Second Golf Game of 2005

Originally uploaded by mmahaffie.

Christina and I played nine holes on the executive-length Heritage Golf Course, between Lewes and Rehoboth Beach, today.

At nine years old, Christina is starting to learn the basics of the game. So nine holes was a nice practice outing for me and a lesson for Christina.

The day started with sunshine, but got more and more cloudy, windy, and cold as we played. The weather wasn't as nasty as it was for my first game of the year.

My game wasn't great, but I had a few good shots. Christina hit a fine shot just after this photo; a nine-iron that had that nice arc and decent distance. On the ninth tee, she hit another great shot that went at least 100 yards.

Now she knows about that one shot per game that keeps you coming back.

Cat Detente

Mocha and Shoe don't usually get along this well.

Mocha is the new cat in town. She gets on Shoe's nerves, chases him around, ambushes him and steals his food.

So it was a nice change to come home from playing half a round of golf today and find them sharing the big chair. More or less.

Hey! A Gravity-Monument Photo!

I was just doing a quasi-random search on Flickr. I searched on "Colby" and "Maine" to see what images there might be of my alma mater. I found a nice shot from gavinOB of the Babson Gravity Monument on the Colby College campus that was the subject of one of my earliest blog posts.

I too had to have a photo of this; but took mine back in 1989 when Karen and I visited the campus for my fifth reunion and I had only a film camera. That photo is in an album somewhere, waiting for me to get my old stuff scanned.

When I first met up with this bit of stone and the idea carved on it, as a confused 18-year old, I took great comfort from it as evidence that I wasn't the only deeply weird person in the world.

I Have to Link to This From My Blog. I just Have To.

Headline
News Jounal Newspaper
April 21, 2005
Faithful gather at St. Blog's Parish

A Fine Feline Evening

This is Buttons. She is one of a herd of cats that live in and around the stables at the Milton Equestrian Center.

At least once a week I spend an evening here while Colleen takes a riding lesson. Once a week for the last several years. I've gotten to know the cats fairly well.

Buttons is the most shy of the cats. She's rarely out in public like this. This evening, I guess, she just couldn't pass up the warm, clear evening light.

I couldn't pass up the chance to get a shot of her, but she had to be stalked.

Things That Bother Me

I noticed this sign yesterday. It marks the men's room on the main hall of ballrooms at the Princess Royale Hotel, in Ocean City, Maryland.

It's one of those things that bothers me just on the periphery of awareness; something is wrong but it takes a closer look to see exactly what.

Is this meant to be the possessive form of "Men?" Or the plural of "Man." The former of course is "Men's." The latter would be "Men."

But, "Mens?"

I really just meant to take a picture of the sign for use in this post. When I saved it to my laptop and looked at it full size, I realized that I have created "Self portrait in bathroom door."

That, also, is vaguely troubling.

Temptation

This is a very nice car, but is it really so nice that this driver had to take up two spaces in a crowded hotel parking garage?

We took the girls down into Ocean City today. They are competing in a dance contest today and tomorrow. The contest is at the Princess Royale, which has a smallish parking garage. It was hard enough to find a space without this ... person ... claiming two spaces in an effort to keep his or her precious car from getting a ding.

I have to admit, when I see a car parked this way, I face the following temptations:

• Somehow wedge my car tightly in right next to the offending car so that they either can't get in the thing or can't get it out of the space.
• Bump into it anyway. (Not really. Somehow this one, and scratching the paint with my key, are ones I won't even consider)
• Leave a nasty note.
• Take a picture with my digital camera and put it on-line.

The better move, I guess would be to inform the hotel manager. That, I think, is what the guy who was walking by when I took this picture seems to have done. When we came out later the car was parked properly.

Ah! So This is What They Were Going For

I had a chance to have another look at the Harvard House, in Lewes, the other day. The paint team was out adding the final coat to the paint job I questioned last week.

As it turns out, they were going for a dark purple, with a light purple trim and blue accents.

This might work well. It is the case that Victorian Architecture calls for rich colors and complex palettes. It won't be the only purple house in town, and it may be one of the nicer ones.

I'll have to watch for, and photograph, the finished product.

This? This is Just Cool

Originally uploaded by chelajanenoto.

Wandering along in Flickr, and we find...

This is John Wesley Powell

Powell was the second Director of the US Geological Survey; he served in that post from 1881 to 1894. Before that he was an explorer and an emissary to the Native American nations.

This image is from an on-line collection of photos from the vaults of the USGS. There are some fascinating shots in there.

I've felt a connection to Powell since the Fall of 2003 when a team I was working with won the John Wesley Powell Award (PDF) from USGS, in recognition of our work on the Delaware DataMIL which was, briefly, on the cutting edge of on-line geospatial data.

We're not quite at the cutting edge anymore; things move fast in this on-line world. We'll get back out there. Eventually.