Better Late than Never
Finally finished dealing with the photos from the weekend. Lucky for those of you that were there, I have edited these heavily, and "tweaked" things a tad with Photoshop. If you don't like my tweaks, drop me a comment and I'll see what I can do (all comments are screened).
I love having my camera at events like these. Too many drinks cloud my memory, but my immortalizer gives me a much better chance of piecing together the events of the night. I never would have remembered that painted pig from the walk home. The grits though - I could never forget those grits.
Summers as a kid I mostly spent in North Carolina with my grandparents. At first it was with the whole family, and later I'd spend the entire summer vacation with them. The earliest memories I have of my grandfather are of him standing at his workbench spitting his chewing tobacco out the window while making picture frames. I don't remember exactly when he quit. The rest of the time we were at the beach. I vividly remember fishing on the pier, baking under the hot sun. Mamaw would slather me in SPF 6 sunscreen in a vain attempt to protect my pasty whiteness. I used tiny bits of shrimp or cutbait, and rarely caught anything worth keeping. I was very good at losing tackle and wasting bait. 
Last snow photo for a while, I promise. Tonight at 7 pm the temperature here was 56 °F and a lot of the snow is melted and gone. Of course the giant piles are still around, but the grass is starting to show through in parts of the yard. I love the ups and downs. 
What do you do with all that snow that's laying about? After a fresh snow, it's possible to make a sort of ice-cream treat using a few standard household ingreedients. What do you need?
Sure, it starts with one inch, slowly causing the roads to get slippery. Then before you know it, all major airpots in the area are closed and there are two feet of snow on the ground. It wreaks havoc on transportation in general, but it's very pretty. 
After spending a few hours with the landlords removing the snow from the driveway, it was time to play! I got the roommate rounded up and we attempted to make a snowman in the back yard. The snow was uncooperative, being way too dry, so we just jumped around in big piles of it. Eventually, the cold got the better of us and we came inside to have a cup of tea. I even shared the secret recipe for Snow-cream with the roommate. Perhaps I'll write about that tomorrow. 
Bring on the Blizzard! Reports were sketchy at first, but it appears we are actually getting the predicted snowstorm. Why couldn't this have happend on Sunday night into Monday? I really could use a nice snow day to sit at home and watch movies and drink tea instead of being at work. We had our annual winter party for the lab tonight, probably my last one. The boss's house isn't exactly decorated how I would do it, but there's quite a lot of oak, and I can't complain about that. The snow started accumulating during the party, and I suddenly had the urge to wish people a Merry Christmas. 
Instead of trekking it to D.C. for the weekend, 
I feel like the photos do not do it justice, maybe I should have consulted a food stylist. I think I know one of those. 
Hrm... Interesting. Seems that someone at the D.O.T. has decided to install traffic sensing rubber hoses on my street. Lucky for me, they're right by my house. In fact, they're literally 50 feet from my bedroom window. I'm LOVING the increased noise level as cars drive over them.
Pretty, yes? I thought so, too. Except when I see this photo I just notice the spherical abberation caused by the smallish lens on my ultra-compact digicam. So, fine, to get pictures like this to come out perfect I'd need a view camera (and better lighting, but anyway...) which is heavy, huge, and definitely not pocket friendly. Still, it could be worse, like a blurry cameraphone pic.