I Love This Day

This year for Halloween Madeleine was a butterfly, Malcolm was a scarecrow, Carter was a jaguar, and Claire a princess.

It was beautiful all day but then around 4:00 it started to rain. I took the two little kids out on our street when the rain slowed down, but about four houses in it started dumping. We had a pair of umbrellas but still got soaked. As Claire was a princess she let me brush her hair for the first time ever without complaining ... by the time we got home it was stringy and pasted to her face.

That didn't stop Carter and Claire from having the time of their lives. They got to ring the doorbell on every house on our street, and person after person gave them free candy. Several times after we left a house, Carter exclaimed — I love this day!

The Last Leaf

One last autumn leaf clings to a vine, fluttering in the wind but still hanging on. From a different barn yesterday on Scotch Bush Road.

I spent a couple hours bagging leaves this morning with my good friend John [Deere]. Three hours later there are leaves everywhere in the backyard again, as if I never went out.

Three Leaves

Malcolm forgot his lunch today, so I figured if I was going to run all the way to the middle school I'd grab the camera and find something to take a picture of.

Detail from an old fallen barn on Scotch Bush Road.

Wall of Welding

It's a wall of welded metal shapes in the Phoenix hotel where I stayed in August. Nice to look at it, but don't touch. It looks sharp in spots. It was a nice place.

Once, Twice, Three Times A Lady

It happens every fall: it starts to get cold out and somehow the ladybugs sneak into the house. I am getting regular calls from daughter Madeleine to perform bug removal service and there will be two or more to toss back outside at a time. Here's one the little kids found on the rug in the front room.

Chinatown 2

Another stab at Chinatown's gateway in Washington, DC on a trip in September.

On this DC photo-walk I'm sporting my new tripod strap, made in-hotel from a wire coat hanger, masking tape and an extra laptop bag strap.

Do you despise the word "sport" as a verb like I do? It's in computer mags all the time: "The latest iFruit rev sports a 3.06 gigaflops processor..." In one issue of Macworld I spotted it three times. Get a life. (I say that to the writers, not myself.)

I totally missed posting this shot last month, it was all ready to go, but hiding on a stray memory card. I'm always behind when it comes to getting everything to the computer. I'm good at taking pictures (and faking tripod straps), not as good at organizing. I will try to do better for you, my three fans. Yes, I picked up a fan since last tally.

After School Special

A couple of pictures of Carter just off the Kindergarten bus after school last week. We did a bunch of chalk drawings in the driveway together before we got too cold and had to go in.

Six Days Later

Saturday, October 17 I got done sucking the leaves off my lawn, and while things were looking good, snapped a photo off the front steps with plans to take a picture a week later to illustrate the futility of picking up autumn leaves.

So six days later I took the same photo on Friday, October 23. Yes, more leaves are down, but what I hadn't expected was such a shift in the colors of the trees across the street. We're in the second wave of colors right now and it's just fabulous to be outside.

Overnight we're getting lots of rain, so a lot of this color will be on the ground when we get up in the morning.

Don't It Make My Blue Eyes Brown

Back before we had kids I always hoped we'd have at least one with brown eyes. I may be getting my wish!

I was working in my home office this week, and there was some really nice sun shining in the window warming me up. In walks Claire to say hi and she stands in the sun next to me, looking up at me. I thought her eyes were green, but they are changing once again.

Here's how blue her eyes were around 6 months old.

Child Film Star

I figure one of my kids needs to not hate photography, or the sight of me holding a camera. So I asked Carter, age 5, if he wanted to go on a forest hike in the backyard and make some pictures with me Sunday. My job was to set up the tripod in a good spot, frame everything, and adjust exposure. His job was to snap all our pictures with the wireless remote. The kid is good!

But, as so often happens, after a while he became cocky like one of those creative types, and fought me for artistic control. I would set up the tripod someplace and he'd say, "No! Over there!"

Step aside, black beret coming through.

Lower Decks

One of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes is called "Lower Decks." Every episode of TNG shows the Captain in the round bridge on top of the Enterprise; "Lower Decks" adds a view of life among the newest Starfleets getting started and learning their role.

Here are two photos from our weekend visit to the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center in Palmyra, New York — which I'll use to relate Star Trek to Jesus (this ought to be good).

The first photo is of the Christus statue by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen's, featured in a large, round, windowed room on the front of the building.

The second photo is of my seven 12- and 13-year-old boys in my church class having lunch in the concrete basement under the statue, getting ready for their tour.

So while we were there, the Captain was on the bridge, and the new recruits were on the lower decks preparing themselves for duty.

When Within The Shady Woodland ...

On our way out of Palmyra this weekend we went to the Sacred Grove which is right next to the temple. There's a path to walk, and there are signposts that tell you a little about the Smith family and what they did to be able to farm the land — like clear thousands of trees and build rock fences, the remains of which are still to be found. The grove is a beautiful place already; we visited at the perfect time as the trees were changing color and the sun was casting long shadows at the end of the day.

Palmyra

Saturday we took our church youth to the Palymra, NY Temple, about three hours west. This is a smaller facility and we had to split the group in two — half went inside while half explored historical sites around town, like the Smith log cabin and Hill Cumorah.

It was a long trip: we met at 7:00 a.m., took everyone to a dinner buffet at 7:00 p.m. and got home just before 11:00 p.m. Madeleine woke up too sick to go, but Malcolm made his first trip to a temple and did some Grandon work.

I'm printing 43 of this photo this week — despite the large group we only had minor logistical challenges (like me almost running out of gas) but everything worked out and went smoothly. Another great day.

Good PR for Nature

Beautiful tiny flowers found along the bank of the Hudson River near downtown Albany.

Today's blog post title courtesy Denise Timothy, visiting with her kids from Arizona. Intense day at work today, my brain is fried and I couldn't think of a better headline, so there you have it. It fits.

You're No Spring Chicken

That's because it's fall. Visiting down on the farm in Argyle, New York I found a little flock wandering the yard. Watch your step.

Powerful Thirst

This photo was taken at a nice restaurant my work crew ate at the other night last week in NYC, Bistecca Fiorentina. As opposed to over-the-top Times Square which we walked through to get here, this was a quiet, comfortable place just below street level.

While I don't drink, I'm OK with the outside of the bottles. I was intrigued by the little tags wrapped around some of them. We were wondering if that was the price? No, it turns out they're organized by number. This bottle's $90.

Waiter, more water.

How About Them Apples

Fall means apple season and there are several places around to go picking. This weekend we took Grand-dad to an orchard in Burnt Hills and got a great deal as their entire crop suffered hail damage. No problem here — my interest is in apple crisp and apple pie.

At the end of one of the rows Claire and I found a little furry baby something. I'm still not sure what it was, I thought it was a mole, but am still not sure. Claire was so interested in it I had to keep pulling her away. Anybody have an idea what this thing is?

Bright Lights, Big City

More pictures from Times Square last week.

On the left and center of the third photo are two French girls that asked me for help with their camera set on German menus. Somehow they were under the impression that someone carrying around a giant tripod and camera must be a camera expert.

Overpass

Malcolm and I went camping in downtown Albany at the Corning Preserve along the Hudson River for the Albany quadricentennial.

Our campouts usually take place in forest, lake and mountain settings, but this time we were in a narrow urban bike path between I-787 and the Hudson River. Our campsite was right near the I-90 interchange leading traffic east over the Hudson.

So we get there and we're wondering how peaceful it will be to have trucks going by all night; then the road construction night shift sets up two massive lights on the bridge that shine right into camp and start sandblasting all night. In the end I was tired and went to bed and didn't notice the background noise that much.

This photo is the I-90 bridge leading eastward over the Hudson River towards Boston. The shining sky is dust lit by construction lights on the bridge. Taken at 11:19 p.m. for 20 seconds on a small tripod, while watching over my shoulder in the dark for homeless people we were warned about.

News Puddles

News flashes scrolling across Times Square at the ABC broadcast studio vs. rainshower puddles on cafe tables along Broadway.

City of Blinding Lights

This week I've been in New York City, about 3 hours straight south of home. I stayed at the Marriott Marquis, situated on Times Square. You walk out the hotel and you're right in the middle of everything. This week I went to a couple fantastic Italian and Irish restaurants, ate New York pizza and slabs of the best cheesecake, made a pilgrimage to the gigantic B&H Photo and played with some new lenses.

I brought my tripod to Times Square the first night and took 150 disappointing pictures. It's difficult to make a picture that represents the Times Square assault on the senses — the crush of people flowing in every direction, the pulsing neon and jumbotrons, steam coming up out of the manholes, the cigarette and cigar smoke, occasional whiffs of garbage, dodging traffic on sticky city streets. Further photographer disappointment was provided by this month's National Geographic in my laptop bag featuring a gorgeous motion shot of Times Square (it's the fourth photo in the article gallery.)

The September 2009 Geographic cover story is called Before New York and coincides with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's arrival there in September 1609. The premise is to reconstruct what Manhattan would have looked like 400 years ago in its natural state. For instance, Times Square was a swampy area at the convergence of two creeks. It's a fantastic article, take a look.