Easter 2012

I still can't decide which I like better, the picture of Claire's chocolatey hands, or her take on the daughter of Herodias asking for John the Baptist's head in a charger.

This year the Easter bunny relied on his camouflage skills to hide plastic jellybean-filled eggs around the house: we finally found a green egg in the middle of a pile of green Legos, and the last yellow egg was nestled in the fork of my yellow mountain bike. That is one sneaky bunny.

I just realized every picture here is about food, and Claire's ears perked up when one of the speakers at church said the word "Peeps" twice in his talk. But our Easter wasn't completely shallow. After church I took the little kids to Cemetery Hill in Glenville and we walked around the tombstones and talked about how all these people would wake up someday.

Let Us Sing With One Accord

Madeleine went out with Joanie Saturday to practice for her driver's license test. She was coming out of a stop to cross a road in a tight residential area, and got T-boned by a guy going way too fast.

Luckily Madeleine gunned it when she saw him coming at her. Her instinct was right on, it saved Joanie's life. He hit the rear passenger door with such force it spun them 180° into the curb across the street. Joanie's side airbag went off and knocked her around some more. No ticket was issued.

Do yourself a favor and stay out of Amsterdam.

This 2001 Accord EX has been my favorite car so far; it ran like crazy, and like its owner it still looked good for its age!

Its best feature? It was paid for.

We have yet to hear from the insurance adjuster, but I went ahead and said goodbye today, just in case.

Peanuts

Carter and Claire are discovering Peanuts. They had a great afternoon today each taking a book and reading on their own quietly.

They don’t understand everything going on in these 1950-60s strips, but it’s so fun when there’s one that makes them giggle. Carter came to a funny bunch about Linus losing his blanket when Lucy flew it as a kite, so he started reading them aloud to all of us.

The books they’re reading came to me during my first job when I was a senior in high school working in a printing shop. My boss had previously managed presses for a big publishing house and gave me his collection of Peanuts books that were each the first copy off the press.

Eight Points

I have this classic Scrabble game that has been in my family's closet at least since I was five. Today Claire helped me alphabetize and inventory the letters to make sure we have the full set.

Sometimes the kids like to play with games as toys. Once that happens, it's all over — you're finding little green houses and red hotels in random places across the house.

Thankfully I'm playing Scrabble with a full deck.

Cabinetry

Me and the Honorable Eric K. Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. I got to meet him last time I was in DC.

He's on the President's Cabinet, and is 17th in the presidential line of succession should something bad happen to the first 16.

If this were Battlestar Galactica, he'd be the guy right after No. 16, Secretary of Education Laura Roslin.

The VA Secretary is at the end of the succession list because VA wasn't a Cabinet-level agency until President Reagan made it happen in 1989. Homeland Security comes right after us.

Nursery 2011

I'm a nursery teacher at church. That means for the 2 hours after our main church meeting I hang with the 18 month-to-3 year olds. We start by welcoming each child with a hello activity, we have singing time, and I give a two minute lesson. Then we get on the floor and play with toys, read books, clean up, eat Goldfish, roll out some Play-Doh, and send them home. I've got the most fun job at church ... though I seem to say that each time I get a new calling.

In December our 3-year-olds turning 4 were getting ready to graduate to their new class. Our Nursery leader asked me if we could do a portrait with all the kids. I must have been temporarily insane to say yes. It's difficult to get 16 adults to all look the same direction for a group shot. Imagine trying it with a bunch of preschoolers.

This photo hangs on the bulletin board at church. My friend James asked if I took it. He suggested it was statistically impossible to get this many children to look in the same direction at the same time for 1/100 second — there must be trickery involved.

James absolutely got it right — this one was faked. As people get better at covering their tracks in Photoshop, you have to use common sense to spot a fake.

I used a tripod to take a few dozen of the same pose. Picking the best shot where I had most of the kids looking my way, I used Photoshop to paint in different takes of kids from 5 other photos.

• The entire right side of the photo, including clump of three girls on the far right, along with their background and most of their reflection on the floor came from a completely different photo. I didn't get the floor reflection completely right, see if you can spot it.
• The boy in front of them (far right) would not hold still for anything, and he was completely dropped in over the top of the girls.

The Lights Go Down

I took our Christmas lights down a couple weekends ago. It took me a couple times flipping on the porch lights at dusk to remember I could no longer plug in the house lights ... and it made me sad!

Maybe I should have left them up longer?

Here's a nicer photo of nicer lights at the Washington DC Temple last month, much better than the cell phone photo I shared before. I'd hate to have to take these down.

Resolute

I don't feel compelled to do it exactly on January 1, but sometime during the month I usually make a list of what I'd like to work on for the next year.

First a report on 2011. Last year I had two main resolutions: to take the stairs at work, and to not swear. I did take the stairs to my 6th floor office every single day, and I said 18 bad words (most in frustration to myself), which is an improvement over my 2010 count. As a note, if I resolved to avoid all home repairs, this would probably take care of all rated-PG language.

This year I've got my longest set ever, I listed 31 resolutions for 2012, and I typed them all up tonight so I can have them wherever I go. These long lists usually thin out to focus on some key goals — that's OK, I usually go back and review from time to time to remember all I should be doing. And it's fun to stumble into these lists down the road to remember where I was at, and recognize how far I've come.

My 2012 list is too personal to drop online, but I'll say I've got major work ahead this year. Wish me luck. And good luck to you.

Wavy

I love shooting old, weathered barns. They're a reminder of agrarian America.

This rickety abandoned barn is near the Saratoga National Battlefield.

Night at the Improv

I'm getting more confident at cooking without a recipe. I used to stress, but it usually turns out good.

Last night and today I made turkey soup from the leftover bones of Christmas dinner. Ingredients: one picked-over turkey, with unknown quantities of celery, carrots, onions, frozen corn, bay leaves, peppercorns and a bunch of water. Boil it for 3-4 hours, whatever. When we run out of homemade rolls to use as dumplings I'll toss in some wide egg noodles.

I love this stuff ... when you find a bone you know it's the real thing. It makes the entire house smell like childhood.

Gentile Christmas Miracle

I'm not opposed to Christmas lights, I just seem to get busy with everything else in December. Joanie usually ends up wrapping the porch railing to get the job done.

This year she said the job's going to be done right — and by me. A few weeks back I detangled the mess in our Christmas bin, got the ladder out, risked life and limb (sort of, it's not a tall ladder) and strung them along the roofline ... and they turned out great.

Based on our effort this year our neighbors should finally no longer believe we're Jewish.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Irrigation

For as common as it sounds, I have a fairly rare surname: there are only 717 Grandons in the U.S.

Still, I can Google myself and find some interesting connections. For instance, there was a Grandon Hotel built in Helena, Montana in 1885. It was destroyed by fire in 1968.

When currency was scarce in the west, many businesses came up with their own coinage. Today there's a group that collects these old tokens, they have annual conventions and everything.

This photo is from an Idaho collector's catalog. I'd love to get my hands on my own Grandon Hotel token, but he didn't have any extras to sell, but for now I could use his picture.

All That Glisters ...

Playing with my nifty-fifty lens at the Continental, a neon-retro pool joint in Rosslyn, Virginia. This is their glittery bar counter.

This shot is destined to be a PowerPoint background in my future.

Mr. Data Disappears

Two years ago I felt like I was getting fat, so as an experiment I started recording my weight in a spreadsheet to see what would happen. I had nothing else to do, so why not?

Once I started tracking things I saw my behavior change. I started paying attention to what I ate and how much; I started to drink only water and skim milk; I started playing Ultimate Frisbee on the weekends; for my New Year's resolution in 2011 I've taken the stairs to my office on the 6th floor every day.

Today I hit minus 30 pounds. I'm 2 pounds away from what I weighed in college. I'm no longer in the "one danish away from obese" category on the tall BMI. I now dress exclusively in clown pants.

Watch Amazon for my upcoming book, "The Microsoft Excel Diet." And if anyone has a bank job that requires somebody slipping through a ventilation shaft, I'm your man.

Happy Hanukkah

I'm always finding shapes in things I see. You've just got to know where to look. And sometimes when.

Here's an otherwise invisible giant menorah in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Click to go larger and see what's really happening.

Yin, Sort of Yang

My brother Matt and I are at dinner at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building in Salt Lake. We had our cameras on the table after just taking photos of the temple out the window.

Our waiter brings us rolls. He pours some olive oil on a plate for us and says, "You want some vinegar, too?" Duh. Of course!

So he pours the vinegar into the oil and the blobs start swirling around and connecting. I quickly grabbed my camera because the shape was getting familiar. I promise this is not Photoshopped. I don't think you could repeat this if you tried.

Pearl Harbor Day

My grandfather, Hugh Morgan Weaver was born in the landlocked state of Kansas, but he joined the Navy at a young age to see the world and make it his career.

Hugh was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, exactly 70 years ago today. He had just turned 22. Growing up I pressed him a few times what it was like to be there, but he would never share anything. I have heard this dignified quiet was somewhat common among Pearl Harbor veterans, who lost so many of their friends on that day of infamy.

Once I asked him why he didn’t wear a wedding ring. He told me a story of a fellow sailor losing his finger after catching his ring jumping over a railing. I like to think the story was from that day at Pearl Harbor, but I’ll never know.

Grandpa Hugh died in 1999, and I went to Florida for his funeral. After the graveside service, my mom and I drove down to Hillsboro Beach where we had lived on the ocean. We split up and each spent some time alone walking the beach reflecting on his life. It was the best possible tribute — Hugh loved the sea from his Navy days.

After my mom and I met up on the beach we were watching the surf and saw something amazing: 40 or 50 small silvery fish jumped out of the waves into the air. Then it happened again, then again. What was going on? Then we saw the enormous shadows of larger fish giving chase — it was feeding time. We had lived on that very beach for several years and we’d never seen a scene like that. With Hugh on our minds we chalked it up to the sea putting on one last tribute to my Navy grandfather.

I think about my Grandpa Hugh every December 7. He married into our family later in life, so he’s not my genetic reason for being here. But his attitudes of respect and hard work earned through his WWII experiences certainly rubbed off on me. I’m glad he made it through the very first Pearl Harbor Day to be my grandfather.

Blue Light, Red Light

After sitting vacant for a few years, the old K-mart in Glenville has been torn down to make way for a new Target. For a long time we've been hearing rumors about Target coming to town, and now everyone's excited about the new store opening at the end of 2012.

The rubble pile is impressive, this digger on the right was scooping up larger chunks into the air and dropping them on the pavement to crack them up. Then he'd feed the smaller pieces to the bucket on the left who was dropping them into a crushing machine.

The two drivers were working really well in tandem doing bucket brigade with the building chunks — their buckets were lined up so closely they could have swung and smashed into each other several times. I've not seen choreography quite like this before. We live a mile away and I can hear the crunching from my front yard.

There's a tall fence around the construction area to keep onlookers out. So I hoisted my camera 10 feet in the air on my extended tripod and used a wireless remote to trip the camera, shooting blind with a wide-angle lens. As I tested the rig near my car before locking up I learned my car remote lock uses the same radio frequency to trip the camera. Another reason to buy Honda — your car remote doubles as a Nikon shutter release!

Extra credit: anybody know the source of the title for today's post?

Jeff Squared

I promise this is my last day of Temple Square photos. I've been there before, but I was just so impressed with how beautiful it was this time. I hauled my big tripod from New York and my brother Matt and I worked on his night shooting and ambient/flash balancing technique.

Of course, the centerpiece is the gorgeous Salt Lake Temple itself, which took 40 years for the pioneers to build. There's also the Conference Center, the enlarged gardens across Main Street, the Joseph Smith Building, and the outstanding new Joseph Smith film playing in its Imax-scale theater.

Here's some excellent news about these top-notch films — they're normally only shown in the visitors centers, but Joseph Smith - Prophet of the Restoration is available for free download all the way up to 1080p. I can't believe the sets and costumes on this film, they spared no expense. It truly gives you a sense of what it was like to live in Joseph's shoes — he led an incredibly difficult life. Note: there are some intense scenes and I wouldn't recommend this for small children.


Almost forgot another highlight — I got to sit in on Thursday night practice with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with their orchestra. I've never heard them live like this ... they sound amazing in person, even at practice.

Play That Funky Music White Boy

Moroni, doing his thing with his horn held high. Spreading the gospel and all that.