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

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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.