King Tut Coming To Chi Town

"Twenty-six years ago King Tut captured the hearts of everyone," Mr. Hawass said in an interview. "This will capture the hearts of people again. It will bring peace, and strengthen relations between America and Egypt. King Tut is back."

The tour after Los Angeles would include Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Chicago and one other city. Mr. Hawass said he was negotiating to take the exhibit to Boston, Philadelphia and the Brooklyn Museum, but hoped it would be shown in Manhattan.

Sucks boo to NY, we get King Tut and you don't.

My regular spot on the Internets, Blogula Rasa, is not working at the moment. And I'm in blogging withdrawal.

Woods, Weeds, Water

Of all the four days of the long Thanksgiving Weekend, only today was halfway-decent and not either totally snowing or raining. So we went over to Busse Woods. I guess the recent cold snap had them scrambling to make sure no one would have any ice-related mishaps on the lake. It'll freeze over soon enough.

The title link will take you to the latest photo gallery.

Template Tweak

No photo on this one - just wanted to bookmark this Chinese site that has an
adaptation of the Blogger template I use here. They use this image as a secondary header background. Very cool.

Remind me later to see what I can do about the annoying glitch (probably IE peekaboo bug) that puts a line in the middle of the second line of text on my sidebar titles.

Oh, and I got there because of my trusty Bloglines feed search on my favorite show.

Hand Over That Medicine Bottle, Mary

Jeez. If you're going to refer to a specific photo in a post, it's a matter of simple courtesy to actually include the image and a link to the gallery where it resides. Doofus.

Anyway, here's a little glimpse into my personal workplace hell. Halloween is one of the few things that makes it bearable. ;)

Incredible Hulk Sighted

Heh. Psyche. I brought in the new Rebel and took pictures on Halloween to see how it behaved indoors, with flash, photographing people. I have a lot to learn, but I did get a kick out of spotting subjects and taking a quick photo (in this case, a very small and gun-shy Incredible Hulk). The adults are mostly people on my team, but Dorothy and the inimitable Mary Poppins are sales reps who stopped by with treats.

The tacky tourist is my team leader. We all think she needs to get out more. ;)

Most years our office goes all out for Halloween extravaganzas, with singing, dancing, scripts, jazz hands, the works. Not this year, though. So I sort of dressed up as a "Harry Potter" type witch in haphazard Muggle mufti, because I have a long black velvet duster and other odds and ends of crafty looking clothes.

I'm not usually one for noticing children, but took pictures of the ones that came by. I did enjoy trying to capture the elusive Hulk on camera - with my old camera this would have been totally blurred and useless. In other words, what we call an "action shot." I put the pictures on a photo gallery that I'll use for work-related photos so people could see how they looked.

I'd have to say that "Leatherface" had a truly scary outfit - if he'd gone out after dark he would have freaked a few people out.

Feeling The Need To Return To The Nest

I still plan to use this blog mostly for highlighting photos I've taken (haven't been out with the new Canon EOS Digital Rebel recently, but I did take a few Halloween photos). However, as I also have this Blogger account as a convenience so that I can comment on other Blogger sites, there will now be the occasional bonus rumination, free of charge.

Houston, we have a problem...

OOowee!! My new Canon Digital Rebel camera arrived last week. Friday I had a chance to get to some natural areas and capture the glories of fall before they fade into the crappy, sodden chill of pre-winter.

Another version of the previous subject - this time with a painted silk scarf that catches the highlights. The tea is a little more visible. In fact, I think I need to make some now.

I'm still working on this grouping. The background is a vest made of old kimono fabric, but the shape is too obvious. I bought the teaset to go with the tea, in a way - it's jasmine pearl tea, given to us by a friend in San Francisco. When you brew it, the little pearls of dried jasmine and tea unfurl, and the aroma is heavenly. I've got another background in mind for the next try.

Chicago Botanic Garden: Late Summer, Early Fall

The Rose In... Fall

We went to the Chicago Botanic Garden again yesterday to catch the last of the late summer flowers. There's a touch of fall in the air already as there are dried fallen leaves crushed to dust in the parking lot, so the scent of autumn rises up with every step. The roses were at their peak, and there were huge clumps of bushy asters and big yellow Black-Eyed Susans. Also, lots of water lilies, only just beginning to fade, and in the bulb garden area the zinnias and dahlias were like huge flaming torches.

The title link will take you to my Botanic Garden photo album, where I've just re-worked things so there's a Winter, Spring, Late Summer gallery. I think I've got some more photos stashed from other visits in various areas of my drive(s) so as I fix them up, more galleries will be added.

I'm also hoping to add a couple of personal galleries for church photos, which are currently scattered all over and hard to find for my website activities, and another one for just plain wacky photos that can't be categorized.

Please enjoy.

I like rocks. I come from the redrocks country, so I especially like these rocks.

Quick, it's the Vicar!

Look Out For That... Tree

David's wanted to get a Jeep for years. I think... maybe not the kind of Jeep that ends up looking like this.

The "World Famous 4 Wheeling Museum" is in Moab, Utah. I'd like to return to Moab again and take pictures of lots and lots of different 4-wheeling rigs. Some of them end up looking even more raffish than this, and they're still driving around.

My One Good Photo

Saturday, September 6th 1997 - a fairly good hair day.
Mom, me, David, Shelly, Leah (actually, also Dad and Mom)

Probably the only photo of myself in existence that I actually like. And do I cherish it in an album? No, this is just a proof - and a proof that's gotten messed up from being thrown in a box and forgotten about for a good few years. Why? Because most of the wedding photos weren't very good (some were) and I negotiated a bad deal with the wedding photographer (who sent someone else in his place on the day). I've got a few dozen proofs in 4X6 size, and never bothered to order the full-bore Bridezilla wedding package, because frankly I'd already paid $500 for bad photos, and I wasn't about to pay $1000 more for bad photos blown up and mounted in a cheezy album.

It was the only thing - the ONLY thing - disappointing about our wedding day. Everything else was wonderful, and worked out pretty well considering that it was held Colorado, while we lived in Illinois, so all the plans were arranged long-distance. And considering that the rest of the world was glued to the TV watching a major news story play out, it was a good time had by all.

And alas, all the rest of the photos are pretty much like this one, although they're now in one of those keepsake boxes with the hanging photo pockets.

I have a hell of a lot of photos, from different lives I've lived, but most of them aren't worth the bother and bandwidth to scan and upload. A few of them, maybe. So perhaps I'll stash one or two of them here from time to time when I'm going through boxes.

I highly recommend getting married at a bed and breakfast if you have the choice; you can have an afternoon wedding with appetizers, go for a hike or bike ride with the wedding guests afterwards, maybe have a pizza party for dinner, stay overnight, and have breakfast with all your far-flung friends and family the next morning. Why rush off?

And yeah, that's what we did, but it was only 35 guests. I contemplated having a traditional wedding for about a nanosecond, but reconsidered on entering exactly 1 (one) bridal shoppe in a charming old local village. I felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop, or perhaps more like a bulldozer in a china shop. Tulle and organza and taffeta were busting out of the racks all around me and there were mothers and bridesmaids hustling around looking at sheer veils. I suddenly felt enormous, awkward, and utterly out of my element... and then I backed out the door, silently making "beep-beep" noises just to cheer myself up, and I never walked in another bridal shop. I ended up wearing some things I pulled together on my own, along with something my sister made that coordinated with the "junior bridesmaid" dress she made for her grand-daughter (big age difference in the family, don't ask).

I had threatened to get married in hiking boots and shorts at the top of Trail Ridge Road, but we decided the B&B was more practical (also, my mom wouldn't need oxygen).

Maybe someday I'll regret not having a lot of big, blurry photos in an official wedding album, but my wedding was unconventional, so why should the physical evidence be any different?

Bad Dog! No Winers!

This is just how I felt after hitting 5 wineries in about 4 hours on the recent trip to Napa Valley. Lately at work, I've been feeling the need to feel like this more often.

Oh, Hell, Like I Need Another Blog

There's nothing like expediency for expediting something. There probably won't be much content posted here, although I might use it as a photolog using the free Pikasa/Hello software now and then.

I just needed to be able to comment on other Blogger blogs, and bloggity bloggity blog blog blog.