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You have probably heard of a six pence, right? Have you seen one? I think the design seems very Celtic. Wonder what the flowers are? I see holly and clover but what are the other three flowers?

Anna had a class project to create a cell model this week. We tried Jello yesterday – fail! So, we resorted to making a cake for our medium. I took a picture of the cake, which I’ll post below and then created an outline version of the image that was more representative of the cell model. I think both versions look pretty good and most importantly her model is yummy! I want to go to her class tomorrow.

If you guys see Sarah flying by please tell her it is past her bedtime and time to come home for the evening before her broomstick runs out of gas. This first picture is her friend Katie. This one had better color so ran with it. The one of Sarah was under exposed and had some issues so I converted it to B&W to salvage it.

Day 14 – Self Conflicted. I had fun tonight and introduced Anna and Sarah to extended shutter exposures. The pictures were taken with the shutter open 30 seconds. Which one do you think should be my picture of the day? I couldn’t decide.

This is a reproduction set of the Isle of Lewis Chessmen (or Uig Chessmen). It is the earliest know chess set. Discovered in 1831 in Scotland, a total of 78 pieces were recovered including 8 kings, 8 queens, 16 bishops, 15 knights, 12 rooks and 19 pawns. The heights of the pawns range from 3.5 to 5.8 cm while the major pieces are between 7 and 10.2 cm. It is believed they were probably made in Norway, by craftsmen in the 12th century. They are owned and exhibited by the British Museum in London, which has 67 of the original pieces, and the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, which has the remaining 11 pieces. Sarah, in 4th grade now, joined the chess club this year and I can’t wait to play a game with her using this set. The board arrives next week!

Caroline purchased this wonderful medium format 120mm Yashica-Mat film camera for me for Christmas. I love this camera, it is so beautiful. Also in the picture is an #168 Boxwood antique wood and brass two foot ruler. It folds both vertically and horizontally, very unusual. And to the left of the camera are some Buckyballs. If you don’t have any of these, you need to get some. Seriously.

There was a light fog this morning and I tried to catch it but I was a little late. You can see it in the tree lines. I wish I had been 30 minutes earlier. Even so the heavy frost and early morning sun were great. The tree on the right is the second biggest dogwood in America. Wait until this spring!! And yes, it is haunted! We have video proof.

Anna has developed a new hobby in part due to her cousin Clara. She loves to make jewelry now. These are some beads from one of her favorite bead stores here in Bowling Green.

This afternoon Leah, Sarah and I went to share some treats with the horses down the street. We were hoping to see King and Tinkerbell but instead we found only Pepe. He was whinnying at the fence when we arrived and kept it up until he realized what we had at which point he trotted over to investigate. We shared some apples and carrots with him and I think he must have appreciated it because it struck a very nice pose fore me afterward. Thanks Pepe!

iPhone and Instagram enabled picture.

Yes, that right! Free iPad backgrounds for all my friends. This was a fun little project. Nothing like a little Rain-X and glass to create some really nice water beads. I struck them with the flash about about 45 degrees and set the aperture to F22. I don’t have a macro lens so I converted my F2.0 100m lens to a macro by inserting a lens extender between the lens and the body. This simultaneously shrank the focal length and lowered the depth of field. The results are pretty neat I think. They don’t even look real, but they are! Enjoy.

I love the hour glass with black sand that has been sitting on my desk since I started working here. I can’t believe it took me this long to take a picture of it. The trees outside my window and the gray sky made the perfect monochromatic backdrop for the picture. I used my iPhone 4 to take the shot. If I had my 5D I would have been able to capture the sand frozen in space.

I welcomed in 2012 with the usual eats. Black eyed peas? Check! Cabbage? Check. Collards? YUCK, thank goodness for the peach juice. Check! And last but not least, the pork product of your choice. Check! Ummmm good and here’s to the new year.

As promised I took Anna and Sarah to Chicago for the weekend. We had a blast. We purchased a CityPass which got us in the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, Art Institute, the SkyWalk at the top of Sears tower and the Science and Technology building (which we didn’t make it to). The hit of the trip as it turns out was Navy Pier as well as tea at the American Girl Doll store.

Testing out the share link from FLickr

Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.

The Boxee Box is a $199 piece of hardware co-developed D-Link and “Powered by Boxee” that hooks to your home theater system. The hardware includes an Ethernet, HDMI out, optical audio out, composite audio out jacks and two USB ports. The Boxee application itself is a free cross-platform HTPC (Home Theater PC) application that you can download here. Boxee was originally a fork of the free and open source XBMC media center software which Boxee now uses as an application framework for its GUI and media player core platform, together with some custom and proprietary additions. Boxee’s software application is still considered to be in its early development stages but I have found it to work quite well on my PC with almost no problems. Set-up time was 10 minutes.

Because of its integration with social media sites as well as various kinds of media, it is marketed as the first ever “Social Media Center”. Boxee enables its users to view, rate and recommend content to their friends through many social network services and interactive media related features. One notable feature missing in Boxee is the ability to watch and record live TV received via over-the-air TV, cable or satellite signals.

The installation was a snap and it seamlessly integrated my local files (mp3, mp4, wav, m4v, jpg, png, gif) with all my media located on the usual sites like pandora.com, flickr.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, Netflix.com, IMDB, etc . . . . Setup was a snap, just plug in your credentials for each site and away you go. Browsing your local machine or network was also a snap; boxee gobbled up media like Pacman running a maze. The user interface is simple and effective and most importantly openly extensible (unlike the approach larger players like Apple take). This is perhaps why you can buy hacked iTV boxes on ebay that run the Boxee application. The developers of Boxee have stated that their goal is to have Boxee media center software run on as many third-party hardware platforms and operating systems as possible.

If consumers are lucky, perhaps Boxee will find its way into DVD players and TVs as the social media OS. I’ll keep my fingers crossed but won’t hold my breath too long as it would clearly be too good to be true.

We had a most exciting 3 day weekend adventure at Lake Cumberland State Park this past weekend. The girls loved the Wildwood cottages. We bucked up and rented a ski boat for 1/2 a day. I had no idea you could spend as much in gas as the rental cost! The best part was the guy telling me what all the nobs and switches were for and the moment when he realized I had never piloted a boat before . . . priceless. He said, “You are telling me you are renting a $30k boat and never taken a boat out before?” Why, yes I am!

It was all fine and dandy until I realized I had to bring it into the dock without sinking it at the end of the day. Thankfully, some stranger on the dock helped me guide it in otherwise I am not sure what we would have done.

We shot a bunch of pictures on the trip. Wildlife seen: Wild Turkeys (besides the children), Chipmunk, Raccoon, and only Deer tracks (but no deer). Lots of Geodes were cracked and many fossils were found while exploring the area. Evening fires were prepared, Marshmallows roasted and hot chocolate consumed.