I'm Home... and So Are the Herring

I'm finally back home, back online, and back together after being away for 10 days. Well, we were really only away for seven days, but I didn't touch my computer for 10. Anyway, as always, it seems it takes me about another week after getting home from vacation to get back on track again, and I've been really tired these last few days - passing out mid-story during bet-putting time for the kids. It's now 9:30, the Sox are on (but losing) and I figure I have a couple hours in me before I pass out. I've downloaded several HUNDRED photos from my camera over the past couple days that I need to go through, cull and post up on flickr. They go all the way back to April 1...ugh...




Not only did we return, but also, our "Stony Brook" herring have returned in force. There were mobs of them in the stream this weekend, and I stopped on the way to work on Tuesday to get these photos.

(and ps... the Red Sox just tied the game!)

Pilgrimage to Dogfish Ale House in DC

Dogfish beer is one of my favorite "homebrews." Here I am tasting one of their weekly special drafts at thier arlington brew pub, "Dogfish Ale House"... The brew is called "Immort Ale" More later...

A Band For Chase - The Heartless Bastards

OK so the Guggenheim Grotto isn't touring out west but this rockin' chick is. I've been hoping they'd come around here, but once again they're not... and now they're on tour again. The lead girl-singer really belts it out... Good good stuff. Chase Go see them for me on the 24thand beg her to come to the Beachcomber on Cape Cod...

4/24/09 DENVER, CO - Gothic Theatre

The Guggenheim Grotto

These guys are really good. I love this song... and such a creative video.

I Cleaned the Sensor on my Canon Digital Rebel Camera

Wow... it's been a while. I actually started this post back on April 7. Things have gotten a little crazy since then. In the midst of all the commotion, Sophie turned 6, Will met the Easter Bunny, I donated a small piece of my back for surgical education, and our neighborhood has become the home to a rather tame Turkey (gobble gobble). All noteworthy, but honestly....I feel like YESTERDAY was April 7. It's now a week and a day later.

Back on April 7, I took the plunge with my digital SLR and decided to try and clean the sensor myself. After reading several articles on the best ways how to (and how not to) do it," I figured I might as well give it a try since, with the rate I switch out lenses, and with the amount of dust I seem to collect on the sensor, I couldn't afford to keep taking it in to be cleaned at $50 a pop. And, even though every article and post I read warned "...don't blame us if you destroy your camera doing this..." many of them also said, "there's nothing to it..." so I figured it's worth the risk. To make a long boring story short and ultimately sweet, the cleaning went fine, but I found I had to do it 3 times, each time holding my heart in my throat as I dragged my modified pec-pad-coverd spatula across the sensor, a little harder each time... until finally... no dust.

There is a great article on the whole process here [Cleaning the CMOS Sensor on your Digital Camera]. If you decide to proceed, read this article carefully, and read all the comments. There are some really good tips. My camera is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel (350D). I used a silicone spatula trimmed to 14mm, covered with a pec-pad moistend with Eclipse solution. The article linked above has all the info and resources on where to get this stuff, but I bought from Adorama.

Spring Peepers

Tonight it's pouring rain. The temperature stayed above 40 all day and the wind is up. On my way home from work, lightning was flashing in the grey sky, but now the downpours have calmed to a drizzle and all the thunderstorms have passed along... for now anyway.

Outside my window is the sound of regular drip drip drips of rain freefalling from the second floor gutter and hitting the bent aluminum curve at the bottom of the downspout. Drip drip drip drip drip. It will do this all night. The other sound is the sound of the spring peepers. Tiny frogs that come out of the mud in spring all at once on a particular day and start singing. If you didn't know they were frogs, you might think some bunch of crazy song birds were up at night. Sweeet sweeeet sweeeet sw - sweee suh swee suh sweee sweet. It's a steady chorus late into the night. Every so often they all go silent, all at once, and then after a pause, they get into it again. At some point, they will stop singing altogether. I wonder if there is a leader frog that tells eveyone when to start and stop peeping. Hmmmm.