Miscellaneous

Ceramic Face

Many (very many) years ago, I don’t really know how many, this face came into being. It’s a ceramic face, specifically stoneware, colored with iron oxide to give it a more (but not necessarily a lot more) realistic coloration. The eyes are particularly poorly done, but they certainly give the idea of eyes. The hair is pretty special, having been made by pushing clay through a garlic press. It’s very thick hair, I admit, but immediately recognizable. The nose is reasonable but the mouth, which is just out of the frame here, is not good at all. Could I do better now? I like to think so. Should I try? Maybe I should stick to my day job.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Repair

A little while ago Cathy started having problems with her phone. We think it started when she tripped over the cord that it was plugged into. Anyway, it would not charge when the phone was turned on and charged slowly when it was turned off. Furthermore, when it was connected to a computer, it never showed up, so we couldn’t copy pictures and videos off of it to clear up storage.

After doing a little searching and trying a few things that were suggested on various web sites, I ended up ordering a new part, a replacement charging port. It came this week and this morning I installed it in the phone. I took a few pictures of the process, more for my own edification than anything else. It’s not that hard to do although getting the new part in takes a little minor fiddling. Anyway, the old part is on the upper right and the replacement on the upper left in this picture. The replacement is upside down, showing the white plastic strips that are protecting the adhesive on the back of the circuit board.

The phone charges now, whether or not it is turned on. Also it can be seen by our computer, so I was able to clear things off of the phone. But the microphone isn’t working properly. I need to open it up again and take a look at that. The speaker phone microphone works, but not the regular microphone. Small but significant issue.

Rust Feather

It was such a beautiful day today and I had gotten to work a little early. So, I decided to leave a little early as well and spend a few minutes taking pictures around my building. I walked in the woods and took pictures of tree leaves sprouting on a few trees as well as some other assorted pictures. Back in the parking lot I noticed the rust stains on the outside of a large dumpster that’s been parked in our lot for a long while now (to support construction that seems to be going on forever inside). Most of them are surrounding places where the metal has been struck and bent, particularly from the inside. This one reminded me of a feather.

Afghan Gun Barrel Inlay

I’ve been meaning to take pictures of this for a while now and today was the day I finally got around to it. Cathy’s parents have a few old muskets from Afghanistan. One of them had detailed inlay on the barrel as well as mother of pearl inlay on the stock. The metal work on the barrel is my favorite part of the gun, however. I couldn’t get a picture of all of it without the actual details being way too small to make out, so I decided to post this close up shot. There is some Persian writing on the barrel, as well, also inlaid in brass (I assume it’s brass, anyway). I asked a friend what it said and he translated it as “Made by Fateh Khan, son of Sher Muhammad Khan Babakarkhel.”

Paperweight

We’ve been at Cathy’s mom’s a bunch lately and this morning the sun was shining through her living room window onto a table covered with a wide variety of paperweights. Many of them are glass while others are metal or stone. This is a glass paperweight, but I guess that’s obvious. In addition to the colored glass stripes on it, there are embedded bubbles, which are really pretty in the direct sunlight. It’s hard to see in this picture, but I particularly liked the way the bubbles acted as lenses, showing the other paperweights on the table.

Light Snowfall

It’s early March so it’s certainly too early in the year to be thinking that we are done with snow for the winter. Today we got a light fall of snow. It wasn’t enough to affect traffic particularly and in fact it didn’t stick to the pavement at all. By early afternoon it was pretty much gone entirely. But it was quite pretty this morning, sticking to all the branches of trees and bushes. I guess I’m looking forward to the flowers of spring and to the bees and insects of summer but I’m not particularly looking forward to the heat that accompanies them. But you cannot have one without the other.

Boy and Water Buffalo

We spent much of the day at Suburban Hospital today but were finally able to get someone to sign release papers and we came home to Cathy’s mom’s house at about 2:30. I fixed dinner and we decided we should spend the night here. That meant that I needed to find something to photograph here for this little blog of mine. In the dining room, on a sideboard, is this little figurine of a water buffalo with a boy sitting on its back, playing on a flute. I’ve always liked this little pair of creatures, with the buffalo half submerged in the wood-like water of the sideboard.

Mouse Trap

I’ve just put down two mouse traps. Cathy and I were watching the TV this evening and all of a sudden Cathy started screaming. Well, not quite screaming but close. To the right of the TV, climbing on the bricks around the fire place, was a fairly large and quite healthy looking mouse. There he was, bold as you please. I’ve been aware that we have mice for a while and I bought some traps a few weeks ago but hadn’t put them out. I have now. I’m using peanut butter as bait and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve had mice that could take peanut butter off traps without tripping them, but generally the trap wins.

US Flag Through The Trees

On my way home most days, when I take the shortest route home rather, I pass a Chevrolet dealer that flies this large American Flag. Some days, when there is no wind, it’ hangs down along the pole. Other days it is more active. Today, there was a fairly stiff breeze and it stood out proudly from the pole. As I sat at the traffic light, I enjoyed watching it move in the wind and I decided I’d take a few pictures. It’s a fairly long light, so I had plenty of time.

Fire Truck, Rockville

After work today I was in Rockville Town Center to meet up with some guys at Gordon Biersch. After I parked, I was walking around a bit, taking a few pictures before heading to the restaurant. When I saw this fire truck turn the corner onto Maryland Avenue I decided to snap a couple pictures. I didn’t have a lot of time to adjust my camera so I snapped at whatever settings were already dialed in, meaning this was taken at 1/20th of a second at f/5.6. Not ideal and it shows in the camera motion. But it did serve the purpose of blurring the moving fire truck nicely. Note that it didn’t actually have lights flashing or siren wailing, so it may have simply been heading back to its station, the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department, at 380 Hungerford Drive.

Californian incense-cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) in Snow

We had a minor snow storm today (Monday). It’s Washington’s Birthday, which is a federal and local holiday for many people so it didn’t affect school today. Tomorrow is another matter and since I’m writing this on Wednesday, I happen to know they cancelled school, probably unnecessarily. It wasn’t really a bad storm and by the end of the day we had 2¾″ on the ground.

It has been quite cold for more than a couple days, with highs below freezing so the ground was cold enough that the snow began accumulating immediately. There was less than an inch when I got up this morning. I noticed that the water level in our bird bath was fairly low, lower than it had been yesterday (an not frozen because of a heater). There were tracks in the newly fallen snow that might have been from a fox. We saw the fox over the weekend, so we know he (or she) is in the area. I cleared a path to the bird bath with a broom instead of a shovel, and filled it. This was about the time the snow stopped falling and I measured it at that point. I also took a few pictures, including this one of the snow in one of three Californian incense-cedar trees (Calocedrus decurrens) that I planted along the back fence.

Magnetic Balls

A few years back these were a real hit at Christmas time. I bought three sets of 216 balls each (they came in a cube with 6³ balls). One set was colored but the coloring has mostly come off them all and they are plain steel colored balls now. They are not steel, however, being made of neodymium. You will find neodymium on the periodic table of elements with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is one of the lanthanide elements, often referred to as rare earth metals, although neodymium isn’t actually particularly rare. The magnets are actually an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron (Nd₂Fe₁₄B). Shortly after I bought them for Christmas, they were taken off the market because they are dangerous if swallowed, particularly if two are swallowed separately. If two stick together with a fold of intestine between them, it can be very serious (seriously bad).

Watching Super Bowl 50

We had a longish day today, leaving Greensboro at about 7:45 and driving home, pulling in at 1:30 after going almost exactly 300 miles. Traffic was quite light, for which I was extremely grateful, and we had no problems on the way. I didn’t have long to rest after getting home, because I had a church leadership meeting at 2:00 and then church at 4:00. By the time we were home again, the Super Bowl had already started.

Because we don’t have cable and our meager antenna only really picks up NBC and Fox, we couldn’t watch the game on our television. Fortunately, in this internet age, the game was being streamed on the CBS Sports web site and we were able to watch in on that. Our computer monitor is small compared to many new television sets but at 21 inches, it isn’t all that much smaller than our old, 1986 television. The picture is quite a bit better.

This picture was taken towards the end of the game (3:13 on the clock) and pretty much sums up the action. Referee Clete Blakeman is announcing yet another penalty against the Carolina Panthers.

Fog

When I left work today I was thinking that there might be a bit of fog. Most of the way home, however, there was none. When I got to Norbeck Road, though, all of a sudden, there was fog. Dense fog. From Gude Drive through Baltimore Road, it was quite dense. Traffic stopped a few times in that stretch (as it often does) and I grabbed a few pictures, including this one that shows reasonably well how foggy it was.

Fog In The Woods

In general, the view along my commute to and from work is pretty unexciting. There isn’t much in the way of pretty scenery and almost no real vistas to get excited about. On the other hand, it’s only about a 15 minute commute, and I really cannot complain. This time of year, though, especially when there is snow on the ground and it is a bit rainy, we sometimes have fog. There is a stretch of my commute, a little less than a mile, where there are woods on along one side (and a shorter stretch where the woods are on both sides). There are a few places along that bit of roadway where the view into the woods isn’t obscured by bushes or a steep bank. This afternoon, as I was coming home, I pulled over onto the shoulder to take a few pictures of the woods. I love how the copper colored leaves of the beech trees stand out against the dark trees and the pale light on the fog in the woods.

Song Sparrow

As I post this, much of the snow that fell two weeks ago is gone. But this picture is from last Sunday (relative to when I’m writing it), January 31. There was still quite a bit covering most everything all around. Our bird bath heater had become unplugged (the weight of the snow on the cord pulled it out of the socket) but I plugged it back in and it became an attractive destination for birds and squirrels. I’m not an expert on birds so I asked my brother to identify this sparrow. He’s pretty sure it’s a song sparrow (Melospiza melodia). Anyway, it was taking advantage of the open water and seemed to be enjoying itself splashing around.

Limited Parking

Cathy and I worked from home yesterday, although we could have gotten out without any trouble. We figured we might as well, since we could. Also, I needed to shovel the sidewalk from our driveway to the front door. We have been going in and out through the garage, which is fine, but at some point, it’s nice to have the front door back. Today we went to the office and with the exception of two lanes covered with huge piles of snow at Gude Drive and MD 355, we didn’t have any trouble. The parking lot at work still needs a lot of attention. As you can see, the spaces on the right are only about half way cleared. That’s where I usually park, but not today.

Snow

Cathy and I could actually get out of our neighborhood today, which puts us ahead of much of our neighborhood. For the most part, it’s only the primary neighborhood arteries that have even seen a plow. Our street was cleared by someone how lives near by who only did it to rescue a vehicle of his that was stranded in our neighbor’s driveway. Nevertheless, we worked from home today, mostly because we could and the roads still need a lot of work. We took a nice walk in the evening to Bauer and Norbeck. The outbound walk was on cleared roads. Coming back, we trudged through snow up to our knees, which was tiring work, but we enjoyed seeing things buried in snow. I really like shadows on snow and the patterns cut into the snow by wind. That’s what this is, the surface of the snow near the local elementary school, sculpted by the wind.