Schierer Space

With a new member of the household, it’s been pretty busy around here. I have much to report, but haven’t had time to do any reporting.

Here is a list of what I’d like to take some time to write about… as a promissory note and a to-do list.

1. R is growing fast. We have a 1 month growth chart pic and many more. I will get these online soon.
2. N continues to be a joy. He’s learning so fast now I’m not sure school will be ready for him in two more years. He’s working on reading and spelling simple words. He’ll be 3 in May.
3. Snow! We finally got real winter weather here in central NY. Pics of outdoor snow constructions will be coming soon.
4. New PC research. With our tax returns burning a hole in our bank accounts, I’ve begun the process of specing out a new machine for K. We also need to get Win7 installed before N wipes out our much-more-difficult-to-secure WXP household PC.
5. New PC constructed. I’m using it now to write this post… and will use it to edit the pics to post them. I owe you comments on Win7, and performance of the new machine. Not to mention the build process itself. Must keep installing stuff if I’m going to get into a position to clear out this list.

Ok. Must get back to installation.

Still no sign of our little girl… well there’s a sign, but K’s pretty much hoping it won’t be attached to her any more.

In the mean time we’ve been doing our best to enjoy the heart of winter in CNY.

More pics in the new 2010 gallery and in Nate’s gallery.

First, thanks to all our vets for what you’ve done for us and this country.

And secondly, it’s 11:11:11/11/(09). Just thought you should know.

A spooky sunset welcomes the trick-or-treaters

as does a ferocious dragon

and a somewhat more jocular jack.

Roar!

So the photo contest I entered a few weeks back was supposed to have been judged and done weeks ago. I hadn’t heard anything, so I just assumed that none of my pictures had rated.

So then I see this posting from the Madison County Tourism blog and apparently they haven’t even judged the darn things yet.

Now my stupid hopes are going to get up again.

The thermometer has taken a dive for the cellar and what was a beautiful start to fall has pretty much skipped right to November. This morning, the frost was definitely on the pumpkins.^[1]

However, over the last few weeks we’ve been enjoying the rainbow of leaves and the autumn activities here in Central New York. ^[2]

Our pumpkins with Nate for scale.

After work today Nate and I had some fun playing in a big pile of leaves in the front yard. Honestly, this is probably the first time in 4-5 years I’ve actually raked leaves. I guess I had a good reason for once.

Also check out some of the other new pics of Nate that have been posted: Nate helping paint the nursery, Nate giving K the “No Mommy” face, etc.

1. Snow actually. [↩]
2. I admit to wondering if I’ve managed to capture the new logo for the GBLA of Canada. [↩]

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we’re 11 days into October already. There’s been so much going on but so little has really been blog-worthy.

Some follow up news:

Some tech items:

• TV: The new flat screen looks much better than I expected. I admit I was skeptical about the whole HDTV thing, but it really is crisper and clearer. I’ve gotten so used to the wide-screen ratio on my computer at home (and laptop at work) that it feels much more natural than the 4:3 ratio now. Not that I’ve had much time for TV.
• CPU: New processor is humming along nicely. Calling this a success.
• K’s PC: Did some low level malware cleaning, nothing major, then did a WXP repair. Seems to be better now.
• Forged Alliance: Bought SupCom Gold (original plus FA expansion) for $5 on D2D. If you hurry you can get it before midnight. Annoyed that their site doesn’t seem to work properly with FF. However, since IE can’t handle downloads over 4GB, this forces you to install their annoying download manager. Also got Bioshock ($5!) for a rainy day (month?). Not sure when that’s going to happen. I’m bummed I found out about this sale in week 4 of 4… although my budget probably is not.

Life items:

• Work is insane.
• Last weekend: I have no idea. I can’t really remember last weekend… I think it was fall. See previous. There might have been pictures, and if there were I’ll post them soon.
• Nursery: Finally started painting. Got the room emptied out and setup for painting. Got three walls done. Fourth wall (complementing color), trim and doors remaining.
• Apple Fest: Went to Lafayette for the apple fest. Started drizzly and cloudy. Apple fritters were worth it. Cleared up by early afternoon.
• Pumpkins: On the way back from previous, we found a great farm along Rt.80^[1] selling pumpkins. We bought 3 ‘medium size’ pumpkins for $10.^[2] These pumpkins were enormous. Pics will follow. Very cool horse tire swing we may have to try to replicate.

Sleep now.

1. The farm is somewhere between Highland Forest and Rt. 91… sorry I can’t do better, but it’s a lovely scenic drive and I wasn’t paying that much attention. [↩]
2. They were $3 each, but the guy was so nice we gave him the change. [↩]

This is my inaugural post from our new office/guest bedroom. Technically, it’s the same room I had my office in before, but now there is a queen size bed crammed in also. Through some planning, sweat and back-breaking iteration, we have accommodated:

• One four poster queen bed (5×7.5′)
• One circa 1953 steel desk^[1] weighing in at ridiculous and measuring 2.5×5′.
• One large office desk chair
• Three 30″ 2-shelf bookcases.
• One two drawer filing cabinet
• All of my computer gear (Large tower, flatscreen and UPS on desk, flatbed scanner and laser printer on bookshelf and filing cabinet respectively)
• A closet full of shelving containing more books, computer parts and various other accessories

The room measures a just short of 10′x11′, has a door on the end of one wall, a window on the opposite wall (in the far corner), and in the same corner as the window (but on a third wall) is a deep closet. All desk and cabinet drawers are clear to extend to their full depth. All bookshelves have full access and the closet doors can open and close (bi-fold style)^[2]

I wish I had a lens wide-angle enough to show you just how packed, yet functional this is. It’s a bit tight getting around the bed to the closet, but a person can still fit easily. The bed fills pretty much half the room, and there won’t be much space for luggage… but we didn’t have to buy any new furniture.

Now that we’ve got the ex-guest bedroom cleared out, it can officially be transformed into the new nursery. That will pretty much be paint and window treatments. I’m bummed we don’t have the cash for the wood floors I wanted to put in, but new siding was more important.

1. We call it the battleship desk. [↩]
2. In the interests of full disclosure, I removed one of the doors simply because it serves no purpose now, but if it were there it would have sufficient clearance. [↩]

Thanks to everybody that voted. I sent in the pictures this morning as planned. This took, of course, considerably more effort than I anticipated because:

1. The images had to be less than 5MB to upload via their form, and 3 of mine were over that.
2. The online form once submitted thought for a really long time and then returned me to the blank form.
3. Upon deciding that I should email them to be sure, I proceeded to email them to photos@blah rather than photo@blah. I noticed this only after the first three emails had finished uploading and the “Email returned” message came back.
4. So I sent them all again.

Today I received an email in return saying basically: thanks for sending them by email we’re having upload issues. So maybe there won’t be much competition now…

So now I hope you’re wondering which images I submitted. If you look at the poll now that it’s closed there were two clear winners. Of course this morning when there was only 6 voters there was a four way tie. In the end I went with some combination of my gut and the voters. So the finalists were…

Fields at Dusk #1 (2619)

Wheels of Agriculture (2411)

Cleared for Landing (2007)

Independence Day (2886)

I’ve caught up on some pics from the past couple of weeks.

First some pics that K took of Nate and I at Fillmore Glen State Park. We’ve been to this park before and it has a nice easy walking trail along a stream with cascades and bridges. It also has a very new and rather nice playground with botha big-kid section and a small-kid section. We once again reinforced that Nate loves to spin around and bounce as fast as he can.

With Nate walking it was a short and easy walk, but we all had fun.

Nate has also learned to pedal his trike… at least when it’s flat or slightly downhill. In any case, he’s pretty much cruising.

This past weekend we visited my folks in PA. We went out on the boat a few times which Nate really enjoyed. Although I don’t have any pictures, ^[1] we also watched the Niagara go through several maneuvers. This was pretty interesting to watch since I’ve read a lot of naval history books but never actually paid attention to a sailing ship this size go through the motions.

The next day we went to a model aircraft event and despite the wind watched several put through their paces.

There was also some more interesting fare:

Finally after K & I got back from the hospital,^[2] while she rested at home, at Nate’s request the rest of us went out on the lake again.
Nate wasn’t too sure about swimming in his life jacket, but he enjoyed the boating.

Beautiful late night boating (although this sailboat looked like more fun to me)…

Later that night held the thunderstorms I wrote about earlier.

1. Figures that I would decide to leave the camera in the car. [↩]
2. K’s feeling fine now, but was very uncomfortable at about 3AM Sunday morning. [↩]