Unbecoming Levity

Springtime In New England

Abacquer — Tue, 16 Mar 2004 19:48:19 -0500

My driveway shortly after arriving at home in a snowstorn on March 16th, 2004. The white specks are snowflakes caught in the camera's flash.

Springtime in New England

Abacquer — Tue, 16 Mar 2004 19:54:18 -0500

A yew-type bush growing near my sunroom. Taken during a snowstorm on March 16th, 2004, at dusk. Those white flecks are snowflakes caught in the camera's flash. Picture artificially brightened to show detail.

The Morning After -- March 17

Abacquer — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:40:50 -0500

It's St. Patrick's Day, and, as luck would have it, I now get to clear about 9 inches of snow off my driveway! Yayyyy!

ShareCal Dispatcher Screen Shot

Abacquer — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:11:15 -0500

This is what my ShareCal Dispatcher application looks like while running.

ShareCal Client Screen Shot

Abacquer — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:12:18 -0500

This is what my ShareCal Client application looks like while running.

Nana, Grampa, and Neya

Abacquer — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:24:24 -0500

Lynnea sits next to her Grampa and Nana (my Dad and Mom) at a recent birthday party for her cousin Natalie.

Patty, Chuck, and Lynnea Go Camping

Abacquer — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:57:43 -0500

This photo was taken using our camera's timer-flash function while we were on a family camping trip in New Hampshire during labor day weekend 2002.

Neya and Mommy at Coggeshall Park

Abacquer — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:01:09 -0500

I believe this photo was taken in the summer of 1999. Lynnea would have been just over 2 years old in this picture. This has long been my favorite picture of Pat and Neya together. It was taken at Coggeshall Park in Fitchburg.

Lara and Spock

Abacquer — Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:20:42 -0500

These two cardboard cutouts hang out in my office. Spock doesn't seem to mind that Lara has the bigger gun.

Lynnea Plays with Cassie

Abacquer — Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:23:26 -0500

Here Cassie chomps on a stick that Neya is holding, and they wrassle a bit.

Wall of Mars

Abacquer — Sat, 27 Mar 2004 09:49:00 -0500

Mars Freak Exhibit #1: The "wall of mars" at my office, where I hang various printed pictures from the Nasa Rover website.

Lego Rover

Abacquer — Sat, 27 Mar 2004 09:52:37 -0500

Mars Freak Exhibit #2: here's a lego rover that I built in six hours one weekend when I was sick. The instruction manual for putting the thing together was 70 pages long!

There are controls to turn the wheels, rotate the panoramic camera, rotate the communication dish, and move the robot arm. In addition the pan-cam neck can fold down flat and the solar panels can fold up.

Our Cake

Abacquer — Sat, 17 Apr 2004 04:52:43 -0400

Lynnea and I baked, frosted, and decorated this cake for a birthday party to be held in her first grade class at school. We had a lot of fun!

Dogs are Stupid -- The Proof

Abacquer — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 10:45:28 -0400

Here's my moron dog, Tumblin' Tina, who last night thought it would be a great idea to try to cram her head through the wires on the front of her cage. There was probably an animal outside the house making her nuts or something.

My wife had to call me because I was at a friend's house but by the time I got home to help, she had managed to free the silly mutt.

EDIT: To the mental dwarf who keeps showing up to tell me my dog is crying in this picture, and that I am somehow an asshole because she crammed her own head through her cage door and subsequently was rescued by us--Tina has a condition which used to make her eyes water all the time... she isn't crying. Next time you decide to call somebody an asshole, try to start by knowing what you are talking about. Nowadays, her eyes are so blocked up I have to clean them every day for her. She's very well cared for and loved, despite her being, as all dogs are, a big dummy.

Santa's Wish

Abacquer — Sat, 25 Dec 2004 11:22:21 -0500

Lynnea came downstairs today and found that Santa had left her a new computer (a Dell Dimension 3000). She was needless to say excited, and particularly tickled that Santa had left her a picture of himself standing next to her new box.

Foggy Night #1

Abacquer — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:12:47 -0500

We had serious fog last night. This photo and the next were taken from the front steps of my office somewhere close to 6 PM.

Yeah they came out pretty blurry... but it is hard to take a picture of fog by night... especially when you have no talent.

Foggy Night #2

Abacquer — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:14:20 -0500

Driving home in this was pretty dicey. Traffic was very dense because nobody wanted to move too quickly... that probably made things more dangerous instead of less dangerous!

Solar Glare on Route 3 South

Abacquer — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:54:30 -0500

As you can see the glare was vicious today.

Glare and Snowcloud

Abacquer — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:55:37 -0500

This snowcloud wasn't bad. This was just like a bit of low fog really.

Distant Snowcloud

Abacquer — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:58:43 -0500

That cloud up ahead was thicker than the last one, but nothing like the whiteout.

Solare Glare at the Sun Complex

Abacquer — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:00:40 -0500

Here I am passing the big Sun campus in Burlington. The glare was bad here, and you can see from all the dirt speckles on my windshield, quite a bit of washer fluid got consumed on this commute.

But When I Got There, the Cupboard was Bare...

Abacquer — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:12:31 -0500

Our company is pretty cool. Usually the lunchroom is stocked with free/low cost snacks such as candy, cookies, crackers, pretzels, fresh bread, bagels, and fruit.

I say usually because when I walked in there today, this is what I saw. The bread bins (on the right) were empty, and the snack trays held nothing but a packet of oatmeal, and an open and half-eaten pack of skittles.

So I grabbed an apple juice and had that instead. When I returned later to discard the apple juice bottle... the half-pack of skittles was gone.

I guess someone was even hungrier than I.

Hungry programmers will eat anything. I bet the oatmeal is gone by tomorrow.

Easter 1998: Natalie, Nana, and Neya

Abacquer — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:43:35 -0500

Here's a picture taken when Lynnea was a little over 1 year old. Each year my parents get a big kick out of having an easter egg hunt for their grandkids and the neighbor's kids. On the left is Natalie, Lynnea's cousin, then my mom, Lois (lovingly referred to as 'Nana'), and finally Lynnea herself. At this young age I think Neya found the basket of eggs somewhat awkward to carry.

Easter 1998: Neya and Grampa

Abacquer — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:45:42 -0500

Eventually she moved to a plastic wagon to carry the eggs. Here's my Dad, Doug (a.k.a. Grampa), helping Neya to find an egg which has been hidden under something obvious.

That elongated wooden thing hanging on the tree in the background is a squirrel feeder my Dad built.

Cassie Hides

Abacquer — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:41:37 -0500

Here's my silly dog Cassie, all scrunched up under my wife's chair and desk to avoid me picking her up. Cassie is afraid I'm going to drop her (never have, mind you) so when she gets it in her head that I might pick her up, she hides.

Fortunately I was able to entice her out from under the desk with a treat.

And then of course, I picked her up.

Another 4 Inches!

Abacquer — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 09:27:29 -0500

And this stuff is wet and heavy. It stuck to everything.

Branches Closeup

Abacquer — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 09:27:29 -0500

Tough day to be a tree!

Teleportation Accident?

Abacquer — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:09:49 -0500

Oy vey. My numbskull dog once again pushed aside the bars on her cage door, this time not only forcing her head through, but also her front legs!!!

She was just groomed the day before. Perhaps the shorter hair made it easier for her to bust out.

One thing is for sure...

We're Gonna Need a New Cage

Abacquer — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:14:23 -0500

Houston, we have a problem. I don't think we're going to be able to bend the bars back THIS time. Fortunately we have a new cage in the wings waiting to be set up.

This will be the third, and hopefully last time Tina has managed to push aside the bars on her cage door. It may be dumb but I have to admire her persistence. It's almost... dogged.

Face in the Snow

Abacquer — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 11:01:23 -0500

Saw this guy peeking out at me when I went out to the barn a couple days back. This cement dog was a gift from my parents a few years ago. Each year I tell myself I am going to paint him, but I never seem toget around to it.