Miscellaneous

Christmas Morning

Photograph taken on Wednesday, December 25, 2019 by Henry
Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning, otherwise known as the calm before the storm, was nice this year. Santa obviously came and left a lot of things under the tree. He also seems to have finished the puzzle that we were working on. I guess he must have been ahead of schedule and wanted to take a break. It was mostly the sky that was left for him to do, which was the hardest part of the puzzle. Naturally he ate the cookies that Darius left out for him and he the pieces of carrot that were left for his reindeer were also gone, so they seem to have gotten their treat. As you can see, in addition to all the presents under and around the tree, there was one that Dorothy “wrapped” that’s hanging on the wall. Needless to say, this didn’t stay looking like this for too long. But we did have breakfast before diving into all the gifts.

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Santa’s Pre-Visit

Photograph taken on Sunday, December 22, 2019 by Henry
Santa's Pre-Visit

Santa’s Pre-Visit

In our neighborhood, Santa makes a pre-Christmas visit, just to be sure he knows where everyone lives. For all I know he does this everywhere, but we don’t live everywhere, so we only know about here. He doesn’t keep as low a profile on this visit as he does on Christmas eve and morning. In fact, he makes a fair amount of noise, with Christmas music blasting from speakers on his ‘sleigh’ and an occasional “ho, ho, ho“ thrown in for good measure. He and his helpers had bags of goodies for the children in the neighborhood, as well and a good time was had by all. Now, to wait for his second visit in a few day’s time.

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Frost

Photograph taken on Friday, December 20, 2019 by Henry
Frost

Frost

There was a heavy frost this morning and I took the time before going to work to get some photos. That meant lying on the ground which was a bit cold and decidedly damp, but I knew I’d dry out before I got to work, so I wasn’t worried. I think ice crystals are pretty cool (no pun intended) and these are pretty nice. I’d like to have gotten closer but I didn’t have the time to get out the ultra-close-up equipment, so this was about as good as I could get.

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Our Christmas Tree

Photograph taken on Thursday, December 19, 2019 by Henry
Our Christmas Tree

Our Christmas Tree

We put our Christmas tree up this evening. I know a lot of folks have a tradition of putting their tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving and I have no problem with such a tradition. Nevertheless, we’re not quite so organized and in any case, the tree was in the storage unit and I didn’t get it until early December. It’s been in the back of my car for a while and this afternoon I brought it in and we set it up. Dorothy and Cathy brought up some boxes of decorations and began decorating the tree, although it isn’t done yet. There are a few boxes that were in storage and I will need to stop there and pick them up before we can consider it finished. Nevertheless, the living room is finally starting to look a lot like christmas. The large nativity scene will also need to be set up, probably on the top of the piano. Dorothy is also planning to make a wreath to hang on the front door. Note that in the past, our tree has stayed up until it really begins to lose needles. Now that we’re using an artificial tree that we brought from Margaret’s, that’s not an issue any more. We’ll probably take it down in early January, anyway. Note in this photo, the traditional peanut butter in front of the tree.

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Peanut Creche

Photograph taken on Monday, December 16, 2019 by Henry
Peanut Creche

Peanut Creche

This little creche is made with bits and pieces from the kitchen. Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus are peanuts with Halos made from Cheerios. The magi—or maybe those are angels, it’s in some dispute—are made from Hershey’s kisses. The sheep are pumpkin seeds with broken toothpicks for legs. I’m not entirely sure what is in the foreground. Perhaps that’s food for the animals (and the baby didn’t fit in this manger so he’s next to it instead. The yarn person, which is perhaps a shepherd, is not to scale but is definitely part of the composition. The frog, however, is almost certainly apocryphal.

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X-Ray Screened

Photograph taken on Saturday, December 07, 2019 by Henry
X-Ray Screened

X-Ray Screened

Dorothy ordered something from India and it came recently. From “Rupsa, Near Fish Market Hatiadiha, Barhampur, 756028 Balasore, India” to be more precise. On the package was this orange label saying it was X-Ray Screened. It took me a little while to figure out what that shape was to the left of the text. It’s the tail of an airplane with a sunburst pattern on it. Anyway, I liked the label and took some pictures of it this evening. Not, perhaps, the most interesting subject for a photograph but I was fairly busy the rest of the day and it was something that caught my eye.

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Dancers in Mourning

Photograph taken on Tuesday, December 03, 2019 by Henry
Dancers in Mourning

Dancers in Mourning

With apologies for Margery Allingham (whose book was the inspiration for the title of my post), this is art work in a cemetery near where we live. I went to a burial there today, followed by a memorial service in Clarksburg. I didn’t really know the woman who died but I’ve known her husband for over 45 years. We’ve lost touch a bit but we’d run into one another occasionally. Nevertheless, he’s one of a small number of men who influenced me pretty significantly in my early life. After the service, I drove back to the cemetery and wandered around a bit and took some pictures. This art is in a Jewish section of the cemetery and I really like it. There was another similarly designed piece with Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea. I’m assuming that this is Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, who:

…took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

(Exodus 15:20–21)

She was not mourning, of course, but as this artwork is decorating a cemetery, I thought that title might fit well.

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History Books

Photograph taken on Sunday, December 01, 2019 by Henry
History Books

History Books

When I was in school, both K through 12 and in college, I was not much of a reader. It wasn’t that I couldn’t read. But I was a slow reader and it took me a long time to get through anything of substance. I don’t think it was because I had a short attention span. It was probably as short as that of many boys but I could focus if I wanted to. The problem was that I didn’t want to. History, among a few other subjects, simply didn’t interest me. Now, things are different. I love history and although I still read slowly, I’m much more likely to be reading history of one sort or another that almost anything else. When I set up my library in the basement I organized my books mostly by subject but there are a few groups of books that are grouped together for other reasons. In the case of these books, they are both historical in nature and unified by their common publisher. To their left (outside this photo) are most of my Modern Library books, also grouped together.

A side note, four of these books, The Song of Roland and the three part Dante series, were all translated by Dorothy Sayers (13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957), famed for her mystery stories.

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Letters

Photograph taken on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 by Henry
Letters

Letters

When was the last time you wrote a letter? For me, I know it’s been a while. I’ve sent a few business letters, generally accompanying a check or something of that sort. But a real, honest to goodness, hand-written letter? It’s been a while. I wrote one to a friend who ended up in prison for a little while but that was hard. I’ve probably only written one or two others in the last five years or more. I’m not sure what that means for the future. I guess in one sense it means “less stuff” and maybe that’s a good thing. But it’s sometimes fun to see old letters that were written by our parents or grandparents (or even earlier) back in the day. That’s what these are.

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Mugs

Photograph taken on Monday, November 25, 2019 by Henry
Mugs

Mugs

This is one of those photos that’s here just to fill they day. We have a blue hutch in our kitchen, brought from my mother-in-law’s kitchen. On that are two shelves where we keep mugs and these are some of them. The mug on the right holds dry-erase markers that we use to update the calendar on the wall nearby. In the back is a mug I made (the light brown one) back in 1979 or thereabouts. It’s a pretty decent mug, if I say so myself. In front of that and to the left is one that Dorothy got for being in the York’s wedding. And back over to the right is one that dad got at NIH at some point. I think of him whenever I use it (and other times, too).

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Redbud Pods

Photograph taken on Thursday, November 21, 2019 by Henry
Redbud Pods

Redbud Pods

I got out of my office and into the woods for a little while today. I took some pictures of oak leaves, which I fine quite beautiful this time of year. I also took some photos of the stream that flows through the woods next to my office. There was a small oily patch that looked like miniature ice bergs and I thought about posting one of those. In the end, I decided I liked this photo of two redbud seedpods better. It’s a simple picture but I like the lines.

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Stuff

Photograph taken on Friday, November 15, 2019 by Henry
Metal Deer In a Metal Bowl

Metal Deer In a Metal Bowl

This is one of those times where I was looking for something to photograph and what I found may or may not be of interest. But it’s a photograph. We have some things that were not gotten rid of during the emptying of our two family homes in 2018. Maybe some of them we should have but for now, they are in our house (with other things being in one of three storage units, which is another story all together). I’m not sure how to describe these two items. The first is a deer, made out of metal with small, orange enamel drops and swirls of wire to represent fur. The second is a small, heart shaped bowl, also made of metal, with a subtle pattern on it. It’s pretty tarnished, so perhaps it’s made of silver, but I’m really not sure.

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Frost

Photograph taken on Thursday, November 14, 2019 by Henry
Frost

Frost

It’s turned cold, with morning temperatures in the mid 20s. We had our first hard freeze yesterday and today there was frost on the windscreen of my car. So, naturally I pulled out my camera and took a few pictures. These little ice crystals are pretty delicate and once I turned on the car, they melted pretty quickly (and I ran the windshield washer, which took care of them completely). As many of you know, I don’t mind cold weather too much. I wore a jacket a few times during our ten days in Juneau but that was as much for the rain as anything else. I’ll generally not bother unless it’s below about 15°F or I’m going to be outdoors for an extended period.

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Bananagram Tiles

Photograph taken on Monday, November 11, 2019 by Henry
Bananagram Tiles

Bananagram Tiles

I bought a book from Ikea today. Sorry, the joke isn’t original but very few of them really are. I was looking around for something to photograph this evening and saw this Bananagrams set and thought I could use them to illustrate the joke. Not the funniest joke I’ve every told but certainly not the worst, either. Am I known for telling “dad jokes”? Yes, I suppose I am. It goes along with my “dad bod”, which I prefer to describe as a “father figure”.

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Everlastings

Photograph taken on Sunday, November 10, 2019 by Henry
Everlastings

Everlastings

I’ve published a photo of these everlastings (Xerochrysum bracteatum ‘Sundaze Golden Beauty’) before. See Wednesday, June 06, 2018. They aren’t quite as fresh as they were then, but if you can find another flower that looks this good after five months in your back garden, with birds, bugs, and the summer heat, I’ll be surprised. Yellow flowers seem to fool the computer in my camera (a Canon EOS 60D) and they come out with way too much blue. It’s easy enough to adjust them back to the original yellow but it’s a bit funny how strongly it wants them to be blue.

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Samovar Lamp and Ceramic Dog

Photograph taken on Thursday, November 07, 2019 by Henry
Samovar Lamp and Ceramic Dog

Samovar Lamp and Ceramic Dog

a few of Dorothy’s friends are passing through the area and asked if they could spend the night here tomorrow night. Naturally we’re happy to have them and I was cleaning up the guest room, which we have used as something of a store room for things we don’t know what to do with. I was in there this evening and this do caught my eye. I don’t know why but I think the composition with the dog in front of the samovar lamp just works. It’s all I have for today, so I guess it has to.

As I mentioned a few days ago, with the shorter days, if I don’t get out during work and if there doesn’t happen to be a nice sunrise or sunset, I have a hard time getting an outdoor photo this time of year (and for the next few months). Because of that, I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with this sort of photograph. This happens every year and I really should look back at previous years and see if there is anything I did that I might do again now, to deal with this issue.

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Bald Eagles in Lemon Creek

Photograph taken on Thursday, October 24, 2019 by Henry
Bald Eagles in Lemon Creek

Bald Eagles in Lemon Creek

Well, we landed in Juneau after a long day of flights and layovers in Los Angeles and Seattle. We slept well and didn’t worry about getting up early (although I woke up at 7:00 anyway). We took a walk with the dogs in Lemon Creek, where Dorothy is living with our good friends, Brian and Lisa. The dogs, Kippen and Ayla, are border collies and are a lot of fun. The walk in Lemon Creek is surprisingly pretty for something so close to their house and it was nice to get out. The air was cool and it was raining very lightly but we knew what to expect and were ready for it. I got one photo with three bald eagles in it but I think this one is better. You can see the one at the top of the tree pretty easily but there is a second that’s not quite so obvious a little ways down on the right side of the same tree.

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Hard Drives

Photograph taken on Tuesday, October 22, 2019 by Henry
Hard Drives

Hard Drives

I’ve worked my way through quite a few hard drives over the years. When I bought my first computer, a NEC APC. I had the option to buy a 10MB drive for about $5,000. I opted not to spend that much for a hard drive that was only 10 times the capacity of the 8″ floppies it used. My phone now has a 128GB micro SD card that can be bought for $20. That’s roughly 13,000 times the capacity for 1/250th the price or about 3.25 million times the storage per dollar. I have two 5TB and two 6TB drives in my main work computer that cost a little over $100 each, more than 20 million times the storage per dollar. What I really need to do it make sure there is nothing left on any of these drives that I need and then destroy them. But like so much of what needs to be done, it takes time.

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Sweat Bee

Photograph taken on Monday, October 21, 2019 by Henry
Sweat Bee

Sweat Bee

I met Cathy outside for a little while early this afternoon. As we were walking back towards the entrance to my building we saw a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) near the parking lot and I was able to get a few nice photographs of her. Cathy went back to her office and I went down near the pond and took some photos of insects. There was a type of fly that I hadn’t seen before. I thought it was a thick-headed fly (Family Conopidae) but it was identified as a Dioprosopa clavata, a syrphid fly (Family Halictidae) that resembles a thick-headed fly. Today’s photo, however, is of this metalic green sweat bee, a female in the genus Augochlorella.

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Reflections

Photograph taken on Friday, October 18, 2019 by Henry
Reflections

Reflections

Cathy and I went to Trader Joe’s after work and then stopped at the Rio for a bit. We walked around the pond and I took some photos, mostly of the reflections in the water. This is the Launch Workplaces building near the western end of the pond. I thought the reflections were nice. There was a gaggle of (probably middle school) girls on the bridge posing for group pictures on their phones and we heard the dad of one of them say something like, “Well, we’re eating now. You can take pictures or you can eat.” The girls didn’t seem interested in eating.

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