http://woodpress.org Woody Thrower's Weblog Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:18:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We tried an experiment with an egg. I knew that if you put an egg in vinegar, the shell would dissolve, leaving a rubbery membrane... but my kids didn't know that, and I had never tried it personally. I like pickled eggs (boiled and peeled eggs soaked in brine), so I ... http://woodpress.org/2008/11/13/eggsperiment/ Last night we went bowling. My oldest daughter has a high school P.E. class, and for her grade she has to bowl two games with an average score higher than 100. We spent $70 on bowling, but didn't manage to get the required score. I disapprove of that grading system, but ... http://woodpress.org/2008/11/07/bowling-and-ihop/ For my birthday, my mother-in-law gave me a crystal globe. http://woodpress.org/2008/11/02/my-world/ My dad, Allen Thrower, died yesterday peacefully at home in his sleep. He was 73 years old. He wrote many stories about his life, which I have begun to post on his posthumous blog at allenthrower.com. There's also a page about Allen Thrower for anyone interested. http://woodpress.org/2008/10/16/my-dad-died-yesterday/ I took these photos on a walk with my kids today. My instructions for this photo were "go stand by that fence." (No, he's not actually beating her with a bottle of water in a sock, but that was the effect he was going for.) Mum's the word (because I can't spell ... http://woodpress.org/2008/10/08/walking-with-kids/ Today at lunch we happened upon an old fire engine from Helper, Utah. It was just sitting in a parking lot along with other cars. Unfortunately, I only had my macro lens with me, so I took a lot of detail shots. I couldn't get far enough away without things (cars ... http://woodpress.org/2008/10/02/helper-city-fire-engine-1/ Recently as I was leaving for work I noticed that my son's bicycle was casting a dry shadow on the wet cement. I moved the bike and took a picture. http://woodpress.org/2008/09/15/dry-shadow/ Yesterday evening I went on a mini photo excursion in the cul de sac with my two youngest kids. This is the winning photo from the event: http://woodpress.org/2008/08/26/black-bee/ We went to Lagoon (an amusement park) on Thursday. Here's my favorite picture from the day: Other photos from the day (and from at least one other trip) are in my Lagoon photoset on Flickr. http://woodpress.org/2008/08/17/lagoon/ On Saturday I got to spend three hours at my parents' house, visiting them with my son. Their 44th wedding anniversary was Friday. At one point during our visit, we were outside and it started raining, so we stood on the covered porch. I took pictures. Here's one of my son: Here's ... http://woodpress.org/2008/08/11/visiting-my-parents/ A while ago I used the quote, "you can't grep dead trees" (meaning you can't use a computer to search a paper book). Since I enjoy trying to use plain English rather than jargon, it occurred to me that there's a pleasingly similar but more modern and mainstream way to ... http://woodpress.org/2008/08/07/you-cant-verb-live-search/ A few months ago I mentioned that the office where I work was having trouble with KWIK Vending Service. A couple months ago they said they were going to drop us as a customer. Apparently they were sick of people from our office calling the "call for service" number KWIK ... http://woodpress.org/2008/07/08/kwik-vending-service-2/ On today's walk, I got a couple pictures of birds. This rooster was in a coop. I think it was trying to stare me down. My wife says this is a baby robin. It didn't seem scared of me. I was just walking casually along, and noticed that it had allowed me ... http://woodpress.org/2008/06/20/bird-day/ Friday I took a walk with my camera again, and took some pictures. Here are a few of my favorites. http://woodpress.org/2008/06/14/more-walk-photos/ Yesterday at lunch I took a walk. It resulted in photos somehow. This is my favorite, which I'm currently using as a wallpaper. http://woodpress.org/2008/06/13/yesterdays-walk/ I took some photos in the front yard Saturday. I'm biased, but I think they're worth clicking through to view at higher resolution. http://woodpress.org/2008/05/25/front-yard-photos/ I recently bought a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. It was $220 from TigerDirect through Amazon. It runs a Debian-based Linux, and works remarkably well as both a web browser and pocket-sized mp3 player. I have paired it with my Verizon phone (LG Model VX8900) using Bluetooth, which is handy for ... http://woodpress.org/2008/05/10/nokia-n800-and-verizon-wireless/ I sent my youngest daughter outside today with my pocket camera. Here are a few of the pictures she took. http://woodpress.org/2008/04/21/my-five-year-old-daughters-photographs/ This Easter the kids opened the egg dying kit and lost the instructions, so my wife just did what she remembered doing in the past, and put vinegar in the dyes. That mostly worked out, but it seems that the magenta dye reacted badly and wouldn't stick to the eggs. As ... http://woodpress.org/2008/03/26/serendipidously-dyed-egg/ At lunch today, I ordered the vegetable side without asking what the vegetable was. I was delighted (seriously) to find that it was romanesco broccoli--the fractal vegetable. It was like meeting an inanimate edible celebrity. Until today, I'd only ever seen romanesco broccoli in pictures (which I have used as my ... http://woodpress.org/2008/03/20/romanesco-broccoli/