Game Pieces and a Softbox

The theme in the Macro Mondays group on Flickr was "game pieces" this week. We don't have too many games around here anymore. Most all of the games we play are electronic, so there aren't any physical pieces to photograph.

I've been looking around for better ways to light my subjects. I've been thinking about getting an umbrella and/or reflector. While doing some research and looking at other people's photo, I noticed that soft boxes are popular for light. I forget where, but I read one article about making your own soft box. I decided to give it a try. I took a shoebox and lined it with aluminum foil. I cut a hole in one end just large enough for one of my flash units. I covered the top of the box with some tracing paper to diffuse the light. I used that as the main light in the macros below.

I couldn't resist using Scrabble tiles to spell out the name of the group. I'm sure there will be a lot of people doing something like this.



I thought the colors of the pieces used to keep track of your armies in the game of Risk would make an interesting shot. I think this photo best illustrates how the soft box placed to the right gives a soft illumination but still casts a bit of a shadow to the left of the game pieces.



Finally, here are two photos of some Hanafuda cards.

Calm After the Storm

The snowstorm that hit the Cincinnati area ended late afternoon on Saturday. The official snowfall measurement at the airport beat the previous record from 1968 by a tenth of an inch -- just over 10 inches for the storm. But places on the East side of the area that were closer to the low pressure system got up to 15 inches.

The wind died down and I went out to take a couple photos last night. The lights reflecting off the fresh blanket of white snow made for some interesting subjects.

The black and white photo of the ridges formed in the snowdrift was illuminated by a low light that is one of many on the path around a nearby pond. Since it's only a couple feet off the ground, the grazing light brought out the ridges of the drift.



This photo was taken from our steps, looking down on the outside light between us and our neighbor. Dianne pointed out the interesting pile of snow on top of the light. It's an HDR image constructed from several exposures.



This HDR photo is one of the lakes in our complex. You can just see the lighted fountain in the distance.



This HDR photo is the entry drive into our complex. The snow plows hadn't visited us yet, so the snow just got packed solid by the cars coming in and out. You can see the tail lights of one car that came in while I was setting up for the photo. I like the way the reflected light illuminates the trees that overhang the drive.

Winter Storm

The Cincinnati area turned into a winter wonderland in the past 30 hours. We have had 10+ inches since the storm started yesterday. Both of us came home from work yesterday at lunch time. It was a good thing as the there were only a couple inches of snow on the ground then, but the roads were starting to get slippery. The snow just kept coming and the wind picked up last night so we had some drifting too. We woke up this morning to at least 10 inches and it is still coming down. It’s going to take awhile to get all the roads plowed. In the meantime, we’re enjoying the white blanket that we got.

Here is Dianne shoveling out around our cars.



Our neighbor’s steps don’t even look like steps anymore – just a ramp of snow.



Another couple in our neighborhood was out for their usual morning walk, even though the snow was still coming down. You can see some of the snow blowing off the roof of the garage.



The ruler on my car shows 8 inches of snow after I got home! You have to look at the large version on Flickr to read the ruler.



Finally, I saw this robin sitting in a tree when I was walking around taking pictures during the storm. It’s either a mixed up robin or a sign that even though we got hit hard, Spring is right around the corner.

CRG Event and a New Blog Find

I noticed on Miss Print's blog the poster for the Cincinnati Rollergirls' pre-home season opener event. It's a battle of local bands and the winner(s) will be playing at the home bouts. A great idea for an event and also for entertainment at the bouts. Read MP's blog or the poster to see the other activities planned -- as well as a chance to meet the skaters. Sounds like fun.

My Google alerts turned up a nice surprise today. Brian, the proud husband of Skates With Fists, has set up a blog for Skates With Fists fans. Skates is one of the Cincinnati Rollergirls skaters that did some good jammer work last season. I'm looking forward to reading Brian's local derby blog. Here is a photo from last season of Skates as a jammer sprinting around the track. I also like the photo below showing Skates at the starting line, waiting for a jam to get organized. I like the way that both her and the ref, Poliza, have the same pose.

That find pushed me over the edge and I finally made an overdue update of my blog rolls on the right side. Check out the links to some great blogs of many frequent visitors here.

Junk Drawer Items

My macro photo project for last Monday was an easier theme -- items from your junk drawer. Everyone has one of those. I pulled a few things from our drawer and took a few quick photos. Here are the results. Click on an image to go to Flickr to see a larger version and read the captions.

Crosswind Landing

Crosswind landings can be tricky. When I was learning to fly, the day came for my first solo cross country trip (a journey and landing to an airport more than 55 miles from your starting point). My instructor (Mike) and I had talked about it for several days and we picked out an airport with good navigation aids. I had the trip all planned out. When I arrived at the airport, Mike and I talked about the weather and the flight. It was kind of windy and the forecast was for a fairly stiff crosswind at my destination. Mike suggested planning an alternate destination that was only about 10 miles away where the wind would be blowing right down the runway in case I couldn't land at the first airport. It was a wise thing as I tried 3 approaches to land at the first airport and realized the crosswind was too much for me to touch down. I went to the alternate, landed, and completed the return flight without any trouble.

When landing you want the axis of the fuselage lined up with the runway to minimize the stress on the landing gear and the likelihood of veering out of control when you touch down. But if you set up an approach that way when the wind is blowing across the runway, it also blows the plane sideways away from the runway. So to stay lined up with the runway in a crosswind, you point the nose into the wind (a crab) just a bit to compensate for the drift and keep the plane moving along the extended runway centerline. There is a good diagram of that approach here. However, that means the fuselage isn't lined up with the runway. One method to land from that approach involves using the rudder and ailerons to remove the crab and align the plane with the runway just before touching down. That way the plane's landing gear isn't stressed and the configuration needed for this is done at a low altitude. It's tricky and doing it well takes some practice.

The other day we saw this video of an airbus trying to land in a crosswind. Luckily the pilot did a go around at the last minute. It's a tough landing even for the commercial pilot!

Contemporary Arts Center

Today we ventured to downtown Cincinnati to visit the Contemporary Arts Center. We've lived here 15+ years and had never been. Funny, but generally we don't take advantage of things in our own backyard. Part of the impetus for going was a photo contest at work in conjunction with the local Fine Arts Fund drive. The photos are supposed to show people enjoying the arts at one of the places supported by the fund. It's been going on for several weeks, and unfortunately participation in the contest is minimal. I thought I'd enter a few photos.

Aside from the lobby (the HDR image at right -- click to see a larger version in Flickr), there is only one area in the CAC where you can take photos (which is pretty annoying -- why can't you take non-flash photos?) and that is the UnMuseum gallery on the 6th floor. That gallery has several interactive exhibits.

This is Dianne peeking in the drawers of "Sight Unseen: The Sensory Elephant" by Eric Brass and a host of other artists. Click on the link to read a detailed description of the work.



This is me in the work "Above and Below: The Hypar Room" by Allan Wexler. For a math geek, the floor in this work was really cool. The perspective in the photo looks odd, but that's because the floor was a steep curve in this part and the tables and chairs were tilted where I was sitting.



My favorite shot was Dianne at "Zeloso Paavo's Hands" by Anthony Luensman. She's a good sport to serve as a model. Sensors in the frame recognize your hand movements and cause orchestral music to play. The camera exposure was set for the sunlight coming through the skylight in the stairwell behind the glass. To get Dianne exposed properly, I used two flashes (one low and left and one held at shoulder level to the right. The light is balanced nicely and you can see the neon sign light at the top of the exhibit. The only thing I'd change is to raise the left flash much higher to get rid of the shadow behind the neon sign. So much to think about, but all the reading on the Strobist Blog is helping out.



Overall, we weren't too impressed with the museum. There wasn't a lot to see, and aside from a couple of the works in the Space Is The Place exhibit, I wasn't wowed. Nevertheless, got some OK shots.

Me as a Car

Thanks to Angie at the My Crazy Life blog, I saw this quiz: Which Sports Car are You? Not too bad.

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Did You See It?

It was a great, clear night here to see the lunar eclipse last night. I didn't have too much success getting a good picture. I had the best luck when part of the moon was still outside the shadow of the Earth. The picture below shows the eclipse when it was close to being full -- just a little direct sunlight on the right side. The refracted light illuminating the moon in the Earth's shadow was a bit red. Hope you got a chance to see it.

Double Dipping -- Yuck

It was not quite a year ago that Harold McGee, a food/food science writer for the New York Times, summarized some Clemson University research on the 5 second rule for food. Of course that article caught my eye. It's no secret I'm a germ-o-phobe that would find that work fascinating.

But I missed another article that he wrote a couple weeks ago about more research done by the same Clemson researcher. A friend of mine at work pointed out Harold's recent article. In this recent work, the Clemson folks studied the act of double dipping a chip in dip -- incorporated into our pop culture by George Costanza in this Seinfeld episode. As you can imagine, just like the five second rule, it's not a good idea to double dip. I laughed at Harold's quote of Professor Dawson that gives a high level summary of the results: “The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

We Have Ours...

...do you have yours? Tickets are available for the Cincinnati Rollergirls home events. You can buy single event tickets through Ticketmaster or get a set of VIP season tickets through the Cincinnati Gardens box office. There has been a lot of discussion about the upcoming season on the Roller Derby Diva's blog. I'm looking forward to another exciting season of derby action.

Diptychs

This weeks photo theme in the Macro Mondays group was diptych. That's the fancy term for two separate, individual images that are complete themselves but integrate to create a whole work. Painters have done this for ages by using hinged panels or hanging pieces together. Connecting photos is easy with digital photography. It's coming up with a good subject that is hard. Dianne had some great ideas and, once again, provided her finger modeling skills in one shot.

For my first try at diptychs, they didn't turn out too bad. Others in the group had some wonderful ideas and executed them well. See all the images in the pool here.

Happy Valentines Day

Morning Equipment Check

I got to work today and was unpacking my bag when I realized I forgot my reading glasses. Yup, I left them on the computer at home last night instead of putting them in my work bag. It's not a huge deal, but it sure is annoying. I was stretching my arms to read stuff all day today.

It seems I'm always forgetting something in the morning. I need my glasses, iPod, headphones, planner or moleskine book, sometimes lunch stuff, etc. I try to put everything in it's place the night before -- or on the entry way table. Dianne has said I need a morning checklist like I have for preflighting the plane.

So this story in Wired caught my eye today. Ford has teamed up with Microsoft and Dewalt to implement an RFID system that checks the bed of your pickup truck to make sure that all of the tools you've tagged are loaded before you drive away. That's a great idea. I just need RFID tags on all my stuff and then have a reader installed in the car or near the door out of the house. An alarm could go off if I'm missing something when I leave. That's an easy solution to my lack of organization and forgetfulness.

Cutting Edge Macro Photos

The theme for this week's macro photo project was "cutting edge." I went with the sharp edge interpretation of the theme. The first photo below is another one of my professional finger model, Dianne. It's not real blood. I used cherry concentrate to simulate blood. The second photo illustrates a really sharp knife -- one that can split hairs. Actually Dianne was able to find a split end in her hair. It took me forever to get that positioned properly across the knife blade. The last shot is obvious. I started the hole and then disconnected the drill and carefully moved everything into my homemade light tent to illuminate the drill bit.

Be a Record Producer

I've been taking guitar lessons for about 8 months now. I suck at it still, but I enjoy it. Nick is a great instructor and does a lot by ear and encourages you to bring in music you're interested in to motivate your effort. So I've been going back through my music collection looking for songs that have relatively simple, easily heard guitar parts that I can learn. It is fun to play along with a song.

My latest effort is the Jill Sobule song called "Somewhere In New Mexico." It's a song about an agnostic girl that wants to change her life around. It's kind of funny and dark at the same time. I have a ways to go before getting it down. Dianne has heard the song about a 1000 times in the last month.

While looking around for guitar tabs and videos of the song, I ran across Jill's effort associated with her latest CD project. You can read about her next project on the aptly named site Jill's Next Record. Instead of working through a record label, she is making a grass roots effort to raise money through her fans. There are various donation levels and each one has something associated with it. For $25 you get an advanced copy of the CD. For $5000 she'll come and do a house concert for you. Can we get a group of 100 fans to each kick $50 in and have her come to Cincinnati for a private show? :^) You can hear her talk a little about it, and hear a little ditty about Super Tuesday voting, on the NPR site here. Click on Listen Now near the top of the screen or watch the video to hear and see her play the song.

Who Isn't Washing Their Hands?

The hand washing information from the Cincinnati area at the NeedToLook site certainly caught the eye of this germ-o-phobe. I don't know how scientific the data is, or even whether or not it is made up. But I do know there are males that don't wash their hands after using the restroom. What is that all about? Is it laziness?

Perhaps all restrooms need these automatic hand washers installed. Or maybe a sensor on the door handle that doesn't let you out with dirty hands -- kinda like a breath-a-lizer interface for the ignition of a car.

Refreshment

This week the Macro Mondays group on Flickr had a theme of refreshing. I wasn't too excited about the theme until I bounced the idea off Dianne and she suggested the F5 key in Windows that has a refresh function. Perfect idea for the theme -- something a little out of the ordinary. It was also a good project to get me out of the light tent and experimenting with some lighting ideas I've been reading about at the Strobist blog.

The photo below is Dianne at her laptop keyboard. I used two flashes: one high and from the rear and one low and from the right. The extra flash on the right was key to removing a harsh dark shadow on the camera side of the finger. I gave the rear flash 3 times the power of the right flash. I thought it turned out ok.

Superbowl of Advertising

I wasn't too interested in the game -- actually I thought the Patriots would win, so it was more interesting than I expected. The best part is the advertising. There is a lot of money on the line, so the creative advertising minds have worked overtime to supposedly come up with their best efforts for the game.

The Advertising Age website has videos of all the Superbowl commercials here. My winner, by far, was the scream video for Bridgestone tires. The second was the clydesdale training for the Anheuser-Busch team. After that I think the e-Trade baby and the FedEx pigeons were pretty good. Did you watch the game? What was your favorite new commercial?

CRG Opener

I just happened to see this article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette that mentions the Fort Wayne Derby Girls' team the Bomb Squad will be in Cincinnati for the start of the derby season here on April 12th. I'm sure there will be more details and publicity soon on the CRG site. The article also discusses the latest WFTDA rankings where the Fort Wayne team has moved up a bit. You can see the latest quarterly ranking here. Unfortunately the Cincinnati Rollergirls team isn't ranked due to inactivity. It'll be interesting to see where they end up when the season gets back in full gear.

P.S. I noticed that tickets for individual Cincinnati Rollergirl events are now available through TicketMaster. However, I didn't see a season ticket option or a reserved seat option (one idea they were tossing about). I'm sure their site will have more info soon.

The Great Urban Race is Coming

The Great Urban Race is coming to Cincinnati on April 19th. It sounds like a local, mini version of the Amazing Race where you have to solve clues, do challenges, etc. We signed up. Join us on the race. I'm not sure how we'll do on questions about Cincinnati, but we're lining up our native Cincinnati friends to call for help.

If you're not in Cincinnati, check out their website anyway as there are many events being held in cities across the country. The events lead to the championship in Las Vegas in November.

How to Hack a Cupcake

One of my many quirks is the way I like to eat a slice of apple pie. I eat the filling first -- I use the fork to dig out the filling while leaving the crust shell intact. Once all the filling is gone, I then go back and eat the crust. The residual liquid from the filling is enough flavor for the pie shell. Dianne always gives me a look when I eat apple pie that way. Is that odd?

So I laughed when I read Matt's post at the A Whole Lotta Nothing blog that talks about tackling and solving his cupcake eating problem by pointing to a set of Flickr photos that "hack" a cupcake in order to get good cake and frosting distribution in each bite. I don't have that problem, but I can relate. The hack is a little messy and it kinda spoils the presentation, but it solves the equal distribution issue.

It's comforting to know I'm not the only one with eating quirks.

Indexed

One of my everyday humor blog reads is the Indexed site. Each post is a graph or Venn diagram that is a humorous illustration of a common observation. I get a lot of chuckles from the site. I thought last Wednesday's post was particularly funny. I guess I'm in the target audience for that one. Incidentally, she has a "best of" book coming out in February.

Fossils

This week the theme for the Macro Mondays group in Flickr was "primitive." I thought this was a tough topic. I wasn't sure what to do and thought I'd pass. However, Dianne the creative idea person suggested a rock. That jogged my memory about some rocks we picked up many months ago at Caesar's Creek State Park. I know nothing about geology or paleontology. When we visited the Natural History museum in Washington, DC, we saw a fossil exhibit where many of the specimens came from Ohio. Here is another page about fossils from southwest Ohio.

These macros show some of the fossil pieces embedded in shale. The largest bits are about the size of a dime. The bit in the last image is a little smaller.

Essencha Tea House

Today Dianne and I went to the Essencha Tea House in the Oakley part of the greater Cincinnati area. I had read a lot of good reviews of the place in the paper and on-line in the Foodie Report. A friend gave me an Essencha gift card as a Christmas gift. We decided to stop in and check out the place.

It's a very nice store with a relatively small, modern style seating area. It has a more modern look than Churchill's downtown. A good place to relax, try some tea, and chat. As you can see on their website, Essencha has many loose leaf teas and tea paraphernalia as well as lunch and fancy dessert items. Dianne tried the bubble tea and I had a cup of Assam while there. I also bought some Lapsang Souchong (or stinky tea as Dianne calls it) and Darjeeling loose leaf tea. The loose leaf tea comes in very solid, well sealed metal containers.

I was impressed with the store. It's a convenient location for us. If you've been there, I'm curious what you thought or how it compares to your favorite tea spot. We'll be stopping there again when we're in the area.

Typing Test

Saw this little typing test on My Crazy Life...in Pictures. Angie has a great blog -- probably because she is a faster typist :^)

62 words

Touch Typing online

The Cold Bell Curve

When I left work yesterday, the sun was setting and it was pretty chilly for Cincinnati. It had cooled off during the day and it was clear. Without the sun the temperature was dropping fast. I was all bundled up with my winter jacket, hat, and gloves so it wasn’t too bad.

As I put my stuff in the car, I turned around and saw a co-worker about 30 yards behind me wearing a thin leather jacket, no gloves, and no hat. The guy had a shaved head too. I couldn’t believe my eyes. His ears had to be cold – I’m surprised they didn’t turn to ice and crack off his head. As I pulled out of the parking lot I noticed the outside air temp was 18. With the breeze, that’s officially cold. How could that guy stand it? Am I just a cold baby?

It was a cook-it-yourself night, so I stopped to get some dinner on the way to my guitar lesson. I was looking down, reading the news on my phone while waiting in line. I glanced away from the phone as the line moved and noticed the girl in front of me was wearing flip-flop slippers. Was she nuts!?! She had on a thin sweater and a light down vest, and no hat or gloves. Slippers when it’s 18 degrees! How does she deal with the heat and humidity here in August?

Is this a classic example of the tail ends of a normal distribution describing cold tolerance? Clearly I’m in the tail of low tolerance while Mr. Shaved Head No Hat and Ms. Flip Flop Shoes are in the opposite end of the distribution. Where do you fall in the distribution? How do you dress for the cold?

What a Difference a Word Makes

I saw this article the other day in the Wall Street Journal. It's about a mix-up between two drugs with similar names: edetate disodium and edetate calcium disodium. Whether or not the word "calcium" is on the label is pretty important to a patient.

It reminded me of a lab my students did last quarter where they were running multiple reactions with different chemicals and making observations to characterize the reactivity of various compounds. There were a lot of reagents set out for the lab. One person mixed up the label on two acids, added the wrong acid to a reaction, and ended up producing hydrogen sulfide gas that really stunk -- even though he was using an individual fume hood. I caught it quickly, even with my poor nose. Not much harm, so it was a good lesson about being confident with chemical names and looking carefully at the label before using something.

If I'm ever sick and in a hospital, I may panic if I see a former student working as a nurse or a pharmacist. I'll be going through my mental rolodex trying to remember what grade they received and how good they were at chemical nomenclature.

Sugar Photos

This week the theme for the Macro Mondays group in Flickr is sugar. My first thought was to recrystallize some sugar -- make rock candy. I'm still working on that. It's harder to recrystallize sugar than I thought. That should have been easy for a chemist!

So I went a different route. Dianne and I made a trip to Fresh Market to get some items to illustrate the sugar theme. The photo at the right is a macro of the colored sugar crystal sprinkles on the frosting of a cupcake. Thanks to Dianne's suggestion, I made a triptych of the cupcake that had the sprinkles. That is the photo below. I also got a nice shot of some gummi worms, a sugar cookie, and other stuff that you can see in the set here.

Rollergirl on the News

Dianne and I saw a story on the channel 12 (WKRC) news tonight about a choir that performed at the Drop Inn Center today. The center is a homeless shelter in the Over-the-Rhine area. The cameraperson showed a close-up of some of the choir and there was Sk8 Crime. Well...not in her roller derby persona (at least I didn't see a squirt gun) -- simply as Emily. She did the national anthem for a couple of the Cincinnati Rollergirl bouts. She has a very good voice and is obviously still putting it to good use. Yet another way to give something back to the community.

CRG 2008 Season

I'm getting caught up on my blog reading after vacation. I noticed that Miss Print had a blog post last week talking about the 2008 season for the Cincinnati Rollergirls. There is also a blurb on the Cincinnati Rollergirl site and I'm sure there will be ticket information as the events get closer. Save these dates:
April 12
May 17
June 7
June 28
July 19

The other bit of news in Miss Print's post is that the bouts will all be inter-league competitions. That'll be great. There was a lot of discussion on her blog last season about the CRG only bouts not being exciting. Personally, I didn't buy it, but the move to only inter-league bouts should satisfy all the fans. It's possible now that there are several teams established in cities that are relatively close. It should be an exciting season. The CRG group is also looking for volunteers. Check out their site for contact information.

If you haven't been to a match, you have to check them out this season. Get your taxes done early and celebrate by going to the April 12th match. The CRG group is also looking for volunteers. Check out their site for contact information.

Taylor's Soccer Game

Today Milton took us to our niece's soccer game. She's a co-captain of one of the Punahou junior high/middle school teams and this was a playoff game for them. Here are a few photos from the game. The first two are of Taylor. The third is a non-Taylor shot that I thought was interesting. The last one is of Milton and Dianne talking at half time. I was experimenting with a new camera -- still a lot of settings to learn. I put these photos and a few more in a Flickr set. Click here to see all the photos.

Oahu's North Shore

Also on New Year's day we drove up to the North Shore to see the waves. It was a pretty nice day on the south shore, but fairly cloudy with a little passing drizzly on the north shore. Even so, I still think it's fun to check out. The waves were only about 6 feet high, but they break pretty close to shore. It's a beautiful site and a great place to watch the surfers. One surfer was doing repeated jumps and flips off the waves. When I went closer to get some photos, I saw a photographer near the water taking pictures of only that surfer. The photographer had a HUGE telephoto lens, so I'm sure he got some good shots of those stunts. The set of three photos below shows one of his jumps. I put a few other photos below. You can see the salt spray coming off the crashing waves in the second photo. The third photo shows the sun coming through a break in the clouds. The last one is a surfer picking a spot to enter the surf and get to the action.

Click here to go to Flickr to see other photos from New Year's Day. When there, click on any thumbnail to see a larger version of the photo.

New Year's Day Activities

We started out the New Year by visiting a Shinto temple (Daijingyu Temple) just north of the Honolulu area to participate in a traditional New Year's blessing. The temple provides blessings for the new year starting at the stroke of midnight and going until the afternoon of the first. We went in the morning to avoid the huge crowd at midnight, and it was still busy. Parking was non-existent, but fortunately Dianne knew the area well since she lived pretty close when in grade school. We parked away from the traffic and walked a couple blocks to the temple. The first photo here shows part of the line leading to the entrance of the temple.

It's a long standing Japanese tradition in Hawaii. You can read more about the temple and the tradition here. There are also some better pictures of the temple in the article -- I didn't want to take pictures of the blessing. Incidentally, I got an excellent fortune and we bought a few blessed items for traffic and personal safety in the coming year. If you didn't like your fortune you could tie it to a tree outside the temple and get another. In the photo here you can see the bits of paper tied to the tree (as usual, click on it to see a larger version in Flickr). The fortunes are quite long and elaborate.

There is a park next to the temple that had several large trees including a large banyon tree. You see them all over Oahu, but they are usually surrounded by buildings or wires. This one has such a nice setting I had to get a shot -- even though it was towards the sun. It's hard to appreciate how big it is, so Dianne volunteered to stand next to it for scale. That little blue spec by the trunk is her.



After getting our blessing, we stopped at the Aloha Tower Marketplace near downtown Honolulu for lunch. Right next to the marketplace is the Maritime Museum. The museum was closed, but we stopped to look at the ships docked on the pier outside the museum. The photo shows Dianne standing on a huge brass propeller in the park next to the pier. In the background is one of the older sailing ships.

The water at the pier was crystal clear and very deep. Dianne looked into the water and saw all sorts of fish. Some of them were pretty big -- at least a couple feet long. There are fish food dispensers on the pier, so we bought some food to feed them. It was quite a frenzy. Click here to see a photo of the fish.

We looked around a bit at the marketplace. Around the facility they have several statues of hula girls. I really like this photo of Dianne joining in the hula dance with one of the statues. So cute!

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou

Happy New Year!

This marks the end of the third year for Earl World. Thanks to all those who drop by -- especially the regulars and those leaving comments.