have to leave earlier then I do to pick up Dorothy. After work I drove from my building to hers to pick her up and as I waited for her to come out, I took a few pictures. Odd pictures.
This is the wall behind my car, lit up by the car’s red tail light, as seen in the passenger-side rear view mirror.
First Quarter Moon
I’ve griped before about the fact that I don’t have a good, long-focal-length lens. In spite of the fact that I still feel that way, I went out this evening and took some pictures of the moon from our front yard. It was high in the sky and just past being cut in half (which is a quarter moon rather than a half moon). I love looking at the moon, don’t you. Still (here I go again), I wish I had a good 500mm lens. Unfortunately, even a mediocre 500mm lens is pretty expensive and not really something I can justify.
