This gallery contains 9 photos.
This past weekend, I visited the Quechee Vermont Balloon Festival for the second time. I had such a great time the first time, I eagerly agreed when my brother asked again this year. This time, I bought a ticket ahead … Continue reading
Last June, I visited the Quechee Vermont Balloon Festival, and was lucky enough to take my first balloon ride. I greatly enjoyed it and took a ton of pictures. You can read more about it here.
Upper Valley Life
May/June 2013 issue
The Festival has a photography contest, and I entered four pictures into it. I didn’t think anything more about it, until I was contacted by the Art Director of Upper Valley Life, a magazine devoted to the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. The festival had apparently passed along a bunch of their submissions, they liked one of my pictures, and wanted to know if it was OK to use it for their May/June cover!
This is my first published photograph, and I am tremendously pleased and honored.
Tomorrow it will be two weeks since the Boston Marathon bombing. It’s hard to believe it’s only been two weeks. I’d like to lay out some thoughts about the bombing. Continue reading
I experienced my first major downtime with this site last night. There was a power failure at DreamHost’s data center, which fried some of their hardware. When I went to bed last night, the site was still down; it was back up when I took a look this morning, it was back up, but apparently there was another power failure this morning. Continue reading
This past weekend I attended the 2013 Boston Sea Rovers Annual Clinic. The Sea Rovers are one of the oldest dive clubs around, having been founded back in the 1950s, and boasting such past and present members as underwater cinematographer Stan Waterman, explorer Robert Ballard and photographer Ernest ‘Ernie’ Brooks II. The Clinic is an annual divers show in the Boston area, and is split between an exhibition hall, hourly seminars, and a film festival. During the day, each hour, there are three seminars; each seminar room is devoted to a certain theme, but you’re free to attend any one you wish. The exhibition hall is typically split between manufacturers (often of technical diving gear), local retailers, local dive clubs, and other organizations, like the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, The Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary, and others. The Clinic is also a great place to re-connect with old friends. Continue reading
I picked up a new slide scanner the other day. I was looking at some of the old family pictures a couple of weeks ago, which rekindled a desire to get at least my Dad’s slides scanned, so I can share them with the rest of the family. I’ve been dissatisfied with the scans I’ve had done by one of the local camera shops, so I’ve been wanting more control over the process. This scanner came highly reviewed, with the caveat that there was a steep learning curve, and so far, I’ve been struggling with it. I’ll have more to say about it once I’ve figured it out, but I’ve already encountered one big pet peeve: the SilverFast software is very obviously a cross-platform product which feels very much out of place on my Mac. Continue reading
I drive a lot —about 80 miles a day—and I’m easily annoyed. This is not a good combination. Continue reading
My Aunt Anne died this morning. We expected it, but it was still a shock when my mother called with the news.
Growing up, Anne was the only girl in a family of nine children. Her brothers, including my father, were paradoxically protective of her, and at the same time, loved to make her life miserable, in the most brotherly way possible.
For the kids of my generation, Anne was the “fun” aunt. Most of my O’Hara uncles married around the same time, so most of my aunts had kids of their own, and when the families got together, the adults, unsurprisingly, wanted to spend some time with the other grownups. Anne married later, and liked spending time with us kids. She’d take us sledding or skating or even to the Cape. Even after marrying Bob MacAulay, and having kids of her own, Anne still liked having fun with her nieces and nephews. I still remember rollerblading with her down the Cape, about 15 – 20 years ago. It was my sister Nancy, Anne and I on an empty Eastham road. She’d never used inline skates before— just old fashioned roller-skates —but she picked it up, and had a blast. And, once she and Bob built their own house on the Cape, most family members knew they were welcome there.
I think the thing I’ll remember most about her was her smile and her giggle. She had a lovely smile, mischievous but pretty, and loved to laugh. I’ll miss her.
Happy New Year.
I went into Boston for First Night last night. I felt it was a little bit of a let down compared to past years*—instead of several ice sculptures on the Common and at Copley Square, there were two at Copley and just one at the Prudential Center. I was also irritated because I just missed the early fireworks; I prefer the early family show to staying in town until midnight. As it was, I just saw the finale at I came out of the subway at Copley.
First Night 2013 Ice sculpture of Jack and the Beanstalk, at Copley Square
I also saw a couple of comedians at the Hynes Center. They were good, but I felt the size of the space they were in—a big hall—was working against them. I ended the evening at an organ concert at the Arlington Street Church. It’s a magnificent building, and I’d never been inside it before.
The Christmas tree came down this morning, and I went over to the Weston Ski Track this afternoon. The snow was great and I actually skied for nearly an hour, which is a lot, since I don’t skate ski well.
On to 2013.
*The best First Night I went to was a couple of years ago, when it snowed that night. There were still enough people in town that I didn’t feel like an idiot for being there, but it was noticeably less crowded. ↵
I was up very late Saturday– actually early Sunday, cleaning up the place. For some reason, I can’t get going until late. Anyrate, it was around 2:30 in the morning, and I finally got all the clutter more or less stowed away, and it was time for bed. I was noodling away on the iPad to relax, when I remembered the camera battery needed to be charged. I was too lazy to get out of bed, so I brought up Siri and said, “Remind me tomorrow morning at 10 AM to charge the camera battery.”
Siri replied, “Just to be clear, do you mean 10 AM December 23 or 10 AM December 24?”
I would have never thought of that. The literal answer to that would have been December 24th, since it was already after midnight, on the 23rd. But in fact, I did mean December 23rd, after I woke up. I happily touched December 23rd, went to bed, the reminder appeared on my devices the next day, and I dutifully put the battery in the charger.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I got to Cape Ann later that day, that I discovered I should have also set a reminder to put the battery back in the camera when it was done.