My 2012 in Pictures – Part Deux

Yeah, I did a my-year-in-pictures thing the other day. It was fun. What the hell, thought I, why not do it again? This time I’ll run fast and loose with the whole one-pic-from-each-month thing. I’m crazy like that.

We have to get our pics of the Sands Bridge in Methuen before she collapses. Or maybe I should say before she finishes collapsing. It’s already started. Also, I don’t think I found a relative in the Grove Street Cemetery, but who knows?

In February I finally finished an RPM Challenge on time. It only took me five tries. We also got a new bed. Jen’s penguin approved.

In March, the kids and I became wilderness explorers. Hipstamatic came along for the ride. Actually, we just wandered around in the woods behind our house for a little while. It was fun.

April in San Diego. I want to go back RIGHT NOW!

May gave us baseball, Bar Harbor, and my first up close New England Lighthouse.

The picture pickin’s are slim in June, but we did get a new Rush album (and it is awesome) and we got another fantastic piano recital from the kids.

July offers more choices after a spontaneous trip to Boston, and a week long stay in Maine that included some time in the mountains of New Hampshire.

In August we went to the Top of the Hub for the first time in my life. The views of my city were spectacular. We also spent some twilight time on Hampton Beach.

September had mountain waterfalls, leaf peeping, my first ever attempt at photo-walking in Tewksbury, and more Rush.

October continues to belong to Washington, DC.

The camera didn’t come out much in November, but I did torture the cat, and my wife, with my camera phone, and we did celebrate Turkey Day.

December had more mountains, more mountain streams, and Christmas.

And there we have a second view of my 2012 in pictures. Forgive the gratuitousness.

Happy New Year (again).

Sickness Continues for Both of Us

Yesterday I felt like dung. Today I feel like dung again. Sniffles, sneezing, lots of coughing, stuffy head, post nasal drip, all sorts of garbage like that.

Still, it doesn’t measure up to what we feared about my wife yesterday.

Jen has had a rough time with antibiotics lately. After stopping her course of antibody number two, she had a nasty headache on Wednesday. Yesterday evening it came back, along with some weird sensations on her face. The emergency room was recommended by her doctor’s office. It turned out to be just another mild illness piled on top of the other nastiness she’s been fighting off for three weeks or so. She’s okay, just not feeling terribly well.

They took her out of the room to do some tests and I fought my nerves by playing with hipstamatic… as usual.

I even took a creepy hipsta-selfie.

Today we get to see how the new antibiotic goes. Her work schedule is very full today, so I haven’t heard anything from her. I sent her a “how ya feelin'” email, but no word yet. I take that as a good thing. If she were feeling sick she’d tell me.

I love her.

I adore her.

I want her to be feeling better.

ER

This is what the emergency room looks like:

This is what the emergency room feels like:

My Assistant

Patches likes to come out and try to help me work whenever I telecommute. Not right away though. She has to have her 6+ hour power nap first, so she comes out and says hello at about 3:30.

January 3rd

Really, Mother Nature? Really? You’re dumping this crap on us today?

My cold is back. I suppose this is black plague day 13535236 or so. This sick just won’t go away. I am working from home today. If I had to make the long drive in to the office I probably would have called in sick. I am so tired of this. Jen, my beautiful, beloved wife, was feeling awful again yesterday too. She’s better today, but can we get a break please? I would be grateful for a little stretch of time where I didn’t have a box of tissues glued to me. This blows! (pause as the narrator blows his nose… again)

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.

As usual, February focused on the RPM Challenge. This year my saxophone came out of retirement.

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.

April brought us back to San Diego and I swear, each time we go there it gets harder and harder to come home.

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.

June was very quiet, photography wise, but we did get another piano recital in the wonderful Nevins Library in Methuen.

In July we spent a week on Long Lake in Maine. I managed to accidentally take a few pictures that didn’t suck.

In August we spent a day wandering around Portsmouth, NH including Strawbery Banke.

In September we took the kids to see Rush. Now they know what I’ve been talking about all this time.

In October we took the kids to Washington, DC and tried our best to see everything in the short time we were there.

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.

In December my wife and I ran off together to the mountains for a few days. It was wonderful to get away.

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.

Moon Over the Gas Station

iPhone Astrophotography: The Moon Over the Gas Station.

We had a snow storm Saturday night into Sunday. I cleaned off the cars and the driveway on Sunday morning, but then stayed home for the rest of the day. When I took the kids to their father’s before work today I realized that I was a touch low on gas. I could probably get to work, but probably couldn’t get there and back without a fill up.

After dropping the kids off I went to a gas station near their dad’s house. I hit the button next to the driver’s seat to open up the gas tank and went outside… and the gas tank didn’t open. Ummm. That’s never happened before. I tried again. Nothing. I tried prying it open with the only tool I had on me, a pen cap. Nothing. Eventually, after about five minutes of digging and prying with the pen cap, and hitting the button over and over again, it opened and I could fill up. I took a picture of the moon to memorialize the occasion.

Happy New Year.

Dueling iPads

My beloved is locked in a dueling iPads game of Monopoly against her daughter. They are both listening to music at the same time so when they talk about the game they are both yelling.

I couldn’t love my family more.