Monthly Archives: February 2014

Fountain

I had lunch at the Rio today and afterwards I walked around a little and took a few pictures. The fountain in the lake was going and I stopped for pictures of that. It was a very bright day and even with the ISO set to 100 and the aperture at f/32 the longest exposure I could get was 1/15 second. That gave a little blur but I wanted more. I happen to have a neutral density filter that removed nine stops worth of light. With that on, I was able to get this exposure at 1/3 second at f/6.4. Of course, the difficulty was aiming and focusing because I could barely see anything through the viewfinder.

Snow on Buddleia

We had a little snowfall today. I must admit that I didn’t expect it. Then again, I haven’t really paid attention to the weather reports lately. It isn’t like I can really change what’s coming and a little snow isn’t going to make much difference. This afternoon the snow was welcome enough, it was a very pretty snowfall and because it’s pretty cold, it was a clean, pristine snow, not all slushy and messy.

Great Falls of the Potomac

Cathy and I went for a walk at Great Falls early this afternoon. The water wasn’t as high as it’s been but it was still rather high (the reading was 6.4 feet, we’ve been there when it was over 9, 10 is flood stage). It was quite muddy, as it tends to be when it’s high. It was also fairly cold, so there was a bit of ice. In fact. rocks and branches near the water were coated with ice from the spray, which was pretty but hard to photograph well. The first picture here is from Olmsted Island, looking upstream at the main part of the river.

Chairmaker’s Bulrush (Schoenoplectus americanus)

From the overlook, we walked back to the C&O Canal and walked about a mile south. The canal was mostly frozen over, although in the areas where the canal was not filled the running water remained mostly ice free. Obviously this time of year, particularly on an overcast day, there wasn’t a lot of color about the place. This bulrush (chairmaker’s bulrush, Schoenoplectus americanus) was a welcome point of color, even if it was just brown against more brown.

Ice Crystals

It was chilly this morning and there was frost on the windscreen of the car. While the car was warming up enough to melt the ice so I could get to work, I took pictures of the ice on the side windows. I think ice crystals are pretty cool (as in neat, although as in low temperature, as well). These were taken without a tripod or anything, because I was just sitting in the car, so it isn’t as sharp as it could be. Oh, well.

Masks

These are hanging on the wall in Dorothy’s bedroom, which, if you recall, is very brightly painted in purple and yellow. These are on one of the yellow walls, obviously. The cat mask is from Venice, bought on our trip there in 2000. The other mask is from last year’s prom. the gold leaved wreath is the laurel wreath that Dorothy made and which was featured here a week ago (see Not Resting On Her Laurels).

Reflections On a Cylinder

It was a busy day at work and I didn’t take any pictures during the day. In the evening, Dorothy asked if we could have Thai carry-out for dinner so I went up to a little place in Olney that we like. I got there a little early for our food to be ready so I looked around for things to photograph. At night, of course, and without flash, the choices are somewhat limited to where there is enough light. I took some pictures of a building with a sycamore tree behind it but the difference between the light from the building’s sign and the light on the tree was too much to get a good picture. When I opened up enough to brighten up the tree the sign was too washed out to be readable.

I saw this round metal pillar with reflections and decided that would have to do for today’s picture. I like reflections and these are nice, in a somewhat plain way. Anyway, it’s all I have. So, reflections on a cylinder.

Mom’s New Computer

This is, or shortly will be, mom’s new computer. There’s a case for it, too, obviously, but this is what it looks like before everything has been assembled. In the middle is the mother board. Because this is mom’s computer, maybe I’ll call that the mom board. In front of that is the CPU (an AMD FX-4130 Zambezi 3.8GHz Quad-Core processor). On the right is 8GB of RAM. It’s pretty amazing that so much memory can be so small. In the back, from left to right, are the cooler for the CPU, the main hard drive, and a DVD burner. That’s all it takes, really. It took about 20 minutes to put it all together. Of course, I still need to install an operating system and load some software. Then it will be ready to use.