Colorful Fire

From the blog’s perspective, it’s still Friday, even though I’m actually writing this on Monday evening. This picture was taken the same day as the snow picture also posted on the 14th. While snow doesn’t really make a dull picture interesting, I find that I can stare at flames for a long time and not get bored. It was a good day for a fire and I enjoyed it this evening quite a bit. One log in particular seems to have had something in it that made the flames much more blue than they normally are, which was nice. The flames seemed more ethereal or something (I’m not sure what, really). Anyway, I thought they were pretty and I enjoyed finding shapes, patterns, and creatures in them.

Snow On The Ground

We had a little more snow overnight but it didn’t amount to much. As you can see, it was enough to cover the roads, which had been plowed yesterday at about 4:00 PM. One thing about snow in this area is that everyone takes pictures of it. I guess I’m no different (look, here’s a picture of snow!). But snow doesn’t usually make an otherwise dull picture interesting. Perhaps it can make a good picture better and a great picture better still, but a boring scene is usually not much less boring for there being snow in it. So, this is a somewhat boring picture, but with snow. It was actually a beautiful day today, with the sun out (melting the snow on the roads) and a fairly comfortable temperature (for me, anyway—a long-sleeved t-shirt was enough).

Llama In The Snow

Well, the forecasters got this one reasonably well. We got about as much snow as they were initially forecasting, even though the later forecasts eased up a bit (so I guess they should have stuck to their earlier predictions). Anyway, about 14 inches here, which isn’t a record or anything but it’s enough to cover everything pretty thoroughly. Outside our front door is a concrete bench and Cathy uses that as a place for potted plants. One pot has a llama on the side and this is the llama, looking out from under a pile of snow. Probably reminds him of the Andes.

Winter

There is snow in the forecast but as I came home from work today it hadn’t started. It seems that a lot of people are getting a bit tired of winter. This year’s winter has certainly been colder, snowier, and longer than most that we’ve had here in recent years. On my drive home, I was looking at the trees and the slate-grey sky and thinking about winter. While stopped at a traffic light as I neared home, I saw this, which is today’s picture of winter.

Needlepoint

I took some pictures of Cathy this evening looking at the world through rose colored glasses. Literally. Dorothy bought them at a thrift store but since they are actually prescriptions lenses, she doesn’t actually wear them much. Cathy decided she should, now and then, rather than worrying about things so much. Those of you who know where my pictures are can find them there.

For my picture here, however, I’ve decided to post this piece of needlepoint. It’s actually a little clutch purse that came from who-knows-where (actually, Cathy and Dorothy probably know). I think the colors are really nice and it’s a simple yet striking pattern. Enjoy.

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.

Frozen Pond

I went out to take pictures again today. It was chilly and I didn’t wear my jacket, so I didn’t stay out more than about 10 minutes. The pond between my office building and the next has been frozen over for a while now and we had a little snow this morning to cover the ice. It’s a flowing stream so there is a section that is clear of ice and it makes a nice pattern. The difficulty here was the concrete wall at the lower end of the pond. You can see the base of it in the upper left of this picture. Such is life.

Salt On the Floor

One really nice thing about having a foyer paved with stone is that you can come in with wet, muddy, or even salt encrusted shoes and not worry about doing much damage. This is a little of what’s left on the floor next to where Cathy took her shoes off. As you can see, she picked up a little salty water from the streets. The forecast says we’ll get a little more snow overnight, so it’s not going to get better right away. Still, it makes for interesting patterns on the floor.

Solid and Liquid Water

It was another cool day today but I went out for a little while to take pictures. As I came into my office parking lot this morning I saw the pattern made by the ice on the pond next to my building. When I went out I took some pictures of that but I prefer this one, of water flowing in the stream leading into the pond. As you can see, it’s flowing over a rock and that motion is keeping it from freezing, although there is ice all around it. There are more fractal shapes here, as well, in the edge of the ice