299/365 Snowscape

We got a couple inches of snow today, which meant that accidents piled up on the commute to work.

Any time we go for an extended period of time without much snow, whether it's at the beginning of the season or during a dry spell, everyone seems to forget how to drive in it.

It sure makes me love my four-wheel drive!

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000

298/365 Keeping warm

We're bracing for the coldest weather we've had in two years. The low temperature on Friday is -7 degrees.

Yikes!

I really feel for the people who have to work outside on days like that. I do everything I can to keep warm -- wear long underwear and wool socks to work -- but I work in a heated office all day. I don't know how they do it.

It takes a certain kind of strength to face that.

I'll just keep drinking hot tea.

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and external E-TTL flash, 1/125s, f/4 at ISO 200.

297/365 Qwerty

Imagine being the guy who decided to rearrange the letters on a keyboard from an alphabetical arrangement to the current QWERTY layout.

I bet he got teased endlessly by people who thought he was off his rocker.

I checked out the history of the modern QWERTY keyboard on Wikipedia, and its invention dates back all the way to 1874 with the creation of the first typewriter. I didn't realize it had been around for so long.

Its layout is ingrained in our brains now, so much so that I find it hard to text message on a phone that has its keys arranged in alphabetical order.

Part of this could very well be due to the fact that I have a rather old phone and it takes forever to text message on it, but I insist it's partially the un-Qwerty-ness!

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and external E-TTL flash, 1/125s, f/5.6 at ISO 400.

296/365 Dedecorating

Mom and I dragged the boxes out of the basement and finally re-stashed all of the Christmas decorations.

It's nice to have the house back to normal. My favorite reading chair has returned to its rightful place near a south window, so I plan to take full advantage of that next weekend.

My favorite chair has earned its status for many reasons:
1. The light on the south side of the house is most consistent throughout the day.
2. Its high back means I can rest my head, leading to hours of comfortable reading.
3. The chair is wide enough that Buster can hop up and squeeze in beside me.

What could be better?

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and external E-TTL flash, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 200.

295/365 Just another dusting

Chicago got ten inches of snow over the last couple of days.

And we got this: a dusting.

Sigh.

Shortchanged on the snow total yet again.

The last crippling snowfall we had was on New Year's Day 1999. Why do I remember this so clearly? Because Mom and I had the misfortune of trying to fly into Indianapolis the following day, and the airport was closed for the first time since the blizzard of '78.

We were in Orlando, Florida that week in 1998 while I performed in the Citrus Bowl halftime show. I distinctly remember watching the Weather Channel as the storm began forming over the northwest United States and slowly moved toward Indiana.

The storm hit on New Year's Day, the day of the Citrus Bowl, and when we arrived at the airport to fly home on January 2, we immediately had to begin securing an alternate flight home.

The three other people who were with us were able to fly stand-by on a flight the next day. Unfortunately, Mom and I had flown on frequent-flier tickets, so in the eyes of the airline, we were the lowest priority on the rebooking list.

It took us three days of attempting to get on four flights per day to get home. We learned a lot from that experience, not least of which is: we will never fly on Delta Airlines as a frequent flier ever again.

When I wish for snow, I don't necessarily want those crippling inches. But would a good six inches be so bad?

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/50s, f/4 at ISO 1600, lit by an incandescent flood light at about 5:30 p.m.

294/365 Orange you glad?

I'm convinced that one of the reasons that our moods take a nosedives in the winter is due to a decrease in access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Well, at least it's true in my case.

I don't feel like I am a person who is significantly affected by the change in seasons, but I do know that when my access to a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables decreases, it does affect me.

Luckily, right now we're able to get good clementines, oranges, and grapefruits. But after a month or so with only these citruses for fresh fruit, I'll be tired of them as well.

And that will make me start dreaming about strawberries, raspberries, peaches, plums, watermelon, tomatoes...

293/365 Light bulb moment

On the outside, light pollution seems like the most harmless of "pollutions."

But an article in the November 2008 issue of National Geographic brought to light (ahem) the very real consequences of our addiction, many of which I'd never really thought about.

The biggest negative impact of artificial light that struck a chord with me is its effect on nocturnal wildlife. Many species have evolved to structure their lifestyles around changing sunlight. But when an area has an overabundance of nighttime light, it throws off these creatures' abilities to sense when it's time to eat, sleep, migrate...

I took astronomy in college for my science credit. We spent a small amount of time talking about light pollution and its influence on earth-bound stargazing. One point my professor made has stuck with me ever since then: What do you think are some of the worst lights for causing light pollution?

Billboards. Think about it -- their lights point nearly straight up into the sky, meaning the majority of their luminescence spills out, and only a small portion actually illuminates the advertisement.

Light pollution may not seem as noteworthy as air pollution or the need for energy efficiency, but it's something to consider the next time you go to replace lights on the outside of your house.

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/125s, f/4.5 at ISO 1600.

292/365 Lightly snowing

Our snowfall totals this season have been downright pathetic.

If you couldn't tell from that statement alone, I love snow. I don't really have the desire to live in a locale that spends six months of the year buried under it, but I do love the occasional 8-10 inches.

And this year has been, as I said, downright pathetic.

On the other hand, we've had at least three measurable ice storms, and one in particular was especially bad before Christmas, but who likes ice?

So, the picture above has become a familiar sight: light, small snowflakes. But not enough to accumulate.

How anti-climactic is that?

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/60s, f/4.5 at ISO 640.

291/365 Another favorite TV show returns

One of my favorite TV shows, The Biggest Loser, started its new season Tuesday night.

I find the show to be incredibly motivating and inspiring. I've become more and more addicted as seasons progress.

I'm very blessed: integrating exercise into my regular routine has been ingrained in me since I was a little kid. We have a picture of me as a toddler raising little pink weights over my head, one of my Christmas gifts that year.

So I've grown up with that mentality. But so many people haven't, and this show makes that point more strongly than anything I've seen. It's sad. It's unbelievable. But the idea behind the show and the way it's carried out is incredibly inspiring.

I'm glad they only waited a few weeks between seasons!

Camera: Canon 40D, 1 second, f/8 at ISO 100.

290/365 Gently boiling

I had my first day at my new job today (it was great), so I didn't get a chance to get a photo until dinner time.

As a result, this is a photo of gently boiling water, better known as dinner cooking. I like the fact that this angle makes it a little abstract.

Then all I wanted to do after dinner was having something sweet, kick my feet up, and relax!

Camera: Canon 40D with external E-TTL flash, 1/30s, f/4.5 at ISO 200.

289/365 Hard boiled

Hard-boiled eggs, along with yogurt and hummus, are life savers for me.

Why? I constantly struggle to get enough protein for one big reason: I'm not much of a meat-eater. Steak, lamb chops, tenderloins, hamburgers... none of these make my mouth water even the slightest. No thanks.

The most difficult meal of the day is breakfast. When I get up at 5:30, and don't eat lunch until noon, protein is an absolute must if I'm not going to pass out from starvation by 10:00.

So I'm always trying to find a breakfast that has enough protein to get me through the morning, while being healthy enough to not worry about the downsides.

Solution? Hard-boiled eggs. Whites only.

Yum.

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens and external E-TTL flash, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 500.

288/365 Bulbs burning bright

With the rising surge in availability of LED and fluorescent bulbs, I'm betting that in just a decade or two, kids will have to look in a history book to see what an incandescent bulb looked like.

That's a funny thought, isn't it? What else will become extinct in the same way?

For the time being, the majority of our Christmas decorations are lit with incandescent bulbs. The bulbs in this photo are our outdoor decorations, which will probably be stashed away this weekend.

But until then, they still burn bright outside the front door.

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens, 1/125s, f/2.8 at ISO 500.

287/365 First in line for dinner

Before dinner last night (for both humans and four-legged friends), I walked out to the field to the horses to get my daily photo.

Dad was a couple minutes behind me to get outside, so I was able to get halfway into the field before he reached the barn. The horses were lazily grazing as usual, but when Oprah and Destiny saw Dad, they immediately perked up.

Oprah was the first to head in. She saw me, gave me a parting glance, then gradually sped from a walk to a trot to a fast lope all the way to the barn, anxious to get to her evening grain.

As she sped by me, I held my finger on the trigger of my camera and panned with her movement, which gives the great sense of speed in the blurred background. I love how her mane is flying behind her.

Destiny took her approach more slowly, actually stopping to greet me before she made her way to the barn, and Shep always waits until the last possible second to amble in.

Leave it to Oprah to be the first in line for dinner.

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/125s, f/8 at ISO 250 at about 5:00 p.m.

286/365 First sunset in the new year

Remember, just nine short years ago, the fear that came with crossing from the 20th to the 21st century?

Y2K.

It seems silly now, but it was so real then. I don't think we realized until 1999 how much we rely on technology. That's probably not surprising, since it's common knowledge that you don't appreciate things until you're faced with losing them.

What would have really happened if all the preparations in getting ready for Y2K hadn't been done? If people didn't go to the effort of making sure computers were ready for the change to '00?

Would everything have crashed and burned? Or would it have passed without a second thought?

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/125s, f/8 at ISO 250 at about 5:00 p.m.

285/365 Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Perhaps it was a sign of the times, or else just a coincidence in choice of locale, but the restaurant where I had dinner with my friends on New Year's Eve was practically deserted.

Well, okay, "practically deserted" is a little exaggerated, but it was surprisingly empty for a restaurant in downtown Indianapolis on New Year's Eve.

We got reservations for 7:00, were told that 7:30 was completely booked, and that they would only hold our table for 10 minutes. In all actuality, several tables remained empty over the entire course of the nearly 3-hour dinner we had. No line formed at the door, no one had to wait who walked in... I found it a little odd.

So, as I said, I don't know if it was a sign of the times -- were people staying in for the night and saving money? -- or just a coincidence, but it seemed odd.

It did mean that we got to take our time with dinner, and that was completely welcome!

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000.