In West Virginia, last spring, we happened upon this small book store/library that was completely open with no one on staff at all. Just a building along a road with the door open, actually open not just unlocked, where you could go in grab a book or two. Totally awesome.

Five years ago today: We were at a hockey game.

Several birds have visited our bird feeder since we’ve moved into the new apartment. I have yet to get a really good capture of any of them though the opportunities have been there. I’m hoping to score a few before winter is over.

This particular bird, I think, is a Black Phoebe.

Like last time I used this recipe.

It was a little sweet for me (typically I do not order my french toast with cinnamon or powered sugar) but it turned out really good. The bread was from Bingham’s Restaurant (Google Map link).

While in Hawaii last year, visiting Shane and Roxanne in Kailua, Eliza and I found this orchid Bird of Paradise flower behind a few garbage cans near a burger joint we were having dinner at. It just shows you that beauty runs deep in Hawaii.

Update: I stand corrected. Mike Cohen commented that this is actually a Bird of Paradise flower. I had original marked this as an orchid. I don’t mind being corrected and I very much appreciate Mike taking the time to let me know. Thanks Mike.

Very much looking forward to baking bread again this winter.

Came across this photo in my library and now I’m in the mood for hibachi.

Let me tell you about swimming with barracuda. Barracuda are a gorgeous fish. Their appearance is famously fearsome, they are incredibly fast, and can grow to almost 6ft. in length.

Generally speaking men have little to fear from barracuda. It is wise to be cautious when swimming with them but so long as you follow a few rules, they’ll more than likely never do anything other then stare at you. (If looks could kill though, phew.)

On October 12th of this year, I broke all of those rules.

In the waters off a very small island in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a few stone throws away from Grand Turk itself, I was snorkeling during an excursion from our Bahamas cruise. I love snorkeling. I’m a decent swimmer. So naturally I was swimming nearly all by myself a few hundred feet offshore.

That is when I was greeted by the above barracuda. We’ll refer to him as Henry. Henry was far more curious of me than I was of him, I assure you. I usually take my waterproof camera with me when I’m snorkeling and having a barracuda nice and close (about 10ft. away) was nice for the shot I got above.

I went on my way. Further out into the ocean to a nearby cluster of coral to see what I could see, as they say. Henry followed. About those rules. General rules of thumb when snorkeling – no matter where you are in the world – is to not wear anything shiny that could attract predators. You see the sides of fish are also shiny. Fish, in general, have poor eye sight. So they need to get nice and close to see if whatever is shining in the water is their food. Or, if it is a wedding ring. In my case it was my wedding ring, my watch, and my camera that attracted Henry.

Besides poor eyesight fish have a fairly good sense of smell (especially predatory fish). Five minutes before I hopped into the water to snorkel I was feeding fish-bits to sting rays. So my hands, shorts, and whatever else touched the fish-bits smelled, no doubt, of Henry’s favorite meal.

So there I was, smelling like chum, shining from every extremity, 10ft from a hungry 4-5ft. barracuda that can reach speeds of up to 28mph in the water. I’m no good at math so we’ll just say that Henry could have closed the gap between us in about as long as it takes me to blink. And that he did, a few times.

The above image isn’t a great photograph but it gives you a fairly good idea of how close Henry got to me on several occasions. In the upper-left hand side of the photo you’ll notice Henry. Unfortunately this photograph does not give a very good idea of scale but the way I figure it, Henry was slightly longer than my leg from nose to tail fin.

I know this because Henry bit my flipper. I don’t have a photo of that moment because I was screaming like a little school girl who just scrapped her knee when chasing her boyfriend around the playground. Bloody. Murder. I was screaming to our “guide” at the time because I had never had a barracuda act this way. I’ve swam with barracuda in the past and I have never, ever had an experience with one the way I did with Henry. The guide was surprised too but had little advice besides swim back to him and the others. Henry followed me, of course.

After I got back to the group, calmed down, and got my senses I was very surprised at how I reacted. I had been in situations underwater that had gotten me nervous before but never had I had trouble breathing, taking on water, looking for help, etc.

In retrospect I should have remained calm and kept about my business. Henry only nibbled on my fin once and he was probably seeing if I was actually some fish he wanted to eat. I smelled and shined like one. I can’t blame him. He didn’t act aggressively towards me after that. Maybe if he had gotten a bit of flesh from my hand or leg it would have been a different story though.

Next time I’m going to be sure I don’t have anything shiny on, I’m not going to smell like fish, and I’m going to do my best to remain calm. Yeah right.

After climbing a tree at Lehigh University in an attempt to capture a cicada I ended up finding several skins left on a tree at about eye level. Go figure. There is tons of information on Cicadas on Wikipedia. Worth perusing.

Click on the images to zoom. For much, much larger versions click here, and here.

I’ve been remiss to update everyone on our current bird feeder situation. Since Eliza purchased the $1 bird feeder we’ve upgraded our offerings to our feathered friends many fold. First, we put out a bird-bath type feeder that, rather than filling it with water, we fill with sunflower seeds. This takes care of the needs of larger birds that like to eat off of an exposed, tray based feeder – like Blue Jays. Second, we have a small ‘gazebo’ shaped feeder for smaller birds like finches, chickadees, etc.

Recently at a yard sale we picked up a larger version of the gazebo shaped feeder and have since mounted it to our glass doors to the deck. This isn’t getting nearly as many visitors as the smaller one (though that seems to be changing), but we have plans to slowly bring the birds closer and closer to the doors for better shots.

Not two days ago we picked up a hummingbird feeder. Eliza had spotted a few hummingbirds buzzing around our flowers and, after I saw one hovering over our red flowers, I thought it a good idea to pick up a feeder. We’ll update the progress with this in the near future.

So, how many birds are we getting? A lot. I fill the smaller feeder once every three or four days and I fill the bird-bath feeder every single morning with sunflower seeds. Morning doves, Blue Jays, and a few other birds that I have yet to identify accurately visit this feeder regularly. We’ve had chickadees, nut hatches, finches, tufted tit-mouse, cardinals (though not many lately), hummingbirds, and several other species so far. Our little fly-thru bird restaurant is becoming quite the hang out.

Today, as you can see from the photos above, I managed to stand near the door long enough that they let me open it, and open the screen door, to get unobstructed photos of them while they ate. Taking photos of creatures that fly and skip about rather quickly isn’t easy – but above are two of the better shots I managed to capture.

Looking forward to many, many more visitors.

This little guy was hanging out on our eggplant.

Eliza and I did a little fishing with my friend Johnny and his kids Kristopher, Micailyn, and Nicolas on Wednesday. Fishing with kids is always an adventure.

Not the greatest photos, that’s for sure (the second was was taken through our living room window in our apartment with an iPhone), but I find rainbows just great. Recently we’ve had an awful lot of rain, and particularly when it rains in the evenings the sun is shining through the rain and mist, making rainbows!

I’ll try someday to catch much better photographs of rainbows. But I figured I’d share them anyway.

This little guy put a pretty good suckin’ on my hand before I figured out he was in the house. So I trapped him under my magnifying glass for a few hours before using my junk-store-salvaged microscope to look at him up close and personal.

Chili peppers from our garden. Looking forward to melting my taste buds on these babies.

My brother Peter fooling around with his new DSLR which is the new Digital Rebel XSi. He’s now a Canon person like Eliza and I (we have matching Digital Rebel XTis).

While waiting for a ride this weekend I walked over to a small patch of wild flowers growing behind our garbage cans (there is beauty everywhere in this world, isn’t there?). I was attempting to get a half-decent shot of this bumble bee that was bouncing from flower to flower, sucking up the nectar while at the same time pollinating the entire patch by himself.

I suppose I managed to get a half-decent shot of him, but I really appreciate the details in the flower itself – the fact that it is just beginning to dry up on its edges, that its a color that I can not identify (I call it a pinkish purple), and that it grows behind garbage cans.

I wish I had taken a lot more photos (I didn’t even get everyone in a photo). I’m looking forward to camping at least one more time this summer (and hopefully for more than just one night). All-in-all a great short trip and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Taken: May 7, 2009 in Mayfield, Pennsylvania while on a walk with Eliza. Photographing these bees was a neat experience because I would get as far into the tree as I could, and I would hear a constant bzzzz until I found the bee that was closest to me to shoot.

If you click on the first photo, allow the lightbox to load, and click next – the sequence is pretty cool.

Taken: April 17, 2009 in Mayfield, Pennsylvania.

The buds on the trees are pop, pop, popping into these really great explosions of tree life. Reds and greens of all shades, future leaves that will create the food that the tree requires to produce this year’s growth, next year’s seeds, and the energy it will need to lay dormant during winter.

Date taken: April 1, 2004 | Clifford, Pennsylvania.

Five years ago today: I’m a little late posting this one but five years and about two weeks ago today I found this salamander – who was quite large – sitting on the steps outside of our apartment in Clifford, PA.

Date taken: February 10, 2009.

In the lobby of Ben Franklin TechVentures is this neat piece of metal/art of the Ben Franklin logo. Viddler is annexed in this building.

Sameer, Chris, Eliza and I were the only people to show up for the Photo walk. This didn’t surprise me considering the fact that it wasn’t until Friday that Sameer and I actively went out to Flickr groups, Facebook, Craig’s List, and a few other places on the Web to promote the Photo walk. That isn’t to say that anyone would have showed up if we had publicized this thing for months – we’re talking about Scranton here. I have hope that one day, perhaps more than a few years into the future, Scranton will really take off on these types of social gatherings. Perhaps we’ll try again in fairer weather (since it did end up raining a little) and see how that goes.

The Photo walk itself was pretty ok. It wasn’t too cold, but it did start to rain. We took that opportunity to grab a beer at Judge & Jury. I think a really warm summer evening might be better for photos of Scranton since lights on buildings, signs, and cars passing by really add some romance to photos. You can see this from our Carbondale Photo walk at night. Or perhaps by adding a specific topic to the Photo walk (as someone suggested) like trains, automobiles, lights, signs, buildings, windows, etc.

All-in-all I had a good time, though shorter than I’d have liked, walking around Scranton shooting photos and I’m looking forward to doing it again. Perhaps in Scranton, or another neighboring city, borough, village, or area – but perhaps when the weather is a bit more suitable and predictable.

Photos of Scranton, PA

Although I took around 200 photos, deleted well over 120 before importing them, I’ve only selected 16 or so to share. Here they are. Click on the thumbnails to get a larger view of the full photograph.

I’m happy with the outcome of the walk. Looking forward to the next one.

Date taken: February 22, 2004 | Clifford, Pennsylvania

Five years ago today: Eliza and I went to look at an apartment in the rural village of Clifford, Pennsylvania. It was a small, two bedroom, one bath place that was the perfect downsize for us at the time. It wasn’t too long before Eliza longed for a proper laundry room, rather than hoofing it through snow to go to the laundromat.

Although the place wasn’t perfect for us forever, I do miss the view.

Date taken: February 17, 2004 | On a Mac.

Five years ago today: I had a video chat with Chris Clark while he was still in Perth, Australia. Now he’s somewhere in Canada or the US-west coast I think. I believe Chris was my first (!) video chat on a Macintosh but I could be mistaken.

Where ever you are right now Chris – g’day!

Date taken: February 7, 2004 | Rockaway, New Jersey

Five years ago today: Eliza and I went to New Jersey to see Peter Z. (our nephew) and Melanie (my sister-in-law) at the Rockaway Mall. It would be the first of a few trips that we’ve taken to meet them there. Partially because we’re always excited to see them, and partially because that mall holds what is currently the Apple Store closest to home. Just kidding Mel!

Since then Peter Z. has welcome a sister, Jessica, into the world and has grown up quite a bit!

Date taken: February 4, 2004 | Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

Five years ago today: I used to teach a short-lived class in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania at a small computer store. The class typically consisted of basic software instructions like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook training. We also covered some larger topics like the Internet and eBay.

For a few weeks in a row I taught a class to a team of women that worked at a few local Curves, a women’s only health club, on Microsoft Office and basic Windows-related tasks. We covered how to create schedules, print-outs for the various things they needed, and other specific-needs to Curves.

Forgive me, ladies, for not having your names on file somewhere. Though I do remember that a few of you were against being in a photograph at all, so I thank you for letting me take one of you anyway.

Date taken: February 3, 2004 | Carbondale, Pennsylvania.

Five years ago today: This photo was taken just outside our home in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. We then lived in a house on Wyoming Avenue that had no off-street parking and no yard. It did have an above ground pool that we only seldom used. This lamp, which was just outside our front door next to the entrance of our white-fenced-in “side yard” pool/deck area, lived among the bushes and gave us just enough light to get around outside at night.

This particular snow storm lightly covered most everything with enough snow to make it look like winter. If memory serves, only a few days later we got a fair amount of snow.

PITTSBURGH, PA – November 2007

World Champions once again. The above is a reprise of a photo I took in November 2007 while at the worst Monday Night Football game ever – against the Miami Dolphins. It was taken from just about the furthest seat you could possibly purchase at the stadium, was one of the very few photos I managed to take during the game. I suppose it was because my fingers were frozen into my pockets.

The game ended up going to the Steelers with a score of 3 to 0. Game delaying torrential downpours that made the field into soup, lightning that shook Heinz Field, and frigid temperatures that caused many-a-cold were all factors in why the game was so horrible.

Congratulations to the entire Pittsburgh Steelers organization for a great year.

Date taken: December 20-24, 2008

Date taken: July 15, 2003 – New York City.

City Hall – Carbondale, PA

Last night my friend Sameer Barkawi, mentioned here a few times, and I wanted to take our cameras for a spin around our hometown of Carbondale, Pennsylvania. He recently picked up a Nikon D90 and I was using Eliza’s Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

I put a few of the photos that I took up on Flickr in a set.

Date taken: September 30, 2008 | Eliza wanted to test out her new waterproof camera. Andrew and I helped her out. All photos credit: Eliza Devroe.

Date taken: August 30, 2005 | A winery that offers tastings, gifts, and snacks in a very large barn. I believe this was on Cayuga Lake in New York. I’ll check my records and update.

Date taken: June 2003 | Left: American Falls. Right: Canadian Falls (Horseshoe Falls). An amazing amount of water falling over an ever-eroding cliff.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | Just outside Treasure Island, at sunset.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | Gondola rides in the Venetian. This is indoor.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | A small cafe/restaurant just outside of the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | The fountains in front of Arc de Triumph at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.  To the right; the Bellagio Hotel.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | In the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | A cloud above Las Vegas, Nevada.

Date taken: August 23, 2008 | Trees dying in a swamp.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | A 757, as the bird flies, over Las Vegas, Nevada.

I took this, and a few other photos of this plane landing, from the top of the Eiffel Tower in the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas.  This photo gives a fairly good glimpse at how Las Vegas is generally laid out and how much you can see from even slight elevation there.

For example, while I was on the phone with Eliza on the morning I took this photo, on the 26th floor of the Hilton Hotel – I could see all of Las Vegas.  I could see countless golf courses, resorts, casinos, convention centers, pools, bars, restaurants, and even the airport.  Not only could I see the airport, but I could observe the landing of planes (which happened every 4 minutes or so) from my hotel room.

I think the most impressive part of Las Vegas, is scale.

Date taken: August 17, 2008 | A horse in an entire scene at Caesar’s Palace.