Archive for the 'Family' Category

More fun (with skulls) in London

Posted in Art, Events, Family, Music, Photography, Sabbatical, Science, Travels on April 6th, 2008

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We just finished two consecutive day trips to London (Friday and yesterday) and I’m thoroughly tired, and full of undigested photos. This fellow, one of the few I have processed, is from the Egyptian mummification exhibit at the British Museum (Rooms 62 and 63).

On Friday we started down in Greenwich. It was our first time through the Docklands on the DLR — it would be nice to walk those canals and take photos — and our first time to the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian. I wish we’d had more time there - it was a beautiful day and there was a ton of cool stuff one could see. Time was tight, though, so we zoomed off to the British Museum before rush hour hit, and spent the rest of the evening there.

While WeatherGirl wandered the museum, however, Sub-Evil and I snuck off and bought tickets for Avenue Q at the Noël Coward Theatre for the following night. He’s been keen to see that ever sense we got here, and it was nice to finally make that happen, but it did mean two consecutive days into London, which is frankly pretty tiring.

Yesterday Sub-Evil and I started at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology on the UCL campus. Sub-Evil is very into Egyptian history, writing, artifacts, etc., so he really wanted to see this. It’s a very cool collection, but pretty desperately in need of a new home, with the collection crammed into old victorian cabinets and spilling down an emergency exit staircase! Next was the British Library, which was just tremendous! The King’s Library alone was worth the (free) price of admission, and the display of the treasures (Magna Carta, illuminated manuscripts, handwritten scores, drafts, diaries, and letters by amazing folks) was really wonderful.

After all that we grabbed some dinner and then headed off to Avenue Q! We both had listened to the soundtrack about a zillion times, so there weren’t a lot of surprises. The production was tons of fun, however, and watching the puppet masters sing, dance, act, and run the puppets at the same time reminded me of the line about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels :-).

Now we pack and organize, for tomorrow we’re off to Methwold Old Vicarage for our first stay in a Landmark Trust property!

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Wishing Jenny well

Posted in Art, Events, Family, Mildly amusing, Photography, Sabbatical, Travels on April 3rd, 2008

Friends in art

Our friend Jenny Nellis had a really nasty fall recently, and Jess Larson suggested we send her a happy photo or two. I thought a few shots of WeatherGirl and Jess when we were at the Tate Modern might help :-).

The photo above is the two of them being silly and fun with their hard sweets. The one below is WeatherGirl (on the right) photographing her bare foot with Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo, while Jess is photographing WeatherGirl. We had way too much fun with Shibboleth, which is a wonderfully experiential piece of sculpture, and took a gazillion photos. As you can see, WeatherGirl even took her shoes off in the name of art :-).

Art (at many layers)

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No snow for Xmas, but we got a white Easter!

Posted in Events, Family, Sabbatical, Travels on March 23rd, 2008

Colchester in the snow by WeatherGirl
We’ve dodged a fairly serious winter back in Minnesota while on sabbatical this year, and we’ve had no snow and very little cold weather over here in Colchester. In a fit of weird timing, however, we had something like an inch of big Bing Crosby stuff today. I’ve not actually be out of the house all day (trying to get ready for EuroGP), but WeatherGirl walked into town and back this morning, and took a ton of cool photos (including the one above, and lots of neat self-portraits).

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And I slept through the whole thing

Posted in Events, Family, Sabbatical on February 27th, 2008

Watch your step(s)

Apparently we had an earthquake here in the UK last night around 1am, and Sub-Evil and I snoozed through the whole thing! WeatherGirl, however, was still up and reports on the not-exactly-harrowing experience, complete with links to other sources of info.

This is the second earthquake she’s experienced and I haven’t. (I was in Texas at a workshop when we had a small tremor in Minnesota shortly after we moved there. There’s a wonderful story there, but it’ll have to wait until for another day.)

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The things you learn on the Tube

Posted in Events, Family, Mildly amusing, Photography, Travels on February 24th, 2008

The things you learn on the Tube

After a long day of being cultural and scientific in London with Kildegaards a few weeks ago, we got on the Tube back to Liverpool Street and the train back to Colchester. Looking across into the next car on the Underground, I was surprised to learn that a volcano was expected to erupt in Rome!

Turns out it’s a reference to a rugby player in an international match. And here I thought it was gonna be Pompeii all over again, but with more automobiles.

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New ways to bore you with our holiday photos

Posted in Art, Books, Events, Family, Photography, Travels on January 20th, 2008

Cover of our 2007 Year in Photos book on Blurb

I can’t really imagine that anyone’s going to want one of these, but just in case…

As a Xmas present for our various family members we used Blurb.com to create a photo book of some of our images from 2007. But hey, you can join the family by purchasing one as well :-). It’s 127 photos on 38 pages, and they have a PDF preview so you can see what you’re getting into before you put your money down.

This was our first use of Blurb, and their software was pretty decent. Amazing, really, how easy it is these days to publish books that no one really cares about. It used to be hard to publish books no one cared about; they regularly gave people degrees for it.

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We can all make history come alive

Posted in Computing, Education, Family, Web development, Writing on January 9th, 2008

Harry Lamin
Courtesty of Status-Q, I’ve just run across this amazing and wonderful little project: WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier.

Bill Lamin is posting the letters his grandfather (Harry Lamin) wrote home from the front of WWI as a blog. Each letter is posted 90 years after (to the day) Harry wrote it, so following the blog is somewhat like being his family, waiting for news, hoping it’s good.

What a brilliantly simple idea, absolutely full of potential and possibility. Our family is fortunate enough to have a number of excellent diaries, letter collections, and such, and I’ve often thought of “doing something” with them. My thoughts had always been fairly traditional; this opens all sorts of doors.

Wow.

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Explosions (For the new year)

Posted in Events, Family, Photography on January 1st, 2008

Explosions (For the new year)

We watched the New Year’s fireworks from London on the telly last night, and that was one remarkable display of blowing stuff up. At the time it kept reminding me of the blitz in creepy ways, and later I kept thinking about places like Kenya and Pakistan where people are burning things out of anger rather than for fun.

Here’s hoping that more explosions can be “in fun” than “in anger” in 2008.

The photo is another from the 4th of July display in Monticello, Wisconsin.

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Happy Xmas Eve :-)

Posted in Events, Family, Gardening, Photography on December 24th, 2007

Frost and berries (Winter solstice)

Just before we came up to Preston for the holidays I was able to spend some time taking photos in the beautiful frost we’d been having in Colchester. This is one of the results of that little adventure.

Happy Xmas Eve!

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Happy 14th!

Posted in Events, Family, Photography, Sabbatical, Travels on December 18th, 2007

Happy 14th!

Today Sub-Evil Boy celebrates 14 years of being, well, less than evil. For this his parents are extremely grateful :-) !

To celebrate the event I decided to (I’m guessing) annoy him mightily by fishing up an old shot from out last sabbatical. Here he’s 6.5 years old at the thermal pools in Iceland near the Strokkur Geyser.

He’s just a tad bigger now, but no less cute :-).

Happy Birthday, and thanks for being significantly less than evil!

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