Month: December 2008

  • Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

    My beautiful igloo!
    The fourth little piggy built his house out of snow.

    So Christmas has been and gone, the dog’s chalked up another few thousand air miles and I’ve got lots of new warm clothes for the rest of the winter. It was a lovely break all in all. I sorted out several laptops, got dragged through dozens of sales, all but destroyed several ficus trees, ate better than during the last 6 months, read Sir Pratchett’s Nation (one of his best I reckon) and now have an iPhone Touch to keep me out of trouble. The snow has totally disappeared and I’m at a loss for where to go for photos, though the waterfalls might be pretty impressive at the minute…

    Back to work on Monday, but for now we’re weighing up the options for this evening’s seeing in of 2009… The neighbours are having a knees up, there’s a pub crawl in the NE, then there’s always the town centre too. It’ll probably be pretty subdued no matter what, but I’m already eyeing the six pack of zider in the fridge.

    Since I’ve been sorting out me iTouch and organising music libraries, I thought I’d do another meme. 20 odd questions and you randomly fill in the answers with whatever the next track is on shuffle.  It’s blatantly not aimed at married, thirtysomething males but it’s a chance to go through me iTunes library. If the list doesn’t appear below, click the title or the “More” thing if you’re having a slow day…

    Read More “Blwyddyn Newydd Dda”

  • Small world

    Still haven’t been out with the camera properly, so here’s one from a month ago or so taken in the little park at the end of our road. Today I’m definitely getting organised with the prints… and hopefully this evening with the pints too.

    Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

  • Differently-Temperatured People

    We got back last night from our Christmas break in Los Angeles and I expected at least some snow to be left, but alas, tis all gone. I feel like I carpe’d the snowy diem though. I didn’t do much shooting in Los Angeles (there’s only so many angles you can take of Old Navy, Sears, Mervyns, Macy’s, Best Buy…) but shall be out and about in the next day or two to see how this mini ice age has affected the Oregonian landscape.

    Sorry for the pause in posting too, especially after all the new sign ups. I didn’t want to broadcast to the world that the house would be empty so I just slipped away… I’ll be answering emails and getting your pictures printed and sent very soon. Thank you for your patience, and happy 2009, yo. 😀

  • Yearly round-up

    Flash publishes a traditional meme at the end of each year. She posts the first sentence from the first post of each month from the preceding year. Here goes mine, and I’m going to make a comment after each one… 

    J: England was great, lovely to see all me nearest and dearest in person and share a pint or three. I shan’t leave it so long next time.

    Can’t believe a year’s gone by without getting back 🙁

    F: Well, what with having bought another car and signed a 12 month lease on our apartment, we’re here for the long haul.

    So young, so naive

    M: Yep the 3:17 vowel-consonant ratio means it´s Saint David’s Day again.

    And it was lovely to catch up with Ian and Yuri and their kids

    A: This blog’s been a bit abandoned of late more due to an overload of work and little time to update it but in brief, saw Carrie Fisher’s show Wishful Drinking last Thursday.

    And blimey, it was bad

    M: The problem with not posting for a while is that it builds a certain level of expectation that the next post will be somehow life-affirming and brilliant.

    Then I went on to announce Sita handing in her dissertation. I really ought to consider newspaper style writing, most important bits first, details later…

    J: I just passed the 10,000 photos mark on Flickr.

    And I’m at: 11,290 items / 65,673 views, but who’s counting?

    J: We interrupt this prolonged silence to recommend this course to you in the Fall Autumn… Check out the last professor on the Faculty link too… Sign up now!.

    And who knew that 6 months later I’d have admin privileges to edit that very page…

    A: Greetings from our latest ZIP code!

    I’ve forgotten what Alameda’s zip was now… seems like a long time ago

    S: According to Peter Trigg’s Calendar – “My kind of Somerset”, it’s the first of September, meaning we can look at a grainy picture of All Saints’ Church, Aisholt for 30 odd days
    I shouldn’t criticise his calendar. I’m just jealous.

    O: Posting direct from Flickr… Here’s Nostromoo’s 2nd batch of Welsh Cakes… and evidence of probably the first time anyone has printed my blog out on paper.

    7 months after St. Dai’s Day, we were all getting our Welsh on…

    N: I’m off to watch ‘democracy’ in action with DrSita in a mo…

    And lo and behold, Obama was elected that very evening. Oregon had an impressive 86% voter turnout.

    D: Word Magazine just published an advent calendar with links to videos and suchlike, I thought, I could do that:
    Presenting Countdown to Xmas with ‘Cus

    And a calendar was born. Hope you enjoy Day 24

    When I get a chance I’ll do a first photo from every month type post too…

  • Snow Flash

    Not much in the way of technique here except try to keep the camera dry, try to stay warm, and try to keep moving… We’re at well over 2 feet of snow today, it’s still snowing… I made an igloo. Details, pics and details on where to find the video of it over at me blog…

  • Things to do today:

    Check whether Lewis and Clark is open :  (it’s not)

    Stay Warm: X

    Build a 6ft-tall-igloo out of ice and snow in the back garden : 

    Igloo
    Click for larger (you have to be a contact of mine on Flickr though)

    The final video with the roof and everything will be along soon, quite possibly in Advent Calendar form…

  • Nuts to be out in this weather

    Yeah, cheesy title I know. They don’t have it easy the squirrels round here, if they’re not being chased by Atticus, they’re under nigh on two foot of snow. I forget where, but I recently read that “squirrels are just rats with good PR”.

    Also, thanks to Sunday’s publicity drive, I would like to welcome Amy to our small, but vital, community of people-who-get-a-picture-emailed-to-them-daily. Much appreciated 🙂 and if any other subscribees would like a signed photo postcard sent to them (by proper post) just email me which one you’d like and your address. Ta.

  • Atticalendar Day 22

    is getting erased after Christmas day. The last third of it is anyway…

    So… don’t forget to check out day 22…

    Karma
    Yesterday... before the dog (not atticus) went through the ice.

  • Vanity publishing

    All this could be yours to own.
    All this could be yours to own.

    Imagine if every day* you checked your email and saw you’d received an email from a friend with a lovely picture from round Portland way and a brief description of the photo.

    Imagine how much easier it would be dealing with the other things clogging up your inbox if you’d first seen a picture of Oregon at its finest.

    Imagine if in between the sea of Facebook alerts you had something that didn’t require you to sign into anything to be rewarded with a message.

    Imagine that if you ever got sick of receiving said daily slice of the Pacific Northwest you could cancel at any time.

    Imagine no longer…

    Sign up for email updates from my photoblog:

    Enter your email address:

    It’s what’s known as a win-win situation… you get emailed a photo. I get a boost to my ego and a reason to keep on publishing the blog.

    If boosting my ego isn’t enough motivation, think of the schipperke.

    more subscribers = more photos = more walks and exercise for Atticus.
    more subscribers = more photos = more walks and exercise for Atticus.

    Real quotes from current subscribers:

    “I like your writing and you take some nice pics too!”
    “I like getting your daily photo in my inbox”
    “it’s lovely to see your pics. they are fabulous.”

    But that’s not all.

    The next 5 subscribers win a 4×6 signed print of any photo from the vaults.

    (present subscribers can have one too, hellz yeah, send me a link to the one you want, A, T, A & D)

    If you’re all about the RSS, that’ll be: https://agaveweb.com/photos/feed the offer stands for feed readers too.

    This’ll be the last time I nag you for a while.

    * most days…

    If you’d like email updates from this here blog then use this form 🙂

    Enter your email address:
    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Here endeth the plug.

    1ft of snow, with an icy crust. Video soon…

  • I’m just going out I might be a while

    Did I say in my last post it wasn’t going to snow any more? I was wrong. Very wrong. We’re presently at about half a foot of quality powder. The footprints on the pond are from a dog, who had another go and ended up falling in and being dragged out by his owners.

    Vignetting here comes from a mixture of condensation between the polariser filter and the lens and mystery settings that I couldn’t use my frozen fingers to control… I’m quite fond of it.

  • It hasn’t stopped snowing all day

    We’re at about 4 inches of the white stuff now. Absolutely gorgeous out it is, but not good for cameras…

    When 900 dog years you be, look as good as me you not. Hmm?
    Mr. A takes on allcomers.

    Why, Lord Atticus, only you would be so bold. There’ll be a more minimal version in tomorrow’s advent window.

  • Snow patrol

    Light Snow
    Light Snow

    May I direct your attention to the weather box in the left sidebar, it’s presently:

    Temperature: -3°C, Conditions: Light Snow, Wind Chill: -10°C

    It’s been a strange old week, in the good way of course. Lewis & Clark was open when it snowed, closed when it wasn’t, things were cancelled, meetings postponed and I got out and took a fair few photos. Yesterday it seemed like the ‘inclement weather’ was over and we took a friend to the airport and on the way home decided to drop into the DMV to get our Oregon licenses. 

    This involved presenting various bits of paperwork that I didn’t have on me and taking the computerised theory test. It was a touch-screen multiple choice affair and would have been quite challenging were it not for the “Skip this question” option on each question. The theory is that your skipped questions return at the end of the test, however the vast majority didn’t come back at all (we knew this would probably happen thanks to sage advice from Abraham). So I didn’t have to know driving trivia like “What is the maximum speed of vehicles with a ‘Slow Vehicle’ sign on them? 15mph, 20mph, 25mph or 30mph.” Anyroad, I got 93% which is a pass. Same as Dr.Sita.

    Another question I should have got right but didn’t was along these lines: You’re driving along and feeling very tired, what should you do?

    a) Open the windows and turn the AC on

    b) Put on loud music

    c) Find a safe area to park the car and take a nap

    d) Drink something caffeinated

    I reckoned they all sounded good. Only one of them is right.

    Another was a question about why there are more accidents in the evening rush hour. a) because of the dark b) people are tired and irritable c) there’s more traffic d) I forget. I got the feeling there was a book we probably should have read beforehand. And it’s amazing how conditioned we are now by Who Wants to be a Millionaire; for nearly every question I was looking for the 50-50 button, or Phone-a-friend.

    Strange questions… Anyroad, we’re now the proud owners of temporary Oregon licenses which, when presented in Washington state, for example, mean we don’t have to pay any sales tax. Good times.

    I’m considering sledging today. I’m looking round for suitable snow vehicles. I’ve already ruled out Nanny’s scrabble board lazy-susan rotator thing… dustbin lids? Photos as and when. Stay warm, folks.

  • Siberia, 1963

    Or Portland, 2008 through a Kodak Duaflex II from 1963(ish)…
    Looks like the temperatures have risen and from today on there’ll no snow at the metro level. It were good while it lasted.

  • The Fugitive

    Taken surreptitiously as I wandered through a very pretty golf course that was 100% free of golfers for a change. Hope they don’t mind the size 11 foot prints across their well-tended putting greens…

  • Eyes Removed

    I thought this picture from JGG’s photostream deserved a wider audience… and also wanted to test posting from Flickr to the blog in WordPress 2.7. It still doesn’t work right.

  • Back to school tomorrow :(

    Atticus channels his inner huskie (a video experiment, let me know if it works)
    The battery in me little camera doesn’t do well at the best of times, but the cold and ‘Cus managed to shut the video down at 45 seconds or so. The bit when it jerks away is when his lead went tight as he tried to maul the sliding car…

    I’ve 3 days worth of internet to catch up on cos I’ve either been out with the camera or recovering from being out with the camera.

    Photos abound over at Flickr…

    inter-seasonal