JOLS would be the Jack O' Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Zoo. Devan took this picture of Annika and me this year. Among the reasons I love Devan: we do cool things together with our daughters. We saw a butterfly exhibit at the Zoo, and decorated pottery with the girls' hand and foot prints.
Another reason: she took an actual photograph of Annika and me. I've been grousing alot lately about how I'm always behind the camera, and no one else bothers, blah blah blah. It's not a vanity thing. I'd just like there to be some documentation of Annika and me together, especially during the early years when she changes so much.
And this is a good picture because it was a great night. I've posted images here from JOLS' past, and I am consistently blown away by the level of skill involved in carving those thousands of pumpkins over the course of the show. The mood is spooky and ethereal, but the babies weren't scared. I doubt we'll get as lucky next year, but we'll see.
So, thanks Dev. Let's hope our upcoming visit to Santa goes as well!
11.22.2009
Jess and Annika at JOLS at RW Zoo
Brave Crawling, 1-year old
It was a gorgeous day today, so I took Annika out front to take some pictures. She loved crawling down the front walk.
Ohio Pride
Yes, that's the Ohio flag. It's the only state flag that's a pennant, according to my Ohioan husband. We made several copies of this one for the family back in the Buckeye State.
11.07.2009
Saturday Morning, Soccer & Kiki
Watching the English Premier League on a Saturday morning. Good times.
September Raspberries
I was surprised to find five perfect raspberries on one of the new plants in the backyard in late September. I was shocked when I saw more raspberries on the same plant in early November. We had a frost last night, so I'm going to assume the raspberry bushes are now getting the hint. But these five little beauties were a tart little taste of summer right as the season was waning in earnest. I didn't eat the November raspberries, leaving those instead for the animals, or to go to seed.
White Spider
I only saw this spider one day, September 24th. We had the yard torn up not long after this. In fact, the spider you'll see a few entries below was a protected specimen. When the men came to redo the yard, I showed each of them where the spider lived, and asked them not to mess with it.
The best part about this spider was that I saw it catch an insect and eat it. Unfortunately, the web was bouncing all over the place from the excitement, and the pix came out blurry. The spider literally sprinted across the web to snap up that bug.
This is the same species as the spider on the other side of the house (below). You can see how comparatively small their abdomens started out, compared to where it ended up by the end of October.
Out Walking Around
This photo was taken in the warmth of late August, but it's fun to see we've established a little tradition. Annika and I have been walking about twice a week since then. Of course, when we went out this past Thursday, I had her bundled up considerably more than this.
Kiki & Mama
Taken in late September 2009. A rare photo of us together, having the morning bottle. I think she has my eyes. :)
Spider, Late September
I shot these pix at night on September 23. You can see what I think is a common garden spider building a nest. The spider's abdomen will blow up over the course of the next 4 weeks. Keep going to see the progression!
Spider, Shadow & Angles
This is one of the sharper portraits. Unfortunately, it's hard to focus on the spider. The web bounces in the slightest wind, and I had to rely a bit on auto-focus because it was impossible to shoot from all the angles I wanted to try.
But if you zoom in, you can see the hairs and black-and-tan color segments on the spider's legs. Awesome.
Pet Spider
We had what appears to be a common garden spider camped out for several weeks on the side of the garage. During the day it would hide in the space between the clapboards and the back of the electric meter. And at night, I would bring out one of my photo lights and take pix of the ever-growing spider.
At first I thought it was pregnant, but from doing some research I think it was feeding in order to fatten up for winter. I got to watch some unlucky insects get consumed. It's abdomen was growing so fast that it must have gotten its fill. The spider disappeared by Halloween. These photos were taken on October 26.
11.05.2009
Swinging at the park
Today I took Annika to our neighborhood park for her first ride on the swing. She'll be 1 year old next week and it feels like she's gotten so big in her first year. I liked seeing her tiny in the big swing, as if time isn't passing at warp speed quite yet.
11.04.2009
I am not ready for this
I took this photo of the corner out the living room window in early February 2009.
The weather forecast isn't predicting snow any time soon. Instead, it's going to be rainy and in the 50's, except for a glorious sunny weekend approaching 60.
But here is beautiful evidence that shorter, colder, messier days are indeed ahead.
10.29.2009
9.21.2009
Project Icarus
Here's a picture of the popped balloon as the whole contraption falls incredibly fast. Click here to see the entire article on CNN.
9.10.2009
Best in Show Award!
One of my photographs, Nonagenarian Watches the Harbor, was selected as Best in Show at the 14th Annual Juried Photography Exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Click here to see the show, on the AFA website.
I'd like to thank Ted Batt and Leslie Bellavance. I'm grateful for the honor.
Using 18th century America as a Metaphor for Geeking out about Space
We live on a planet, Earth.
Earth is in a solar system, revolves around the sun with 7 or 8 other planets (depending on your position on Pluto).
Our solar system is in the outer fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Galaxies are huge, beyond what we're capable of knowing intimately right now. We're still running around just trying to map our own little solar system, which is enormous in its own right. It's kind of like the early 18th century in America. We knew there was an awful lot of continent out there, but we had to get scouts out there on horseback to map it all out.
Back to galaxies. There are countless other galaxies in our solar system, and they're gorgeous. But they're not only massive, the others are really far away from ours (in terms of our technology today. They'll get closer).
Think of it like this: It took John Adams 3 months to go the distance from Boston to New York in the late 1700: one inn at a time, via horseback, through mud and bad colonial roads. It takes 3 hours via Acela today. In terms of the Milky Way's relationship to other galaxies, we're still on horseback and they're on another continent.
At first, Hubble was blurry. People poked fun. But it's now lived longer than expected, and keeps getting better. First we photograph our own magnificent solar system, and quite a bit of our galactic surroundings, then other galaxies. We now have stunning images of things that one could but only imagine just decades ago. This data has given birth to a bumper crop of careers in astrophysics, and offered humanity these stunning images.
We keep going further. Technology keeps improving. We can see other galaxies. And they're gorgeous. There must be so much more out there . . . .
Hubble Telescope is Worth EVERY Penny, my friends.
This, to me, is the closest thing to God's crib that we will see in our mortal lives:
