UnSpace

I'm getting better with Photoshop…

I recently purchased Adobe Lightroom and have been learning how to use it. Now that I've had a bit of a chance to play with it, I'm wondering how I survived all these years without it.

I was able to pop up a quick gallery onto UnSpace in about 5 minutes. Ok, so the photo selection isn't the best — I was just messing around and wanted to see if it works. But from the time I put the SD card in the laptop to that gallery appearing live on my web site was 15 minutes, and that includes having to go into the other room to look up the FTP settings for this site!

I understand that, if you're running a Mac, Aperture is the way to go. I don't have a Mac. I've got Windows Vista on the laptop. I've played around with the things Corel offers and Adobe Elements 6, and they are nothing compared to the power of Adobe Lightroom.

I wonder how long it will take me to keyword all my photographs since 2001? Actually, all things considered, not that long.

BTW: I've decided to shoot only in RAW now. There have been a number of times (astronomy photos) where I wish I'd shot in RAW. Having seen the power of Lightroom, I now understand why I wish to shoot all my photos in RAW — I can do a lot more with the photographs!

Now where did I see that Terabyte hard drive for sale? Gosh, I can remember when a 1 meg hard drive was a dream…

I wonder if that means I should learn how to blog from MS Word 2007? Yeah. Right.

The City of Bridges had another wonderful First Night Celebration last night! Nancy and I have taken to making our usual date for New Year's at Pittsburgh's First Night. Hey, just because we got married doesn't mean we don't still go out on dates with each other! We were looking forward to this event, especially since we finally got tickets to a performance of the improv group "Amish Monkeys."

Note: There are a lot of pictures here, so to keep this blog loading in something resembling a reasonable time, I've provided thumbnails — click to enlarge if you'd like a better look.

We parked the car outside the rivers and walked Downtown. As we crossed a bridge, we got to see the "Children's Fireworks." They had one set of fireworks at an early hour so the younger set could see them.

Our first stop was at the O'Reiley theater, where we saw the Amish Monkeys perform hysterically. Afterward, we went to Christos' Mediterranean Restaurant on 6th Avenue for a late dinner. Nancy and I had a wonderful dinner, and I got to take a small taste of her Carmel Creme dessert.

Parked outside what used to be the Fulton and Fulton Mini (I think it's called the Byham, now) was a cool car. Anyone know what it is?

We were able to see the First Night Parade as it went past on 6th avenue. A rumor in the streets had it that the Mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, was in New York celebrating at UPMC's expense. Not true at all! Sorry to ruin it for all you Lukey Haters, but here's a picture of the young Mayor leading the parade — in Pittsburgh:

The parade itself had people carrying grotesques. I used to know the story behind them, but here are some pictures.

One of the cool things about First Night is the number of things going on — you can't get to see them all. I missed the Clarks and we never went far enough East to see Brad Yoder (Pittsburgh's Best Solo Act according to Pittsburgh's City Paper, although I'd argue it should be the 2nd Best, Cathasaigh). Nancy picked out a number of things we wanted to see, including the Aboriginal Art at Spaces on Liberty Avenue. Along the way, we saw music performances in the street, with dancing and drumming.

There were also some odd sights. Outdoor Adventures decorated a tree with magnolia blossoms, making it appear the tree had bloomed in winter. A big hit with the youngsters were the lightsabers for sale.

We love the ice sculpture fellow, and he didn't disappoint this year, either. Look at the detail of the city! Art with chainsaws — why not?

Pittsburgh itself looked gorgeous, as some of these shots will show:

Near midnight, the Alcoa ///// Bayer Clock began the countdown to Midnight — a couple seconds off. At midnight, the fireworks started! Nancy wished me a "Happy New Year and Happy White Rabbit Day!" She always gets me on New Year's Eve.

We had a great time. Last time, the fireworks went off up around the 9th Street Bridge; this year they were Downtown, so we didn't get good photographs. But we were near the car and got home quickly where we celebrated a bit more and then did birdie waters, birdie food, and crashed.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Don't let the frustrations of the season
make you forget why you're celebrating.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
from Nancy and Rob

Professional stunt parrot. Do not attempt at home.

Gingerbread house by Nancy Carr
Photography by Rob Carr © 2007.

(click on picture for larger version)

It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. — Hebrews 9:23-28 (NIV)

Today, our minister, Dr. Thwaite, pointed out that we Christians are an Advent people, celebrating the first Advent of Christ's birth at Christmas, as well as awaiting His second Advent, His return. We are to be witnesses to the world of Jesus' sacrifice and the salvation He brings.

I took the above photo for the bulletin cover for our church. In case you haven't guessed, there will be 3 more covers for Advent each with an additional lit candle. The Christmas bulletin cover will be the scene with 5 lit candles — and something more!

Why yes, I love my job! I'm having way too much fun.

I found Kimberly Reed's "Abandoned Spaces" photography intriguing. I'm not the photographer she is, but I still wanted to see what I could do.

I know of a 20th century motel that has not been used for about a decade. Somewhere in my mind, I was hoping at least for a "Motel of the Mysteries," where the headdress of the priest says "Sanitized for your protection." Lately, I've only been getting four or five hours of sleep. My brain switched on and there was no hope of going back to sleep. I got dressed, grabbed the camera, and drove to the motel. The first light of morning is the landscape photographer's friend, and I hoped it might lend a little magic to my photo shoot. That this put me in the area around shift change and when traffic would be a concern is merely coincidental. As I drove up to it, I realized it was not utterly abandoned; someone was taking care of the lawn.

The first door summarized much of what I would find.

The office was nearby. On the desk was an old-style credit card embosser. The gum bands on the old check-in slips were brittle and cracking. Some of the rubber bands had snapped from age.

The latest of the check-in slips was from 1997. I wondered why the people had stopped. Were they on vacation, sleeping off a party, or meeting someone clandestinely? The slips didn't say. They only gave a name, a time of check-in, check out, and sometimes addresses or license plate numbers.

The back of the motel was in even worse shape than the front. The grass back here has not been cut in a while, and the poison ivy will not be fun for whoever must eventually mow this area.

One room had much of the furniture, piece piled upon piece with mildew and water damage and broken wood. Remember what I said about morning light? There wasn't enough of it in the rooms, and I had to use my speed flash to help me take photographs. If I'd brought my tripod, I might have been able to use a long exposure and ambient light, but a tripod would have slowed me down. Some part of me was thinking about the design factors that go into enhancing thermal neutron capture cross-section in nuclear reactions. If neutrons carried little sub-atomic tripods with which to take pictures, nuclear science would be a lot easier.

The photographs do not convey the smell. When I was a small child, we visited elderly relatives, and this is what their home smelled like: musty and damp.

I was only there for about 15 minutes, not taking or even moving anything. The trip back home was long; I crawled back into bed at 8:30 and managed an hour's sleep before I had to leave for my lunchtime appointment.

I'm curious as to any comments people might have on these photographs. They aren't what I pictured;

Here's Nancy's bonsai azalea.

I don't know why, but in the photo, there are several blotches which aren't seen when you look at the image in the photo editing program. The printed version looks different from both. This is driving me nuts.

If you wish to see the first seven stations, as well as other information about the Stations of the Cross at Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church, see the first post, "Stations of the Cross: Stations 1-7." As before, the title for each photograph is a link taking you to the meditation on that photograph. The photographs can be clicked to get a larger version of the image.

Eighth Station

Ninth Station

Tenth Station

[Note: To avoid interrupting worshipers, I took these photographs while the stations were still being set up. Yes, there is a sign at the base of Station 10 that says IX. The sign was placed there while someone went to look for something to hang it with at the 9th Station. As I said, these are preliminary photos. I did get more today, but they're not processed — or even downloaded from the camera.]

Eleventh Station

Twelfth Station

Thirteenth Station

Fourteenth Station

The Artists

Last night, as a part of Lent, the youth group ministry (CrossOver) of Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church set up 14 stations of the cross for meditation before or after the Ash Wednesday service. They chose 14 stations from the gospel accounts of Christ's last hours.

Here are the preliminary photographs of the stations. The title of each photograph is a link that will take you to a meditation that accompanies the following photograph. If you click on a photograph, you will be taken to a larger version of the photograph, sometimes necessary to read text on the artwork or to get a better view. Please note that the photographs are crude approximations of experiencing the art live.

Program cover
History of the stations of the cross
Practice of the stations of the cross

The First Station

The Second Station

Third Station of the Cross

Fourth Station

Fifth Station

Sixth Station

Seventh Station

Stations 8-14 can be found at "Stations of the Cross: Stations 8-14."

Cathasaigh is the young woman Nancy and I met at the East End Food Co-op art thingie, the one I referred to as "The Voice." She's still "The Voice," although she's also an amazing musician as well. 'Saigh took a break from public performances in January to prepare for her next album.

Last Friday, Cathasaigh had a gig at Mojoe Coffee.

Cathasaigh asked if I could take some photographs, right at the time I'm working my way through an online people photography course from CCAC. I asked for permission to use her and her friends as practice for my class, and a deal was struck that included allowing me to use flash during the gig!

I'm learning how to use the Nikon SB-800 AF Speedlight with my camera. Jess, 'Saigh's sister, was more impressed by the extra pounds the speedlight added to the camera. Compared to the camera's built-in flash, the SB-800 is a wonder. You wonder at the range the flash has and you wonder at how it overwhelms the camera in size!

'Saigh's week leading up to the gig had been terrible. Her aunt passed away, the furnace broke, the car breaks crapped out, and a bunch of other stuff went wrong. The performance was influenced by these events, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Her voice and instrumental work were superb, nonetheless!

I focused on the camera, so there were no written notes on the performance, unlike the CD Release party for the Pittsburgh Songwriters.¹ But the first song was one Cathasaigh wrote, "Hypnotized," and it's the title track of the new CD she's working on. The song's a fan favorite, with a lot of parallel structure and social commentary.

There was one song, describing her family's disastrous week, that Cathasaigh did, possibly a "one time only" song. The song was a semi-humorous look at all the things that had gone wrong, a "laugh so you don't cry" deal. It wasn't Weird Al's absurdist "One of Those Days," but it was good.

As I said, Cathasaigh's week did affect her gig in some interesting ways. Usually, she has an electronic 88-key keyboard she plays, but it wouldn't fit into the car they had to use to get to Mojoe Coffee. Improvising, she brought a borrowed autoharp instead. Cathasaigh wanted to use an autoharp on the new CD, so a neighbor lent her one. She experimented with it in January and decided it made a decent solution to the keyboard problem. She hinted that she was learning some advanced techniques that she'd use on the album. After Friday's show, I tried to get her to show us a sample, but she politely declined. She's keeping it a surprise for the CD, and I'd obviously used up any credits I had by repeatedly nuking 'Saigh with the speedlight during the performance.

There were a lot of faces in the audience I'd not seen at past performances, but a lot of the same children were there. 'Saigh's music is family friendly, and she always has the little ones come up and clap along in a contest to see if she can play the guitar faster than they can clap.

At one point, one of the little girls was singing along with Cathasaigh and happened to wander up next to her. The gigs do tend to be informal! 'Saigh turned the mic over to the little girl, giving her a chance to finish the song!

I did get to practice my photography quite a bit. There were some great moments, including this one of Cathasaigh and a friend laughing. This isn't the photograph I wanted to take. The two of them would crack up in this amazing way that made anyone watching want to laugh along, even though they didn't hear what provoked the laughter — which, from where I was standing, I couldn't.

I still need to practice posing people. This is one of the better shots I got of Cathasaigh.

Have you ever noticed that some people know how to be photographed? I got a number of photographs of Cathasaigh's volunteer vocalist that give the illusion that I know what I'm doing, the above photo being a prime example.

Cathasaigh's next performance is this coming Saturday at The Coffee House at 8 p.m.² The performance is free, so if you're looking for something to do, come on out! Maybe we can get a blogger's section going!

1. I tried getting an article and photographs published from the Pittsburgh Songwriters Release Party ; the editor hemmed, hawed, and eventually decided the news was too old to publish. I really should throw the mess article up on UnSpace, but I'm still a little irritated. [back]
2. Mojoe Coffee is a great place, but we also all know I'm thinking "No portraits of Jack Nicholson acting crazy to deal with at The Coffee House." I'm a terrible person. [back]

Photographers are warned to watch out for what shows up in the background. Unfortunately, Cathasaigh's concert last night at MoJoe's Coffeehouse had a background that I couldn't avoid. Besides the picture frame sticking out of her head, Jack Nickolson appears to be, as Jethro Tull would say, "eyeing little girls with bad intent."

I'll have some better pictures and a review of the concert posted soon on UnSpace. In the meantime, here's a non-horrifying picture of Cathasaigh:

An artistic rendering of Pittsburgh.

I took one of the First Sunrise 2007 pictures, posterized it, and then ran it through the "brush strokes" effect.

I'm thinking about a redesign for UnSpace, and I might like to feature this as the logo. What do you think?

An award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job.

The bad news: I doubt the authorities will take the children away from the parents who complained about the field trip.

"Walk on Through" by Gerard Tonti.
Click on the photograph for a larger version.
Warning: Very Large!

Near the Second Avenue head of the Eliza Trail, there's a mural titled "Walk on Through" by Gerard Tonti. While photographing some other things, I attempted to photograph this mural. The mural is large — 1200 square feet!

I took 8 photographs, each one centered on one individual. To create the above image, I merged three of the photographs. I did not correct for perspective — the mural is higher than the camera. If you look closely at the large version, you can see seams along the bottom of the city and the difference in lighting of the third segment is obvious. As I learn to work with various Corel Photopaint tools, I'll try to post a better version. Because I moved my position, the typical panorama-producing photograph tools do not work properly.

Maybe it's because I've walked this trail a number of times, but I love this mural. The graffiti artists have left it alone…so far. Due to construction,¹ graffiti in this area has been painted over with gray. They almost got one of the butterflies, but even the construction workers left this painting alone. Should something happen to it, I'd hope that at least my photographs will provide some record of this artwork.

Close-Up of Identification of Mural from Wall.

1. No, I have no idea why construction needs graffiti painted over. [back]

You need to see this video trailer! This is the most astonishing video I have ever seen!

I came across the video of "The Inner Life of the Cell" at Clicked. You need Flash 8 to view it. The movie is 8 minutes long, but it's not available anywhere yet. The link is to a 3 minute "teaser." Excluding two basic cheats (cells are crowded — you could never make sense if they included everything, and most reactions have to be slowed down immensely so that you can follow them), the movie is amazingly accurate. Go see it now, and then come back here. I'll do my best to tell you what you're seeing.

You just watched the basic inner workings of a white blood cell, like the ones in your body. For the most part, what you watched will occur in some form or another in every living eukaryotic cell.

Here's my best interpretation of what you just saw. I'm trying to spoil the movie "trailer" for you — tell you what you just saw, in detail. The problem is, some of this is beyond the biochemistry I know. I've used Andrew's Website to confirm (and in the case of the endoplasmic reticulum translocon, learn some new things). I'm doing my best. I may be wrong at points, and there are aspects that I simply don't know enough to go into detail on.

The Plot:

The movie opens with a view of a capillary. There are red blood cells and white blood cells moving through a capillary. The white cells are rolling along. The movie focuses in on one of those white blood cells and shows you how it manages to "roll along." Finally, the white blood cell squeezes in between two other cells and disappears. The movie goes back to a capillary view and closes.

Detail:

Here's a step by step summary. By the way, when I say "proteins," I generally don't know exactly what protein I'm looking at. It's quite possibly a glycoprotein. Animal cells don't use cellulose for structural material, and I don't think they use carbohydrate polymers except for storage of sugars. I could be wrong. Anyway:

1. Red and white blood cells are moving through a capillary. The cells are color-coded according to their names. Every once in a while, you'll see "something else" flash by too fast to be identified. The cells of the capillary are sort of flesh-toned. The red blood cells flow by, but the white blood cells actively move along in what appears to be slow-motion compared to the red blood cells.
2. The camera zooms in to the contact area between the white blood cell and the capillary cell. The white blood cell is "down," and the capillary is "up." For most of the movie, the directions seem to be consistent where it matters: down is toward the nucleus of the white blood cell, up is toward the capillary. The white blood cell is seen to "roll" along, but at this scale, we see the rolling is more active, controlled by surface proteins.
3. The camera zooms in even futher for an instant, and the blue white blood cell proteins brush up against the golden capillary proteins and appear to attach. The blue protein has regions of charge that match up nicely with the regions of charge on the gold protein, so they form a weak link.
4. The camera pulls back a bit, and we see the white blood cell (down) linked by those linked proteins to the capillary cell (up). There appears to be a spaghetti-ish surface proteins on both cells, partially hiding the lipid bilayer.
5. When the camera changes view again, we are now at the surface of the white blood cell. The tiny light blue, dark blue, and green balls are the hydrophillic ends of the outer lipid bilayer. Floating in the lipid bilayer are rafts of proteins. Some of the proteins are mounted on the lipid bilayer; others will go completely through, either allowing small molecules through or permitting a mechanical "signal" to be sent (like sliding an envelope through a mail slot). The movie focuses in on one protein (brown) coming down from above and sticking a chained green blob into a receptor. The receptor recognizes the green blob and sends a signal through the membrane.
6. Now, the camera is inside the cell. The lipid bilayer is visible at the top of the screen — unseen, the capillary cell is above that. This might be where they made a cut — how the sensor protein sends the signal through to the interior of the cell either is beyond me or was cut from this shorter version. We're getting a look around, just under the surface of the membrane of the cell.
7. In one of the few cases where "up is not toward the capillary cell," the camera pulls back and shows the structural proteins that form a sort of "honeycomb" underneath the lipid bilayer. This honeycomb allows motion and (I believe) some physical signals to be sent back and forth along the cell membrane. Calling them "signals" may be a bit incorrect — if the cell "wants" to move to the right, is pushing the cell that direction a "signal" or not? The camera pulls back, and we see the vast network of these structural proteins. The "rafts" are seen floating on the lipid bilayer.
8. The camera changes viewpoint again, and now we're going through structural proteins in the cell that make up the cytoskelleton. I think. I'm lost. They may have cut something again. Sigh. The camera emerges into a relatively clear area where we are watching actin fibers being created. The actin subunits stack up rapidly, forming a long helix-like chain. A slight shift moves to another place where actin's being assembled. There are yellow proteins that I should be able to name and can't that join actin structures together.
9. Another shift and we see an upside-down yellow and green enzyme come along and attach to the actin fiber. The actin fiber is cut at that point; the enzyme (another one I should be able to name but can't — and possibly part of or related to the yellow protein earlier — when I took biochemistry, they were just starting to learn about this stuff!) seals one end but allows the other end to fall apart, starting from the cut. In the background, there's a microtubule.
10. The focus shifts to the microtubule. The microtubule subunits link up and zipper up to extend the microtubule.
11. A shift, and we see a microtubule catastrophe — the microtubule is taken apart. What you have just witnessed, in the formation and destruction of actin fibers and microtubules is the cell moving, shifting, and responding to information. We're used to thinking of DNA as a "computer," but this is a mechanical computer, which is, granted, controlled by the DNA.
12. Ok, this is simply the coolest thing in this movie, bar nothing! This is not made up. This is real. That "herculean" protein with the "earth" on it's back is a microtubule motor protein. Think of it as something that can only walk on a railroad track. At the other end, it has a lipid globule. It, too, is a bilayer, with water and proteins on the inside and proteins on the surface and through the lipid bilayer. Why is the "walker" doing this? Where is it going? You're about to find the answer.
13. The camera focus shifts. We see walkers carrying things to and fro on the microtubules. There appears to be something that is a focus of many microtubules. It is the nucleus — that's where we're going next, as you can tell when the focus latches onto the nucleus (great filmmaking, by the way).
14. We're now at the nuclear membrane. There are pores there, gates where only certain things can get in and only certain things can get out. We're watching messenger RNA (mRNA) shoot out of some of those holes, with a protein on one end to guide and control them, and a protein on the other end to mark the ending.
15. The mRNA assembly arcs up and the two proteins unite, forming a loop of mRNA. A two-part ribosome starts at the beginning of the mRNA.
16. We zoom in and see the ribosome make a protein. This is a special protein — a promoter. By itself, it can do nothing. We see it shoot off to the left.
17. We follow that protein (now it's blue) and it comes across an orangish blob. The two link up and together, they can find a strand of mRNA with the right sequence and tell it to start making another protein. This is part of how cellular activity is regulated. It heads toward a piece of endoplasmic reticulum.
18. The scene changes — I think this is another cut — and the orange part of the orange and blue joint promoter proteins can be sort of seen at the far right. Now's not a good time for any tendency toward dyslexia on my part to kick in. Anyway, it's on a hunk of mRNA, the mRNA has a ribosome on it, but this ribosome heads for a translocon on the endoplasmic reticulum. The translocon is on a "surface." This is another membrane. The protein gets "squirted" into the endoplasmic reticulum as it's made. See how the protein is hard to see through the membrane at the bottom of the screen? The protein is contained!
19. Another cut (possibly a cut with some of those extra 5 minutes gone), and we see lipid bodies popping off the endoplasmic reticulum. These blobs contain proteins that were manufactured by ribosomes like the one we just watched. The focus changes (I love that trick — it's basic, but it works so well) and we see a microtubule "walker" on a microtubule carrying a lipid body. See, I told you we'd find out the story of that walker! Now you know why it does that! Proteins made from mRNA from the nucleus, inserted (and possibly modified) in the endoplasmic reticulum, formed into lipid bodies, and then grabbed by the walkers to be taken to a destination! Cool, huh?
20. There's a change, where we see blobs going to the endoplasmic reticulum and away from the endoplasmic reticulum. This stuff was all 2-D when I did biochemistry and cellular biology. We had nothing like this to see! Our drawings were crap in comparison, and a few electron micrographs made no sense — at least to me.
21. Another cut, and we see a "walker" heading up toward the cellular surface with one of those lipid bodies.
22. Now, the viewpoint is outside the white blood cell. We're watching proteins (and I possibly hormone release and/or garbage dumping) be released into the lipid bilayer of the cell outer membrane.
23. Several proteins gather together and form a raft on the lipid bilayer. They "awaken," reach up and grab onto proteins on the surface of the capillary cell. We're back where we came in!
24. The white blood cell rolls along and then decides to slip between two cells of the capillary. Did it, in it's protein reactions, find that something wrong might be nearby?
25. We'll never know until the 8 minute movie comes out! Who knows what they cut. This may not be the end, but for now we watch blood flow through the capillaries again, and white blood cells crawl their way along the wall.

Conclusion:

That's my analysis of the movie trailer for "The Inner Life of the Cell." If anyone can correct my mistakes, name the proteins involved (specific protein names would be fascinating), explain the significance of what we are seeing, or provide better context, I'd be grateful. I'm hoping folks can work together on the Internet to figure out the significance of this wonderful movie!

Note:

I have no idea how many times I've watched this video. The more I watch it, the more I see. I'd love to know what that cylinder with the glowing center is supposed to be! Do we see mitochondria? Every time I've viewed it, I've come up with something new.

At some point, I need to go back through and explain a lot of the terms. I myself was never quite clear on what the Endoplasmic Reticulum was. Back in the late '70s, I don't think my professors were all that clear, either.

You realize this will be the future of biochemistry instruction and research, don't you? Imagine a video like this, except you can control it on your computer. The entire cell could be created, thick and rich, and by ticking off certain items, you could make those structures transparent or translucent, control the camera yourself — viewpoint, focus, motion, and explore the cell better than the adventurers in the movie "Fantastic Voyage."

Update:

Further comments are currently in the…well…comments. Duh.

Holmes watches Nancy do Pysanky.

Holmes gets treats, too!.

Holmes is Nancy's African Grey parrot. Holmes, like Cirrus (my African Grey parrot) is female. In preparation for the East End Food Co-op craft festival, Nancy has been doing Pysanky eggs (Ukranian egg decorating) every morning. Holmes sits on her left leg and watches her decorate the eggs. She provides Holmes with treats to eat as she sits there. Even after the treats run out, Holmes just watches Nancy work. She's obviously not allowed to play with the burning candles, eggs, or dyes. Holmes just sits there and watches.

I can't help but wonder what a bird thinks of someone decorating an egg. Cirrus, who is a little older than Holmes and known to be sexually mature, sat a vaguely egg-shaped toy for a while, trying to get it to hatch. I believe these parrots have some genetic memory of the egg shape. So what is going through that little birdie brain?

Parrots will attack and eat another bird's eggs. Scrambled eggs (raw eggs, of course, are not safe) are a favorite but rare treat. Parrots (like humans) have to watch their cholesterol.

So what does Holmes think is going on? Does she think Nancy is "playing with her food"? Does Holmes think this is some strange form of incubation?

Or, is it like I remember back from when I was a small child? My parents did many things repeatedly that I did not understand the purpose of. I was used to Mom or Dad playing with papers on the dining room table. I never wondered why they did it. They just did. One day they explained the concept of "paying bills" to me. I was puzzled that I'd never asked why they played with paper before that. My parents just did.

Perhaps Holmes simply accepts Nancy playing with the eggs, because Pysanky simply "is," and there is no need for explanation.

A Big Bang.
Click on the photograph for a larger version.

It's just a cultivated form of Morning Glory, blooming on a rainy day. But when I downloaded this photo to the computer, I saw the birth of a new universe, in all it's awe-inspiring beauty.

Yes, I know a tulip is probably a closer shape to an inflationary universe than this trumpetish flower. Somehow I can't shake the metaphor. The mathematics are irrelevant.

What do you see?

The picnic, in infrared.
Click on the photograph for a larger version.

Today, at North Park, my extended family had the July and August birthday picnic. Since my birthday was one of the ones being celebrated, I decided to bring Nancy's gift to me, the Hoya R72 infrared filter for my camera.

After a while of getting the food and presents from the car, playing with the children, and taking some infrared photographed, I decided to take a break. I found a chair a ways from the picnic, and sat down. I enjoyed just watching the picnic for a few minutes. One of the twin two-year old boys came over and climbed up on my lap. He wanted to play with my camera. He clicked a few shots while tugging at the camera. I managed to I aimed the camera for him at the picnic grove, the trees, and the clouds. He started clicking away.

That's all this photograph is. The grove, the trees, and the clouds.

Other than balancing the color channels and reducing the size of the image, no manipulation was done of this infrared photograph.

Update: The photographs I attempted to take of the same area were nowhere near as interesting. It was only in looking at the series of infrared photographs, some which were blurry from motion, that I realized the child had taken the photos. When this photo was taken, Nikki the N