Just a few quick pictures; many more to come.
Author Archive for Alan
A fantastic and extremely well-made video detailing loot-haul for Christmas 2007 at the Stephanalanie home.
Cold weather tends to make one hunger for the warmer items to put into ones belly. Here are a couple recipes for heartier vegie soups.
While reading what Wikipedia had to say on the subject of High Dynamic Range Imaging, I found a link to a photoshop tutorial on how to fake it without the bother of technology and money.
The results were… interesting. I think with more time spent tweaking the outcome it could be fairly impressive. My results included this bizarrely illuminated house:
Also the Casino Bar on Pearl Street, in La Crosse:
Posted in the gallery are pictures from our recent overnight trip to visit my parents last weekend.
When the Little Henry video was posted, it had already been a couple weeks since we last saw him/her. Judging by its rotund appearance, we surmised that it in fact may be a pregnant she, and could be with nesting, hence the absence.
Several weeks went by with no sign of the creature. Then in the living room we started occasionally detecting the faint sickly-sweet odor of organic corruption. Uh-oh.
This continued on and off for more weeks, but always very faint if present at all. I think I knew what it was pretty early on, but wasn’t in a great hurry to find it. Even after several investigations of corners and under furniture, the smell came and went with no apparent source.
Frustrated, the other day I expanded my search to include some yet-unchecked, and seemingly unlikely places. Turning the couch over revealed nothing, looking under fabrics on the floor near the sewing shelves revealed…the small, dessicated remains of our cohabitant. Looking toward Stephanie I casually asked her if the smell was, in fact, Henry, would she want to know. She nodded, and I lifted a fold of red fabric and pointed with the flashlight.
Examining the remains revealed that it was, in fact, a she. No pregnancy was evident, or cause of death. Whether she had somehow been smothered (doubtful), or died from age or disease won’t be known. Neither will the question of whether she left a nest of babies.
Of some consolidation is the knowledge that she did have a fairly comfortable and fortunate existence in stumbling into our place, and certainly brought some cheer and entertainment over the winter months.
This last weekend Stephanie’s parents and two youngest siblings came from Racine to visit. It went well, and we covered the required destinations, i.e. the La Crosse Queen boat ride, the Hixon House, and St. Rose Convent. The Hixon House didn’t allow photos inside, unfortunately, but there are some from the river and the outside of the house.
Thankfully I start work soon, because this free-time is getting ridiculous, like making this Flash app:
It was in the mid nineties all weekend, the sort of hot soupy air that feels like a giant is slowly exhaling on you. Just stepping outside causes a vague sense of nausea to wash over you and causes you to stop and steady yourself.
Saturday morning I was downtown at the same time the Chileda run/walk was happening – never have I seen that many people at once looking that incredibly miserable and unhappy, and claim to enjoy doing these things. All ages and sexes of strained, painful grimaces and haggard faces were steadily plodding past. You could almost smell the smug self-satisfaction that was driving these people to torture their bodies and destroy their joints.
Here is a short introduction to our favorite visitor.
An update can be found here
