snow my goodness
Six to ten inches of snow are on their way. Run for your lives!
(This post brought to you by The Committee To Complain About El Niño And Our Lack of Snow and Why The Heck Does DC, of all places, Get To Be Buried While We're Here With Flurries And Almost No Accumulation For Weeks On End)
(This post is also brought to you by The People Who Are Probably Being Hit Over The Head With Newspapers For Suggesting Thirty Inches Of Snow Is Better Than Zero Inches Of Snow)
Am I /that/ neighbor?
Yesterday was a really rough day at work. Lots of things failed, lots of miscommunication, and lots of pressure to get things on the right track again. The entire day, essential, was a waste. I was exhausted when I arrived home last night.
And so I did not clear our driveway of snow yesterday evening. I went to bed early, in fact. I was done with yesterday.
But, to avoid ice and unsafe conditions, I wanted to clear the driveway. I woke up at 5 with the intention of shoveling the whole thing. It became apparent quickly that there was more snow than I realized and so I shattered the morning quiet with my snow blower. 15 minutes later I was done and inside the house.
I wonder, though, if any of my neighbors cursed me this morning for doing this. "The snow's all going to melt in a day or so anyway!" "Why didn't he do this last night?" etc., etc.
I just like using my snow blower, darn it. 
Gallery software upgrade
Though we've not really been using it that much over the past year, I finally decided it was time to upgrade our online photo gallery software.
http://bernhard.us/photos/main.php
The previous version of the software was not tied to a database and had almost zero anti-spam tools. It was something of a mess.
The new version is much easier to manage, seems to be faster, and certainly offers more features. It took a while for me to migrate everything over from the old gallery install but I believe I've done it without losing anything. I've even managed to figure out how to get redirects to work so all the old url's automatically forward to the correct album in the new install.
Now, I just need to get back into the habit of uploading albums starting with the backlog of family photos. That task is only slightly daunting.
in which things are stolen
To provide additional backup space for our ever-growing collection of digital photos, I recently ordered a 1.5TB drive from Amazon.com. (I'm something of a fanatic when it comes to backups and have an elaborate but automatic system that works really well.)
Amazon shipped out the drive quickly and the package was sitting in our mailbox last night. And I knew, the instant I picked it up, that it was an empty box.
"Well damn", I thought, "someone at Amazon messed up and shipped me an empty box."
No, no, that wasn't it at all. What became clear, after bringing the box inside the house (where I could see it, as opposed to on the street where it's dark), is that the box had already been opened. The packing sheet holder had been removed. The packing sheet had been opened and read, and then someone had cut open the bottom of the box, took the hard drive out of the packing material, put the packing material back in the box (why, I have no idea) and then re-taped the box with shipping label intact.
Thank you United States Postal Service.
I called Amazon.com right away and they agreed to ship me a new hard drive (set to arrive on Tuesday next week). That's really cool of them. But I am a bit worried that now there's a note in my account: "Claims hard drive was stolen." If something like this happens again, then they're probably going to stop being so nice.
on fort building
helloheather went on a retreat to Oregon, IL this past weekend, being gone from Friday evening until late Saturday evening (having driven 2 hours in the fog at a snails pace).
This was the first time Nate and I were home alone.
We did not thwart the bumbling efforts of two would-be criminal types. John Hughes would not have been impressed.
Still, we had fun. I built a fort in our front room on Friday night and Nate and I had a camp-out. He did ask if we were going to have a camp-fire but alas, prudence dictated no open flame in the foyer.
I built our fort out of the kitchen chairs, a blanket, a couple strong clips, and our Therm-a-rest (tm) sleeping pads. It was fun. I have very fond memories of my dad building me a fort like this when I was a kid and it was nice to be able to do this for Nate.
Most of the time we just hung out. We played a lot of Cars (tm) which he's /really/ into right now. This was, in part, because I gave him a new car ("Sheriff") as a gift for the weekend. We also visited with another dad, who's wife was on the weekend retreat, and had lunch with him at the Burger King (which has a play area).
We had so much fun with the fort that we slept there again Saturday night, even though helloheather had returned home.
and while pregnant too!
I just want to acknowledge how blessed I am.
The last big snowfall we had (last week) was a multi-day affair but the bulk of the snow fell mid-day. helloheather was out in the driveway with the snow-blower keeping it ice and snow free.
And this isn't the first time this winter she's done that.
She rocks.
Our Second Child
I'm very ashamed that it has taken me this long to post an ultrasound picture of our second child. In fact, I just realized I never posted anything when helloheather made the original announcement. Wow, now I feel even worse.
I had no idea that with a busy life and a busy 3 year-old, time could move so quickly.
Here's the ultrasound from 11/4/2009; a profile shot.
Nate is very excited about being a big brother. He's convinced it's a girl, but mostly I think because he knows almost no one in his peer group who has anything /but/ a little sister. I'm not so certain it's a girl, but we have been concentrating more on picking a girls name than a boys. Or, at least, there have been more...shall we say...spirited discussions of said topic.
Either way, the baby is coming and two and a half months away is no time at all. The March 29th due-date is really, frighteningly, close.
I am not sure I'm all that ready. But, I am ready to catch up on a lot of this stuff.
catch-up post #n
I was off work from December 23rd through January 4th and it was a really great. helloheather and Nate and I relaxed and spent a lot of quality time together.
Christmas was busy, as usual, with events every day from the 24th through the 27th. But, despite the big snowfall, and the driving around, it was really all very good. Nate was a trouper and really seemed to enjoy visiting the family. Lots of photos need to be posted.
We visited the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum after Christmas, mostly to see the Butterfly Haven they have there. I really thought Nate would enjoy it, but he was not impressed. There were other exhibits he liked though, and overall the visit was a good one. Also, with so many people being off work the week between Christmas and New Years, we had no problems driving into and out of Chicago.
Nate and I also spent a lot of time outside in the snow over break, which was really great. I'm very glad we've had all the snow and that it's been cold enough to keep it from melting. Though, I did hear on the news last night that, if it warms up on Wednesday or Thursday, it'll be the first time since Christmas that we've been at or above 32 deg F. So, it's been a little chilly!
Being back at work for a full week (last week) was tough. It's really easy to get into a habit of being lazy and family-oriented around the house and very difficult to get back into work-mode mentality. However, I've managed to chase the mid-day blues away a bit by bringing a DSLR to work and walking around in the cold and snow. Boots and thermals have been a must.
So 2010 is here and the end of March is rapidly approaching. I'm still not really ready for all of this but it's certainly not waiting for me to catch up.
last post of 2009
I didn't post as often as I had wanted to in 2009. I always felt like there was more on my mind than I could properly express. 2010 is going to be a significant year...a year of change and, I hope, a year of things getting better.
Happy New Year.
Chicago Photography Project – 4 years
Well, I'm nearly two months late in celebrating this, but at least I'm recognizing it in 2009!
October 26th was the 4th anniversary of my lunch hour photography/exercise project. Not much has changed since last year. The map has grown only slightly, as I increasingly have to rely on either the El or the bus system to get me to unexplored locations.
I continue to submit photos to Chicago Public Radio and to Gapers Block for inclusion on their respective websites. Some I've been very happy with have made it, which is encouraging.
As with previous updates, no photobook is yet forthcoming. I find it increasingly difficult to come to any sort of definitive "theme" that would work well in a book. My latest thought was perhaps I simply select photos based on cardinal directions. There are just so many photos to go through...so many that I think are great but probably, as they say, won't play in Peoria. So, I continue to mull...
With respect to the walks, I'm certainly still getting in quite a few every week. I have been able to clock in some rather long treks (anything over 3 miles is pretty good in my book) in an hour to slightly-more-than-an-hour time period. Good stuff. My plan to do a half-day trip with swanksalot to visit Hot Doug's was thwarted by both weather and schedules. But mark my word, it will happen in 2010!
a reminder of why I don’t treat myself very often
With this being the last day of work for me for the year and with the snow falling so beautifully in the city, I thought I would treat myself to a mocha from Caribou Coffee. This would mean taking a longer route to work from my train and I could enjoy the combination of a hot chocolaty beverage, the crisp air, falling snow, and the slushy sidewalks. I like that sorta thing...it charges the batteries. Next time, though, I'm going to just settle for a longer walk and warm myself with thoughts of the free coffee at work. Why?
$4.
$4, after tax, for a small mocha (and that chocolate-covered coffee bean they give you).
Now, mind you, it's probably been 9 months (or more) since I've set foot in any coffee chain store. And certainly their mocha's are tasty (better than Starbucks IMHO) and certainly the staff is friendly and fast and certainly they're in a good location (right in my station in Chicago). But seriously. $4.
Shame on me for not looking at the price board before ordering.
not where but when
I'm coming off a run of late work nights that started back at Thanksgiving and have not been getting home until 8pm. Being gone from home for thirteen and a half hours a day has certainly been trying. I realize that this is not a lot compared to some people, but for me, it's been a significant change in my relationship with work and home.
I finished up the project this past week and was able to take my "normal" train home. Except, I sorta missed the last of the light in the evening sky during my long days. So, when I stepped off the train on Wednesday, I was really rather confused, not about where I was but /when/ I was. It felt so much like a late night that, for part of my walk to my car, I actually thought it was.
Thankfully I was able to take yesterday off. Also I am only working two days next week and then not again until Jan 4th. I'm really looking forward to being home for this long. I really need to be away from work for a while. Also, Monday is the Solstice and soon enough I'll be seeing those trace bits of sunset in the western sky as I step off the train.
Edit:
As an aside, why can't we get some of that east coast snow?! The 2" or so we got today was rather disappointing. Though, it did help cover the harder frozen stuff that's been sitting around. Nate and I enjoyed almost two hours of outdoor play this morning.
Into The Night
Check out this great time-lapsed video of Chicago along Lake Shore Drive.
Into the Night from kris.wm on Vimeo.
Another hit to (our) film photography
Whenever I shot film (which was quite a bit this summer, at least a dozen rolls) I would use our local Target store for developing. Their next-day service: develop the film and scan the negatives to CD all for about $3.70 including tax. This was great and let me populate my photoblog with some nice photos.
Recently I've given Nate one of my film cameras, an Olympic Stylus Epic, and set him up with a couple of rolls of black and white film. He's prefectly happy to just press and press and press the shutter button photographing nothing or photographing us. He was having a ton of fun and I was planning on freeing up some space in my film/beer storage fridge.
This weekend helloheather went to Target to shop and to drop off his first roll of Ilford XP2 only to discover that our Target store is no longer developing film. Now they only have a send out service and it takes 7-10 days. My experience with send-out services has been...less than pleasant. I'm expecting the scans to be pretty bad. I'm expecting the negatives to look like they've been walked over by a dozen people.
For better or worse, the world of film is certainly not doing well... I enjoyed using it this summer as it, once again, forced me to slow down a bit and consider the shot. It helped too that I was limiting myself to a single focal length (50mm). I enjoyed the color palette I was getting from (expired) Kodak UC 400. And yeah, I cleared out a little more space in that fridge. But I especially enjoyed the 1-day turn-around CD's for so little money at a location that was right on my route home from the train.
I guess if we want to shoot any more film we're going to have to go just a little bit further and pay a little bit more.
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. To celebrate, Nate drew this turkey and wrote his name (!!)
