Miscellaneous

Ceramic Dogs

Once upon a time, Cathy collected ceramic (and glass and whatever) dogs. She still has the collection, although she doesn’t actively collect them any more. A few of them are out in various places in the house. These are on top of a small set of bookshelves in our bedroom. I sort of like the terrier-like dog on the left but decided to focus on this pitiful looking hound in the foreground instead. Sorry the picture is so “grainy.” I still had the ISO set to 3,200 from yesterday and didn’t notice until later.

Hair and Leaves

By trimming my beard outdoors, I eliminate much of the clean-up process. I do need to move the bulk of the hair somewhere that Cathy won’t come across it by accident. Otherwise she might see it and think a small animal has been mauled. At our old house there was a catbird that built a nest in an eglantine rose every year and my hair played a prominent part in its makeup. It’s nice to find that your hair is going to a good purpose.

Setting Sun

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was out late in the afternoon. The sun was getting low in the sky and I enjoyed the way it was shining through the trees. It’s hard to get a picture of the sun, as you might imagine, but I took a few, anyway, trying to balance the brightness of the sun without loosing all the yellow in the trees that it was illuminating. This was the best I got and while it doesn’t really look exactly like what I saw, it is enough like it to remind me. Of course, it won’t really remind you, since you weren’t there. Next time you should come with me.

Fajita Steak

We had a wonderful time with our great friends, Krystal and Mike, this evening. They hate it when I take there picture so I’m going with this one of my meal. Very tasty.

Afghan Carpet Detail

This is the corner of a small Afghan carpet that we have in our living room. The carpet is only about the size of a door mat, so it’s more decorative than actual floor covering but it adds color to an otherwise monochrome, carpeted floor.

Tree Reflection

I love reflections. I think it’s partly because I love the colors and the textures of the surface of moving water. Water that is animated, whether by wind or by gravity creates a surface that turns otherwise mundane objects into beautiful patters. Beautiful to me, anyway. Sometimes it is the motion itself that I love and capturing that in a still photograph is tricky. In this case I think it works. I especially like that you can see ripples from drops of rain among the other ripples.

This is a flood control pond north of Gude Drive between Key West and Research Blvd. It is near where I have walked many times but for some reason I’ve never been this side of Gude. It’s pretty overgrown with brambles, which means it isn’t as accessible as some places but there are things to be seen that might make it worth the effort from time to time.

Pond Overflow

We had about 6.5 inches of rain between Sunday evening and this morning. It rained pretty heavily yesterday afternoon and into the night. It was still coming down this morning but not nearly so hard. It will be nice to see a blue sky again.

When I got to work, the little pond between my building and the next was filled up. Normally it is about two feet deep in its deepest parts. When it rains hard, it can get as much as about 15 feet deep before it overtops the spillway built at the lower end. You cannot quite see it in this picture, but there is a notch in the middle of the wall and the water is coming through that. Last year, on September 8, it had overtopped the entire wall and was coming in all around this enclosure. So, this isn’t the highest I’ve seen the water, but it’s close.

Cathy and Tarp

Hurricane Sandy has reached us although in the morning, when this was taken it was only raining. The rain started last night and was going to be with us for a while. It hadn’t gotten windy yet, but that was coming. We have a little problem with water in our basement and we knew it was going to be an issue today. It only comes in at one spot and part of the problem is rain that falls in this spot, between our patio and the bilco doors and steps down to our basement. So, we put a tarp out to direct the rain out from the house in that area. This is Cathy, pretending to be the intrepid weather man, standing out in the pouring rain to get the forecast out.

Steak

I didn’t cook and neither did I eat this steak. But I did take a picture of it. I’ll leave it at that.

Tara Thai

Of course we were not really underwater but we had dinner at Tara Thai this evening with Mike and Krystal. As tara is the Thai word for water, their decor is water related. This is a semi-abstract photograph take upwards from our table towards the wall.

Lake Needwood

It’s my week to drive the carpool to school which means I go by Lake Needwood on the way to work. It was a beautiful morning today with a pale blue sky and the autumn colors just about at peak. It was a bonus to see lots of geese on Lake Needwood, as well. How could I not stop and enjoy it for a few minutes?

I decided that I’ve had that mountain picture up as my banner image for long enough so I took a slice out of today’s picture as a replacement. Gives the site an autumnal feel.

Still Life, Wires

I took more fall color pictures today but decided to post this picture, instead, for a change of pace. These are telephone wires, I’m pretty sure, on the back of a shopping center. We were waiting for a pizza that the girls bought for lunch. They had planned on empanadas but the place that sold them has closed although the sign is still there.

Rain

I stayed home from work today because my back had given out. Eventually I was able to get up and once up I was a bit better. Getting up and down was still pretty hard, though. A little after 5:00 PM it started to rain quite heavily. I took this picture of the rain pounding on the glass table in our back yard. Taking pictures of rain isn’t very easy because if you focus on the rain, everything else is out of focus. If you focus on the background, you cannot really see the rain. Also, if you use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the rain, it doesn’t look like rain. If you use a slower shutter speed, it’s just grey. In this picture you can at least see the water splashing on the table.

Messiah’s Covered Bridge

Dorothy had no school today because it was the end of the quarter and teachers were doing grading. She took the opportunity to spend a couple days with her friend, Stephanie, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Saturday evening the campus was pretty quiet because it was their fall break, as well, but she was able to get a bit of a taste of college life. Today she went to classes with Stephanie and then I drove up to pick her up after work. Messiah has a pretty campus and before we left I took a minute to take a few photographs including this one of the covered bridge across the Yellow Breeches, which runs through the campus.

Hookahs

I love living in a fairly cosmopolitan area. In particular, I’m glad that we can get ethnic food from the four corners of the globe. Whether we have a hunger for Thai, German, Iranian, Jamaican, Chinese, Ethiopian, Greek, Brazilian, Afghan, Japanese, Italian, or even Burmese (to name only a few), we can easily find it close at hand. There are also small groceries and specialty shops where a surprising variety of products are available. For instance, only about three miles away we can shop for a hookah. It’s not something we shop for often, but if the situation arises, well, we know where to go.

Edgar Allen Poe, by Dorothy Hartley

In her art class, Dorothy has been looking at the works of an artist named Vik Muniz (http://www.vikmuniz.net/, requires Flash). He is a photographer whose photographs are of art that he creates with unique media. For instance, he reproduced a photograph by Hans Namuth of the artist Jackson Pollock making a drip painting. His reproduction was done in Bosco syrup. He “drew” Marlene Deitrich (among others) out of diamonds. And side by side Mona Lisas out of peanut butter and jelly.

In that vein, Dorothy did the portrait shown here of Edgar Allen Poe out of bits of his works. I think it turned out quite well.

Water

A man once said, “if there is any magic in the world, it’s contained in water.”

Anaheim Peppers

I didn’t take many pictures today. That happens when I’m in my office all day and don’t really do much else. So, this evening I took a few pictures of Anaheim peppers that were left over from the chili I made on Saturday (for Sunday).

Birthday Cookies

For her birthday, our good friend Spencer gave Dorothy a dozen custom made cookies. They were made by a young woman named Mariel who does business as Belle Vie Cookies. I’ve had a lot of cookies in my time and I have to say, these are really, really good. In fact, a couple times we’ve cut one cookie into four pieces because a whole cookie is too much. They are made without preservatives so they won’t last long, although they won’t last long in any case.

http://belleviecookies.com/