Thanksgiving at New Years

Big excitement at our table this New Year's Eve:


Thanksgiving to New Year's passes even faster than the whoosh of the rest of the year. So this New Year's it was good to have some time to recall the many good happenings of 2008 to our family. The kids, C and I pieced together an impromptu list over dinner.

Sailing in the Virgins with grandparents
June in Hawaii
sister-in-law Carol stayed with us over the summer
M debuted on the musical stage
H and M with new ipods!
H thriving in a new school
M trying the snare drum in band
C a happy interim librarian
C finished her second century on a bike
I got wrapped up in a camera fixation
with the cub scouts at Camp Cutter and at winter camp
Visits to family in RI during business trips to Boston
built a fence with the neighbors
went from two cars to one
bought no new bicycles this year
helped neighbors get married before prop 8 passed
had a joyful Election Day

Happy New Year to all

Shooting film again

Had some fun this weekend developing a roll of black and white film in my kitchen - first time I've developed film since I was a postdoc processing images off a fluorescence microscope. I used Diafine developer. Interesting that google searches for Diafine turn up several pages of photography-related sites and then pages of cell biology journal articles. Seem it's in wide use by bench scientists too! Film was Arista Premium 400 (alledgedly re-badged Kodak Tri-X) shot mostly at an EI of 800 or 1600 in low light, though one or two test shots done at noon in the California sun turned out well too. Quick scanning on an Epson V500 with standard negative holders, film somewhat curled, but turned out OK.

Recession thoughts

So what's the main cause of the current mess?

- living beyond our means over the last two decades (easy credit, excess consumerism)?
- heavily leveraged investment vehicles that became too large a part of our financial fabric?

that is, did the regular "us" cause this, or was it money managers who ruined our sandbox?

Thankful for the country, a balanced view

Author Junot Diaz on NPR this morning remembering his first Thanksgivings, and presenting a balanced view on how to consider a country's historical misdeeds with its triumphs.

Audio here

Perspective on the credit crisis

Published by the New York Times, here

New Year's Day geocaching above Lake Chabot

One cache had us working off trail to get around a thicket of poison oak that seemed to ring the site. Apparently the person who set the cache didn't recognize PO and ploughed right through the worst of it. We eventually found the target just 20 feet off the trail, having approached it from the opposite direction and a 100 yard detour. We were the second group to find this new cache. On our way in, we met the legendary local cache expert TeamAlamo coming back up the trail, having bagged the First To Find honors just a few minutes earlier.

Wonderful late afternoon light as we headed home.

Better Living through Chemistry: New Year 2008

I've had a bottle of Anchor Steam Christmas Ale sitting in my basement for a few years now. Its previous owner had it a few years before that: it was brewed in 1996. After 11 years, I figured it probably wasn't going to get better. Perhaps it was already firmly established on the drinkability downslope. I shined one of my strongest LED bike lights through the bottle. No light emerged. Even at the neck, there was only a hint of transparency. "Good dark glass bottle," I thought, "this might still be good."

I asked my wife, "What are the odds that we wake up tomorrow blind from drinking the mix of organic chemicals in this thing?"

"Zero," was her answer. No hesitation.

OK. All doubts swept aside, we opened the bottle with ceremony when our friends arrived. It make a small pffft as the cap was freed, and out poured a chocolate colored brew with a tiny-bubbled head.

I dared the first sip. Not toxic tasting. No overpowering pine bough bitterness as I'd imagined might derive from years of cellaring a holiday ale that sometimes features strong contributions from christmas trees. It was good. Like a mild porter, smooth, with the lightness of an ale.

We enjoyed it greatly. And the company of our friends until 11:45. Then we went our separate ways, our kids to bed as the midnight fireworks and whoops of celebration sounded across the neighborhood.

Happy New Year to all.