Schierer Space

A busy Saturday here in CNY. We started off up at the Stone Quarry Art Park for their occasionally kite weekend^[1]

I think there must have been Red Wings fans flying the big purple octopus.

After mowing the lawn we all sat out in the sun enjoying the breeze and the sun and a Baltimore Oriole’s serenade.

Later in the evening we took Nate to his first baseball game^[2] at Alliance Bank park in Syracuse. I had received some free tickets from the Hiawatha Seaway Council. ^[3] We figured it best that we make our first attempt with out having much invested. Nate made it until 8 PM and we left with the score 0-0 in the 4th.

K went to bed shortly after Nate and I enjoyed watching the Wings eke out their victory over the Pens. It’s going to be a great series. Bed time now.

1. Continues tomorrow. [↩]
2. Sorry, no pictures. [↩]
3. I give perioidic talks about careers in Engineering at the local schools. These talks are part of the council’s participation in the Learning for Life program. [↩]

Have I mentioned lately how awesome the ISS is? Oh, and how you can see it from your very own personal backyard?

Oh yeah. You. Go look. Now.

PS: The fact that K’s computer is typing everything backwards isn’t making this easy to write. ?naem I tahw eeS

Happy Birthday to Nate who celebrated with his “Happy Birthday Cake” all weekend. Of course, it took until late Saturday for him to realize that it was not an extension of the “Happy Birthday Cake Gramma” we celebrated a month or so ago.

Despite K’s growing morning sickness and my hacking cough and nastiness, the party would go on… and it did.

K made some awesome cupcakes, which it was clear were enjoyed by everyone.

His party weekend finished off today with the Caz Memorial Day parade and the F-16 flyover. I have a feeling he thinks they were for him. In one small way, he was right. They were to honor all of those who served all of us.

Yes, that’s right, our family pictures will soon require a wider lens.

K had an ultrasound to verify what we already suspected. She’s pregnant!! Only 6 weeks along, so it’s quite early yet and all you can see is a whopping 0.29 cm white splotch.

We’re pretty excited and just a bit nervous thinking of all the things that will need to be done.

On Friday I took a couple of vacation hours to play shutterbug in the town of Skaneateles, NY, and here at home in Caz. It was an absolutely amazing spring day with partly cloudy skies and brilliant sun shining in between. A few scattered sprinkles when the clouds got just thick enough, but not enough to even make you go inside. I also got a chance to go inside the Skaneateles Presbyterian church and shoot their stained glass which is really gorgeous. Their pipe organ is pretty impressive also.

The dandelions were so thick in the park at the south end of Caz Lake that my navy blue pants actually had thick yellow streaks from the pollen. You can see that the bees were enjoying the flowers also.

Winter wasn’t too bad this year, but the cold and grey of the winter months just make Spring so much more brilliant here. I hope these shots (and the ones in the gallery) give you a sense of the warm sun and the sweet smell of Spring flowers.

Thanks to J&J for having us out last weekend to kickoff the summer bonfire season. There was no-holds barred croquet and a May Pole^[1] in addition the the critically acclaimed smoked turkey and classic brisket. Get a feel for the croquet course by noting there is a wicket on the top of that mound the kids are playing on.

I also took a chance to wander through the woods and capture some shots of Spring in the forest as a contrast to the burned out mill across the river.

1. Turns out we’re pretty bad at the whole over then under thing. [↩]

Remember the post about the mother of all telephoto lenses?

Well, if you’ve been twitching to have one since then here’s your chance! B&H has one in their used department. They claim that there are less than 20 in existence.

No thanks. I’d rather buy a really nice telescope and a camera mount instead (and pay off my house).

I started with 277, filtered down to 65 and here are a cross section. You can flip through all of them in the Fort Worth Zoo gallery.

Yes, I know that it’s been a while, but this has been a very busy couple of weeks. In any case, the pictures from G-Ma’s 90th cake and ice cream fest have been posted. There are also some pics of playing in the pool afterward and eating dinner on Aunt Bren and Uncle Ray’s patio.

In case you’re wondering (you’re probably not), there are another 477 images in my processing queue. 277 of them are from the Ft. Worth zoo, which should be the next photo installment.