Miscellaneous

Masonry Screws

Like yesterday, I didn’t take any pictures until late in the day. In fact, I was thinking of heading to bed when I realized that I hadn’t taken any all day. So, I looked around for something colorful to photograph. I caught sight of these masonry screws and thought they might make an interesting picture. I used a few of them recently to put up a bracket in the garage for hanging shovels and rakes and things. Actually, the first time I put it up, I tried drilling in the bricks but the bit wasn’t sharp enough. I settled for putting holes in the mortar instead. That was much easier but the screws weren’t tight enough in the loose mortar to hold very well. I bought a new bit (a pack of five, actually) and was able to get new holes drilled into the bricks. When these screws went in, they were quite tight. This thing isn’t coming down in a hurry. They’re colorful, too.

Squash Seeds

I got home this evening and hadn’t taken any photographs at all today. Some days it’s easy to take pictures and other days, not so much. Today was a not-so-much day. I got home and started fixing dinner. I had an acorn squash that I had been meaning to cook for a while and decided tonight would be as good a time as any, so I cut it open and cleaned out the seeds. I don’t know of Solomon will get them or if they’d go outside for the wild birds, but they won’t go to waste, I can promise you that. Anyway, it was something to photograph.

Lake Needwood

It rained pretty steadily starting Wednesday evening and continued pretty much all day yesterday. This morning was continued to have rain. I went to the school to have some fun with the first graders (shhhh! they aren’t supposed to know it was me) and I got good and soaked walking around the school dressed as a cowboy (a sheriff, actually). On the way to work, when I was done, I passed Lake Needwood and decided to stop for a few pictures. It’s not as impressive a view on an overcast day but the colors, particularly the grass and weeds in the foreground, are quite vivid in the gloom. The trees are a bit late in turning this year, it seems, but it should be here before long.

Tomatoes

Somehow I missed posting this and didn’t notice until more than a week later. Sorry about that. I took a few random pictures around the house today, none of which will win any awards. I like the reds of these tomatoes, although I should have turned them so that the stem was behind them instead of out in front. I also have an acorn squash, which you can see on the right, and need to do something with some evening soon.

Chrysler Minivan Engine

It didn’t though. We were the last to leave church today because I had “door duty.” I walked to our car as the last two cars other than ours pulled out of the drive. I got it and “click, click, click, click, click.” The car wouldn’t start. I expect this sort of behavior from our oldest car. Even the middle car, which has over 229,000 miles. But this is our newest car. Of course, new is relative. It’s a 2000, it’s a Chrysler, and at 190,000 it’s not exactly a low-mileage car, either. Fortunately, our friend and one-time house sitter Tim came to our rescue. Turns out all it needed was a little more juice and a jump start got it going. When we got home I attached a charger and we shold be fine.

Making Chili (click to show labels)

A year ago tomorrow I posted pictures of making chili and described the process. Today I made chili again but didn’t take pictures of the whole process. Here are the ingredients, though, and as far as a recipe goes, “chop everything up and cook it until it’s done” just about covers it. I cut the meat into larger pieces this year and that made a difference to the finished product, in terms of it being chunkier, which I think was good. I also added three cayenne peppers and increased the spices a bit. I doubled the powdered pepper, although part of that is paprika because I ran out of ground cayenne. I thought I had dried habanero peppers and would have added one or two of those but I’m out. I also used meat from the other end of the animal, round instead of chuck, but I don’t think that made much difference (except it was on sale for about 60% of the cost of chuck).

Bob’s Scraped Face

In my mom’s basement, we found a large pad of paper that had writing on it saying it was art done with Stephen and Iris (my nephew and neice, respectively). We were looking through that this evening and towards the end came across this sketch.

It’s an interesting sketch for a few reasons. First of all, it is both a profile and a front view of a face, sort of like what Pablo Picasso did in Girl Before A Mirror and The Dream.

Second, there are those odd red marks on the nose, upper lip, and chin. Those, it turns out, are fairly easily explained. There is some writing ont he page, not included in this photograph. It says (in mom’s handwriting), “Bob after he fell + scraped his face – Feb. 7, 1990.” For some reason, and this is a little unclear, mom decided to sketch dad after he had fallen and scraped his face. I suppose I would have taken a picture.

Hazmat

We continued working on mom’s basement. Rather than showing a picture of the basement itself, here is a photo of mom’s van with a load of hazardous materials, bound for the county transfer station. There were cans of paint, stain, and ink. There were solvents and some pesticides. Of course, this load was a mix of things, including electrical parts and wire, scraps of wood, and quite a few bags of rubbish. This was one of four loads that we took over two days.

Assorted Coins

We started working on the basement in my mom’s house today and will continue for the next few days. Don’t worry, I’m not going to show anyone “before” or even “after” pictures of the basement. No one wants that. These are some coins that were in one of the drawers in my dad’s desk. They vary considerably in age and are mostly English and French, although I see a few Austrian and one Finnish 10 markkaa piece from 1958 and two Belgian 5 franc pieces. There is also a medallion with a Delta Sigma (ΔΣ).

Lake Needwood

Another in my series of pictures to refute my own complaint that I don’t live in a pretty place. I don’t pass Lake Needwood in the middle of the day that often, usually going by on the way to work after dropping the carpool off at school or coming home late in the day. I was fortunate enough to be going by at about 11:00 today and stopped for some pictures. I has stayed cool and the sky has remained a wonderful clear blue that we don’t see in the sweltering heat of summer. This may not be the Rockies but it’s a pretty place, I think.

The Springs Farm

It was a wonderfully cool fall day today and I took full advantage of it. Dorothy was away on a church retreat. Cathy had her second soccer game of the fall season. I ran up to Germantown to the Lancaster County Dutch Market to buy a few things. From there I went out 118 to our friends’ farm outside of Poolesville. On the way I passed Springs Farm and stopped to take a few photographs. I complained here recently that we don’t live in an absurdly beautiful place, like some of our friends and relations. I don’t know if this qualifies as absurdly beautiful and it isn’t exactly on my daily commute, but it’s pretty nice. I love the yellowing soy beans in the foreground, the incredible blue of the sky and of course the red barn as a focal point.

Westat’s 50^th Anniversary

From the company website:

In 2013, Westat is celebrating 50 years of research and analysis, contributing to numerous advances in health, education, the environment, and public policy. We are commemorating this anniversary with a number of events throughout the year to recognize this milestone, and we have adopted the tagline “50 Years … Improving lives through research” to highlight the year.

One of the events mentioned was a big party under a tent in the parking lot. It was quite a party, actually, and the food was excellent. It would have been nicer if it wasn’t quite so hot, but that’s another matter. Earlier in the day I took this picture of the tent from the rooftop terrace.

Sushi

Dorothy was feeling like pizza this evening but by the time Kendra got here and we got going, it was nearly 9:00. By the time we got to Angelo’s, it was just about closing time. We decided to try Armand’s, instead, since they are open later. We ordered two pizzas and waited around outside while they were made and cooked. This picture is from Wasabi-Zen, the sushi place in the same building. Since the girls don’t really eat fish, we don’t do sushi much, unfortunately. Anyway, the pizza was terrific.

Wendy’s

I sometimes wish I lived in Colorado, or Northern California, or possibly Montana or New Mexico. Even West Virginia or the mountains of North Carolina or Tennessee. Don’t get me wrong, this part of Maryland has some pretty places. But Rockville doesn’t really stand out as a beautiful place. The route between work and home is mostly filled with commercial buildings — not exactly picturesque. Now and then I think about moving somewhere prettier but we have a lot of friends here. It would be hard to leave.

This evening I took Dorothy to her friend Kendra’s house. On the way home I was thinking about the scenery. While sitting at a light, I decided to get a picture of the Wendy’s with a blurred car in the foreground. So, here it is.

Diana of the Chase, by Anna Hyatt Huntington

Live Oak Allée

Cathy and I made Dorothy and Karlee come with us to Brookgreen Gardens today. I posted pictures from Brookgreen taken on August 2 of last year so I’ve tried to make this years pictures different from those. The first picture is of a circular pool with water lilies growing on it and with a sculpture called Diana of the Chase, by Anna Hyatt Huntington, in the center. The sign describing this bronze from 1922 says,

The Roman goddess of the hunt has just released her arrow as a hound leaps at her feet. Considered among Huntington’s finest works, and one of the few where the human figure is primary, Diana of the Chase was so popular that Huntington eventually created a second version some twenty years later to satisfy public demand. The example at Brookgreen was the sculptor’s own casting, originally located in the Huntington’s Fifth Avenue townhouse in New York City.

The second photograph is of one of the huge live oaks (Quercus virginiana) that lines the allée that was the land-side approach to the original Brookgreen Plantation house, which is no longer standing. They were planted as early as the 18th century. The trees are decorated with Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) and the branches have resurrection fern (Polypodium polypodioides) growing on them. This spring, 60,000 caladiums were planted under the live oaks and I must say it is a very impressive display.

Boat Reflections

One evening when we’re at the beach we all go to dinner at Dockside, a seafood restaurant in Calabash, almost into South Carolina. Because with a part of more than 20 people we generally have a pretty significant wait to get in, we all walk around on the nearby dock. This picture is of the reflection of a fishing boat.

Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Our summer was mostly only busy for Dorothy up through this weekend. Cathy and I continued to work. On July 27, though, we began three weeks of vacation, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for a few months. We started with a week at the beach. The beach, for us, generally means Ocean Isle Beach in southern North Carolina. On the day we arrived it was cloudy but very pleasant out. We went for a short walk on the beach just before sunset and I took a couple pictures of the ocean. This one is nice because it has a few birds in it — Least Sandpipers (Calidris minutilla) and a Willet (Tringa semipalmata).

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

This isn’t exactly the breakfast of champions. Nor is it the most spectacular picture for reintroducing my blog after a month. It is, however, one of only a handful of photographs that I took on July 25. The others have a bit more color in them but aren’t much more interesting. I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to keep your interest. Don’t worry, though, because I have some travel pictures coming soon.

I was a few days behind in posting pictures here because I was at the beach, enjoying myself and not thinking too much about responsibilities. While I was in that mode, my server crashed. That actually happened sometime on August 1 or 2. Then, we returned from the beach and left about 36 hours later for two weeks in England. The server was down all that time. I have it mostly back up and running and will begin posting pictures from the missing days.

Rest assured that there are pictures for every day, although, as usual, I don’t promise that they are any good.

Phoropter

I went to the eye doctor today. All seems well and I did very well on the peripheral vision test. He said he doesn’t see a lot of perfect scores but I got one with one eye and only missed one dot with the other, so that’s good news. He’s following two issues but said that neither is causing any problem and I don’t need to come more than once a year. While I was waiting, though I took this picture of the phoropter, although he didn’t actually use it this visit. My eye sight hasn’t really changed since I got my glasses.