Miscellaneous

Sprinkle

We were out for a bit today, doing some shopping but not actually buying anything. On the way home we decided to stop at Menchies for some frozen yogurt. I took some pictures from our table of the paintings on the wall, among other things.

This character, sort of the Cousin It of Menchies, is apparently named Sprinkle. I wasn’t sure what she was (and I don’t know for sure why I think she’s female). Odd creatures painted there, but the yogurt is good and we enjoyed ourselves.

Other characters include Kiwi (a monkey with a sliced kiwi fruit for a face), and Mellow (made out of marshmallows and kind of creepy looking). Silly.

Raise your berets, to those Canaan days

This evening we went with some good friends to see a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Covenant Life Church. The cast are high school students and they have a lot of talented kids. The production was very impressive and it was a lot of fun, made all the more so by knowing a few of them.

In this picture, Simeon sings Those Canaan Days, as they contemplate the famine and their fate before going to Egypt and their ultimate reunion with Joseph.

Wintery Lake Needwood

Although many people hold to the convenient fiction that spring starts on the equinox, I tend to consider March a spring month (and December the first month or winter). That’s not to say we don’t have wintery days in March (or November, for that matter). Today was such a day. After some decidedly spring-like days, it was cold and blustery this morning, with snow blowing around. It wasn’t really cold enough for the snow and Mother Nature gave up trying after a very little while. On the way to work I stopped for a few pictures as I crossed Lake Needwood. This panorama is made from five images taken with a 24mm lens (which is the equivalent to a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera). Often I’d try to increase the contrast in an image like this but this time I left it as it was to help convey the cold, flat light of the morning.

Eggs In Toast

The concept of a fried slice is somewhat out of fashion these days. Nevertheless, cutting a hole out of a slice of bread and cooking an egg in it turns out to be quite tasty. You get the crispy bread, the runny yolk, all wrapped up together. I made this for Dorothy this evening for dinner. She likes it best with strawberry jam on top, which sounds strange but it’s really a very good combination. Try it sometime. You might like it.

Of course, it doesn’t look quite as fancy as this once you flip the eggs, but it still tastes good. For a real treat, cook bacon first and fry the toast and egg in a little of the fat from that. And bacon goes really well with the sweetness of the jam.

Cutting Iron

I have an iron bar, an inch and a half wide by a quarter inch thick and three feet long. I needed to cut about six inches from that. I wasn’t worried about the cut being particularly smooth so I used a cutting wheel on my rotary tool (I call it a dremel but that’s actually a brand name and mine isn’t that brand, but you know what I mean). I love cutting metal. A hack saw would have worked by it would have been a lot more tiring and not nearly as bright. A little while after I started I decided to take a few pictures. The problem is that the sparks are pretty bright compared to the rest of the scene and getting that balanced would be easier in daylight. Anyway, this one turned out nicely. The disc in this picture is only about an inch in diameter, in case you’re wondering.

Great Falls, Maryland

We went from a winter storm, even a poor excuse for a winter storm, to a wonderfully beautiful spring day between Wednesday and today. The sky was a pure, clear blue. The Potomac was a clean, green color. As you would expect, there was a good crowd at Great Falls, but it’s nice to see so many people enjoying such a nice day.

A great blue heron flew past and I got a few pictures of that, as well as an immature red-tailed hawk that landed on a tree right over our heads. I took pictures of water, of rocks, of reflections, and of trees but in the end I decided to go with a standard picture of the falls. Pretty place, Great Falls. We really should go there more often.

Falling Snow

It wasn’t exactly the storm of the century. If the forecasts were of quantity of snow that fell, they might have been considered reasonably good. If, on the other hand (and I think this is what they were) they were of snow accumulation, then they were pretty poor. We never got more than about an inch on the grass and there was never more than a little slush on our sidewalk. The snowfall itself was quite pretty, it just didn’t amount to much.

Still, it was a good excuse to stay home and work from here. I also decided, in honor of the silliness in Washington, to release some CO₂ that had been sequestered for the last quarter century or so. That is to say, I built a fire.

Nine Corvettes

Our friend Bob loves Corvettes. At least that’s how it seems. He has one in his driveway (yellow), but also has model Corvettes inside. Here are nine assorted models. I must admit that the top center car, the red and white 1956-7 model is by far my favorite. The others are nice but that’s the model I’d really love to have. The slightly newer model to the right of it would be a close second, and I suppose there’s something to be said for having one that’s the same model year I am. Even then, I’d want the red/white combination, which is just “right.”

Peppermint Sunrise Mints

They are not as colorful as the Gummy Bears Sour Patch Kids that I photographed a month ago, but they are bright, sweet and minty, which is something, anyway. I think perhaps they might look better if they were not individually wrapped but they are certainly more sanitary this way. Actually, I noticed that one of them is unwrapped. Can you spot it?

Burning Log

I’ve built fires in out fireplace the last couple days and this afternoon I took some pictures of the fire. I love the deep red and orange colors of a fire as well as the smell of wood smoke (in limited quantities). The colors are here but I don’t think I can convey the smell. Funny how strongly smells can bring back memories. There are certain smells that take me back to my childhood or to some of our travels more than any picture or sound.

Old Glory, By Night

I picked up Dorothy and a few of her friends this evening and while I was waiting for them, I took some photos of flags waving in the cool winter breeze. Most of the pictures are of the Maryland flag but I decided to go full patriot and post one of the US flag instead.

Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.

John Philip Sousa

My Soul Is Tired

Actually, daddy got a new pair of shoes and this is the old pair. As you can see, they were starting to get a bit worn. Or, as Larry Norman said in that song, “my souls half worn and my tongue hung about, and with the broken laces I was trippin’ out.” I don’t know how many pairs of laces I went through with those shoes. I paid $25 for them over seven years ago, though, so I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

Water Droplets on a Rose Stem

It was a rainy day today, with the rain getting fairly hard at times and with significant wind. As I left for work this morning, I stopped to take some pictures of water droplets on the rose bush by our front door. They pictures don’t really do justice to it. With the morning light glistening off the water, it was quite beautiful. I do like the way you can see the spruce in our yard through each of the droplets (well, through the few that are close to being in focus).

Paprika, Mustard, Turmeric, and Coriander

I didn’t get a chance to go out today and in the evening was wondering what to photograph to share here. I had some spices out so I decided to put some in measuring spoons and photograph that. I’m not crazy about the composition but I do like the colors of the spices. These are four that I use quite a lot, although not in the proportions shown here (I use much more coriander than turmeric, for instance). They are, from left to right, Hungarian paprika, English mustard, turmeric, and coriander.

Violin Scroll

I’ve already posted a photo for today but Dorothy (rightly) insisted that I needed to post a picture that I took, so, this is what you get. It is, obviously, the scroll at the top of a violin neck. I love the colors of wood and the lines of carved wood. So, there you are.

Snowing

I hadn’t been following the weather forecasts so I was a bit surprised this morning when it started snowing. It started just before I got to work and by the time I pulled into the parking lot it was coming down quite hard. The snow was in big clumps, as well, which was fairly dramatic. This picture doesn’t really do justice to the snow but it’s the best I got. The snowfall only lasted about half and hour and since the ground wasn’t all that cold, it melted on contact. Still, it was pretty while it lasted.

Copying Hard Drives

Our old computer had three 80GB hard drives in it. Ever since we finally replaced it, which is more than a year ago now, I’ve been meaning to get everything off the drives from the old computer onto the new one. Immediately needed things were copied up to the server and then back down to the new machine but there was a lot of stuff that didn’t fall into the immediately needed category.

So, today I decided it would be a good thing to get done. It was quiet at home, with both of the girls out. That also meant there was no demand for the computer. So, I opened it up and one at a time I connected the old drives and copied pretty much everything onto the new machine. When I say pretty much everything, I mean pretty much everything. I still need to go through those files and throw away anything that’s not needed, which is a significant amount. Still, now when Cathy said, “I had a document on the old computer that I’d like to update,” it isn’t a problem.

You cannot really see it in this picture, thankfully, but the inside of the computer needed to be vacuumed out, which I did once I was finished copying my drives and before I closed it back up again.

Phoropter

I had an eye exam this afternoon. Not a big deal and nothing to report, really. I have the beginnings of a cataract in my left eye. Not surprising, really, since I had one in my right eye more than four years ago. That one grew quite quickly, but the thought is that it was injury related. Nothing to do about it at this point so I’ll just keep my eye on it, so to speak, and deal with it when the time comes. A cataract isn’t as scary as it was 30 or 40 years ago. The surgery is simple and quick and the recovery is relatively fast (as long as you don’t tear your retina afterwards).

The eye exam didn’t actually involve using the phoropter in this picture but I decided a picture of the slit-lamp wouldn’t be as interesting. I don’t need new glasses — my vision is basically 20/20 in both eyes. I have driving glasses but I really only wear them when I need the associated sun glasses (and I did when I left this afternoon, after having my eyes dilated). I do need reading glasses but the cheap drug-store variety work fine for that.

Snow on Boxwood

We had a little snow come down overnight. The roads were clear so there were not any changes to school, but it was quite pretty. As I left for work, I paused to take a few pictures. Snow can be hard to photograph. There isn’t a lot of texture to it, unless you get quite close. I didn’t have my tripod and I didn’t feel like lying on the snow-covered ground this morning, so I contented myself with pictures of snow on branches and on this boxwood bush by our garage.

Colored Pens

Last Tuesday I posted a picture of Sour Patch Kids which I (in my ignorance) labeled Gummy Bears. Well, I went to pick Dorothy up again this evening and naturally I took my camera with me. It’s nice being in someone else’s house, especially someone who doesn’t mind me taking pictures. This is the first picture I took this evening and the camera was set wrong for the flash so I got a one second exposure, which caused the blur. I could have gone with the “properly” exposed picture but this one is more interesting and a little abstract.