Miscellaneous

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.

Snow on Monarda

We had our first snow of 2016 today. It wasn’t much to speak of. It came down fairly hard for a while but was more pretty than annoyance. The ground wasn’t cold enough and it didn’t snow long enough for much to accumulate, except where it was kept away from the ground by plants, etc. I went out in the yard and took quite a few pictures. Snow is tricky to photograph because your camera’s exposure sensor wants to make your photo a middle grey while most snow scenes are much brighter than that. So, you have to override the camera. Then, if you make the dark things in the scene a proper exposure, the snow loses it’s texture and detail. In this photo, snow flakes have accumulated on a seed head of beebalm (Monarda didyma).

Frost

It was cool this morning, below freezing but not bitterly cold. Yesterday morning it was 24°F when I got up north of Boston and it didn’t get above freezing all day. Today the forecast is for a high well into the 40s if not up to 50°F. But it was cool when I went out and there was a good coating of frost on the windscreen of the van. Before I turned on the heat and started the process of clearing it off, I pulled out my camera and took a few pictures.

Home For The Challahdays

It’s a sort of stale joke, I suppose and it certainly isn’t original, but I couldn’t resist. Dorothy was home for the challahdays and we really enjoyed having her here. Of course, having her here means getting used to having her gone again when she goes back to school.

Well, that’s today. We left home at 5:40, met Peter and Porter and loaded Porter’s things into the car and by 6:15 or so we were on our way to the North Shore of Massachusetts. It’s about 480 miles and a little more than half way is the Rockland Bakery. I have posted pictures from there before, on August 23 and again on October 04, 2015. If you are ever in the area around Nanuet, New York (just west of the Tappen Zee Bridge) then I recommend you stop in for a visit. The bagels by themselves are worth the effort, if you can get them as they come out of the oven, so hot you can barely hold them.

I brought cream cheese as well deli meat and sliced cheese for making sandwiches and we made a late lunch at about 2:30, after we arrived at the school.

My Right Eye

Some of you know that I’ve had some eye problems over the last seven and a half years. About seven years ago I had cataract surgery in my right eye (pictured here). Then in 2014 I had the left eye done. Both procedures went well but in both cases I tore my retina in the weeks following the surgery and had to have a laser procedure to ensure my retina didn’t detach. I had another follow-up appointment with the retina specialist today and for the first time since 2009 I don’t have a follow-up scheduled. I’ll only go back now if I have any further problems. At the bottom of my eye in this picture you can see the edge of the lens that was implanted in my eye.

Ceramic Doll’s Head

Dorothy has been home and today she was going through a bunch of stuff. For one thing, she went through a huge number of pens, both felt tip and ball point, and got rid of those that didn’t work. It’s always frustrating to need a pen and not be able to find one that works. The odds are now much more in your favor if you need a pen when you are at our house. She also started to go through papers from middle and high school and got rid of a lot of those. One thing she found, and I have no idea where it came from, is this head. It is made of ceramics and I thought it would make an interesting photo for today.

Ginger Snaps

Cathy made my favorite cookies today. Ginger Snaps. That isn’t to say that I don’t like other cookies, of course, and if I only ever had ginger snaps, I’d probably miss other types, but these are, I think the cookies I like best. They are especially good when warm out of the oven, as almost all things are, but they are also good after they have cooled and are slightly hard, with that characteristic crunch (or snap, if you will).

CT Scanner

I started the day off right with a visit to the radiologist’s this morning. There’s nothing like a CT Scan to get you going. Well, I suppose that’s maybe overstating it a little. But I did have a CT Scan today. All is well, so don’t worry (if you even thought to worry in the first place). This is just keeping an eye on things and things seem to be fine. I snapped a couple pictures of the scanner after we were done and as the images were being copied onto a CD for me to take with me. This machine always looks like an enormous point-and-shoot camera to me (e.g. Canon Powershot E1).