|
October 27, 2012
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 14, 2011
We recently finished our big Summer vacation. Or, the "trip to everywhere" as the four year old termed it. It was a lot of fun and a lot of driving. Rather than try to write about it in story form, I'll do it as a list. Miles... more · · ÷ · · |
|
February 27, 2011
Welcome! The key is under the front mat. ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 4, 2010
A number of years back I inherited my Grandma's old meat grinder. As life often transpires, I never really took the time or found a project to use it on. There's something mysterious and unapproachable about old cooking gear. Being ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 8, 2010
Found in the parking lot when we left work the other day. Raz was sniffing at it and the Cicada would try to fly away but only manage a short, circular flight to where it had started owing to one wing being damaged. I coerced it onto ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 9, 2010
Photos taken with the Nikin D200, 70-200MM lens mounted on a 1.4x teleconverter (for effective 98-280mm zoom) with a Canon 500D 77mm close-up lens attachment on the end. In other words about two pounds of glass shifting the ligh... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 18, 2010
Sometimes I see a photo or get an idea and it percolates in the brain for a few days or weeks before I find myself with the time and inspiration to try it. I had this idea of spinning a wheel over water and photographing the spray/dro... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 6, 2009
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 15, 2009
Discovered this morning in the woods. This spider has a "ball" type nest and the morning Sun was hitting it just right to give it a more attractive hue. A followup to yesterday's upside down curiosity. I've started looking unde... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 14, 2009
I took this yesterday, thinking it was a dead crane fly, trapped by a spider. Not so sure now, I mean look at all of them legs! Zooming in on the original some of the legs appear to taper out into spider web thinness, one even has a... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 17, 2009
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 9, 2009
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 6, 2007
I don't have a butterfly book nor have I been able to find this exact butterfly using google, but it does look a lot like a White Admiral. The Admiral has a thicker inner white band and maybe not as much blue. There's also the... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 14, 2007
Ol' yeller feet here landed on the window next to my office desk yesterday and stayed long enough for a few photos. I've photographed a few flies over the years, but I don't recall any of them having custard yellow feet. I didn'... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 4, 2007
It was May of last year (the 25th to be precise) while sitting pond side watching the quiet New Hampshire sky fade to twilight that a UFB (unidentified flying bug) made a series of low level landing maneuvers and plopped into the po... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 4, 2007
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 29, 2006
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 28, 2006
Last week I cut the tip of my thumb off. Revenge of the Zuchini, let's call it. My first reaction, after yelling an obscenity, was to staunch the blood flow. I then picked up the little pink thumb-cap from the cutting board (cl... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 26, 2006
Our pond got hit pretty hard by the recent rains. It was flooded for a couple of weeks with all of the nearby soils, mulch, and lawn run-off turning the water a murky brown. The extra nutrients along with PH changes really made th... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 20, 2006
Flat Footed(without any apologies to Foriegner) I'm flat footed, check it and see Got webbed feet and toes numbered three Come on baby, do you do more than honk? I'm flat footed, I'm flat footed You don't have to fly a straig... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 18, 2006
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 7, 2006
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 1, 2006
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 28, 2005
This is what yesterday's "fish" really was...a chickadee. With all of the rain and snow lately our bird feeder is a really popular place. I was out filling the feeders the other day, using a coffee cup to scoop from the large ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 5, 2005
There's a couple "bushes" of flowers on the edge of the pond that are going through a last fall fling blooming frenzy, attracting every bee, butterfly, and moth from miles around. While trying to photograph some of them it felt a b... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 3, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 29, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 9, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 28, 2005
First spider pictures and now bats, what is this site becoming? Zeke and I were out for a walk the other evening and on the way back I noticed five bats flying back and forth along a tree bordered stretch of road. Since it was s... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 22, 2005
On a cool, damp evening last week nightfall approached and our backyard was transformed into a silent airshow. Hundreds of Dragonfly filled the air: swirling, diving, and hovering. Silent but for the faint flutter of cellophane w... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 12, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 19, 2005
Through the modern miracle of Grandma Cam we present a fresh, just taken birthday photo of Christopher. I think he turned 30 today. A relatively benign start to the day compared to his past birthdays. Hey, let's have a caption ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 8, 2005
The gully washer at the end of our Quoddy Park hike accompanied over the bridge into Canada and to Campobello Island. Despite once being a favored getaway for Franklin D. Roosevelt the island doesn't have much in the way of grocery or ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 6, 2005
We went away for a week's vacation leading up to the 4th. The first day consisted mostly of noodling eastward towards northern Maine/Canada. Those familiar with the east coast know it is practically impossible to drive due east ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 29, 2005
Looked out the window at home the other day just as this duck landed on the lawn. First duck landing we've had, that I'm aware of. I was really hoping it would waddle over to our pond for a bit, help legitimize it and all, but it to... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 24, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 21, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 20, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 16, 2005
There's sort of a funny story behind this. I was in the yard a couple weeks ago experimenting with the macro lens and a flash. I hauled the camera and tripod around the yard in search of small things to photograph. While trying to ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 1, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 20, 2005
I'm starting to learn and experiment with the SB-600 flash for the D70. This macro was taken outside with late afternoon sun and the flash mounted on the camera. Settings: 1/60sec, f/25, ISO200, 280mm focal length (w/diopter). ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 23, 2005
When I worked for the FAA I would regularly fly from Maine to an Oklahoma FAA School. All of the classes were on how to maintain and repair the ground based navigational equipment used by Air Traffic Control and Pilots. Great stuff... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 13, 2005
Inspired by Karen at Rurality I've decided to photograph and identify the birds from around our yard. So, like any budding birder, I sat down last night to play with CSS and HTML in order to best display the growing pile of bird pictur... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 7, 2005
On vacation I was showing my sis how to remove specks from a photo using photoshop. "You touch up your photos?" I wasn't sure if she was serious or not, but in case anyone else is curious the answer is a resounding YES! ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 25, 2005
I'm heading out to the SF/Bay area in a couple of weeks to shake off the winter with my Sister's family, the Normal Normans. Three adults (mostly) and two young boys (11-13?) and a week to kill. I've been putting together a list of a... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 15, 2005
Another shot from this weekend's micro fun. This is a small part of a very small Coleus blossom. If you've ever seen a mint plant blossom it's pretty much the same; a tall spike covered in minature flowers. Each flower is smaller... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 2, 2005
This is an oil painting by my Mom from about ten years ago. It's an Indian fellow she knew from the Wind River area and I think the portrait is quite striking. I'll post a full view in a day or so. For those of you curious ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
February 16, 2005
A work in progress.... The big storm moved through Monday and (thankfully) didn't dump tons of rain on us. Yesterday was sunny and warm, almost 45°f. I've been working at home, sequestered away in my basement office coding ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 23, 2005
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 20, 2005
Up at 5. Zeke zips outside and into the woods seemingly oblivious to the weather. 7°. A heat wave compared to yesterday. I leave the sliding glass door open a few seconds longer and look skyward...maybe an aurora, maybe just th... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 13, 2004
I made a softbox this weekend. Foam-board, thin white curtain lining cloth, and a bunch of fluorescent bulbs in clamp lamp fixtures. I'll have to document it at some point after the bugs have been worked out. Speaking of ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 24, 2004
Shot using a Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens that I bought for the D70. It's a Nikon lens but not top of the line, with a plastic/composite lens connector instead of the standard metal. Being as I'm still learning it seemed like ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 23, 2004
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 20, 2004
I took a tip from Insect Journal and headed down the road with bucket and net to get insects and tadpoles for our pond. In this case a swampy area on the side of the road which will dry up in the next couple of months. Let me te... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 7, 2004
For Christopher... Once upon a time there was a man who was growing older and grumpier by the day. He had an old dog that was also growing old and grumpy. They would walk around growling at people, especially all of those young people... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 12, 2004
On his 50th birthday Robert was given the device. Clipped to a belt, slipped into windbreaker, secreted into a pocket the device worked silently and efficiently on the user's behalf. An elderly acquaintance had brought him to the park t... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 8, 2004
Scaled composites, founded by the same Rutan brothers who designed and flew the Voyager airplane around the world, have a couple of cool projects underway. There's Space Ship One, an craft designed for sub-orbital manned space flights. ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 6, 2004
I wasn't even sure what Nitro Cars were, but this looks cool. According to this site nitro cars are like the glow fuel powered model airplanes I used to regularly dash into the pavement as a kid. Model airplane flying went some... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 31, 2003
Random linkage for the last day of '03... Zillions (or so) of online sample links See How It Flies - perceptions, procedures, and principles of flight How a Sextant Works - from the PBS Shackleton special ITron - the most popu... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 27, 2003
It turns out that my brother and my wife both like fish hatcheries. I can sort of see this with Chris, being a long time fishing fiend, but I've yet to discover the root of Faith's fish farm fascination. So while driving the ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 26, 2003
We just got back from a week of holiday travel to Arizona with a side-trip to New Mexico. Coming from non-stop New Hampshire precipitation it was strange to be in places that looked rain-free for the last century. Drinking water you fee... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 2, 2003
The snow, that is. Half a day later: It's STILL coming in from Canada! It's brought light snow, plunging temps, and a wind that really bites. Last week my cousin Gigi wrote that she can't wait for snow to visit Nebraska. ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 26, 2003
I've clocked a couple dozen hours flying the Lebanon pattern and practicing landings in my old Cessna 172. Actually I've started using a hybrid trainer, which lies somewhere between a 182 and a 172. Charles Wood was good enough to inc... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 19, 2003
My foray into Google Adsense has paid off with enough "mad money" to set up a flight simulator in the basement office. After a little research I purchased a motherboard, CPU, memory, case, CD/DVD drive, hard drive, and OS. Building the c... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 13, 2003
I've been pretty busy lately. While we wrap up one large project we are starting to bring up new hardware for the next project. What does that mean? Well, about this time last year I started programming on the project using a hardware ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 17, 2003
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 18, 2003
Managed to sneak a little star viewing in last night before the skies gave way to Isabel. Quite a clear and star filled night. The sun is starting to set earlier and the moon is rising later. Still, this is New England and Fall m... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 15, 2003
We're going to need your brainpower on this one. In fact we might have to fly in some world renowned scientists (WRS) to investigate it. (anyone have the number for WRS's?) Last night, well actually this morning, at about 4am I was... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 13, 2003
I promised to report on my new Canon A70 camera once I had some time to play with it. First I'll say that there's still a lot to learn and I've only briefly skimmed the manual. Fit and form factor are very nice, it feels solid and ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 12, 2003
I've been meaning to mention our recent wildlife spottings. Most likely the rain is washing them out of their normal warrens. Last month on the way into work I saw a rather wet looking porcupine munching on a neighbor's lawn. Faith saw... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 3, 2003
8 of 10 women wear the wrong bra size Let the dog out yesterday morning at about 5:30 and found that the pond had collapsed overnight. The huge boulder we thought immovable, moved. The heavy rains must have washed away the la... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 15, 2003
Launch of the newly improved 2-liter powered water rocket cam has been delayed due to inclement weather the past week. I have a good feeling about today. The one caveat is that we need a big, open field on the off chance that the... more · · ÷ · · |
|
July 5, 2003
... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 13, 2003
There are a number of strange things we did as kids that you just gotta wonder where the idea came from in the first place. Stuff like spreading Elmer's glue on the back of your hand and peeling off dry "glue skin" a while later, genera... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 5, 2003
Walked into the office this morning and there's this wild flutter and flurry of motion. Bird. Sparrow. Maybe trying to break into the dog biscuits. It's flapping and battering against the only window which isn't open. I set my computer... more · · ÷ · · |
|
June 1, 2003
Almost two weeks of rain: e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g..i.s..g.r.o.w.i.n.g! Thankfully there have been the few odd moments when the sun breaks out long enough for us to do something about the lawn that seems to grow an inch a day. Yester... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 23, 2003
This is my neighbor's wall. I'm rather proud of it, if only vicariously. I've been struggling with rock walls for a couple of years and all I've come away with is sciatica and some interesting conversation pieces. ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
April 30, 2003
Yesterday was another birthday. Forty three. Other than some really nice well-wishes from friends and family it wasn't much fun. Zeke woke up sometime before five, rustling around, making the sound of "gotta go pee" which usually trans... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 9, 2003
We have flies. Not a few flies but clusters of flies. Fly battalions. Fly platoons. Fly divisions. With another flight of flies waiting in the wings to take their place. At the first sign of a warm, sunny day their numbers bloss... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 1, 2003
I've been looking for a way to securely store usernames and passwords on my Mac & Palm, with the hopeless wish that they would stay in sync. Seems like something Palm would have built ages ago, but maybe the export/national security ramifi... more · · ÷ · · |
|
December 6, 2002
Oliver the flying dog...... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 18, 2002
I accidentally stumbled across the JumpnDogs.com the other day. You can hire them to bring their gravity defying dog show to your next big event. These are the kinds of frisbee dogs which run up the guy's back to catch high flying discs. ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 21, 2002
If the same hair is touched twice or if two hairs are touched within a 20-second interval, the cells on the outer surface of the leaf expand rapidly, and the trap snaps shut instantly. Hey, sounds like some programs I've written trying to ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 12, 2002
Woke up at 2am (EST) to watch the meteor shower. Saw a few but not as many as Saturday night. Before going back to bed I spotted something unusual. Normally when I sleep out on the porch there will be a few satellites zinging across the ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 12, 2002
Image is actual size. I kid you not. Ok, maybe just a hair smaller. Found this monster of a horse fly between a window and screen yesterday. This is the one bug that Zeke and I will run full blast to escape (not that it does much good... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 6, 2002
You're thinking, "What the heck is that?" and rightly so. Zeke and I went for a long hike this morning and checked out some of our favorite raspberry spots. Zeke likes berries. He really likes it if you pick them for him. In a pinch h... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 31, 2002
click for full flyer If you're looking for a nice, quiet community to settle down to or raise kids how about Eureka, SD? My Grandma, who turns 101 this July, has moved out of her house and my Mom has been diligently working at getting eve... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 29, 2002
Thanks to Phil for a pointer to the Draganflyer 3. A strange looking remote controlled copter with wireless video.... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 23, 2002
A happy wag of the tail to Chris G. for suggesting it and the folks at Canine Hardware for making it. Chuckit is a fiendishly clever tennis ball launching device. The included tennis ball is a bit on the wimpy side. No problem, Zeke has... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 18, 2002
There we were, left to study the molecular density of the donut; bombarding the sugar, fat, wheat array with overly excited electrons spat from the waveguide belly of a microwave domestic. Vibrationally excited population densities was wha... more · · ÷ · · |
|
May 8, 2002
Boeing's new high speed Connexion One airliner network got FAA certification. In fact they submitted the paperwork using email via the 737-400 testbed while flying at 35,000 feet.... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 27, 2002
Just added to the story/photo gallery, filming the elusive flying frisbee dog... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 26, 2002
This is the dream. An airplane flight, good sized jet, fog, pilots jovial and everyone can see/hear them, flying low due to clouds, winding through mountains, banking around trees and towers, a transition and we are on the ground taxiing,... more · · ÷ · · |
|
March 1, 2002
The two guys from the movie Clerks are back in a little Kevin Smith web movie, The Flying Car. While you're contemplating foot vs. flying car, would you go over to a friend's for the "new" social get together...iMac unpacking ceremonies?... more · · ÷ · · |
|
February 14, 2002
snatches from a dream... ...putting on military clothes, not travel or dress but fatigues. The hour is early, light a muted blue-gray. Taking a trip. Spain. The purpose is not clear and the mechanics of getting to the ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
February 13, 2002
20's outside, balmy and buzzy inside... more · · ÷ · · |
|
February 9, 2002
Please step into our Electrostatic Fly Trap... more · · ÷ · · |
|
February 2, 2002
If you've had it with long chain fuels here are some alternatives: Wind powered web server, Solar powered web hosting, Pedal powered laptop plans, or just collecting scrap batteries to power things. My Mom lives in a log cabin in the ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 18, 2002
Ok, I'm going to try to organize any/all of my OS X links into a single entry per day. Don't know if this is useful for anyone else, but it'll help me in the long run when I try to find them again. Another article on using iPhoto ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
January 2, 2002
Today's better mousetrap department uncovers The Liberator, a replacement for bells on your cat in the attempt at providing birds with an early warning system. What bird wouldn't flee when faced with a "threatening tonality" triggered by a... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 27, 2001
Play it as flash, or download the app and play it on your Mac or Windows machine, but you just gotta play The Second Line. As usual I can't say I understand it, but it is fun being a fly for a while.... more · · ÷ · · |
|
November 11, 2001
The University of Lund Wind Tunnel has been designed for specially trained birds to fly in. The page includes diagrams of the wind tunnel design and information about the research and birds. This looks like way too much fun...... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 27, 2001
For our trip we bought Eurailpass tickets (from Rick Steve's web site which included free travel book & video) for the three countries that we travelled: Germany, Switzerland, and France. I like the Eurail pass because you buy a certain n... more · · ÷ · · |
|
October 24, 2001
During our trip we spent a couple of days in the Burgundy region, notably in the city of Beaune.Beaune features a walled, medieval city center and a wine shop or cave on almost every street. We went on a wine tasting tour in one of the cav... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 26, 2001
Yesterday was very rainy, even torrential at times. We took the two dogs (Zeke has company while we watch our friend's dog) for a walk in the morning during the lighter part of the rain. On the way home I saw two things along the road. O... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 24, 2001
My brother, from AZ, was out visiting over the weekend. Good timing as the leaves are starting to display their fall colors with zeal. Also the birds are starting to fatten up (on my yard's earthworms no less) for the migration south. He... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 24, 2001
The New York Times has a series of interactive graphics which present some of the technical aspects of the WTC disaster and aftermath. In the first "slide" they show the resulting map by laser measuring technology from 5,000 foot flyovers o... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 17, 2001
Rememeber the Dove of Peace? The American History 1970-1979 page has one rendition of it down in the Nobel Peace section. This morning's weather map also, oddly enough, had the Peace Dove flying across the United States. It's rendered mo... more · · ÷ · · |
|
September 10, 2001
Wings of the world week in our corner of New England. Lately we've had lots of Monarch Butterflies in our yard and along the roadside as, I suspect, they fill up one last time before fluttering on south. On our walk this morning a Monarch... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 22, 2001
One of the engineers I worked with at Vicinity is an avid Ham Radio Operator and has created an interesting site for N1RZ Six Meter Path Data tracking. I can only pretend to fully understand what's going on here, but since it is map base... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 21, 2001
I've been tracking my frequent flyer miles and doing "what-if" planning using a simple spreadsheet in excel. I've been meaning to write some kind of program for taking a list of airports (mht-phl-sfo-phl-mht) and calculating the distances ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 21, 2001
You've probably read or sensed the fading glory of Bluetooth, which has gone from the most hyped emerging technology to an also ran in less than a year. 802.11b (think Apple airport) is spreading to smother bluetooth and I guess that makes... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 14, 2001
Now this looks like a fun project to work on: NASA's 'flying wing' breaks 2 altitude records - August 13, 2001. Since it doesn't really have any fuel onboard (solar panels & regenerative fuel cell setup) it can just go and go and go until ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 11, 2001
Anyone want to go on a round the world (RTW) adventure? If you leave from Bangkok you can buy a first class RTW ticket for $3,400, which is cheaper than a business class round trip from Boston to London. RTW tickets have some oddball ... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 10, 2001
Admit it, you really want to know How Toilets Work. Although I must admit that the vacuum toilet with the teflon bowl is a current fave...do they sell these to non-airline customers??? Some more spontaneous toilet topics: On a trip to Eu... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 2, 2001
Here are some of the books I've been reading.First a work of fiction by Walter Kirn called Up In the Air about a business traveller who, among other things, is trying to acheive his long term goal of flying a million miles. Light and fun r... more · · ÷ · · |
|
August 1, 2001
In case you are curious about my Grandma's birthday I cover the trip out here.If you haven't heard of FlyerTalk before and you travel, or like to travel, then maybe you should check it out. I stumbled across this site quite by accident whe... more · · ÷ · · |