The Boren Ultimatum

What is it with all our friends moving away? Is it us?

The Borens were here for dinner on their last night in town and are now on the road moving to Utah. I shoulda thought to take a picture of them before they left.

Hint from Heloise: Lately we've been keeping a Sharpie around to label plastic drink cups when you have a houseful over for dinner. Especially when a bunch of extras invite themselves.

Kosciuszko

Going over Mohawk River on the Twin Bridges on I-87 north of Albany there's this sign saying it's the Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge. I found a big statue of him in Lafayette Park next to the White House. He was head engineer of the Continental Army and helped us gain victory in the Battle of Saratoga.

We live right off of Saratoga Road, so it's kind of fun to go to DC and find a giant statue of a local hero with a big "Saratoga" inscribed on it.

Lafayette Park

Lafayette Park comprises the block in between the White House and VA headquarters in Washington. I walk through most times I'm in DC, and learned last time I was there the birds love the sour cream and onion potato chips sold by street hot dog vendors. At lunch you'll find guys at chess tables in the park playing pick-up games.

Lafayette was a Revolutionary War general from France who served with George Washington.

In the center of Lafayette Park is this equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson.

Dark Clouds Gather

I was working on this photo when my brother called with news my Grandmama was very sick and fading fast.

I thought it was a lonely and dark scene when I took it from my canoe up in the Adirondacks. It's sort of appropriate now.

Context

Recent finger painting activity with Carter. Two mischievous poses, but one photo is compositionally better than another.

I'll be using these in a PowerPoint for government web communicators in September to show what a difference the background can make when you're telling a story in pictures.

How do my kids always end up in my presentations?

Red, White and Blue

Here's a handheld through-the-fence HDR composite from 6 pictures taken at different exposures. HDR is a great technique to keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool. Just like that gimmicky McDLT hamburger that crammed landfills with double styrofoam clamshells.

Holy cow — during fact-check I found George Constanza with hair doing a perky 80s McDonald's singing and dancing commercial on YouTube. Jazz hands, everyone!

Construction Plaid

Next door to our new office building in DC is a big construction site. My guess? It's another big, square office building.

Fresh Noodle Made On The Spot

This is one of my favorite spots in Washington DC's Chinatown. This restaurant kitchen juts out into the sidewalk with a picture window. You can watch the noodle chef do his thing with all the dead meat swinging in the window.

Back Of The Box

Taking these pictures reminded me that old-school Lego packaging from the 1970s used to feature photos of kids playing with the Lego set on the back of the box. Their hairstyles were 70s mops and the striped turtlenecks were decidedly Danish. But they were having fun. Like Pippa here. At least they brushed their hair after naptime back then.

Moon Landing

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo XI on Monday, Malcolm and I stayed up 'til midnight getting out my classic Legos and putting together my 1975 Moon Landing set. This is one of my first 10 or so sets. I put together the ascent stage, which separates from the landing legs; he did the LM legs and everything else.

These old sets had a lot of larger non-specialized bricks, so you'd think they are easier to put together. Wrong. We still had to dig for pieces from my 70s box, and there are also the occasional twists in the old instructions where you can't see around the back of the model and have to figure some things out yourself. That's the way things were.

I will say about these classic Legos, if we want to build freestyle, this is the more fun box to have out — more basic bricks for larger structures. There are fewer possibilities with the new tiny Lego pieces, the ratio of specially-shaped pieces is significantly higher.

One improvement since 1975: we now have Photoshop to pose the thing on the moon.

Apollo XI — Man On The Moon

Do you remember what you were doing 40 years ago today?

I enjoyed a front row seat at the Apollo XI moon walk with a box of raisins. When Neil Armstrong said that was "one small step for man," in my case he really meant it.

Thanks to my parents for their foresight in taking some pictures of me witnessing man's greatest engineering achievement.

While we're talking pictures, check out the transcript of the Earth-to-moon communications ... 90 seconds before Armstrong uttered his famous words, Buzz Aldrin is talking with Houston about what f-stop and shutter speed to use in moonshade to photograph man's first steps (p. 377).

T2

Treasury building elevation, from my trip to DC a couple weeks ago.

Busy Bee

I had the hardest time taking this bee's portrait outside my office window today, he was moving from flower to flower pretty rapidly. He really enjoyed these fuzzy plants with little purple flowers. They're somewhat ugly to look at, but they sure taste great.

Guitar Hero

Today I snapped the back cover photo for Claire's first album. Now to make her a star.

Framed Frog

I took a walk around our neighborhood the other day. It was a little rainy so I had to hold my camera under my shirt part of the time. But it brought out this great big frog, along with some super saturated colors.

I tried to get closer to the frog but he disappeared into the drainage ditch as I stepped forward. This sucker was big.

Big Bugs

More macro shots from camping in the Adirondacks. I was folding up the tent ... when I pulled up the tarp all these baby grasshoppers started jumping all over it. I measured the little squares on the tarp for scale and there are 10 per inch.

The dragonfly was from a different part of the day. It's plain gross this close up.

T-Building

Here's the U.S. Treasury building, featured on the backside of the tenner. It's just down the street from the White House. It was getting dark, so this is a three-frame handheld HDR.

A nice lady with an accent from Arkansas saw me shooting at the front gate and asked me for some tips for her DSLR.

I helped her, despite that she was packing a Canon. It makes sense, really, that she would need help.

Platform

I'm in DC this week, but this picture of the Metro at Smithsonian Station was taken on my trip here last month. I haven't rode the Metro since the accident two weeks ago, but I've been on that same Red Line track many times before, heading back into DC from Silver Spring.

Grandmama

Early this morning my grandmother passed away.

I last saw her in January when I went to Florida a day ahead of a business trip, the week of the Inauguration. I stayed with her overnight (as I've done a few times) so I had her to myself — we talked and laughed into the late hours as I asked questions about our family and its history.

She was 87 and had a full life. From her came a large and successful posterity, I believe there are 21 great-grandchildren at this point.

Grandpa Hugh's been gone just short of 10 years now, and she commented on that to me last time I saw her. From falling ill to this morning it was 16 days, and I figure this is the way to do it.

This is me with Grandmama and Aunt Denise in 2008; Denise is my mom's twin sister so this is virtually a three generation picture.

Blue Mountain Lake

A few weeks ago our Scouts went camping and canoeing at Blue Mountain Lake, NY, smack in the middle of the Adirondack Park. We were out on the water all day Saturday, and an hour before we were to go home it dumped rain while we were out on the lake. Nobody capsized their canoe, but we all still got soaked through.

All Out of Huppalos

I had Claire in my arms yesterday as I talked to my mom on the phone. I told Mom that Claire was our first child addicted to candy, and she was so cute when she wanted marshmallows: she calls them "huppalos."

So to demonstrate I walk over to the pantry, pull out the Stay Puft bag and ask Claire 'what's this?' and hold the phone up to her. And as perfectly as carefully as she can, she says "marsh-mallows" in two words. My kids have never performed for me on cue, so why should this one start?

I am sad she is growing up.

Fire Flowers

These tiny flowers bloom at the end of these long weedy-looking stalks up in the Adirondack Park. They are tiny, only a half inch across, so I used my macro gear to get in tight.

Off to the side of the bright orange flowers are one or two hairy purple buds; I'm not sure if they open up and look just the same, but there was only one bloom open at a time on each of the stalks.