Geeking Out on Water

I found a super-cool feature on my new K20D... High-speed sequences of stills! I hold the button down and it records something like a hundred 1.6MB images. It lets you capture things that would normally be too hard to time by hand. I couldn't resist the urge to try catching water drops. Good thing JR has tons of hardware out in the barn - this project required some insanely bright light. I could have easily used 5 of them.

The setup.

I've got a website of the best ones made, but the internet in the Northern Frontier isn't really there.... Here's the highlights.

The Glowing Yellow Orb

There was this bright yellow thing up in the sky and we all had to go outside to revel. I vaguely recall stories of this "sun" thing in tales from the South... I think it came North after a long period of hiding because of the Scotch offerings from Dad. He spent a night (that he doesn't remember) harassing Brian while attempting to play Euchre. I think that offering pleased the orb.

A walk to Ranger Lake.

We (minus the video-game fiend tweeners) took a walk to Ranger Lake. There were lots of cool spots along the way to jump in snow banks or climb around in the woods....

Photoshop Artistic Functions

Having the 50mm f/1.4 has made me want to explore some of the Photoshop artistic functions - dry brushes, water-colors, etc. There's some really neat "painting" or "cartoon" things you can do... Heather's been a somewhat-willing test-subject.

A Walk at Opal

We headed up to the cabin on the 26th driving in some pretty nasty weather. The roads were sheet-ice in the morning. Fun to slide around at 2mph.... The cabin was awesome. Drew brought Mav. Meg brought Maddy. Dad brought Brian (or maybe the other way around?). The snow was piled deep. It's winter as I remember it... The next day brought 50 degrees and insane fog. That's more like Michigan as I remember it.
Some of the trees up here still have all their dead leaves on them. They provide some of the only color on days like this.

Melting icicle with a strong flash....

The 50mm f/1.4 is awesome. Brian told me about how to do this shot - focus on a drop and let the needles go abstract. Fun!

An Icy Baby Jeezus Day.

The sun came out for a little while between snow showers. It was really fun to see the icicles that had formed out on the dock. Sunset was really pretty... The morning with Meg & Drew was pretty fun. Megan had "negotiated" an 8:45am opening (not the 5am she wanted but earlier than the 1pm when Drew usually rises. He is a tween now...)

Howell Nature Center

Aminals!

We drove in the nasty snow-storm over to the nature center to see some pretty cool native animals. The owls and the tree-fox were the coolest I think...

An ECMO Shift

Bri, Heather and I decided to go do a night shift with Dad. It was a good time - we got to see the new "kit" and check out a bit more of the hospital. Brian passed out like a weenie. And he looked like a unibomber.

The new kit is pretty impressive - instead of being a heavy cart it's a small centrifical pump (heart) that works much better and is much smaller with a lung-upgrade. The lung is smaller and takes a lot less pressure to drive. The pressure drop across this square lung is less than 5% instead of 20% across the old cylindrical one.

The Many Faces of Brian

Merry Solstice Mom

We did Xmas with mom this weekend... Keith, Kim, Celia and Cameron came over. I got cut up pretty bad keeping Celia in the kitchen, but she didn't get out. We had a massive Euchre session. Good times.

A Foot of Snow

We got a foot of snow during the day. Excellent. This day was basically dedicated to work, but it was fun having some fresh snow to go run around in... There was a big family dinner that Gma hosted that kicked off an all-night plotting session.