Half Way There

 It's that time of the year.  It's harvest time.  Apples are being picked, and have been picked for at least the last month.  Pears before that, and then stone fruit.  Apples are by far the most numerous, though.  That shows in the number of fruit trucks, which slowly meander throughout the valley with no apparent objective in mind.  They just wander all over the place.  Some people might think they are headed to specific store houses, but you can see loaded truck after loaded truck pass each other going opposite directions.  You would think they could go from point A to point B without having to wander around so much.  Why do they simply seem to take up space on the road?  There is no rhyme or reason to their chaotic shuffling from here to there to here again apart from getting in my way.

The thing that makes them far from innocuous, though, is that because they are loaded they are much slower than other traffic.  So one loaded fruit truck can slow down an entire line of cars.  Once in a blue moon you might see a fruit truck pull over to let traffic by, but that is such a rare occasion, you might be better off to buy a lotto tick and expect to win more often!

So, this is the scene you can see more often than not on my way too and from work.

On the bright side, I do eventually get home and then Chloe and I go get the "May-el."  I can't complain about that.  She is awesome.  

Hazy Shades of Barns

 I went with some oldies but goodies today.  I reworked both of these until they cried.  The clouds made me happy in both, but especially so in the second.  I hope you will click on over to Bluff Area Daily to see some other barns!  I think it's a great thing to show some of the architecture from bygone eras, and it's a wonderful way for people to get their work noticed.  Thanks to Tricia at Bluff Area Daily, we get to see barns from across the country.  It's the kind of thing that can blunt the sharp pain that is Monday.

And so the week begins.  My kids are going to make a presentation today on what it means to be human.  Friday I discovered that the computer up front won't show on the screen like it did three weeks ago...now I have to figure out why the heck that's happening and then grade countless presentations.  I can only hope I figure out why it isn't showing and that those kids who took the time to make powerpoints can present, otherwise we're going to have a crappy day, and by we I mean me.

Chloe got more sleep last night, but not nearly as much as she does when she isn't sick.  Same goes for mom and dad...

The weather is finally beginning to turn.  I don't think we've gotten a frost yet, though in years past we have had snow on Halloween...so, what's up with the weather this year?  Let's just get this unpleasantness we call Fall and Winter over with so we can go back to the good seasons, shall we?

A Day of Rest

This is Brie.  She is my sister's Llama.  I'm fond of her.  She is good to make portraits of, don't you think?

 Last night we got home after listening to The Cave, by Mumford and Sons, for the fifteenth time.  Chloe eventually went to bed.  It wasn't but a couple hours later that our little angel was awake again.  She has caught the cold that Cora has had...and now it seems I may be coming down with the same thing.  Since Cora had spent the previous night up with her, I figured it was my turn, We finally ended up next to each other on the twin bed in Chloe's room.  Chloe rested on a pillow next to me, while I formed a barrier to keep her from rolling.  I don't know how long we were resting like that.  Cora came in and checked on us and found it was Chloe's snoring that she'd heard on the monitor, not mine.

Cora and I were up for a couple more hours since neither of us could sleep.  Cora was still coughing.  My back was sore from laying next to Chloe for so long.  Chloe slept for a little while longer, but eventually we all awoke and started all over again with a not-feeling-well baby.  Eventually I got a couple hours of sleep and I think Cora might have gotten a little bit, too, but I don't think any of us are up to doing much today.

Today, I think it will be Netflix streaming on the Wii and some soup and some relaxation.  I might go out and do some work on the yard, and then the weekend will be over and we'll start the week all over again...I'd like a longer weekend.  Anyone else?

This is my dad.  He isn't fond of my taking his picture, but he's a good sport, so he let me.

I should have something a little more up beat to say, but I'm really sleepy and I think everyone else here is too.  I'd like to get out and do something, but I just don't see it happening.

Someone's ONE!

 My youngest nephew celebrated his first birthday tonight.  (My sister and brother-in-law were celebrating their's, too, but who are we kidding, they aren't as important as the youngest!)  He got right into the unwrapping, although some of the gifts were bigger than he was!

 The candle shown like a small sun!  In an even smaller solar system that didn't really have planets, but rather people, who didn't orbit the small sun/candle but rather blew it (the small sun/candle) out.  So, I guess it wasn't really like a sun, so you should really just ignore the comparison.

 I took a few candid shots of my niece, and this is what she looked like when she caught me.  I can't believe how much she has grown up!

On the way home, it was getting well past Chloe's bed time and she was letting us know about it.  She let us know most of the way home.  That is, until that magical wonder of modern technology that we call our Sirius Satellite Radio beeped and told us that a certain song was about to play.  We were, by this time, running ragged with the crying in the back seat.  So, we changed channels to this song, expecting to hear the crying accompanying the music, but then an awesome thing happened.   She stopped crying.  We looked at each other and noted that we each had raised eye brows.  We knew it couldn't last but we were SO happy for the respite.

The song ended and there was STILL no crying in the back seat!  We thought, "WOW! We broke the cycle!"  Until the next song came on and she let us know she was unhappy.  We shared a glance and then experimentally, not expecting a repeat performance, we pushed the button and skipped the music back to replay the magical song.  The wailing in the back seat stopped.  We didn't move for fear of breaking the spell.

We played the song all the way home.  Over and over, and if we forgot to rewind it quickly enough, that small  music critic in the back seat told us in ear piercing tones.  So, what magic song does she love?  This one:

Last Night

 After dark and the wife was in bed.  I couldn't sleep.  I read for awhile and then decided to listen to Pandora while I read.  Then I saw a picture on my photo program that I'd been wanting to edit.  Then I got an idea for how to fix it.  I fiddled and I played and I tweaked and I adjusted and I just had a little fun.  What do you think?

I could spend hours on the computer editing photos if only my schedule, my daughter, and my wife would allow it.  Too bad all I get from it is some compliments.  Maybe I should start offering to do portraits.  

I am so glad it is Friday.  I discovered, today, that I am supposed to keep check of the kids who are tardy.  I did...or thought I did, by marking them tardy, but apparently, even though I mark them in the system, they don't go off to the same place absences do.  So, I have to keep track and punish the kids for being tardy...they have been taking advantage of my misinformation.  That angers me, even though it is to be expected.  Well, I'll be taking care of that right now!

Still worse, one of my little offenders was caught going to the bathroom on the other side of the school...that makes me even more mad.  The little shit obviously did wrong, but he didn't even have the intelligence NOT TO GET CAUGHT!  Well, let's just say, bathroom breaks are being curtailed.

Let me change the subject.  I don't know if I have bragged about Chloe enough lately.  So here are a few shots of her from when we got home today!

I say the weekend can stay here all week and I won't complain!

It's Friday Again!

 It's Friday again!  Thank goodness I held out through the week!  I used Bonnie's Medieval Magic texture and her Silken Waters texture, which I darkened once I got them in the photo.  I think it worked out well.  This is a photo of some of the equipment being used to clean the soil on an island in one of our local rivers.  The island used to be the home of a wrecking yard, where old cars went to die.  The county and probably some environmental groups put significant pressure on the owner of the wrecking yard, which is now a mile or so away and pissing other people off.  I guess no one wants a wrecking yard as a neighbor.  The men doing the soil cleaning seem to be focusing on taking the steel and iron out of the ground...they are probably looking for petroleum, too.  Still, it seems like a decent photographic opportunity.

This second photo was taken in Guangzhou, China, while we were waiting for Chloe's Visa.  I used one of my own textures on this one.  The texture was taken from a piece of brass that I salvaged from an old Navy shore boiler.

I had a good week.  I am finishing my third week as a long term sub!  By the end of next week, I qualify for the big bucks!  This will be the first time I have reached this point before Christmas!  I am deserving of the extra pay, though.  I have been working longer hours and suffering from the childish tendencies of teenagers.  Particularly, contemporary teens seem to have an over developed sense of what is fair to ask of them.  For instance, They think you should give them the answers.  

We have been covering the ideas, both physical and behavioral, of what it means to be human.  Easy if you've have been in class and devoted even a quarter of your attention to the teacher.  Or the book.  Or the point of the work...but, we wouldn't do that, would we?  I have marched around the classroom trying to lead them to the answers.  Hell, I've even tried just giving them the answers, but do they see?  NO!  So, I am looking forward to seeing how they handle the presentation they'll be giving on Monday.  Hah!  I expect them to fail or get low marks.  Not all, some of them are great students!  Those are the ones I love having in class.  

There are those, though, who seem to just show up.  I called one up and told him he was missing some assignments with the intention of giving him a chance to raise his grade.  I said, "You have an F in here.  You are missing these assignments."   He looked at me and said, "So?"  Then he walked off, leaving me with my mouth open.  Yeah, it's not easy.

Oh, and then there are those who have given me nothing but attitude since I gave them a seating assignment.  There are others who get pissy for other reasons.  One of the other teachers came in the other day to tell me what I needed to do.  She was looking past me and said, "those girls have a phone out."  I had already spoken to them about that, so it was an automatic referral.  But the girls decided to say loudly, "F this and F you" to the teacher...one of the girls got two days off!  Well, that wasn't me making the punishments, but I got the backlash because I am a teacher.  I got told off by some kids who were sympathetic to the girls.  I whipped out the referral forms after I kicked them out of class.  One of those was removed from my class.  He had a filthy mouth, so I certainly don't miss him.  The others have been decidedly less mouthy since then, though.

On my way to work this morning I saw this:

 Look closer:

 See the smoke now?

 Yeah, it was A LOT of smoke.  Turned out it was a bunch of (I'm pretty sure, if my memory serves) creosote fence poles, also known as rail road ties.  I believe there was a bit of a coral next to them, too...well,  WAS.  This is the shot I got of the actual fire.

Yeah, looks hot.  That was the most excitement in my day.  I am looking forward to the weekend.  We get to go see my family and celebrate a BUNCH of birthdays...my newest nephew being the main one, my sister and brother-in-law being less important.  Should be a great weekend!  I hope you have a good one, too!

OH! AND DON'T FORGET TO VISIT BONNIE!!!  At Pixel Dust!

   

Accessories!

 Chloe decided she needed a hat yesterday and chose one just a wee bit bigger than she.  When I picked her up she had to put it on and she headed for the truck on her own, me walking beside her carrying her bag.

 When we got home she decided she wanted to stay in the car seat to work the clips, so I unloaded the truck and then got my camera out.  She did not disappoint.  The last one is her "Cute" face.  Whenever you say, "Are you cute?"  She does this thing with her hands...it's a sign she made up to signify cute and I think it's working for her!