I very much enjoyed today’s Winter Photography Class at Matthaei. It was taught by Mark O’Brien. We had a little bit of instruction and then all went out and wandered together in the winter woods, playing with exposure, watching our batteries drain exceptionally fast, shivering a bit, and having fun. At the end of the day, it was 11° F, -12° C. Mark has some nice photos from the event on his Flickr, including this one which has me in it so it is my favorite.
Tag: Ann Arbor
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Cool planes at KARB
There were wonderful planes today at the Ann Arbor Airport (KARB).
The Stearman was out, but Chris is often there with it. He was offering flights in it as a fundraiser for Great Commission Air. Perhaps the jets were there for the same reason?
We went for a joyride to Marshall and back, and on our return we were surprised to hear of “traffic” landing before us that was currently at our 5 o’clock (that is, behind us). After the Alpha Jet completely dusted our Cessna-182, we landed, hearing a MiG talking to Ann Arbor Tower, arranging for a touch-and-go after our landing. Well, as we taxied back to the NW T hangars, the MiG buzzed the runway 2x, never even touching. It came in really fast and quite low (just feet off the ground), the second time it had its afterburners on. Wow!
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My random notes from ArbCamp
ArbCamp was Saturday 10/27.
What amazed me was the number of students who were able to attend – driving to Ann Arbor from E. Lansing, Flint, and some coming from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area. Talking to the students was a highlight for me. The only business cards I exchanged were with students. I think my first business card was post-grad-school-graduation, so this particular crop of students has several years of wisdom on myself at that age. They impressed me for their preparation, their entrepreneurism, and their networking skills.
Here’s a list of websites I jotted down:
- blueprintcss – Google code to reduce development time
- Andrew Turner’s mapufacture
- platial – social networking & maps
- dapper – a content aggregator
- virb – social networking
- Yahoo! mash – social networking (learn more at techcrunch)
- ning – social networking
- collectivex – social networking
- a small world – social networking for the very rich?
Here’s the “new idea” that everyone else seemed to know but me: microformats.
- Wikipedia entry on microformats
- Firefox plugin – Operator (learn more, get it)
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Black walnut bounty
Black walnuts that were “squirreled” away in our garage. Today is a beautiful fall day, clear blue skies, high 70s, warm sun. I decided it was time to rake the leaves in the backyard. We have a big, beautiful black walnut tree back there. It has lovely, feathery leaves, and when we fly over our neighborhood, I think it is the biggest tree on our block.
Every fall, it drops its leaves, its leaf rachises, and its fruit. The fruit is about 1.5-2 inches in diameter, with a green skin, and they drop with a bang onto the roof of our garage.
This year, the neigborhood squirrels seem to have been especially active. They salted away so many nuts in the planter for my dwarf orange tree that they eventually completely uprooted it, killing it. Today, when I went into our garage to get the rake and the lawn & leaf bags, I saw that the squirrels have decided to take a new tack. They have been piling up black walnut fruits onto a work surface in the garage–they have filled Dave’s old ski boots, filled some ceramic pots, and even started to place black walnuts along the groove in our ski rack.
After seven years of living here, this is the first time we’ve seen anything like this. Either our squirrels have learned a new skill, have forgotten what they know about burying nuts, or are preparing for a very long winter.
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Mind-eraser
Sometimes my body, especially my left knee, which I injured in college playing rugby, feels as if someone took me apart at the joints and put me back together wrong, twisted. Sometimes a massage therapist puts me back together perfectly. And sometimes a massage sends me to another planet.
I had one of those mind-eraser massages tonight, the kind where I’m out cold on the table, and when it ends I have to work to recall how to use my body to get up and dress, and when conversation is even more of a strain than usual, and when I’m glad I’ve pre-written the check so I don’t have to remember how to use a pen or how to spell my name, and when it takes some extra concentration to walk out of the room and to find my way home. When I feel absolutely still and quiet and gentle and I want to make the stillness last.
Kelly Clark – Two Hands for Massage
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
tel: 734.623.8551 -
Stadium near Trader Joe’s is the center of Ann Arbor Dentistry
Ok, ok, the sample size is 6. But 3 of the recommended dentists within walking distance of downtown Ann Arbor or on a bus line all fall in the same spot on this map. The lower right “pin” in the map is actually 3 pins. You’ll notice Google maps gave it a “thicker”/”deeper” shadow.
Hmmm. Because all 3 dentists have the exact same street address–Sandra Embree 2340 Stadium, Tammy Trullard 2340 Stadium, and Maryann Griffith 2340 Stadium, it appears to be impossible to get their tacks to “resolve” into 3 no matter how much I zoom in! It also looks like the last one I added is the only one that is clickable here. If you click “view larger map” at the bottom, you’ll see all 6 on maps.google.com.
Yes, this post is really me just fooling with putting a map in my blog.