If you can’t tell already, I got a new camera. And I’m pretty excited about it. The new baby is a Nikon D90, the latest DSLR put out by the company. When I bought my D40 last November, it was a hard decision not to go with the D80. But the D80 cost twice as much as the D40 and it was nearing the end of its life. I decided to get the D40 and see if I was going to take the hobby seriously. If so, I could upgrade when the D80 replacement hit the shelves.
The picture above is a kinda close-up of Abby’s nose. Those of you who follow Post Irony can see where this is headed. The picture below is a close-up of the button we took out of Abby’s nose tonight. (And a dime for comparison purposes.)
Most people think of 9/11 as a day of infamy. Well, it is, but it’s also my birthday. I get a lot more “Happy Birthdays” since those planes flew into those big buildings because it turned out to be a fabulous mnemonic device to remember my big day.
Gina and Abby baked me a cake and gave me a couple of presents. It was great. Abby cried when Gina brought the cake out for me to blow out the candles. She doesn’t like the fire. Gina’s going to take me out to eat tomorrow night.
The picture above is a kinda close-up of Abby’s nose. The picture below is a close-up of the rock we took out of Abby’s nose tonight. (And a dime for comparison purposes.)
When Gina picked Abby up from the day care, Abby kept talking about something that had her pretty worked up. Gina thought she was saying she wanted to go for a walk, something she talks about regularly. But Abby kept saying no, a walk was not what she interested in. Gina told her she couldn’t understand her and Abby dropped it.
They came home and Abby took a short nap and then got up and Gina fixed her something to eat. Abby continued talking about something that sounded like “walk.” She was saying “rock,” as we now know, but she doesn’t say her R’s very well.
Her breathing was loud and somewhat labored, so Gina thought her nose was stuffy and she tried to use the suction bulb on her. Then she tried to get Abby to blow into a tissue, but every time Gina touched her nose, Abby would cry.
Finally, Gina asked Abby if she was saying “rock” and Abby said yes and Gina instantly knew what the problem was. I had just gotten off the treadmill and was trying to recover from what felt like a stroke when Gina came in and said, “We have a serious problem.” We laid Abby on her back on the bathroom counter, and, despite her protestations, I extracted the rock with a pair of tweezers.
My parents live on 40 acres west of Parsons, Kan., that used to be part of a larger working farm. There are several sheds, silos and whatnot still on the property, including this old-time chicken coop. This is the kind of coop that Foghorn Leghorn guarded in the old cartoons. The outside has great peeling paint and deteriorating wood. The kind of stuff we amateur photographers like to take pichurs of. I set up a couple of flashes inside so the ceiling and back wall of the coop would be visible.
Labor Day weekend at my parents’ place in Kansas. They live out in the country with three farm ponds within walking distance. Dad and I hit the best of the three for a quick fishing trip. We landed four smallish bass in the span of about 10 minutes and got no other bites.
Abby got her first hair cut today. Miss Aubrey first cut Daddy’s hair while Abby watched, then she took a go at Abby’s hair. I did a poor job of photographing the moment. There were a number of challenges that I didn’t foresee. The biggest was Gina having to hold Abby before she would let Aubrey even get close to her. I should have known that would happen, but I didn’t.
Friday night was girls night out for Gina, so Abby and I went to the Washington County fair with Kurt, Taylor and Will. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t think Abby would like the fair very much. And she didn’t like the animals. I had to carry her most of the time. But she LOVED the merry-go-round and a train ride that went around in a circle. She rode the train by herself and refused to get off when it stopped. I had to go and get her. She bawled for 15 minutes afterward.
Abby and I had the day to ourselves yesterday, so we went for a little walk down to the creek to see how high the water was after the big rain. We had to walk on the side of the busy road and every time a car passed Abby would yell, “That’s the fastest car I’ve ever seen!”
As she was throwing rocks in the water she would yell “bloop!” after the splash. One particularly big rock caused a particularly big splash that got her arm wet. She said, “It blooped all over my arm, Daddy.”
Team Jackass reunited for some geocaching on Saturday, this time in the rugged terrain of the Ozarks. Team members were able to overcome the heat, humidity and elevation changes, but six miles of bad road felled the team’s elder statesman. While he was attempting to recover from a punishing case of car sickness, the other members scaled Round Top Mountain near Jasper, Ark., to claim a cache called Knife Edge.
I didn’t document the expedition very well. I think the pressure of topping last year’s film got to me. I didn’t take many pictures and the footage I captured on video is mostly people walking through the jungle-like terrain. I got a decent shot of the sisters, though, and one of Katie examining the goodies in the cache.
We’re spending the weekend at Creek’s End Riverside Retreat in the middle of BFE. West of Parthenon, Ark., down a rough-as-a-cob road. Cabin is very nice, but we can’t figure out how to hook up the Wii to the Dish Network box. Amazingly, this place has high-speed Internet. Grabbed a shot of star trails over the cabin. Inside lights and Christmas lights strung around the outside were way too bright, and I don’t think I got the focus right. Exposure was 20 minutes at f/10.