Tag: photos

Digging in the Dirt

For the 2009 Newton Local School Groundbreaking Ceremony (held yesterday, March 27), I was chosen as one of the staff representatives to turn over some dirt. I was pleased to be chosen and I asked dad to come along to the ceremony. (Well, I’d’ve asked him anyhoo, but since I was gonna be in it, he agreed to come along.) And thankfully he brought his camera and took some photos. Yay! So now I subject you folks to photos. (I’ve chopped everyone else out of the shots since most of ’em are school age kids and thankfully in the first photo, all the kids’ backs were to the camera.)

Waiting for my 15 minutes of Fame (or something)
Waiting for my 15 minutes of Fame (or something)

I wait in line (well, a line of sorts) for my opportunity to turn some dirt.
Posing for photos
Posing for photos

I’m posing with several junior high and high school students for the ceremony. We were the third official dig group. (After board members and administrators.)
Digging in the Dirt
Digging in the Dirt

I dig my ceremonial shovel of dirt for the ceremony.


Kitty Picspam

It’s been awhile since I posted (wow, it’s the 5th and this will be my first post of the month) and a further while since I posted some kitty pix. Turns out I’ve got some very talented kitties. Linus can now leap tall buildings in a single bound. Well, he can get onto the fridge – still not seen how. I figure from one counter or the other. And he jumps down to the floor from it. Knocking magnets off. And Lucy’s my little laundry helper. She always loves laundry day and has taken to helping me fold clothes and stuff. Oh, and GIP! Ain’t they cute? 🙂

(Sorry the first two are a little out of focus. Was in a hurry to snap the pictures before he jumped off and my phone camera doesn’t like me to hurry.)


Linus checks out the fridge & knocks off magnets.


But how did he get up there?


Lucy folding some cloths for me. Ain’t she a sweetie?


Lucy takes a break and becomes one with the laundry.

Linus and Lucy also decided to be a couple of cat macro models. Ladies & Gentlemen, I present my first lolcats!


Linus loves people food – can you tell?


Lucy is not laundry!

Bathroom Remuddle – Nearly Done!

My bathroom is nearly complete. I basically just need to paint the baseboard (and possibly the door – mom’s trying to talk me into that) and the ceiling. But for now, I’ve got everything else completed. I’m really liking my bathroom!

Teaser photo:


A nice “after” shot of my bathroom. A marked improvement over the “before” shot.

Head over to my gallery to see photos of the job. For those of you who looked last time I posted the URL, you can skip ahead to this point to see the new photos.

Segway Day!

Although we all got up early today to wish elsaf farewell for her journey home and walk her to the train station, judiang and I returned in order to sleep some more. Heh. (Judi did get her “regular” at Starbucks, but we still opted to sleep in.)

We managed to fart around enough in the morning to avoid having to have breakfast and go right to lunch – Indian Fud to be exact. I looked through my old LJ entries to find the name of the Indian place we went to last year: The Indian Garden on Ontario. We were going to take the bus, but Judi thought it was too cold and we wound up cabbing it.

Turns out we arrived before they were open, so we walked over to Michigan Ave and returned to the Apple store. We watched a neat workshop on Aperture, a photo editing program that looks really useful. But it’s $200 (and is it Mac specific?) so I shan’t be getting it.

We returned to Indian Garden and had a wonderful lunch buffet. Lots of tasty tasty. Once we’d gotten food in our systems (and spicy food at that) Judi was energized and warm enough to walk back to Millennium Park. We saw several women walking for a 3-day breast cancer walk going on in the city. We wished them luck on their walking and commended them for their efforts.

We were early to the bike center, so we sat and rested for awhile. Then we took a potty break over by the outdoor concert hall. A choir was practicing, so we watched that for awhile before returning for our segway tour.

Judi and I found helmets and signed our lives away before we were given our segways to ride. There were 18 of us on the tour with two really friendly (and knowledgeable) tour guides, Jeremy and Dave. We walked our segways down a hill (the one that I rode up at the end of our bike ride yesterday) and took them over to the “ice rink” (not one in the summer, just in the winter). There, Jeremy taught us how to get on ’em, get off ’em, go forward and back and stop and turn, etc. We had a nice opportunity to learn the ins & outs of segway steering.

One of the first things Judi and I learned about segways is that they’re not as easy as they look. If you stay relaxed, it’s easy peasy. But I kept clenching my knees and toes while riding which made it harder on my feet. I loved going up hills on the thing – much nicer than a bike! Still, I like bikes better for most of the rest of the riding. 🙂 As Judi said, when you’re on a bike, you can easily put your feet on the ground, but with the segway, when you stop, you’re still standing & adjusting to keep the thing stationary.

We toured around the lakefront, mostly at museum campus. I saw stuff Judi’s never taken me to. Heh. When I was able to hear Jeremy’s tourguiding, I’d learn stuff about the city I hadn’t known. He took us to what used to be Meig’s Field (now a prairie of wild flowers). I took photos and a video, which I’ll paste at the end of this post.

We were pretty tired by the time we returned to the bike center. So we sat and rested some before we headed off to the bus stop nearby. We took the #4 bus back to 13th street, then walked home.

Our original plan (well, Judi’s original plan) was to put her new grill together then go to Jewel and buy stuff to grill to christen the grill. But as it got later & later and I got hungrier and hungrier, it looked less & less likely that Judi would be putting the grill together. She finally decided we should go out for supper. I suggested Grace O’Malley’s, so we walked there.

We both ordered the Guiness cheese soup as a starter and amaretto sours. I ordered the beer battered fish & chips with the salad & bleu cheese dressing. Judi ordered the chef’s Caesar salad with steak. Then we ordered dessert – I picked the pecan brownie ala mode and Judi got their Bailey’s cheesecake. Very yummy supper!

We’re now watching the Olympics (wow on that 4×100 swim relay!) and geeking. Tomorrow Judi promises to put the grill together, so I guess we’ll grill hot dogs for lunch. And then I’ll head off to home again, to see my poor little neglected kitties.


Segways R Us
Segways R Us

The last two in this row are the ones that Judi and I was using. 🙂
Judi glides on
Judi glides on

Judi gliding around on her segway at the planetarium.
Judi and me!
Judi and me!

Yes, even I rode a segway today! Jeremy, our guide, took the photo.


Jersey Boys are Boss!

As we had, indeed, planned, we wound up going to Ma & I for supper. We all ordered sushi as an appetizer (me getting California roll – yum!). judiang and I both ordered tofu pad thai and elsaf ordered shrimp lad nar. Very yummy. Then we cabbed it to Bank of America Theater to watch Jersey Boys.

I’ve heard music by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons but didn’t always know it was them. But I recognized more than half of the songs in the musical and enjoyed it all. A very fun musical with lots of good music. I did miss some of the dialog in the show (but heard more than Judi, who figures she understood 3% of the dialog). While watching it, I kept wanting to get on Wikipedia to read more about Frankie Valli et al. (Joe Pesci? Really! Wow!) I am SUCH a geek. But I feel a little vindicated cuz Judi admitted the same. 🙂

After the show, we took a cab back to where we’re picked one up before the show. Cuz we had some ice cream to be eating! Good ol’ Marble Slab is open late, so we got ice cream for the walk back to Judi’s apartment. I had chocolate swiss and pistachio. Yum!

Now I’m watching Olympics and we’re all geeking. I have a couple of photos from our bike trip today, which I shall post under the LJ cut.

Elsa & Judi biking
Elsa & Judi biking

We paused along Lake Michigan to turn around and head back. We’re on rental bikes.
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan

A shot of the Lake from our bike trip. Perfect day for biking.


OMGWTFBBQ!

Ah, sitting in the dark in the three season room with my fellow geeks as the Raccoon Family Chorus sings in the background. It doesn’t get much better than this! Oh wait, the geese are adding to the warbling chorus – I guess it does get better. 🙂

Today’s biggest priority was elsaf making her barbecue country spare ribs. We had few other plans for the day, so most of it was spent here at the cottage enjoying the beautiful weather and the wonderful wildlife.

I slept in the 3-season room again last night, this time in dad’s chair. And it was quite a good sleep except for the Raccoon Family Massacre that took place at 3am (well, there wasn’t a massacre, but the sheer amount of screaming that the little suckers did made it sound that way) and the Goose & Gander sing-along around 6 in the morning. Apart from those times, I slept until around 8am.

Although Elsa and I got up at decent times (and even judiang woke up & got up at a reasonable time!) breakfast was a little late due to Elsa being distracted by a nice entry she was writing for DailyKos. But once she was done, she made us French toast and sausage. Mmmmm!

We rested and geeked until around 1pm when it was time for lunch (despite not being all that hungry for it). We picked up a grilling basket at the hardware store in Minster (Elsa needed two for the ribs and the folks only had one) and then went to Casadores in New Bremen. Elsa and I ordered lunch and gave a little to Judi so that she wouldn’t get hungry before suppertime. (She said she wasn’t hungry, but we fed her anyway – we’re cruel that way.) We picked up ice cream for the ala mode to our dessert for supper before we returned to the cottage.

While Judi and I read and rested, Elsa worked on her BBQ ribs and potato salad. The parental units showed up after a bit and brought the Market Day apple pie which I’d received as a free gift for my last order. (I thought it would be perfect for this weekend.) I started baking it right away.

More resting, reading, and chatting and even Elsa had some time to relax after a bit. But suppertime was looming, so I got to work on the fire for the grilling. Then I finished the lunch prep and set the table for supper while Elsa basted and then grilled the ribs.

Supper was wonderful. We all love that Elsa loves to cook. 🙂 She used the broth from the ribs to make a Japanese-inspired soup, which we started with. Then we had the ribs and potato salad. There was leftover foccacia bread and sour dough bread as sides as well. And I cut up the peaches we still had left and served them with a little sugar (and some fruit fresh) with a few blueberries for garnish. It was a lovely supper and photos from it are below the bird photos.

I shooed Elsa and the folks off to sit by the fire while Judi washed dishes and I dried & put them away. She’s a fast dish washer, but it still took us awhile to get everything cleaned up. Then we joined everyone at the fire for chatting and photo-taking. It was quite pleasant.

After a bit, Judi started muttering “pie! PIE!” so it was time to serve the pie. I was very pleased with the pie – when I cut it, it flaked just like an apple pie should. I served it with the ice cream and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Judi gave it a 9 out of 10. I said since it was free, it deserved a 10 out of 10. 🙂

More musing by the fire, and then some singing. We’re not as well-versed in camp songs as my sister or Rachel, so that petered out eventually. But then the baby raccoons started coming out of their tree and came over to see us. Elsa and dad took photos and Elsa’s posted some of the photos to her journal.

The folks headed off home and Judi and I tended the fire a bit longer. But then it was time to come inside and geek, so that’s what we’re doing.


Duckling Formation
Duckling Formation

The little ducklings swim toward the shore in a deceptively random “duckling formation.”
My Two Dads
My Two Dads

2 guys and a gal and their six ducklings. “Uncle Steve” is just like another father to these little ones.
Duck, Duck, Goose
Duck, Duck, Goose

Or in this case, “Goose, Goose, Duck.” It’s shame that, despite hanging out “together,” the geese all sit in the sun together and the ducks all sit in the shade together. So much for integration!
Mmmm, ribs!
Mmmm, ribs!

Elsa’s barbecued country spare ribs and potato salad. Yummy!
Pie!
Pie!

Pie are square. No, pie are round, cake are square!


Little Trina Two Topic

Sheesh, this week I seemed to have only talked about two things – my new phone/PDA/whatsit and the weather. This post is no exception.


The Aftermath

The day after Faux-Blizzard ’08 and things are looking pretty good. Before you become all impressed with my L33T shoveling skills, I’ll own up to the fact that someone came by my door this morning wanting to know if I wanted my walk & driveway ploughed. Hell yeah! And I had them do the parental units’ walk as well.

When I finally did get out this afternoon, the sun had done a great job on getting the snow in hand. I took some photos with both my camera and the phone for comparison purposes. The one thing I notice with the phone is that the sky had a lot more noise in it than my regular photos. (They both take 3 megapixel photos, interestingly enough.) When you shrink the photos down for e-mailing and/or LJ posting, however, the noise isn’t noticeable. (The above photo is a phone photo.)

The official measurement out of Dayton International Airport was 13.2″ of snow. This came in second to the storm of ’04 when we got over 16″. #3 was an actual blizzard – ’78 with its 12.9″. Here’s hoping we’re done with the big storms this season. (Here’s really hoping that the forecast of 40+°F for Friday holds true – don’t wanna drive to Cincinnati in snow or ice.)

It can take photos too!

In addition to being a phone, the AT&T Tilt is a GPS, a PDA, a Wi-Fi device, and a camera. Heh. I really just wanted a new PDA, but you can’t get one that’s not attached to a phone and uses Winders Mobile 6 (which I need for my DVD program).

Now these photos aren’t the best, but partly because it wasn’t all that bright in the room when I was talking them. And partly cuz it was very mobile cats I was photographing.


Linus was the hardest to keep still for his photo.


Lucy decided to go sepia.

The Land of Glass Trees


Welcome to the Land of Glass Trees

Today is our 7th calamity day of the school year. OK, so we’ll have to make it up later, but for today, I’m going to stay inside and enjoy the view. (Maybe it’ll melt enough so that I can get to the post office before they close this afternoon.)