Rhubarb
We have rhubarb in our back yard that originally came from my maternal great-grandmother’s house in Chicago. She was a prolific gardener, a tradition that passed down to my grandmother and my mother. The rhubarb was passed down as well. It has moved from Chicago, to Hanover Park to South Elgin, to Elgin, back to South Elgin and, when 
helloheather and I purchased our house, to Crystal Lake.
With each move only a part of the planting that preceded it was transplanted. It is growing in Elgin and South Elgin as well as here. Perhaps some from Chicago and Hoffman Estates lives on as well.
Canon A80 vs Canon A650 IS
With the slow and painful death of our Canon A80, helloheather and I had been looking at replacement cameras for some time. We finally concluded that the rotating LCD of the A80 was a feature we couldn't compromise on, and thus the decision was made for us: The Canon A650 IS. (The only current-production point and shoot available today with a rotating LCD.)
You can see a side-by-side comparison at dpreview.com of the two cameras here:
http://lnk.nu/dpreview.com/jzd.asp
From our perspective, a couple changes stand out as improvements:
1) Zoom. The A650's 6x zoom, while not a critical feature, is more useful than the A80's 4x zoom.
2) Image Stabilization. A very welcome addition. This feature allows you to shoot at slower shutter speeds and still have a sharp image. ( It's important to realize though that IS does not freeze your subject if he/she/it is moving. This feature only reduces blurring due to camera shake.)
3) Larger LCD with a better viewable range. 2.5" vs 1.5" screen. Enough said.
4) Greater ISO range.
5) Faster startup.
6) Dedicated ISO, Exposure Compensation, and White Balance buttons means less menu digging.
7) Second-curtain sync flash. Useful for shots where you want to "drag the shutter."
So far the down-sides have been:
1) No more high-speed mode. This is a feature I started using a lot once Nate became mobile. The mode allows you to shoot 4 or 5 frames in a row with no review on the LCD. Very handy if you're trying to capture a particularly fast child. The A650 did away with this and also, due to it producing much larger files, decreased the number of frames per second you can shoot.
2) Only one Custom mode. The A80 had two user-configurable modes on the command dial. What was nice about that is I could set general parameters for shooting outside ( -1/3 EC, ISO 50, "shade" white-balance) and inside (high ISO, incandescent white-balance). Moving from outside to inside was a turn of the dial. While the A650 does offer more control over settings via buttons on the back of the camera, the process is still more time consuming.
Other changes, such as SD instead of CF cards or the (much) higher pixel count are neutral in my book. Memory cards have never been less expensive per MB and I don't need the obscene number of pixels this camera provides, but the consumer market equates megapixels with virility (or something along those lines) so there's no avoiding it.
Overall, we've both been happy with the camera. It has done its job well so far and we're still figuring out ways to get more out of its feature set.
No more Flickr upload limits
Flickr has changed an important feature recently: if you are a paid user you are no longer restricted by a 2GB per month upload cap.
For a while now I've been considering using Flickr to archive my JPG files but have been concerned about the limit. But now, at only $25/year, this policy change will be a substantial storage opportunity and most importantly, the images can be kept private. Organization will be key to this whole project. What good is an archive if you can't find the files you may need?
Photographers Appreciation Night – WBEZ
On Friday after work, I attending a reception at Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ) for photographers who have contributed images for the station home page.
The evening started on their balcony, which is on the south side of Navy Pier while finger-food and drinks were available in the adjacent meeting room. I sat at a table with Torey Malatia, who is the president and general manager of the station but I was mostly a silent observer. I also met a favorite photographer of mine, metroblossom (who is also the managing editor at GapersBlock.com).
Station tours were given in small groups and a brief presentation of the new Image Archives feature of the WBEZ web page was demonstrated. Thanks to Andrew Gill, who manages the photo submittal and selection process, for highlighting my images in his presentation 
Here's the link to all the photos I've had on the home page:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Daily_Photo_Photographers.aspx?last_name=Bernhard&first_name=Rob
You can view the archive of all photos here:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Daily_Photo.aspx