My 2012 in Pictures

In January I took my swanky new lens out and about in Methuen to see what it could do.  These trips usually focus on the Spicket River, but this time I went to the Merrimack.
Reflections in the River

As usual, February focused on the RPM Challenge. This year my saxophone came out of retirement.
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In March I finally managed to get a few pictures of the night sky that only mostly sucked, as opposed to the normal total suck. This is the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter, all at once.
Moon Venus Jupiter

April brought us back to San Diego and I swear, each time we go there it gets harder and harder to come home.
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In May we brought the kids to Fenway Park. Dustin Pedroia and the Red Sox won the game, but went on to their worst season in 100,000 years.
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June was very quiet, photography wise, but we did get another piano recital in the wonderful Nevins Library in Methuen.
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In July we spent a week on Long Lake in Maine. I managed to accidentally take a few pictures that didn’t suck.
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In August we spent a day wandering around Portsmouth, NH including Strawbery Banke.
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In September we took the kids to see Rush. Now they know what I’ve been talking about all this time.
Rush on the opening night of the Clockwork Angels tour

In October we took the kids to Washington, DC and tried our best to see everything in the short time we were there.
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In November I didn’t post a single picture taken with my D90. I did, however, learn that this existed and it made me feel a little better about the human race in general.
HipstaPrint

In December my wife and I ran off together to the mountains for a few days. It was wonderful to get away.
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And there you have it. A brief synopsis of my 2012, in pictures. I could have posted hundreds of pictures. Maybe I will later on.

The Last Long Weekend Post

Any time we go away and my D90 comes with us I have to milk as many posts out of it as possible.  This is a good example of that.

Technically, we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast.  In reality, we had a house to ourselves.  There was a legitimate Bed and Breakfast, called Old Field House, but the building we stayed in was a single house about a half mile away from the main building.  Our building was called Holiday Ridge.  It had four bedrooms, a fire place in the center of the living room, a nice deck on the back of the house, a private hot tub (that was a huge selling point for us), a nearly vertical drop behind the house, and the previously mentioned spiral staircase of death and doom.  It also had a full kitchen and dining room.

Here you see the futon we used a couple of times, as well as the top of the spiral staircase of death and doom.
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Here we see the fireplace. Note the comfy chair behind the fireplace. It was in fact very comfy. Too comfy. Once I sank into it I had a legitimately difficult time getting out of it.
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Here are the glass doors to the back deck as seen at night.
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Here are the glass doors to the back deck as seen in the morning light.
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This is the back deck, following Friday night’s rain. This was a really great spot, but it was way too cold to make use of it. Should we ever find ourselves back here in the summer we will definitely make better use of this.
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The room felt a little dated.  Not much though.  The bedrooms down stairs were much more so.  The furnishings could probably go for an update.  We slept in the master bedroom the first night but the bed had a serious sag into the middle.  The rest of the time we slept in one of the other bedrooms and it was 100 times better.  Still, we did not pick this place for the bedroom decor.  We picked it for the hot tub.  Yes, we did.

The tub is outside, below the back deck.  It’s not as private as we hoped it would be.  It was private in that we didn’t have to share it.  It was not private in that there was a house next door that could see it.  My wife has a seriously bad back.  I have a bunch of regular aches and pains in my back and my feet (and my brain, har har).  The air temperature ranged from the high 20’s to the mid 30’s.  Getting from the house to the hot tub took about five steps, but damn those were a cold five steps.  Once we were in the 100 degree water though.  All of our aches and pains washed away.  We both just sat there, melting.  I could have spent the whole weekend in there.  Hell, I could have slept in there.

We didn’t see a single wild animal during our stay.  We were hoping to see a moose, or even a bear.  Assuming, of course, that said moose and bear were close enough for us to see them, but far enough away for them to not be able to see us.  Get it?  At one point I had to go outside after dark to put the cover on the tub.  I had this crazy thought go through my head as I stepped outside that some mountain lion or something was going to try to drag my fat ass off.  I figured if I got jumped by a cat I would try and flip us both into the tub.  Cats hate baths, right?  That would probably be enough to save my life, right?  Right?

Spiral Stairs of Doom

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Untitled, a photo by robj_1971 on Flickr.

There was one major downside to our bed and breakfast this weekend.

The Spiral Staircase of Death and Destruction and Doom!

Tight spiral, tight squeeze, tiny little stairs. Yeah, it made things rough on this particular big footed fat guy.

Oh, and did I mention I’ve been afraid of “triangle stairs” since I was a little kid?