Mike's "Christmas"

What says Christmas like a 12 foot tall poinsettia tree?

Just another left over shot from my visit to the gardens last week.

We still have a ten day shooting rule, right?

Ryan's "Christmas"

I've returned from exile!

I'm pretty sure I used this house a few years ago, but here we go again:

 

 /rl

Cory's Christmas

Baby Emily was Santa's helper this year during Christmas present opening time.

Next week: "Drop"

"Christmas" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Chase"

I spent the late afternoon chasing various trains around the gift shop at Lauritzen Gardens.The had an open house today, and brought the trains indoors. I like trains.

Cory's Chase

Look out Baby Emily!  Mommy's chasing you and she's about to get you!

Next week: "Christmas"

"Chase" is due tomorrow.

Also, I must not have saved the poll for "Fold" at the beginning of the week. I just put a new one - it will run for a week.

/rl

Cory's Fold

If you fold a dollar bill just right, George Washington turns into a mushroom!

Sorry, I was in San Diego all last week for LISA '12 and didn't have a chance to take an actual good picture.

Fred's "Fold"

Christmas cards are folded, and almost ready to be sent out.

Next week: "Chase"

"Fold" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Cory's Bad Idea

Lis has a tall sewing table in our back room, and I have a tall computer desk to go with it.  A few weeks ago I built a tall drawing desk for Maddy too, but she has been sharing Lis's tall chair when she wants to sit at it.  Last week she came up with a bad idea to solve the sharing problem.

Mike's "Bad Idea"

It's a bad idea for me to be posting this without my wife's permission.
It's also a bad idea to play ball with the dogs in the house on fairly new carpet, so I win!

Next week: "Fold"

"Bad Idea" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Fred's "Good Idea"

While visiting my nieces last week, they did some painting.  But to keep the paint off their clothes, we wrapped them in garbage bags.  It worked great, and Camille here even had a little tail as a result.

Cory's Good Idea

Lis has a tall sewing table in our back room, and I have a tall computer desk to go with it.  A few weeks ago I built a tall drawing desk for Maddy too, but she has been sharing Lis's tall chair when she wants to sit at it.  Yesterday she came up with a good idea to solve the sharing problem.

Mike's "Good Idea"

If you own a bar in Omaha, it might be a good idea if you give your patrons some place comfortable to smoke!
Depending on the part of town you are in, you might also want to restrict the bathrooms to patrons only.  (the sign on the door)

Next week: "Bad Idea"

... to follow the "Good Idea"s that are due tomorrow.

I may be back in the game tomorrow. I took down my website a few weeks ago because the host jacked the price up a bit more than I was willing to pay... I may just go with flickr for now.

/rl

Mike's "Thanks"

Tonight I am thankful for hot coffee.
It's been a long afternoon in the garage trying to replace a broken torsion spring on the garage door.

Cory's Thanks

I'm thankful that we don't eat parrots for Thanksgiving, 'cuz they're kind of scrawny looking.  Plus, you would need to choose between red meat and blue meat.

We made a stop at the Omaha Zoo while up in Omaha for Turkey Day, and this guy was happy to pose for me.

Fred's "Thanks"

In moments like these, I'm very thankful for black electric tape.

Next week: "Good idea"

"Thanks" is due today.

/rl

Cory's Clean

Mmm, mmm.  Clean, tasty water.

Fred's "Clean"

A clean white bird (a giant egret) in front of a clean sky.

Next week: "Thanks"

"Clean" due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Contradictory"

I was going through my shirts today, trying to decide which to keep and which to give to the GoodWill.
I've been meaning to wear this one.  I just keep putting it off.

Cory's Contradictory

I don't think these people got what they paid for.

Fred's "Contradictory"

I'm amused by the title of the first song on a recital that Paul and Elise performed this week.

Next week: "Clean"

"Contradictory" is due today.

/rl

Ryan's "Outside"

Sorry. Forgot to update this.

I photographed a wedding last weekend. Before the bride and groom showed up I had a couple friends stand in so I could get the lighting balanced. Indoors was fine, but it would have been nice to have a significantly more powerful flash system for the outside shots..

/rl

Cory's Outside

Last weekend I decided it had gotten to the point outside where I should trade the hummingbird feeder for the normal bird feeder.  Clearly, the birds are feeling a little territorial about it.

Fred's "Outside"

The early winter chill isn't enough to keep these people from enjoying a game outside.

Next week: "Contradictory"

"Outside" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Not Looking"

Here's a friend (at a safe range way out in the hinterlands) not looking through the sights of a MAC-10:

/rl

Mike's "Not Looking"

Cory's Not Looking

Maddy wasn't looking while we were carving pumpkins over the weekend, so I snapped a quick shot of her cleaning hers out.

Next week: "Outside"

Due tomorrow: "Not Looking"

/rl

Cory's Pokey

A detail of the giant pokey cholla cactus in my front yard.

Ryan's "Pokey"

Loki in the pokey:

She was not particularly pleased to participate in WeeklyPhotography this week.

/rl

Mike's "Pokey"

I was wondering around the Old Market looking for something slow.
I came across this "old dude" in a reddish orange set of work clothes that made me wonder if he had just gotten out of "the pokey".  (mid right of frame)

Next week: "Not Looking"

"Pokey" due tomorrow.

/rl

Cory's Deep

We copied off of Mike and went to a pumpkin patch over the weekend.  While there we set baby Emily deeply within this cow's back so she could ride the cow train around the track.  I'm not sure this is how the original cowboys did it...

Mike's "Deep"

I took a trip down to Benson to see the people getting ready for the Zombie walk.

I didn't have time to go for the actual walk, because I had a date to go see ARGO with a couple of ladies, my wife and her friend.  Great movie.

This zombie is deeply interested in what is happening on her iPhone.  In fact, at this time of day, when the zombies are not in character, you see them doing all sorts of normal human things, though sometimes I think that the iPhone can turn you into a zombie.

I saw them using phones, eating pizza, using the bathrooms..

Fred's "Deep"

We finally got the tulip bulbs from Holland into the ground today.  The instructions say they should be buried 4 inches deep.

Next week: "Pokey"

"Deep"  is due tomorrow.

/rl

Cory's Fantasy

We built a playset in the back yard last summer, complete with a fantastic ship wheel I found at Goodwill.  Now Maddy uses it to live out her fantasies of travelling to the ocean, to the zoo, and to Trader Joe's.

Fred's "Fantasy"

This is one of my favorite statues in downtown St. Paul.

Mike's "Fantasy"

Another pic from Vala's last Sunday.  It's Sarpy County's own little fantasy land.

Last week I showed you some goats, but there is an awful lot going on there.  My kids are grown and I have not been there in years, but our company picnic was there and it was an excuse to act like a kid for a couple hours.

If you have time and $20, its a great place to take your camera.  There is stuff for everyone.  I like the pumpkin chucker, but I didn't stay long enough to see it in action.  Its basically a spud gun that would take up half your garage.

Next week: "Deep"

"Fantasy" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Elevated"

Grain must be elevated (by elevators, surprisingly enough) to the top of a silo to fill it.

This is a little silo just west of Millard, NE. There was once a little town around it, but not much remains. At one time I knew the name of the town, but I'm not having any luck with google...

/rl

Cory's Elevated

Down the street from my house are a few houses that are elevated several hundred feet above the canyon floor.  These are not back yards to play football in.

Mike's "Elevated"

Our company's picnic was at Vala's Pumpkin Patch this year.
Though I've only been there a few times now, I always love the goats that live on elevated walkways.  This one is probably about 8 feet in the air.

Fred's "Elevated"

The Ford Pinto is elevated to the automotive status it rightly deserves.

"Elevated" due tomorrow!

Next week: "Fantasy"

/rl

Ryan's "Five"

/rl

Mike's "Five"

Self explanatory...

Fred's 5

Here are 5 shiny all-new completely redesigned 2013 Honda Accords.  Want.

Cory's Five

Here in Los Alamos is a crazy surplus store named The Black Hole, which for many years collected scientific (and not so scientific) equipment from places like lab auctions.  Alas, the end of an era is upon us - the store is closing, and they're trying to get rid of as much junk as they can before the rest is hauled away.  This is one of the items there - an old cash register that, for whatever reason, seems to regard the single-digit five as special enough to get a different-colored button than the other single digits.

Despite wandering around the store for two hours, I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything.  Some of the things I didn't buy include a six-foot wide, 500 pound roll of mylar, some leaking cans of Texxor Heat Cell, some sketchy looking capacitors, some transformers, or anything else for that matter.

If you're feeling jealous of the treasures, there are even more pictures in their own Flickr set to make you even more jealous..

Next week: "Elevated"

"Five" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Celebration"

The only chance I got to use my camera this week, was to photograph the components of the sound system where I do my open mic, so that I can make a manual for hooking it up.  After a year and a half, I have decided to step down from this, and should anyone step up, I want to pass what I know along.
Hence, I have to stretch the topic, as usual, because the picture was shot for a different purpose, but you should be used to that by now!  Sunday night is when I and my fellow musicians celebrate local music.  This is 2200 watts of celebration.

Cory's Celebration

The addition of a pinwheel turns a simple meatball sandwich lunch into a CELEBRATION!

Next week: "Five"

"Celebration" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Monumental"

I found a monumental restoration project for someone:

Actually, a couple projects...

/rl

Cory's Monumental

What's more monumental than Monument Valley?  Lis, Maddy, and Emily were out on the East Coast all last week, so I skipped out on work and took a trip up to Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, and a few places in between.  The three monuments seen here are, from left, West Mitten, East Mitten, and Merrick Butte.

Some more pictures from the trip are up on Flickr.

Fred's "Monumental"

For gearheads, this is pretty monumental.

Mike's "Monumental"

Normally I say, "When I don't leave the house for a picture, it's a punt.", but I have been staring at this tiny structure alongside my television this week wondering what the story is.

I have decided that ancient druid ants, possibly of alien decent, used methods beyond our imagination to hoist these heavy object on top of this white structure.

Over time their weight has shifted.  Their existence only to be saved by a nearby structure.  All of this, quite monumental.

Next week: "Celebration"

"Monumental" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Inverted"

This is Spotswood. She lives with Jenny's sister and her family. There's a fair amount of evidence the she has at least one inverted chromosome.

The picture doesn't really do her justice....

/rl

PS: Yes... her eyes do track independently.