There's a sale on and Malcolm got two new Star Wars Lego sets yesterday. What a cool intersection between two of my favorite things. Malcolm's Lego room in the basement is expanding. My 1970s Legos remain in their own container and have not been mixed with these newfangled non-rectangular pieces.
For their allowance, our kids get their age in dollars per month. Carter, age 4, has been saving up for a new $20 Lego Star Wars game for Wii. He almost had enough, so Joanie had him pick up winter ice storm sticks in the yard to make up the rest of the money he needed. He worked hard and made sure he did a good job. 
Twice a year is our worldwide General Conference for church, so that means meetings are either on satellite or the Internet. Church on the computer is nice because you can sleep in and wear your pajamas, which we did. In celebration, here's a picture of church on the computer. I was fully dressed when I took it in Boston last week.
So I'm driving down the road in Boston when all of a sudden by the side of the road there's this 12 foot tall stainless steel wafer with a big T cut out of the center. I'm guessing it has something to do with the Tube, Boston's subway system. But it could mean something else completely. The way the traffic lights were bouncing off it in the night, I had to grab some frames. Although there's a generally a cop standing on every corner in Boston, it was late so I didn't get in trouble for stopping in the middle of the road for a couple minutes of through-the-windshield shooting.
This is the hotel I stayed at last week in Boston, the Hilton Back Bay. It was a nice place, and triangular, too. I would definitely stay in a triangular hotel again if given the chance.
Our younger kids would have a bath every night if they could. They play in there like crazy, but it still winds them down and leads them into the familiar path of bath, jammies, books, brushing, and bed. Joanie's going out of town for a week starting Wednesday, and we may do a bath every night.
Here's me on the streets of Boston fulfilling my destiny as a Voice-Activated Light Stand for an off-camera lighting class given by David Ziser. I'm flattered by his indirect mention of me as lighting grip in his blog, where you can see the final image: "My assistant, a class member, got the light just right on the subject."Actually, the training was great, I got a lot of good information that I'll be able to pass along. Who knew standing there holding a stick could be so fulfilling?
This week I'm in Boston at Photoshop World, learning about the latest software and techniques from Adobe. It's only half over but my brain's already full. I present training in this software for work nationally, so this week here is perfect for me on many levels. 
Two weeks of travel in a row, this week it's Boston. No Name is a hole-in-the-wall fish house introduced to me by a Boston native. It's located amongst warehouses and wholesalers on Fish Pier, so it's not charming, but you know it's fresh. My usual is a mess of three kinds of fish, scallops, shrimp, fries and slaw. Maybe global warming will move the ocean closer to Albany so I can eat like this more often.
Boulder City was the home built for the thousands of workers who built Boulder Dam (later named Hoover Dam).
An appropriate title for a Las Vegas post; I got used to averting my eyes walking around there last week. It's nice to be able to see where I'm going again. This is the Strip last week at dusk.
My favorite (favourite?) Pet Shop Boys came out with a new album today in Britain, but it's been on constant rotation here since I excitedly found it St. Pat's day online. It's a real cracker, I've heard it maybe 15-20 times through now (iTunes counts for you). The lesson here: graybeards with canes and walkers can still make great electro-disco. My import arrives from Hong Kong soon. Depeche Mode have new material coming next month. It's a great time to be [old yet still] alive.
While in Las Vegas I took a tour of Hoover Dam, built from 1930-1935. Being there in person is the only way to comprehend the scale of it. For instance: Lake Mead contains enough to keep Pennsylvania (a state that takes forever to drive across) under a foot of water. We took the underground Power Plant tour and walked through rocky tunnels, previously used to divert the river during construction, to see the massive turbines used to generate electricity. At one point you're standing in a vibrating room — vibrating because you're standing above a 30 foot pipe used to deliver 90,000 gallons per second to the generators. Everything here has a wonderful Art Deco feel; they don't craft government projects like they used to. 
It's bright, it's tacky, it's smoky, it's legalized, it's 50 percent torn down and under construction on any given day. There's no place like it. I'm here to put on a big training conference this week. 
While in San Diego we took the rail system to get from our hotel to the waterfront for some dinner and a look around. Immediately after getting off the train I dropped onto a bench, steadied my camera by digging my elbows into my knees, and started shooting while the train pulled out. This exposure lasted 1/4 second, which doesn't seem like a long time, but is long enough to give some short streaks of anything in motion. I love the layers from near to far in this photo.
Here's a different macro look at the full dead flower stem using a different lens with extension tubes from farther out. The bulb is about an inch in diameter, so even the small photo on Blogger is larger than life size. I love being able to pull in for a tighter view like this.
More playing around with my new extension tubes. It's the most fun you can have with a dead flower.
More shots of Malcolm in action at the basketball tournament this weekend. 
Malcolm played in his first church Young Men's basketball tournament today. We have enough young men in our ward to form two teams, so he was part of the younger 12-14 year old team. Since it was round robin, his team played every other team there, just about all of which contained older (up to age 18), taller, and burlier kids than him. 
I've been debating my next lens. I've been reading a book about close-up photography and as a result was leaning towards a $900 Nikon macro lens — kind of pricey. 
Last week in San Diego I was out to dinner on the harbor with our group from work. My friend Diane grabbed me from inside the restaurant to take a snap of this tree. I made a few long exposures to draw in enough light — this one was 13 seconds and includes a taxi's tail lights in the circle drive. If you click on the image you'll get the larger version which better shows the stars overhead.
Here's the takeoff from my Las Vegas connection earlier this week. It's the least blurry of all the shots I took and even so it's still shaky. But the city still glimmers. Knowing I'd be in Las Vegas briefly, I had my second listen to hometown band Killers' new record on the way in. Joanie got it for me for Valentine's Day. I haven't found a bad song yet.
I'm in the San Diego airport with another hour and a half to go before my flight. I'm heading home after a week on the extreme southwest corner of the lower 48. I've never been here before and didn't realize Mexico is just a few miles away. 
While Joanie and I were at the movies Saturday night Claire dumped a newly opened family size box of Cheerios on the carpet. Though she regularly empties her fruitsnacks on the ground for flavor before eating, nobody would touch the fuzzy Cheerios. I found a couple takers in the backyard this morning.
This was taken at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. It had just turned 9:00 p.m. and the guard was whistling at me to get out so he could lock the gate. 
I remember seeing my first computer as a freshman in high school, a Radio Shack TRS-80, although our teacher didn't let us touch it. Things are slightly different now, each of our kids started using the mouse around age 2 or 3 and have never known life without the Internet.
