Xmas Lights 06

The year's winner of most elaborate Xmas lights display. This Windmill-St house had choreographed flashing lights in time with music broadcast on FM radio.

Carols on the Green

Lunch with Noah and Co.

At lunch I showed Noah, Pete's nephew, how to turn his smile lemon yellow - possibly to his parent's dismay. Lunch was followed by a trip to the toy store to prep Noah for what Santa was going to bring.

City Fish

This butterfish comes with bonus starfish. I wonder why they're called butterfish

The FedEx Tally

Not only are people criss-crossing the country for the holidays, but millions of presents are also en-route in FedEx and UPS road trains.

Christmas Road Trip '06

On the shortest day of the year, just before 5 am, we left on our 950 mile cross-country drive to the east-coast.

Under Pressure

In high pressure science the puns come too easily, of course, this time there was the distinct possibility that something would explode - safety glasses were involved.

Bird Feed

With the trees striped bare for winter, local Scout(?) troops decorated the branches with edible treats for the birds - pretty at first, but putrid after a few days.

Mid-Holiday Season Turkey

Being away for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, we decided to cook our own mid-season turkey.

Ice Rings

A week below freezing, and seven ice contours by the river... like growth rings on a tree.

Copyedit Hell

Despite the fact that journals employ techinical editors to ensure the grammatical fidelity of published papers, we are required to send manuscripts to the fussy, internal APS copy editors before submission. As far as I can tell, their purpose is to put red pen on each page of a manuscript and hyphenate every second pair of words. If you choose to omit the more obsurd suggestions, the manuscript is returned to you for re-correction. I wonder if I prepared a manuscript for the Journal of Solid State Chemistry (no hyphen!), would copy edit try to add hyphens, i.e., solid-state chemistry as they did today??

Summer's Gone

Storm Slams Midwest*

Overnight, we had our first real snow for the year. OK, we did have a few flakes in October, but that wasn't more than fingernail deep. This time we had rain, then sleet, then snow, then more snow - the perfect recipe for slippery driving conditions. The roads were littered with car-casualties that spun out on the ice trying to get to work before the roads had been cleared. I slept in instead.

* blog title borrowed from tv news

Wood Duck

With 10 megapixel images, you can afford to crop photos a little more. It also helps to lure greedy duckies with food...

Reservoir Falls

A multitude of little streams were draining into the catchment area after constant Thanksgiving rains. Without a tilting LCD screen, I spent quite some time draped on the ground trying to steady the camera on rocks for some long exposures. I really should start carrying a tripod.

Beware of Pucks

Its Thanksgiving eve, and my first ice hockey game (not counting Mighty Ducks 1 & 2). It was everything I expected, with bodies smashing against barriers, player punch-ups and flying pucks.

XTi - f1.8/50mm test shots

Birthday Lobsters

Pete's parents treated him to fresh lobsters for his birthday. The lobsters weren't feeling quite so snappy after their nice warm bath.

Connecticut Thanksgiving

We're back in Connecticut staying with Pete's folks for an extended Thanksgiving holiday. In honour of our holiday, the weather is fantastic, although UPS is yet to show up with my new camera.