The Holidays

Christmas was spent in Pasco at the Graber Family Compound. It really isn't a compound of any sort, I just wanted to say that. We returned to Pullman on the 26th to find 2' of drifted snow in our driveway. I had to shovel the drive just to get the van out of the garage. Then we noticed the 6' snow drifts in the backyard. Needless to say, that snow is still around and doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon.

Our neighbor came over whilst I was shoveling the driveway, and asked if I wanted to borrow his 20 year old snow blower (they just got a new one). Now, I am a lot of things, but I don't think that stupid is one of them, so I graciously accepted his offer. A couple of days later he just told me to keep it in our garage for the season, as he said, 'there are some years you don't need a snow blower in Pullman...this is not one of those years'.

By my estimates, we have received 40" of snow at our house since Thanksgiving, and more is falling tonight. On average, Pullman gets about 30" of snow a year.

I like being above average.

Santa!

Yes, Max is actually holding Annika to keep her from leaving Santa...

It snows a lot in Pullman...

I've been led to believe that this year is out of the ordinary, which may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that we have a 10'+ snow drift in our backyard.

There is a great sledding hill right at the base of this water tower, which you are seeing from our back yard.
Granted, we haven't shoveled the patio, but that is still a lot of snow.

Friends, Fun, and FIRE!

Here are some of the better pix from our trip to Kirkland for Thanksgiving. We stayed at my Mom's in Kirkland and spent most of the time running around like crazy people.

Cooper at the park in Kirkland

(L-R)Evan, Amy, Annika, Tycho, Trey, Cooper, and Max

Sure it's in the 30's, but it's always baseball weather

<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>

Friday night we went to a big bonfire out at the Chew's place on Novelty Hill. Later in the evening Gretchen and I stumbled across this really cool effect. Using my camera with the exposure set to five seconds and perched on a Gorilla Pod, we would take a picture of people in front of the bonfire. Then the subject could move and we'd use the flash on Gretchens camera to create a 'double' exposure. Since it was so dark, and the flashes are so bright, you can't see the movement in the frame.

These are the best of those efforts, let me know what you think.

Gretchen, twice (5 sec exposure with double flash)

Max (5 sec exposure with double flash)

Max and Tycho rising from the fire

Phil (5 sec exposure with double flash)

Jump Planet - 11/21/2007

We had an absolute BLAST at Jump Planet tonight. I think the kids had fun too. We cannot say enough about this place, it was awesome. Here is the first group of pix. Please let me know if you want uncompressed copies of any of these, and there will be more posted in the next few days.

Thanks for coming everyone!


Our boys and their 'cousin' Owen.


This in Anni with part of her entourage...


Max being a ham and Brooke and Anni posing for another camera.


Max and his old friend from the Community Center play group, Linnea.

Shortcut in Time by Charles Dickinson

This book is out of one of my favorite genres, time travel. Not the type of time travel with big machines and over arching, changing the world, kind of heroes. No, this is the story of a man in a small Midwestern town who stumbles across a 'shortcut' in time along a shortcut path in his neighborhood. The cascading effect of all that follows is well presented and realistically portrayed. You wonder about the various characters sanity and just how they are dealing with what they see and hear. The ending comes up on you really fast, but it fits the arc of the story very well. This is the type of story that should leave something up to the reader, and it does.

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

Bad Monkeys - Matt Ruff
This book is outstanding. It is a psycho-thriller and an interesting take on what society is becoming with bloggers, vloggers, and the ubiquitous video and still cameras that everyone has with them these days. The plot is full of twists and turns and it is a really fun read. The only shortcoming, if it has one, is that the characters don't have enough meat on them to get you totally invested. It is very fast-paced and very hard to put down during the final act.