What He Said

Jim Gonyea, of Leicester has a great post on the proliferation of campaign signs on public land and vacant lots. Thanks Jim!

Not George Washington

Back in July, The First Family spent a weekend on Mount Desert Island, enjoying Bar Harbor and Acadia. If memory serves, they were here only about 48 hours. On their first night on the island, the family had dinner at Stewman’s Lobster Pound, on West Street in Bar Harbor. We’ve never eaten there because we visit too early in the spring and too late in the autumn. But because Stewman’s put up a sign, we had our chance at a photo-op!

Wait

The fog began rolling in Tuesday afternoon. This morning it was still thick and gray down at Seal Harbor.


The wind picked up late this afternoon, driving the fog out beyond The Porcupine Islands in Frenchman Bay.


Tonight was unseasonably warm. So warm, that The Thirsty Whale kept its doors open, allowing the autumn leaves to skitter about on the wood floorboards of the long, narrow bar. That would be the bar with the yummy food and the great service!

On The Wing

We were down at Seal Harbor early this morning. It was mostly overcast, with only a light breeze. There were many Herring Gulls (Larus smithsonianus) as well as some Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus) on the beach and in the water. Despite their numbers, it was quite quiet and peaceful. After a few missed starts, I managed to snap two fairly clear photographs of seagulls in flight.

Doe, A Deer

Alongside Park Loop Road in Acadia National Park, not far from Otter Cliffs, we saw this beautiful White Tail Deer. We were driving in the car, late this afternoon, when a slight movement caught Chuck’s eye. I pulled out my camera. But she was moving and the engine was running, so it’s all a bit unfocused and dreamlike. Yeah, that’s what I was going for - a dreamlike quality! Worked like a charm. ;o)

Schoodic

On the one hand I want to keep it a closely guarded secret. On the other hand I want everyone to be able to enjoy it. I’ll err on the side of inclusiveness. Here are some photos of our trip over to one of the loveliest parts of Acadia National Park, the Schoodic Peninsula.


First of all, we found Fred. Or, more accurately, Fred the Herring Gull found us. Chuck was napping in the car at the time. I believe Fred was so concerned that someone was not actively appreciating the scenery that he flew up onto the hood of the car and stared at Chuck in amazement!


I let Chuck and Fred commune and headed off with my camera and my Sassafras walking stick to find this beautiful sight.


Soon Fred was able to rouse Chuck and he (Chuck, not Fred) joined me as the waves crashed up against the rocks. Fred was totally right about the importance of enjoying the scenery!

It Looks A Lot Like This

...pretty much wherever we go in Acadia National Park. This is the view from Jordan Pond House, looking down toward Jordan Pond and across to The Bubbles.


We were up to an early start thanks to a rumbling sound outside our window at about 6:00 am. I peeked through the drapes drawn across the windows and door to the balcony, to find a cruise ship heading right at us!


It was the Crown Princess. About twelve hours later, it pulled away under a full moon.

Remember This Guy?

Yes, we’re back in Bar Harbor, Maine; staying in the same hotel and we’re hoping to see our winged friend from last spring, tomorrow morning.

We drove up in a mix of sun and rain, arriving just after sunset. The waves sound wonderful. The fact that we are here means that our grandniece Isabella is doing so well that we decided to keep our reservations. Those were the reservations we made last spring, timed so that we would be back home in plenty of time before Carrie and “Bambalina’s” original due date of November 6th! Izzy now weighs three pounds, fifteen ounces (1.79 Kgs) and is off all of her supplemental oxygen - hurray! It will still be a while before she is able to head home with Mom and Dad, but we are all delighted with every milestone she passes.

Yawn

What? You got sick of looking at the photo of the overpass? But it’s pink!

I’m sorry I have neglected my blogging responsibilities. All is well. I have just been busy with happy things and mundane things. While the idea behind a blog is to write about one’s daily activities, I’m afraid it would be a bit, well, repetitive.

Example:
...slept, cooked, ate, drove, took photographs, drove, shopped, iPhoto, Photoshop CS3, e-mail, washed laundry, iMovie, QuickTime, YouTube, hung laundry, fed cats, cooked, ate, scooped litter, folded laundry, slept...

Repeat.

But at least you’re now fully up to date.

Oh! Except for the very important fact that our grandniece Isabella now weighs three pounds, eleven ounces (1.68 Kgs) and is ten weeks and three days old! Preemie Power indeed!

My Favorite Overpass

I don’t know who the creative geniuses were who thought to paint the overpasses spanning Route 146 in wonderful colors. Nor do I know which state bureaucrats had the good sense to authorize it. But my hat is off to all of them.

This one is located in Worcester at the intersection of Cambridge, Quinsigamond and 290.
It is, for obvious reasons, my favorite.

Autumn In Shadow

It was a warm, sunny Autumn day. I was hanging laundry on the front porch, while also trying not to step on a cat’s tail. In glancing down to avoid said tail, the shadows caught my attention. I thought of Roo who, in his photography, has a wonderful eye for shadows. I stopped and reached for my camera. This is the result.



Speaking of Roo,
Happy Anniversary to Andrew and Peter!

Preemie Power!

Whenever Isabella Rose raises her fist in the air like this I call it “Preemie Power”!

Isabella was born at just 26 weeks on August 5th, weighing one pound six ounces. We said from the beginning that she struck us as ”sweet and strong”. That continues to be our impression. She began feeding from a bottle on September 26th. Then she also began nursing on September 28th! She now weighs three pounds, five ounces (1.5 Kgs) - give or take a few grams. Wow! Carrie and Al continue to be wonderful parents. And Carrie has been recovering steadily from the Severe Preeclampsia and its attendant complications. Hurray!

Put Your Money Where Your _____...

Mouth Is
Heart Is
Values Are

The right, the far right, the conservatives, the Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the tea-party-ers, Karl Rove and all the astro-turfers are pouring vast sums of money into political campaigns. After the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United it has been virtually no holds barred on how much money can flow in from businesses and anonymous donors. The amounts of money are staggering. The right doesn’t want to take us back to something they miss; something they feel we have lost under the present Democratic administration. They want to take this nation in an entirely new and dangerous direction.

So we, the little guys, the average American citizens, have to pony up. We have to put our money where are mouths are. If we want to scream every time the right wingers spew lies, then we have to open up our wallets and support the good guys. If we hate the vision of America the tea-party-ers paint, then we have to put pen to check and support the good guys. If we know that we need more time to haul ourselves out of the recession and keep building on what has been accomplished in the last twenty months, then we have to navigate over to candidates we believe in, click on the donate button and support the good guys.


psssst... Do $omething!

Wicked Cool

There’s a wicked cool Photoshop video tutorial from NAPP Executive Director Larry Becker over on Corey Barker’s Planet Photoshop. It’s called “Abstract Backgrounds”. It is very easy to follow and left me slackjawed with all the nifty permutations and possibilities - think filters, digi-scrap papers and more. Check it out here!

My experiment:
From stones to stripes

Mark Your Calendars

Some of the people running for public office this year are just plain nuts.
Many of them have big money behind them.
We should not assume that because they are nuts, that they couldn’t possibly get elected.
We have to go to the polls and vote.
Vote as if your life depended on it, because it does.
This is a shake-the-snowglobe/Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole moment in our nation’s history.
We cannot be complacent.
We cannot be apathetic.
We have to go to the polls and vote.
Heck, you can even vote by absentee ballot.
But you have to freakin’ vote.

Living in Massachusetts? Need to register to vote? (You have until October 13th.) Need to vote by absentee ballot? The Secretary of the Commonwealth’s website has all the information you’ll need.

Mark Your Calendars.
Election Day Is
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
VOTE!

Rhino At The Mall

As I Tweeted on Twitter earlier today:

The bad news: I have a cold so we can't go anywhere NEAR the NICU! ;o(
Heck, I won't even breathe in a SouthEasterly direction!

The good news: Isabella now weighs 3 pounds (1.36 kg)!!! Hurray! ;o)

I blame my cold on the Massachusetts court system. I had jury duty in Worcester’s “Mall of Justice” on Main Street and with 100 plus citizens all in one pool room there must have been a bug or two tagging along. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

I have to say that all three judges I either spoke with or listened to impressed the heck out of me. I had not been looking forward to my “one day, one trial” tour of duty. I understand and appreciate civic responsibility, but the timing for this call up was not the best. I really was hoping not to be empaneled and I wasn’t. But as each inspiring judge spoke, I had the powerful urge to hold up my juror badge and say “Pick me!”

So five stars to the judges; four and a half stars to the impressive facility; and five stars to Court Officer Rose who kept us all informed and advocated to get “her jurors” where we needed to be. Oh, and minus five stars to this damn rhinovirus. You’d think that all that scanning and screening at the front door would keep such nasties at bay!

Fewer Or Less & A Word Among The Missing

Here’s a simple, general way to decide when to use the words “less” and “fewer”. If you can count whatever it is you are talking about, use fewer. If you can’t count it, use less. I am no grammarian, but it’s a rule which seems to be frequently broken.

The following sentence is correct:
I should spend less time knitting and buy fewer skeins of yarn.
I could reconstruct it this way:
I should spend fewer hours each day knitting and buy less yarn.
But the following sentence is not correct:
I should spend fewer time knitting and buy less skeins of yarn.

Grammar Girl has a detailed column on the topic. Grammar Monkeys have a brief audio explanation involving zombies.

As long as we’re on the topic of word usage, what the heck ever happened to the word “pled”. As in “She pled not guilty to the charges.” All I seem to hear on the news these days is “She pleaded not guilty.” I understand that pled is an alternative to pleaded. I also learned, after a bit of Googling, that its usage is disputed. But to my ear pled sounds right. And I don’t think it is due to my age, my having been born and raised in Rhode Island or my Scottish heritage.

Thoughts?

Shine On

Chuck and I were finishing our walk early this evening when we caught sight of the Harvest Moon. (Well it was really the Harvest Moon plus a day.) We’re not sure which one of us took this photograph. We had the camera with us, but no tripod. So we tried various settings and leaning on each other to try and steady the shot. We took a lot of pics but this was the only one which began to capture the beauty of the moon, rising up through a stand of trees, in central Massachusetts.


P.S. How old am I? I Googled “Harvest Moon lyrics” and instead of the early 1900s song “Shine On Harvest Moon” by Bayes and Norworth, up popped Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” from 1992. I have never heard of the latter, but have sung the former my whole life. Apparently I am ancient!

Mike Lowell

Mike “I only know how to hit doubles and home runs” Lowell is still going to retire at the end of this season. The Red Sox will be honoring him before the October 2nd home game. Lowell is one of my favorite players and I hate to see him go. This article by Ian Browne is a great read. It sums up Mike Lowell and his terrific career.

Update: Thankfully, it looks as if Mike was not seriously injured when he was hit in the right temple by the ball, during tonight’s game against the Evil Empire. A game which we won!

The Tech That Binds

Knock wood, all continues to go well for our grandniece Isabella! After several weeks of taking lots of photographs, I had a slap the palm of my hand to my forehead kind of moment. I suddenly realized that our Canon PowerShot S2 IS digital camera has a video feature. Isabella had been moved to a new room in the NICU and I thought that her family living far away would like to be able to see her new room and, much more importantly, see Isabella in motion. So, I shot less than three minutes of footage, loaded it onto my computer, edited it in iMovie, uploaded it to our private iWeb site and sent the link off to family and friends. Unfortunately, not everyone could access iWeb or view the video.

Cue the abrasive sound of a phonograph needle being scraped off an LP!

I’ll spare you the excruciating details of how I tried to troubleshoot the problem and how many e-mails I sent out. Eventually, I had to take another route and I finally found a winner. Turns out YouTube offers a Private video option. You upload your video to YouTube, tick the box marked private and then send out invitations to whomever you authorize to view the video. You’re limited to a maximum of 25 people and they have to register with YouTube. But for the family members whose non-Apple PCs and internet browsers weren’t compatible with iWeb, it has been a great solution. We’ve uploaded four videos to both locations and have it down to a pretty smooth system.

There was only one family member left out of the unlimited access loop: Nana, Isabella’s great grandmother. She has watched a couple of the videos on our laptop, but unlike everyone else, she doesn’t have nor does she want a computer. So this afternoon I used iDVD and burned all four videos to a disc. If her reaction to Carrie and Al’s wedding DVD is any indication, I should probably bring her a box of tissues along with the DVD!