I am … unhindered by talent

A mentioned earlier, our friend Jane stayed in Peake’s House, a wonderful old Landmark Trust property here in Colchester. This photo is Jane, Sub-Evil Boy and WeatherGirl as they walk towards Peake’s House (the half-timbered building on the left) in the evening.

We were so inspired by that great house, and the wonderful collection of properties being preserved (and made available) by the Landmark Trust that we promptly booked a stay in one during Sub-Evil Boy’s term break. So soon we’re off to Methwold Old Vicarage, which should be really fun. Between that and some looming deadlines, though, not much on-line time for a week or so. Just thought I’d warn you.

Back soon, though!

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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 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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As folks collapse on the sofa, full of roast beast and replete with the goodies of the season, it’s worth thinking a bit about recycling as much as we can of the waste this whole business generates. If you were lucky enough to score some electronic goodies (cell phones, iPods, etc., etc.) that will orphan some of your old gear, you might consider giving or selling those bits on. We sold a bunch of gear on eBay before we came to the UK, and donated a great 19″ CRT monitor that no one bid on to the local school system. Services like FreeCycle make it a lot easier to find happy homes for things you no longer want but which could still be useful to others.

Barring selling or donation, definitely explore recycling them instead of just pitching them in the trash. Cast off electronic represent the fastest growing component of the municipal waste stream, and the problem’s just gonna get larger. Cell phones don’t biodegrade or compost well, and there are now something like 1 billion cell phones on the planet, which makes for a pretty hefty garbage truck.

Looking for some tips on how to gracefully move some old electronics on to their next life? There’s lots of info on-line, including this nice piece from The Daily Green.

Thanks to Alexandre Van de Sande for the cool photo.

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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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We’re up in Preston with WeatherGirl’s Mum for the holidays. Bandwidth here at her house is limited and at least mildly awkward, so there probably won’t be much posting from here.

The snow shot is from Morris a couple of years ago - the word is that they’re definitely gonna have snow on the ground for Xmas. It’s quite cold for the UK up here in Preston, but nothing on what it’s like in Minnesota. It’s a bit below freezing at night and heavy frost sometimes lasting the whole day.

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Best wishes for a great holidays!

(I caught this stencil on a building being renovated in Dublin.)

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The video is from 1948, the music is by kugelplex, and the vocals are by Jewlia Eisenberg from the wondrous Charming Hostess.

If we’re gonna have the silliness of the season, we might as well have people singing about Santa in Yiddish :-).

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One of the great weirdnesses of living here in the UK is being reminded of how completely American a holiday Thanksgiving is, effectively ignored on the rest of the planet. (Much like American Football, to which it is quite closely connected!)

‘Twere it not for various on-line reminders and communications from (American) friends and family, one could easily miss the whole thing. I, to be honest, only realized quite late in the day that Thanksgiving was today - I had been thinking it was next week.

But it’s today, so happy Thanksgiving! Now go read Athena’s cool Thanksgiving poem and enjoy your feasts!

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