Banded Net-Wing Beetle

One of our troop's adult leaders at Scout Camp studies bugs for a hobby. So he found me some. The background here is the fabric of a camp chair.

Wakpominee

This is Malcolm's first summer at Scout Camp and I went him for the first couple of days. This was my first visit to Camp Wakpominee near Ft. Ann, New York inside the Adirondack Park. The boys stay in four-bunk lean-to cabins with 3 walls and concrete floors or big two-man tents on a slab with cots. There's an outhouse with running water near each campsite. I shared my upper bunk with a friendly spider overhead.

The camp counselors are cool, outgoing older boys. The food is pretty good and after each meal the counselors take a turn to lead the entire dining hall in a raucous song. The trading post sells candy and ice cream and as such is a popular place.

The schedule is perfect for our 12-15 year-olds — we have 17 this year. Breakfast is at 8:00, at 9:00 they can get in a couple morning merit badge classes, lunch is at noon, then siesta from 1:00-2:00 (great for card games, chess or frisbee at camp), and then a couple more classes at 2:00 and 3:00. Malcolm's taking First Aid, Swimming, Environmental Science, and Archery merit badges.

At 4:00 and 7:00 they have open areas where you can go individually and then as a troop to do activities. Last night the troop went for free time at the rifle range, it was Malcolm's first time with a gun and he is a pretty accurate shot already.

I wish I could have stayed longer, everything is so well organized and for camping it's not bad. It's the best Scout camp I've seen so far.

Spools, Stacks, Spock

Did you know there's an art gallery upstairs from the TSA checkpoint at the Albany Airport? On my last arrival home, instead of standing around waiting for my checked luggage I walked up the stairs to see what was there.

A couple of displays caught my eye. One was the the stacks of colorful plastic bowls and dishes. Kind of interesting.

But my favorite piece was a mosaic made from multicolor spools of thread. Long stacks of spools are strung on a rope hung from the ceiling, and a few dozen of these strands line up to create a grid. Each spool becomes a pixel, but everything is so large you can't tell what you're looking at. Lined up with the spools is a small glass ball: it acts as a lens and inverts the image, plus makes it smaller so it congeals into something recognizable. It's part optics, part retro, and all cool.

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.