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drorzel | November 10, 2015Another delayed photo-of-the-day, because SteelyKid was sent home with strep throat yesterday. She complained that her throat hurt any time we asked her to eat anything other than ice cream, but other than that was basically unaffected. Which is sort of the most irritating sick-kid scenario possible, because if she were actually sick and listless, I could just put the tv on and let her doze on the couch while I worked. But instead, she was up and playing more or less as usual, skipping over to my computer regularly to interrupt me.
We had some fun-- watched Shaolin Soccer on DVD, and some of…
drorzel | November 8, 2015The day was dominated by the previously mentioned birthday party for The Pip, so it only makes sense to have the photo of the day be an action shot from said party:
The Pip shaking a parachute with balls on it at his birthday party.
This is from the games portion of the party, which included shaking a parachute loaded up with plastic balls so they flew all over the place. Which is the sort of thing that plays very well with the four-year-old crowd.
And now, having celebrated in style and substantially increased the supply of superhero-themed toys in Chateau Steelypips, it's time for bed.
drorzel | November 7, 2015Four years ago today, The Pip was born. That's hard to believe, in both directions at different times. There are days when it seems like just yesterday that he was a tiny helpless thing, and other days when he seems to have been a hyper Little Dude for aeons.
I took a bunch of pictures of him today, but it's sort of hard to choose one for the photo of the day. I went with this one as the "featured image" above:
The Pip with his big new book of superhero stories.
because it's a good clear picture of him, and a fairly characteristic facial expression. Also, he's holding a big collection of…
drorzel | November 7, 2015I spent most of Friday in a bit of a fog, thanks to a cold bug I picked up from The Pip. As a result, the only thing I took photos of yesterday was this:
A piece of bread in the toaster at Chateau Steelypips.
This wasn't some weird pseudoephedrine-fueled delusion-- I actually had a professional need for a photo of bread in a toaster oven. But, um, yeah, that's all I've got.
drorzel | November 6, 2015I love a lot of things about our neighborhood, which is all pleasant tree-lined streets and stuff, but it's not a great place for taking pictures of sunset-- I pretty much need to get in the car to get to a place with a clear view of the western horizon. This knocks out a big category of imitation-Scalzi photos, but every now and then there's a cool sunset-related effect, like these clouds last night:
Red patches of cloud at sunset.
This is kind of similar to the sunrise squirrel from a few days ago, but the lit-up clouds are a little more sparse, which makes it more dramatic.
And, of…
drorzel | November 4, 2015SteelyKid's Elite Team taekwondo practice on Tuesday night was a "game night" because they had a belt test last week. The kids opted to play capture-the-flag against the parents, which ended up a tie (the adults won the first two games, the kids the second two), but the adult victories came at a price:
My capture-the-flag injury.
This actually looks worse than it is. I mean, it does hurt, but the pain from my toe is minor compared to the aggravation of my plantar fasciitis from running around on thin foam mats with no shoes.
(Of course, neither of these kept me from playing basketball…
drorzel | November 4, 2015Another delayed photo-of-the-day, another photobombing:
Evil squirrel against a colorful sunrise.
I think this pretty much speaks for itself: I was getting a photo of the colorful sunrise, and an evil squirrel ran across the power line. Which was a clear and obvious photo of the day.
drorzel | November 4, 2015ScienceBlogs had some back-end Issues for a few days, which delayed the photo-a-day project. This one's from two days ago, when I was taking a picture of the bare branches of a tree next door because I liked the way they looked against the sky. I ended up with a high-altitude photobomb, though:
Airplane and bare tree in the early morning.
I ended up liking the contrast of the tiny lit plane and the great big black branches, so this was the photo of the day. Not much else to say about that.
drorzel | November 1, 2015Another busy day, so you get another kind of lazy shot. But, hey, everybody wants to know how the kids did trick-or-treating, right? So here's The Pip's share of the Halloween haul:
The Pip's Halloween candy.
I weighed both his plastic pumpkin full of candy and the Tupperware container that SteelyKid's stuff is in, and they each came out between 1.1 and 1.2 kg. So, a bit over 1kg each (after taking out the weight of the containers)-- not bad for an hour's work.
The funny part is that The Pip has turned into an exceptionally picky eater, and won't eat... any of this, really. He was super…
drorzel | October 31, 2015I took some shots of nature stuff on this morning's dog walk, and a few good action shots at the last soccer game of the season. But honestly, the only thing anybody wants to see today is Halloween costumes, so here are the kids:
The Pip as Batman, SteelyKid as a ninja.
Cleverly, they both selected costumes that are predominantly black; we augmented these with glow-stick bracelets and flashlights while actually trick-or-treating, for improved visibility.
Putting these together required a good deal more GIMP work than I anticipated, because the raw shots for the two are at slightly…
drorzel | October 30, 2015This is basically the shot I was trying to get yesterday when I ended up settling for an evil squirrel: a leaf in mid-fall.
Falling leaf in late October.
This is, of course, damnably difficult to get, as it's impossible to guess when a specific leaf will drop, and if you throw them up into the air, they don't stay airborne long enough to bring the camera up and focus it. And, you know, I could recruit somebody to toss leaves in the air for me, but I'm not sure that would make me feel any less a dumbass than standing in the yard with my camera staring up at the maple over the driveway.
It's…
drorzel | October 29, 2015You might look at this and say "Oh, what a cute little squirrel..."
A demon from another dimension, at least according to Emmy.
But Emmy will be very happy to explain, loudly and at length, that this is, in fact, a demonic alien menace, an existential threat to the safety of our house and home.
This wasn't really what I had in mind for the photo of the day today, but I took a picture of this little guy while I was outside trying to get a different sort of shot that didn't quite come out the way I wanted. So this is what you get tonight.
drorzel | October 29, 2015I totally spaced on posting this yesterday, because I ended up having to take SteelyKid to the doctor, which blew a gigantic hole in my day. (She's fine.) But this is a shot of sunrise yesterday morning:
Sunrise on October 28.
This was a very strange sunrise because this is pretty much the only light in the sky we saw all day. Those bits that look sort of blue-ish around the pink clouds aren't clear sky, they're more clouds. Ten minutes after this was taken, the entire sky was unrelieved grey, and stayed that way all day. Ten minutes before this was taken, there wasn't really any hint of…
drorzel | October 27, 2015I did take some DSLR photos today, but the photo of the day is a cell-phone shot from the final soccer practice of the fall for SteelyKid's second-grade team.
The last rec soccer practice for the fall 2015 season.
SteelyKid is not, in fact, in this photo; she had a belt test for the Elite Team at her taekwondo school tonight, so she was off getting dinner before some hard-core sparring. I was at practice because I signed up to assistant coach this year-- I was going to end up going to the practices anyway, and figured I might as well help out. It's been fun, and definitely increases my…
drorzel | October 26, 2015SteelyKid's second-grade class is doing a "Zoom Time" thing where the kids make short presentations to the class about one of their interests. It's basically an expanded show-and-tell, with fifteen minutes for talking, and five for "questions and compliments."
She, of course, decided to talk about taekwondo, so I brought her sparring gear in and she suited up:
SteelyKid in sparring gear for her "Zoom Time" presentation. Daddy included for scale.
The highlight of the presentation was when she let the whole class come up and take turns punching her in the chest to demonstrate the…
drorzel | October 26, 2015You didn't get a photo of the day yesterday because this was my day:
Southern California at sunrise, from the air.
I spent about seven hours on planes, starting before the sun was up in California, to say nothing of the time spent in airports. I had the good camera with me, so I got some cool photos out the plane window, but when I finally got home, I didn't have the time or energy to GIMP them up and post one.
So, instead, I'm doing it just before sunrise on the East Coast, before I walk Emmy and wake up Kate and the kids...
drorzel | October 24, 2015As noted yesterday, I'm visiting my sister for a few days, since I was on the West Coast anyway. Being here in Southern California, it seems appropriate to jack Kevin Drum's style and do some cat-blogging, and luckily enough, my sister is the Cat Person in the family. So, here they are:
My sister's cats. Clockwise from top left: Tate, Topher, Mona, Calliope, Oberon, Molly.
SteelyKid was really into the idea that we should get a cat for a while, though she's kind of cooled on that, but she'll probably like this photo a lot. Emmy... not so much.
I'm flying home tomorrow, leaving at an…
drorzel | October 23, 2015Having successfully given two talks in Sacramento, I'm spending a few days visiting my sister in Riverside, CA, because it's not often I'm on the West Coast at all. She had to work this morning, so I went on a bit of a hike up and down Mt. Rubidoux, where the city has built a really nice paved trail that winds around the mountain:
Part of the Mt. Rubidoux trail, coming down from the top.
I went out at around 9am, which had the advantage of being relatively cool and pleasant for walking. The disadvantage is that there was a ton of fog, making it hard to get good photos from up on the…
drorzel | October 22, 2015Having a slow morning here in Sacramento, because yesterday started before 4am and ended after 1am, according to my internal clock. This provided the opportunity to take some nicer pictures than just the obligatory hotel-window shot, so I went for a walk on the bike path by the American River. Where I saw Fire Sheep:
Animal grazing fire fuel reduction in progress.
OK, technically, according to the signs they had up, this is an "animal grazing fire fuel reduction" program, but I think "fire sheep" sounds cooler. There was a pretty sizable herd of sheep wandering around the side of the path…
drorzel | October 21, 2015I'm in California for a few days, to give a couple of talks in Sacramento. I'm told that it's traditional to commemorate such travel by taking a photo of a hotel parking lot, so here you go:
The obligatory hotel parking lot photo.
There are, in fact, palm trees around here, just not any that are visible from the hotel room window.
And now, I need to be horizontal for an hour or so, because OMG, long travel day.