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Happy Halloween!

Sean didn't seem to mind his Halloween costume at all. Probably because the fabric was a little slippery, and it helped him crawl across the carpet. We were worried that all of the dressed-up strangers coming to the door would scare him, but he hardly noticed them - he played in the candy bowl all night! (By the way, one of these images is especially for Mike Page. It's Sean's "Male Model" pose!)

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 31, 2005 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

Scenes from Space #12

The last of the Titan rockets was launched on October 19th, 2005. This launch ends the Titan program, whose first launch was in 1959. Originally designed for carrying nuclear warheads, the Titan evolved into the workhorse rocket that could lift the heaviest payloads. The Titan was the launch vehicle for many well-known missions - including manned Gemini missions, the Viking missions to Mars, the Voyager missions to the outer solar system, and the Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn.

Posted under News by Joel on October 28, 2005 10:31 PM | Comments (0)

Kite #8 - Trefoil Dragon

Kite #7 is finished, but I can't put pictures up yet. It is a gift, and I don't want the recipient to see it here before they see it in person.

Kite #8 is a Trefoil Dragon kite. The kite itself is pretty nondescript, but the thing that makes it interesting is it's 40-foot tail. Still pictures don't do it justice. This tail looks amazing as it undulates in the wind. Very mesmerizing. The Trefoil Dragon is the blue kite in these pictures. The black kite in the pictures is the Genki from a previous post. Lately, I have been having trouble getting that one to fly, and had wondered if a tail would help. So I tried the Dragon's tail on it as an experiment. It performed MUCH better with a tail, so I will have to make one for it as well.

Posted under Projects by Joel on October 23, 2005 06:52 PM | Comments (0)

Hanging with the Daddy-O

We realized that I am in very few of our pictures of Sean - I am usually the one behind the camera. So here's a few to even the score!

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 21, 2005 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

We've Come So Far...

Anyone who has visited us since Sean was born should be impressed by these pictures. You all knew our fears that Sadie would never learn to relax around the baby and we would always have to keep them seperated to keep her from licking him into oblivion. Just look how far she has come! This is how she is all the time now. Who could have guessed?

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 21, 2005 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

Scenes from Space #11

On October 19th, 1899, 17-year old Robert Goddard climbed a tree in Worchester, Massachusetts, and inventented modern space flight. He dreamt of a machine that could carry men to Mars. From that young age onward, he dedicated his life to building such a machine. By 1926, he had designed, built, and flown the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.

In this picture, Mars is visible in the lower-right hand corner (through the trees), and Venus is just above and to the left of the Moon.

Posted under News by Joel on October 21, 2005 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

Camera Tossing

I came across something really cool on the Web during my lunch break today. It's called "camera tossing". Basically, you aim your camera at some source of light, shut off the flash, hit the shutter, and toss your camera in the air. What it captures can be unpredictable, but you will usually get something pretty interesting. Below are a few that I tried when I got home today after I had read about it. If you want to see some pretty cool pics of this kind of stuff, here is the link to the camera toss flickr group.

Posted under Projects by Joel on October 14, 2005 06:24 PM | Comments (0)

Scenes from Space #10

This image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft, which is currently in orbit around Saturn. A lot of people know about Jupiter's large storms - including the Great Red Spot - but not so many know that Saturn has lots of huge storms as well. Storms larger than hurricanes continually dot the upper atmosphere of Saturn, and typically last for months! A view of many storms occurring simultaneously was captured in this image.

Posted under News by Joel on October 14, 2005 05:41 PM | Comments (0)

Movin' Right Along!

Sean is -SO- close to crawling. He can get around, but not so efficiently yet. Watch this short video to see what I mean. How cute!

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 14, 2005 06:00 AM | Comments (1)

What a Ham!

Just a handful of cute pictures Lori took this afternoon.

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 12, 2005 08:34 PM | Comments (0)

Pascetti

Sean had his first attempt at eating spaghetti the other day. It wasn't nearly as messy as we had expected. He was actually fairly successful at getting it into his mouth!

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 12, 2005 07:24 PM | Comments (0)

Brrrrrrrr!

Just kidding. It isn't quite cold here yet. We took Sean to the park today to let him play in the river - mostly for the photo-op. But he was a little tired so we didn't get much. But the previous day, Lori had him try on his new winter outfit - including stylish little hat - and caught a couple of Kodak moments. Doesn't he look so evil in the last picture?

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 9, 2005 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

The Dead Hensons

A friend recently turned me on to a cover band called "The Dead Hensons". They cover Jim Henson tunes, mostly from the Muppets and Sesame Street. Very cool. Brings back lots of memories. They used to have more free tracks on their website - including Rainbow Connection, Ladybug Picnic, and Mahna Mahna. I'll scour the web a little harder and see if those are still available anywhere, as those were their best tracks. Check out the link - The Dead Hensons!

Posted under News by Joel on October 8, 2005 07:19 PM | Comments (0)

Virtual Street Reality

This is really cool. This guy does drawings on pavement, which look three-dimensional when viewed from a specific angle. It's hard to explain, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Check the link - Virtual Street Reality!

Posted under News by Joel on October 8, 2005 07:08 PM | Comments (0)

Scenes from Space #9

This image was taken by Cassini on a recent fly-by of Saturn's moon Hyperion. It's a false-color image of the moon, in order to bring out more crater detail in the surface. In natural color, Hyperion has more of a reddish tint. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Posted under News by Joel on October 7, 2005 06:15 AM | Comments (0)

Beautiful Day!

We are having such a beautiful day here! It is about 70 degrees, with a steady, 10+ mph wind. We've got all the windows open - for the first time since May. It was actually cold enough outside to require pants for Lori and me, and long sleeves for Sean. In fact, it's chilly enough in the house right now (just after dark), that I am thinking of putting on a warmer shirt. I love it!

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 6, 2005 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

Sean's Workout

Here are some pics of Sean's daily workout. It always amazes me when he goes up on his hands and toes like that. It's not a quick thing, either. He can hold himself like that for a while. I'm not sure what he is trying to do, exactly - but it's cute.

Posted under Photos by Joel on October 3, 2005 08:37 PM | Comments (2)

Kite #6 - Dopero

My latest kite is a 3/4-size Dopero. This kite is especially designed to fly in the lightest of barely-there winds. I tried it for the first time today, and it flew great! I included some photos to give you an idea of the scale of this kite. It is huge! It is about 7 feet tall, and a little over 9 feet wide. Even in the very light wind we had this morning, I had a hard time reeling this kite back in. All that sail makes this kite pull really strong. It also seems to be really steady in the sky - so as soon as I can convince Lori to join me on an outing, I am going to try and take some aerial photos using this one.

Posted under Projects by Joel on October 2, 2005 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

Kerplunk Radio - Episode 3

I give you episode 3 of Kerplunk Radio! This episode is all acoustic, and all pop - which means it full to the gills with catchy lyrics and melodies that you won't be able to get out of your heads for days! The bands featured in this episode are all indies. Right-click the "download mp3" button and choose "save-as" to save the show to your computer before listening. Here are the artists on this show (all of these artists can be found on garageband.com);

1. Michael Dowling - Swivel Chair		5. Augean Stables - Citronella
2. Abigail Lapell - Dress Rehearsal		6. AKIVA - Babylon
3. Robert Wade - Monkey Cymbals		7. Jacob Zachary - End of You
4. Megan Melara - Back Home		8. Matt Lambiase - Better
		9. Michael Burgess - Apple Seeds

Posted under Projects by Joel on October 1, 2005 11:00 PM | Comments (0)