Are you ready for some?

The boy began soccer a few weeks ago. He had his first game. Here he is breaking away from the pack. Looks like fun.

Full size here.

Ethan's gallery, which includes this and some other new soccer pictures is here.

Look into my eye

I have been wondering why I can't ever get a really sharp photo of dragon flies' eyes. This extreme closeup (200%) shows why -- they aren't faceted, they are pebbled!

If you don't stop...

... you'll break your neck. I have no idea how Grey Pelicans don't break their necks every time they dive. I'll put up some more later, but this sequence shows a Grey Pelican going in for a kill. It is impressive to watch them skim inches above the water only to rise up and plunge into the water for a catch.

They were pretty far off from the beach, so these aren't as impressively up close as I would have liked.

As always, full size here.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

It's pronounced "Body", which leads to all sorts of cool speculation about the origin. We stayed a few minutes from this lighthouse, which is my favorite of the Carolina lighthouses. I took it from the porch of the lighthouse keeper's cottage.

Full size here.

A Day at the Beach

... or an evening, really. Courtesy of my parents-in-law, we spent the week in a rented house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was an absolutely great vacation.

The two small black spots in the sky on the right and left are not specks on the lens, they are both dragonflies, which filled the skies in the evenings. A look at the full-size of the picture will show that they are indeed insects.

Ready, set, bake!

Fun for a Sunday. This is a white hearth loaf that took me (with the rising cycles) all of Sunday. It starts with a sponge which is always fun because the risen size is always dramatic. The kids enjoyed looking at it, but weren't as blown away by the rising as I expected.

The full gallery, including a few pictures showing the various stages is here.

HereThere Be Dragons

I came home from work to find Beth taking pictures of this guy on the bushes in the yard. I couldn't resist trying one myself. Full-sized here.

Humming Past the Graveyard

So this guy comes and goes from my parents-in-law's feeder. I got two pretty good shots of him here.

Reds

Same feeder, different day. A red-bellied woodpecker talks to a red-winged blackbird. Full-sized here.

Silhouette

Margot looking very solemn from a party this afternoon. Full-size photo here.

Just before

This is just prior to the picture below. Original.

Back at the feeder

The grackle is the one with the iridescent head, the one flying is a red-winged blackbird. The great variety of blackbirds in Northern Illinois is awfully fun. Grackles fly in large packs and are very smart and efficient at emptying feeders. They also attract a lot of brown-headed cowbirds, which lay their eggs in the grackles nests, and the grackles raise the cowbird babies -- opportunism at its best.

If you look closely at the full-sized original, you can see the grackle has a seed in its mouth.

Mourning Meal

From my parents-in-law's feeder. I love my 30 year-old 200mm zoom and the rapid-fire shutter release!

The full-sized image is here.

Time for a quiz

No hints, can you guess what the item above is? Full sized version here.

St. Baldrick's

Most of you already know what St. Baldrick's is.

For those who need an introduction, every year I participate in a charity event which raises money for childhood cancerresearch. The event is called St. Baldrick's. Shavees, as we're called, volunteer to have our heads shaved for donations from nice people like you all.

From now until March 16th I raise money from everyone I can. And then on the event day I go into downtown Chicago to Fado's Irish Pub at a big, fantastically fun event and my donators can see me get my head shaved, can bid on auction items, and can have a few beers, free bar food and just hang out. We've had an enormous amount of fun the last few years.

The standard donation is $50, but I've been pleased to receivedonations as low as $1 and as high as $1,000. My largest donator gets the added benefit of taking the first swipe at my head with the shaver. Last year I exceeded my goal of $5,000! This year I'm increasing my goal to $7,500.

My employer, Motorola, matched contributions last year, so check with your employer for matching contributions.

For a little background, my cousin Nathan was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma on April 1, 2003. He is now 6 years old and still fighting. You can read about his fight at his website:

My page is located here, you can find a "Donate On-line" button which is secure and about as easy as buying a book from Amazon. It's fully tax deductable and instructions are on-line. You can also print a donation form and use the normal U.S. Post.

If you have any questions, please contact me

Go Bears!

Turn your back on your little Bears fan and look what happens!

Defensive Wizardry

Here's Margot boxing this poor kid out under the boards. In fact she really does play pretty tenacious defense. She doesn't ever look up for the ball, but she's a good defender.

By Request

Okay Jim, you ask, I deliver. Blue tongues, complete with matching Christmas-themed pajamas.

Luna

Margot's new telescope is utterly fantastic. We are having a ton of fun with it, having looked at Saturn and Titan a few nights ago. I tried a photograph through the eyepiece (hand held) last night. The result is better than I expected. You can click on the image to see the full-sized image.