Cory's Acronym

To find a good acronym, one needs to look no further than the world of computing. My officemate was reading RFC 4391 (Transmission of IP over InfiniBand (IPoIB)) last week, and when he started complaining of ill-defined acronyms I knew I had found my winner. This isn't a particularly photogenic shot, but it sure is chock-full of acronyms.

Ryan's "Acronym"

SCUBA, or Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, is extremely useful when you need to work on the bottom of a pond.



One of the subdivisions I manage had a pipe in the pond that needed to be capped. At one point it contained electrodes for a depth sensor that controlled the well that fills the pond. That system has been removed, leaving a pipe that threatened to drain the pond.

I asked a friend who leads a nearby volunteer fire department's dive team to help me out. For some reason he and a friend were all excited about going swimming in 40 degree (F) water....

/rl

Mike's "Acronym"

This company in Millard always intrigued me because I could never figure out what the letters B.I.G. stood for. I even went to their website, and some others that showed up in Google to try an figure it out. Still. It has periods, it must be an acronym, or the joke is on all of us!



I also checked the German cemetery at 138 & Harrison for an R.I.P. given the season, but Germans don't seem to do tacky things like that on their markers. I did not realize how many old markers were in that cemetery. You should visit, and take a camera.

- M. Mueller

"Door(s)" next week!

PYAT! *

/rl

*(Post Your Acronyms Tomorrow)

Cory's "Trees for the Forest"

There are a number of trees that overhang my house, and sometimes I feel like I need to clean the gutters out every single time it rains. But here's a corner I haven't gotten to for a while - right up next to the house it doesn't really contribute to clogging much. These are the little trees that I've been growing all summer for the forest. I guess it will be time to transplant them soon.

Ryan's "Trees for the Forest"

Quentin and I went wandering at Heron Haven, a little nature preserve in Omaha. At times it was difficult to see the forest for the trees (although the snow played a part, too):




/rl

Mike's "Trees for the Forest"

I suppose I should be out taking pictures of fall foliage. My daughter and I are going to do that this week if the sun comes out.

Ideas for this one popped into my head all week. Like, the garage where I can't find anything. I decided to apply it to what I do for a living. I'm a computer nerd.



Sometimes, when you have worked on a project for hours, the answer is simple, but you can no longer see "The Trees for the Forest". The function only returns the word "Forest" because it has an error in it.

Craig's Trees For the Forest

We have a new building at work. It borders a forest preserve. Right outside my window, I see a giant oak tree (behind a chain link fence). It has these balconies on floors 2 through 6 that look out over the preserve to the north. It's quite a pretty view.

I had a hard time deciding which shot I liked best. In my runners up, I like this one because it shows the line between the forest and the building pretty nicely. And this one I like because it shows the leaves changing (and I love using my 300mm lens).

But I'm throwing in with this one. I think I like this one best because of the sky. Thus, I present my Trees for the Forest. Without them, Waterfall Glen would be a pretty weird forest preserve.

(Fun fact: Waterfall Glen is not named such because it has a waterfall. It was, in fact, named Rocky Glen, but was renamed in honor of Seymour "Bud" Waterfall.)

(Funner fact: I'm not making that up.)

Mike has taken control!

(but I know where he lives..)

Mike and I have discussed getting a hostname for this blog, but never followed through. From the email I just received, it seems he picked up weeklyphotography.org:

_____SNIP______
Its set up, and it looks like the DNS has populated... that does not mean it has populated everywhere yet, so if you hear of any problems, let me know and I will back the change off...

http://www.weeklyphotography.org/

http://weeklyphotography.org/

and

http://weeklyphotography.blogspot.com/

Should redirect here.


ha ha ha ha, I'm in complete control !!! (well, OK anyone with admin can change it back to the way it was)

____UNSNIP____

We didn't discuss this with anyone else, so speak up if you don't like it.

Thanks Mike!

Back to your regularly scheduled photo contest.

/rl

Next week : "Acronyms"

"Trees for the forest" due tomorrow.

/rl

Q's post-911

Much like Cory, I've got to make this a place-holder post. I've spent the past few days in Vancouver, B.C. and haven't been able to put any thought into my photo. Soon, though. Soon.

Craig's Post 9/11

I wanted to go take pictures of airplanes and trains, but that's been problematic for the past 8 years for some reason.

Cory's Post 9/11

Lis, Maddy, and I headed up to Minneapolis this last weekend to visit Mary, Sandy, and Will for a few days. On the way I saw this weird trailer go past, and on it was an even weirder sticker. I don't really know what it means: If you threaten us with a revolver, we won't call the police? We'll threaten you with our revolver instead of calling the police? If you have a heart attack or your house is on fire, we'll give you a revolver instead of calling for help? I just can't quite make sense of it.

Whatever the case, when I saw it and managed to get a picture, I turned to Lis and said "That's gonna be my 'Post 9/11' picture!" Had I planned ahead far enough I would have sent myself a postcard on September 11 and then taken a picture of the postmark (Get it? Ha!), but I think this little sticker nicely embodies the subject at hand.

Ryan's "Post 9/11"

I had planned to take a photo similar to this one, but with the Bill of Rights rights burning instead of the demonic Sudoku from hell. Unfortunately I forgot to take a copy of the Bill of Rights with me... so much for my political statement.

Instead, I give you a red tree. As much as the September 11 attacks affected the United States (and the rest of the world) life goes on. The seasons have continued to change.


/rl

Michael's "Post 9/11"

After 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security was formed. A division of that department is “Rural Addressing”. Counties were ask to replace their ambiguous “rural routes” with grid type street mapping based off the county seat or some other large city in the area. Even the dirt road leading down to our farm in the sand hills now has a street number.

The department has asked counties to use large legible green signs with reflective white lettering. Though not a mandate, this is their suggestion and what they will help fund. I do not know if I drove far enough to find a newly marked intersection for this picture, but I thought it interesting that a newer marker had been put up, yet the old remains.

Beware terrorist cells attempting your startup on some out of the way pig farm. We know your address.

"Post 9/11" due before bed tonight!

Many apologies for being late - I was out of the reach of the interwebz this weekend.

Let's do "Trees for the Forest" next.

/rl

Q's "on the verge"

I'm on the verge of moving and have this (and lots of other) paperwork to do.

Craig's On The Verge

I'm sorry I have nothing new this week, so I offer this from the archives.

At the top of Mauna Kea, almost 8:00 Hawaii time. It's on the verge between day and night, and you're on the verge of being able to make out my subject!

Ryan's "On the verge"

We're on the verge of fall in Nebraska. Trees are starting to change, nights are cool, and the sun is setting earlier and earlier.

I wandered around at Schramm Park today. This is the best I could come up with:


/rl

Cory's "On the Verge"

As you can see, we're on the verge of starvation in the Lueninghoener household.

Sadly, there's no exciting story behind this one. It's just a can of Quality Kraut in an empty cupboard. Mmm, Kraut!

Mike's "On the Verge"

The Sapp Brothers truck stop at Highway 50 and I-680 has an iconic water tower that has been around as long as I can remember. It looks like a large coffee pot. My first memories of it are from trips to Gretna to see relatives. It and Gretna seemed so far away then, but the city has grown. It's “on the verge” of a new look.



Most of us who travel by it, are used to its red, white and black colors. The last couple of weeks, it has been under this large paint curtain with a coat of white on it. It is an odd site. I'm sure the guy working on it, feels “on the verge” as well! I should mention that Sapp Brothers is a chain, and that there are many of these water towers in the mid-West.

Next week: "Post 9/11"

"On the verge" is on the verge of being due.

/rl

Q's "don't touch"

This is a sign I've always liked on a statue of a horse not far from my apartment.

Craig's Don't Touch!

I started taking ukulele lessons. Just because. Unfortunately, I have wide fingertips, which means I'm having the same issue on the uke as I was with the guitar -- dead strings. So I kludged up a solution!

I bought a baritone uke (it's *biiig*), and strung it up with tenor strings (since baritones have a different tuning). Now my fingers aren't covering more strings than they're supposed to be!

New instruments are a bear to keep in tune. I imagine my kludge-y stringing is even more so. So it's nice and satisfying when I can light up my tuner all green with perfectly tuned strings. But it's super-sensitive. Once you get it in tune, you don't want to touch those pegs. Example demonstrated here.

Ryan's "Don't Touch!"

Roses have an odd way of saying "I am soft" and "Don't Touch!" at the same time.

Incidentally, they are apparently tasty in drinks, too.



/rl

Mikes "Don't Touch!"

This week I found myself in all sorts of peril. I tried to take pictures of Wasps and Bees. I attempted to take a dog's bone away from him.

I imagine that I had found a rattle snake, I would have tried to milk it.

Cory's "Don't touch!"

We've been giving Maddy actual food lately: bananas, green beans, rice cereal - the normal stuff. In the above case she was "eating" apple sauce, which involves intercepting the spoon as it approaches her mouth and pulling the food off with her hand. After each "eating" episode, we have two parents with sticky hands and one baby with sticky everything. You definitely don't want to touch her after that.

On a side note, I believe that the cleanup of eating babies is a great study in exponential decay. If you clean the high chair tray first, she dirties it up again with her hands. If you clean her hands first, she messes them up again from the contents of the tray. Instead, you have to trade back and forth between the two, cleaning off one half-life worth of goo with each pass. Eventually the amount of mess remaining drops below ambient levels and she is safe to handle again.

Next week - "On the verge"

"Don't Touch!" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Craig's Fingerprint

I own a few computers, and almost all of them have glass screens. It's taking some getting used to, even though I'm approaching a year of use -- the matte screen is just better at hiding flaws. But the glass screens are so bright and vibrant. Honestly, I don't know what I prefer. It sure does attract fingerprints, though.

Cory's Fingerprint

"And friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints."

Ryan's "Fingerprint"

It seems there's always some jerk that can't look at the little map to figure out which chocolate is which:

The culprit left partial fingerprints. I need the CSI folks - but not CSI Miami. I can't stand David Caruso.

/rl

Mike's "Fingerprint"

I wanted to do some real CSI work, but I would probably just end up implicating myself that the prints on the garage light switch are mine.

We have a Family Video down the street from us, and what you see below is a common problem.



If your kid comes to you with a PBJ sandwich and wonders why his Wii does not work. Check the disk.

Next week: "Don't Touch!"

I think Cory came up with this topic after being inspired by Maddy.

"Fingerprint" due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Fractal"

Sorry, I am late. I spent the weekend on the family homestead, though I took quite a few pictures there.

Being an aging techie, this should not have been so difficult for me. Having owned computers where the memory was measured in kilobytes, fractal generators were quite common for break time amusement. Very long breaks.

I too decided to look for fractals in nature. I explored pond scum, cow poop, blow-outs, anything with repeating patterns, and this is my submission.




I also considered using this picture of what I believe to be ragweed.

Q's fractal

My fractal is a stretch. It's along the same lines as Ryan's -- in that it's one that appears in nature -- but in this case it's one I'm depicting. This is a frame from a time-interval video that I'm putting together on an illustration I'm working on. In this part I'm cutting out a tree trunk.

Ryan's "Fractal"

A fractal often enjoyed with cheese:




/rl

Cory's Fractal

A few years ago, I was inspired by a picture I found in the internetses to build some Mega Lego: large-scale versions of normal Lego pieces. Luckily, I never took them apart and was able to pull them out for a quick fractal photo shoot. I also built a washing machine piece, but I sadly wasn't able to find it for this picture.

And yes, you can build stuff with the big pieces. Just not very exciting stuff.

"Fractal" due today!

Next week we will do "Fingerprint".

/rl

Q's questionable

Last week I borrowed a stamp set from my friend Casey for a project. On the night I returned them to her, I remembered hearing of a man on a bus with 'c-a-s-h o-n-l-y' tattooed on his knuckles, and I couldn't help but replicate that. I'd always wondered what line of work a man might be in that would prompt him to advise on his fists that his services are only available via cash payment. I'm sure it's questionable, though. Thanks to Casey for the help on it . . .

Ryan's "Questionable"

So I had the honor of attending a baby shower this weekend. Thankfully, scary games involving diapers and chocolate were only discussed, not played.

The father showed up wearing this shirt:


I though his chances of survival were pretty questionable.

/rl

Craig's Questionable

I love cats. I also love how they walk with their little question mark tails, as if to ask a question.

Here, Count Chocula asks "Are you sure you want to take my picture?"

Cory's Questionable

Most of the things that came to my mind for this week involved making Madeline do absurd things (like driving the Beetle), but in the end this one seemed safest and easiest. This one is titled "Questionable Parenting." I look forward to some parenting group contacting me shortly.

Next week - "Fractal"

"Questionable" due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's Questionable

I know we had an entry with cucumbers just a few weeks ago, but when I was contemplating this weeks topic, I happened to be picking some and found this critter wedged in the fence. Eureka!



Is a cucumber a fruit? That is questionable. Most of my relatives say it is a vegetable. The definition of fruit is: the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant. That makes a cucumber, tomato, or even a squash a fruit.

The definition of a vegetable is, however: edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant. Hence one could argue the case either way or that the cucumber is both.

Q's fashionably frowned upon

I actually made this mistake. This is an image from my phone shot in my office's elevator lobby after looking down and noticing my shoes.

Fashionably Frowned Upon

Bleah, I'm not happy with what I've got this week, but I'm tired of trying.

The World's Ugliest Shirt makes its reappearance, alongside the Brightest Vest in the World, combined with tattered denim shorts, black socks, and suede brown slippers for an ensemble I proudly own, but never put together all at once.

Until now.

Ryan's "Fashionably Frowned Upon"

High on the list of "fashionably frowned upon" items would be firearms. Even higher on that list would be firearms governed by the National Firearms Act of 1934, a group that includes machine guns, short rifles and shotguns, silencers, pen guns, and hand grenades among other items.

While everyone frowns in public when the topic of guns comes up, I have never seen anyone walk away from running a belt through a Browning 1919 without a smile on their face. Even Charles "I never met a gun ban I didn't sign" Schumer enjoys playing with "assault weapons " when he isn't busy restricting the commoners from owning them.

I went shooting with some friends last weekend. Several hundred machine guns were used to expend many thousands of rounds. At least 100 pounds of high explosives were used to reshape a small section of the sand hills. Everyone left happy, including this kid:




The above gun is for sale, if anyone is interested. It's located in Nebraska, transferable on a Form 4. $18k will get the gun, tripod, bipod, belt loading machine, a bunch of belts, spare parts, and around 10k rounds of .308. $12,800 gets the gun and bipod. Contact me in the comments if you want to be put in touch with the seller. NFA rules apply.


/rl

Mike's Fashionably Frowned Upon

There are many people in my family that I could have made fun of. Growing up, there was one set of cousins we called "The Plaid Family" because that's all they wore, both shirts and pants.

I decided to make fun of myself. I have no trouble being an idiot. I tried a couple of different approaches, and this is my entry. It's why I get beat up at biker rallies.



My other idea was at Click Here and was voted down by my family as emotionally disturbing.

Cory's Fashionably Frowned-upon

I was out in Rhode Island over the weekend, and on one of the days we went out and played in the bigger-than-normal waves that Hurricane Bill was causing. While there I saw gulls, more gulls, and a sea vessel the likes of which I have never seen before. I also saw a sight that I thought was rather fashionably frowned upon (as well as frowned upon in general).

Next week: "Questionable"

"Fashionably frowned upon" due in about 24 hours.

/rl

Q's architecture

I'm always the tardy one. I apologize. This week's excuse is that I lent my lens to a friend and didn't get it back until last night.

This is a dilapidated house a few blocks from my apartment, and has been on the verge of condemnation since I moved here. I think some community group ended up buying it and is trying to raise money to fix it up. But I think it looks cool even half-falling-down.

A closer look here.

Ryan's "Architecture"

I had a bit of trouble on this one. There is plenty of interesting architecture around, but it's often difficult to capture. Without a lens (or body) with tilt and shift adjustments it can be impossible to create photos that don't make the viewer dizzy. I counted my pennies and was only around $1898.23 away from being able to get a suitable lens.

I lucked out, though. A friend is moving into the old Columbian School. It was designed by John Latenser, Sr in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It still looks very much like an old school:



/rl

Cory's Architecture

I was kind of lazy on this one. Downers Grove was hosting the National Championships of Cycling races this weekend, so we packed up the stroller and walked downtown to watch them for a while on Saturday and Sunday. We saw a whole bunch of people riding around the streets while we were there, including a couple of impressive wipeouts and a first-place guy sprinting for the finish line. The sudden bursts of violent rain we got on Sunday made things all that more exciting.

Whatever the case, here's my architecture picture. Downtown Downers Grove is full of buildings that were put up in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and this is the cap of the entryway to the building at Curtiss and Main.

Mike's Architecture

I actually found this week hard. The word is almost as broad as "air". Old bridges, new buildings, my mind raced and raced, and punted and took this picture of the Joslyn Castle. click here if you don't know its history



I still went to Creighton and downtown, West Omaha, but I've always liked this eccentric "little" house.

Craig's Architecture

First!

Next week: "Fashionably frowned upon"

"Architecture" due tomorrow!

I need a vote - I took some photos earlier today that may be useful for this topic. Can I use them?

/rl

Q's big

The moon. It's big. And would be bigger if I had something longer than 100mm.

Ryan's "Big"

Smugmug has returned to the living.

Jenny spotted these sunflowers in the middle of the week. Up until Saturday night they were beautiful, but a large rainstorm hammered them pretty badly Sunday morning. I should have taken the photo Saturday, but it was 1,000 degrees (14 hectares for you metric folk) outside. They're still pretty big, though.






/rl

Craig's Big

I'm sick, and was traveling most of today, so I'm going into the archives. Sorry.

Seven years seems like a pretty big punishment for removing a survey marker.

Cory's Big

I'm not going to win any awards with this picture, but it does show off how big the things in our garden are getting. Lis plants cucumbers every year so she can make a big batch of pickles in the fall, and every year we end up with some big cucumber that doesn't get picked all season. So here it is: The Big Cucumber. For scale, this thing is at least a meter tall. At least.

After seeing Mike's post, I should have run down south and taken a picture of the Muffler Man that lives in Wilmington. Oh, well.

Mike's Big

He's the man with the hand, the big hand! He resides off of I-80 and Center by the car wash, and I consider him to be "The Father of all Chuckies". He is quite disturbing.



I also considered re-shooting this shot of the First National Tower, since its the tallest thing in town, but let's stick with the bizarre.

Next week - "Architecture"

"Big" due tomorrow!

/rl