Miscellaneous

Bumble Bee and Obedient Plant

The obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) is finally in bloom in our back yard. I feel like it’s bloomed a lot earlier in previous years but I don’t really know. This is mostly a new location for it, so maybe it will bloom earlier there once it is established. I went out to get some pictures of it late this afternoon, although the light wasn’t all that good. I managed to get this picture of a common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) on it, which I think is nice.

An Evening at the Rio

I’m posting two pictures from today. After I got that picture of the cricket in the grass, Cathy and I went to the Rio for a while. We walked twice around the lake, hoping to get a good sunset picture. The sky kept promising color in the clouds but it never really materialized. But the buildings and the reflection in the lake made a pretty nice picture, so I’m giving you that. This is an HDR image made from three individual exposures made right together, one under exposed (which supplies detail in the highlights), one properly exposed, and one over exposed (which supplies detail in the shadows). I think it turned out rather well.

Walter and Hazel Johnson

I’ve been meaning for some time to find the grave marker for Walter Johnson and today I actually stopped and found it. I’ve known for a while that he was buried in Rockville Cemetery and I’ve often thought of stopping as I drove by. Today I stopped. There are three markers, the large stone marked Johnson and the two headstones for Walter Johnson (November 6, 1887 – December 10, 1946) and Hazel Johnson, who was only 36 years old when she died of heatstroke on August 1st, 1930. The larger stone has baseballs and other baseball related items left on it, presumably by admirers.

Globe by Joe O’Connell and Blessing Hancock

I was heading home from downtown Rockville this evening and the only pictures I had taken were not worth much, so I thought I’d drive through and see if anything worth photographing was going on at the Town Square Plaza. There were quite a few people about but nothing obvious to photograph. Also, I didn’t find an easy parking space, so I kept going. I came back around and down Maryland Avenue and then turned left on E. Middle Lane, figuring I’d head home and find something else to photograph. While sitting at the light to cross Hungerford Drive I pulled out my camera and took a few pictures of this globe, a piece of public art, at the northwest corner of Hungerford and E. Middle. It is the work of Joe O’Connell and Blessing Hancock and was installed just over a year ago. My understanding is that there is a button you can push that will change the color of the light.

My New Computer

As I mentioned in the post from Thursday, my main workstation at home crashed. Parts of it are still usable and I may turn it into a Window-only scanning workstation. But for now, I need to get Linux up and running and restore the files on the drive that was lost (a 3TB drive with pictures up through 2011). This is the new computer, pre-assembly. In the past I’ve bought the smallest case that will hold everything I need. This time, I decided to take a different approach. The case is huge. But it made assembly so much easier. I got an AMD FX processor with 8 cores, 16GB of RAM (which may be upped to 32GB at some point), a 120GB SSD for the boot drive and two 5TB hard drives for data (I may need a third soon, but there’s plenty of room in this case). I also have a GeForce GTX 760 graphics card. It will be powered by a 600 watt power supply. An hour and a half later, all the parts were in the case and I was ready to start the process of installing CentOS 7, an upgrade from 6, which I’m sure will cause some pain along the way, but I do have some experience with 7 already, so I should survive.

1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

It was County Fair day for us today. I went from work and Cathy picked up Karlee and Dorothy and came a little later (actually, because of horrendous traffic, it was quite a bit later). Because I had some time on my own, I took a few pictures, including this one of a 1957 Chevy Bel Air parked outside the Arts, Crafts, and Photography building. It’s a beautiful car, wonderfully maintained and restored. Of course I also took pictures of people, animals, and even people with their animals. I also had a chance to visit with some friends who work the photography building and who showed me where my pictures were displayed. Later, when Cathy, Karlee, and Dorothy came, we got caught in the rain and had to wait it out before making our way back to our cars as it let up. Still, I nice evening and one to remember.

Escalator

Here’s a question. Should it only be an escalator when you ride it up from one level to a higher level? To escalate is to raise. So wWhen you go down, shouldn’t it be called a depressor or declinator or something? I have the same question about an elevator. Maybe that would be too complicated. I don’t know.

Anyway, Cathy and I were at Dulles airport today to pick up Dorothy. She was returning from Turkey, flying from Ankara to Washington via Munich, a much shorter itinerary than her original Ankara to Istanbul to Moscow to Washington set of flights. In fact, her entire trip from Ankara to Washington was shorter than her layover in Moscow was scheduled to be. I think we were all happy with the change. I suppose I could post a picture of her, back on American soil (or the tile floor of the airport, anyway) but I kind of like this picture of three escalators (two of which are descenders, actually), viewed from above.

Mirror, Outta The Way Cafe

We met a long-time friend this evening at the Outta The Way Cafe near Redland and Muncaster Mill Roads (http://www.outta.com/). It was a nice dinner and we had a good time catching up with the friend whom we hadn’t seen in a little while. We talked about the past a little but mostly about the future and even (occasionally) about the present. I hadn’t taken any pictures yet but this friend is not the most eager photography subject you’ll ever meet and, although I sometimes force the issue, I wanted to honor her with to not be photographed this evening. The Outta The Way Cafe has a somewhat eclectic decor, including this large mirror surrounded by a frame covered with glass balls. I’m not as happy with it as I might be. The reflection in the mirror is in focus but the mirror itself, with its colorful frame, it a bit blurry. But if I’m going to post something, this had got to be it.

Farewell to Ocean Isle Beach

A week at the beach is never enough. I’m not entirely sure if it’s the shortness of the time at the beach or the shortness of the time away from work, but in any case, our week was quickly over and it’s time to go home. I went out onto the upstairs deck and took some pictures of the fairly calm Atlantic Ocean this morning. Actually, after the storm we had around mid-week (which was a rip-roarer) the ocean has been very calm, indeed. The other thing about the week being over, of course, is that it means we have to drive home, which includes a long stretch of Interstate 95. I cannot imagine that’s anyone’s idea of a good time.

Trigger Warning

Trigger warnings are nothing new. The practice predates the internet by quite a bit, although that particular name is relatively new. In the ‘old days’ you might hear “parental discretion is advised.” before a particularly graphic or shocking news item, movie, or television show. Even for those without children (i.e., where parental discretion isn’t applicable) these warnings gave notice to all that they might want to prepare themselves for something unpleasant. Whatever you think of the current practice, however, I found the accompanying sign to be a bit funny in this context. Here’s a genuine trigger warning. It fits the old definition, of course—if you trespass you should prepare yourself to be shot—but it also fits the new usage. You might want to avoid this, if being shot at tends to cause you to have a panic attack.

A Small Basket’s Lid

I’m sorry to say that today’s photograph is mostly filler. I’m tempted to say all filler, because it’s not really much of a photograph. We have this little basket that’s been sitting on our mantle for a while now. I’m not entirely sure where it came from (and Cathy isn’t here right now for me to ask). Anyway, I took some close up pictures of it today and that’s all I have. This is the lid from the basket (which is also woven).

Actually, when I went to get them off my camera, I got a bit worried. I take the pictures from my camera and put them into directories with the date as part of their name. When I went to get pictures for July 22, there were none. I panicked briefly thinking I hadn’t taken any for today. But my computer and my camera don’t seem to be on the same page in terms of daylight saving time and the computer thought they were taken at 12:05 tomorrow morning. The time recorded by the camera within the image was correct, however, showing up as 11:05 PM today.

Reflections

We had a nice long weekend away, tracking down some of Cathy’s family history. We also got to see some pretty sights, including the Delaware Water Gap, the Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm, three very different cemeteries, a train museum, and we even went to a coal mining museum. The Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour and Anthracite Heritage Museum were closed by the time we got there but we were able to walk around a little and saw such things as a 13,000 pound chuck of anthracite and the adit where tours go down into the old mine workings. If we’re ever back in Scranton, particularly if it’s as hot as it’s been this weekend, that should be high on our list of things to do.

This morning, I went down to breakfast early and then was back in our hotel room, doing a little writing in my journal. I opened the curtain just enough to give me a little light to work by and these four stripes appeared on the wall. The sun was reflecting off the windscreens of four cars parked outside and shining up through the hotel room window, which was covered with condensation, giving the light the speckled appearance you see here. I took this picture as an abstract, really. It has no real meaning, but I think it’s a pretty pattern.

Glitter

It was a slow day photographically. That happens fairly often, I suppose. This take-a-picture-a-day thing is great in theory. If I didn’t work or was able to get outdoors to different places every day, it would be a lot easier. As it is, my life isn’t all that interesting. Nine days out of ten there’s nothing of any note to photograph. Oh, taking pictures of flowers, insects, and the occasional sunset is all well and good but some days, even that doesn’t happen. So, I look around the house for something a little different. There was some glitter on the dining room table, left over from a recent baby shower (well, the ‘baby’ is 8, but whatever). So, that’s what I photographed. I like the fact that this one star-shaped piece is standing point down in the tablecloth. You can also make out the reflection of the tablecloth pattern in the center of the star.

Shadows Of The Past

With David and Maggie in town and having had our fun outing yesterday, today was more work than play. That’s not to say we had no fun together, but we spent much of the day going through Cathy and David’s mom’s shed and throwing away old, sometimes mouse eaten papers, among many other things. There was a metal cabinet outside her kitchen door that at one time had gardening tools, a few buckets of paint, and some small bottles of pesticide, among other things. Many other things, actually. As is often the case with cabinets of this sort, it eventually became a little less organized and there were things there that were long since forgotten and which needed to be tossed. In fact, we decided that the entire cabinet was ready for the county’s metal recycling program. This is the top of one shelf. You can clearly see that there was a can of something brown, viscous, and oily, which leaked out and held some other items in place, including two small packs of fasteners, which still remain firmly attached.

I took two trips to the dump plus one before this, with some yard waste that I had loaded into the van last week. In the evening we came back to our house and I fixed grandma’s famous chicken and pilau recipes, which turned out pretty well. At least no one pushed their plates away in disgust.

Charcoal Embers

I know that on the Fourth of July I should be able to come up with a better picture than this. In years past I’ve had pictures of fireworks or of people celebrating Independence Day in various ways. This year we stayed home and had a pretty low key celebration. I marinated flank steak and grilled it, along with some slices of fresh pineapple and we had our two moms over for an early dinner. It rained pretty hard and we never really even considered going out to see fireworks. After dinner, I took some pictures of the leftover ashes and embers in the hibachi, but that’s about it. Maybe we’ll do something more exciting next year (but you won’t put any money on it, if you are wise).

Chrysler Town and Country, 210,000 Miles

Our 2000 Chrysler Town and Country reached 210,000 miles today, which is a milestone, I suppose. It happened to get there as I pulled into my office parking lot so I took a picture. Actually, I the mileage was 209,999 when I pulled into the lot and I took a picture of that before driving around my building a couple times to click it over to 210,000.

I should say, we have two minivans and this is our low-mileage van. The other is a 2007 and has a little over 240,000. Lately I’ve been alternating driving the two of them, one week for one, then a week in the other. Once it really gets hot, though, this one will get less use, as the air conditioning isn’t working. But lately it hasn’t been too bad.

Rockville Town Square

I met my family in Rockville Town Square this evening for what we have taken to calling TND (Thursday Night Dinner). We met at Gordon Biersch but I got there a little early and took a few pictures in the square before heading over to the restaurant. This was taken from the stage, with the camera sitting on the edge of the stage and with a slightly long shutter speed to get some blur into the water (1/13 sec. at f/16.0). I think I should have lightened it up a bit more, but it’s not terrible. Anyway, that’s where I was this evening.