Back to Nature

As a new professor starting my first semester, I have a lot of things to do. Oh yeah, a whole lot of things. But I also want to find some balance in my life. I don't want work to be an excuse for not doing things that I enjoy or discovering things that I might enjoy or not really living. I tend to feel bad if I have a long list of work things to do and aren't working at them, but this past weekend I set that aside and went for a walk (among other things). I was really happy being outside and walking through the woods with my camera. It seems to give me a sense of calm and peace, but also exhilaration when I see something. Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took.

I got to the lake a little before sunrise...

There were a fair number of geese that seemed to be pretty used to humans...



The lake has a 5 mile trail around it. When I started out there only seemed to be a few people on it, but by the half way point, it got kind of crowded. Here it was fairly peaceful...

There were ducks too...






I'm not sure what this little berry is. It reminded me of tea-berries. I remember seeing one when my family climbed the Roundtop, a hill across from the house, when I was a kid...

I wish they rented kayaks here. I might have spent all day...


This tree had some wild crooked branches. It didn't seem to know which way to go/grow...

Trying to get a pic of the drips. Not terribly successful...
Lots of trees...
And water...


Where there are trees there are often leaves...


It took me about 4 hours to walk around the 5 mile trail. The lake has a pretty odd shape, so when I thought I might be getting close to the end, I'd discover another a bend...


By this point, the trail was pretty busy. People passing by looked at me funny as I was laying on the ground to take this shot...
And where there is a down, there is an up. This was take in the same location as the mushroom...

There were a lot of pine cones...

This was a particularly nice section of the trail...



I was getting pretty tired after a while (I carry a fair amount of gear), so I sat down on a bench for a bit. Before long I noticed this hummingbird. I wondered how many people had passed by and not even noticed it...

A lone plant in the water...

A lone brown leaf in the green...

A big lake, but I'm almost done...

Out of the woods long enough to see some wild flowers...

And a dragonfly...

Home to say goodbye

While I was in New Orleans, my mother called to tell me that her mother had passed away. She had been sick for a very long time and fading fast in the last couple of weeks, so it was somewhat expected, but it meant going home for the funeral right after getting back. Generally everything went ok, but it is a pretty tough time for my mom. I'd say she is more sensitive than the rest of our family, but that isn't really the case. We all feel things deeply, but the rest of us tend not to be expressive. We're bottlers. We don't seem to know what to do to help expressive people in pain and end up not being very supportive. Wanting to help and not knowing what to do isn't a good feeling. Anyway, my mom seems to be doing ok and getting through.

Naturally, while I was home I played with my nephew. He demands an audience with his Aunt Dufus. He was obsessed with a John Deere tractor catalog. In this picture he is showing it to his great uncle Ken...
I also took some pictures on my mom's flowers. Each time I go home, there seems to be another set in bloom...



And then there are the various animals. Here is a mama cat and a kitten, and no, it isn't her kitten...
What happens when a kitten shakes his head very quickly? His ears fall off...
My brother thinks this mama cat had her kittens the day I came home, but I don't think they've found them yet...
Watch out, I'm going to pounce on you...

Sara says, "Don't play with the cats and ignore me!"
And a bee butt...
While I was in the yard taking pictures, my dad was gathering stuff to take to burn. I decided to go along with him. As soon as we got into the truck I asked him if there was an guaranttee of seeing deer on this trip. He said no guaranttee, but given that it was almost dark, there was a pretty good chance. Less than a minute later he pointed out about a dozen deer down at the end of one of the bottom fields. This was one grouping...

We also saw a couple of bunnies on the field road...
This is the truck that my dad drove when I was a kid: a 1955 International. I might take more pictures of this in the future. Oh the memories.
The fields seemed so peaceful...


And the purpose of the mission was to burn some trash. I really like how some of the pics of the fire turned out...

Finally, note that when your dad warns you about something, you should listen. After he lit the fire, my dad said that there are some aerosol cans in there that might explode so we should stay behind the truck. I took some pictures from pretty close and then went to stand by him. We were chatting away when all of the sudden there was a big boom and the fire jumped much higher in the air. My dad ducked down and I just stood there looking at the fire. I didn't get hit by any shrapnel, but I easily could have, and my dad proceeded to tell me some stories of people who did.

Visit to New Orleans

I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago for SCA and SIGGRAPH. It was a fairly interesting trip down. It was my first time flying from Dulles and from DC in general. This wasn't really a big deal, just new. I couldn't get a direct flight, so I was scheduled to go through Atlanta. I should have known better. We took off basically on-time, but when we got to Atlanta we circled and circled and circled. There were storms in the area and they weren't letting anyone land. We ended up running out of fuel and being diverted to Greensville. We just refueled there and took off for Atlanta again. This time we were allowed to land, but by then the airport and flights schedule was a mess. I didn't miss my connection. In fact it was delayed by hours. I made it to New Orleans just fine, just pretty late as shown on the clock radio in my hotel room. I'm more of a morning person.

The lobby of my hotel had some beautiful glass work. Very festive...The conferences took up a lot of time, of course, but we did get to look around the area a bit. Big, sweaty humidity. We saw the Mississippi River including a river boat and a barge or two.


Also, some trollies...
And Jackson square...Including Jackson...

A lot of people were asking about damage from the hurricane. We really weren't sure what was hurricane damage and what was urban decay...

What was surprising was the juxtipositions. There were abandoned buildings right next to luxury hotels...A number of buildings had ornate decoration...

The Geek bar at SIGGRAPH had some interesting New Orleans characters...
A week of conferences is both exhilerating and exhausting, fun and informative, etc. It was good to see everyone again and start to think about new research directions and possibilities.