Friday, July 29, 2005

A Few More Pictures

Ah, the Perry Bible Fellowship spotlights one of my favorite animals! The only problem-which may be a bit nitpicky, but I am, afterall, an aspiring biologist-is that the sloth is not hanging under the branch.

Atli Dagur is always a good subject for photographs.


So is Hrannar.

I finally got to meet Vanessa. Here she is with mommy.


And I thought that I'd seen cool oragami before! Some people take a simple-seeming passtime and turn it into a real art.


Here's our humble abode. There is now a fence running the length of yard along the side of the house. In two days I've managed to get up 15 sections of fencing. I never was great at wood working! But the fence looks really nice and I can't wait to see the yard when I'm done.

Can you tell that I love my new camera? I've been driving people crazy by just sitting nearby snapping picture after picture. It's not as annoying as it was, though because I finally bothered to shut off the little faux-shutter sound and the beeping noises the camera was set to make when I first got it. Things I don't like about it or would change if I could: 1. There should be an image stabilizer so that there aren't so many blurry shots. 2. I would prefer a faster auto focus. I haven't had the inclination to learn the manual focus setting well yet, but it seems to me to be not a much better option than the auto setting.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

So Many Beautiful Skies


Inga thought that I should post this photograph taken last night at about 10:30. The colors and clouds of the sky have always been a favorite subject of my photography. Of course, with the expanse of sky one witnesses here one has to show some restraint in the taking of photos. I have other stuff to do, you know! But sometimes I just can't resist. And, thanks to the new camera, the photos are even better.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Part 2

Of course, my son is not the only one who makes faces that are worthy of an internet post. Here's a photo I took while my nephew, Björn Hermann, was eating an M&M. He only has teeth in the front...
But the great thing about babies is that they are never ashamed and when Björn Hermann saw me take the photo, he posed for the next one...

Kids Make Great faces!

Yes, children are often good for a laugh. One of the great things about someone who has their camera always at hand is that such a person manages to catch some of the wonderful facial expressions of a child. The piture to the left is Guðjón at Martha's Vineyard. Egils took the picture and managed to capture a moment that the boy didn't realize would be immortalized.
Good job, Egils!

First Post

Well, the first fence post, that is. I'm fencing the yard. Using ready-made fencing sections that are 180 cm long fastened to fence posts that are 9.8 cm square, I'll need about 44 full sized sections of fence and at least five odd-length pieces. So, the circumference of the yard is about 83.5 meters. This is a pretty good sized yard. It's smaller than my mother's, though, I think. I actually got a bit of a pleasant surprise when I talked to my neighbors about the property lines. They are all willing to either help me pay for the fencing or, in the case of the guy next to me, give me an extra meter or two of property so that I can just follow the line of his garage. That last means that I don't have to buy fencing over the distance covered by his garage and I can just fasten to it. I've always thought that he was not too happy about me living here, but he seems pretty nice afterall. That may come from his use of my half of the driveway from time to time. Hey, neighbors are supposed to share, right?
So, anyway, I have the first post fastened and tomorrow I'm going to get to work on getting up the long side of the yard. Inga's already volunteered to stain the fence every summer and was saying today that she would like me to buy some stain the next time I go to the store so that while I'm putting up the fence she can take a break from the computer to come out and wave the brush at the fence. The weather has been fantastic here. It was a bit cold today, but only because of the wind. I took Guðjón fishing a couple of days ago and although we didn't catch any fish, we saw a couple of really beautiful collared doves (which are not on the list of Icelandic birds). Here's some info and pictures.

That's all for now.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Some Shots from Our Trip


Miranda was cute as usual

Guðjón turned 5 at Memere's house

Mr. Nathan Hawkes, the friend who's been with me the longest...(Egils in the background)

Carl at Memere's pool

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

A long and wonderful summer

Wow, this has been great! First, I went off to Thailand for two weeks of fun and education. Then a month in the States. Most recently, I went on a three day fishing trip. Could a summer be any more fun?!

I guess that since I've written a little about Thailand, I should write today about the other two trips this summer. When we decided to go the States this summer, we knew that this one should be a trip specifically for the kids. We also thought it would be a good idea to have something planned for each day so that we wouldn't waste a whole bunch of time just trying to figure out what to do. That turned out to be the best thing for us, despite all the crap we got from friends and family about how much stuff we had planned.
We started right off with a drive up to Bar Harbor, Maine to see an art show in which my mother's talent was on display. You can see photos of the piece that she had there on her website (third link down on my list of links), but to get the real effect of it-it's pretty big-you have to see it in person. At the show, Dagbjört made a couple of friends who will be her pen-pals. My family ate dinner with the two new friends and their mother at a restaurant calledGeddy'ss. The restaurant was not very impressive to me and I wouldn't recommend it. The second day we were there gave us an opportunity to drive around Mt. Desert Island a bit. That's a place that everyone should visit at least once.
The next two days went to shopping for summer clothes (as one might expect, summer clothes arenoto very necessary in Iceland) and a trip to Canobie Lake Park. Canobie Lake is an amusement park (tí­voli) in southern New Hampshire. The park had been expanded since the lat time I was there and everyone had a great time. But I knew it was just a warm-up for the rides we would experience in Florida!
The good folks at campmor.com managed to get the tent and other camping gear to my mother's house in time for the three days of camping that we did at White Lake in NH. On that trip, My uncle Tom and his two girls joined us as did my aunt Norma and her husband Paul. The group of us enjoyed a couple of days of real New England downpours. Unfortunately, it proved to be a bit too much water for the tent we bought and I walked down to buy a big plastic tarp to string in the trees over the tent for the second night. But we made the best of it anyway. We walked around the lake-along the way we found a turtle nest that had been dug up by a large animal-and we toasted marshmallows and we rented three boats (2 canoes and 1 kayak for Dagbjört and Marissa). All in all, it was a great camping trip.
Then back to my mother's house for a while. One of the places we went to is one of my favorite places in Massachusetts. The wildlife sanctuary on the Ipswich River in Topsfield has a decent expanse of trails to walk and even provides canoe rental (when the office is open). It features a man-made rocky outcropping that is fun to walk through and sit on. The highlight of the day was Dagbjört's attempts at catching the leopard frogs that inhabit the grass. She finally caught one and I'll be posting the pictutomorroworow.
Carl's wife, Holly, is fortunate enough to have a grandmother generous enough to let us all stay at her place on Martha's Vineyard (Chappaqiddick, actually) for a few days. Unfortunately, she had recently had some sort of medical problem and we were denied the blessing of her company. Thanks, anyway. We also got to meet her father, Butch, and as one might expect from the knickname, he is a colorful character. I had a great time there. I managed to sneak in a bitsnorkelingling, but saw nothing but thousands of comb jellies, a few welks and a whole lot of hermit crabs.
We left for Florida right after leaving the island and we spent each day at a different park down there. First, we went to Disney World. For a family with a five year old, the Magic Kingdom is a must at least once. We had a lot of fun but ended up wasting a bit of time wandering back and forth and waiting because we hadn't planned things out quite well enough and because I had forgotten to bring the walkie talkies. The second day was my turn to pick our destination and Sea World was a no-brainer. We managed to see almost all of the animals before the rain started and because we were wet anyway, we took 5 or 6 runs down the Atlantis ride which hurtles you down at high speed only to soak you in the pool at the bottom. Even Guðjón enjoyed that, although he couldn't bring himself to hold his head up when we shot downward. The rollercoaster there is also my favorite of those that I rode in Florida. It's a longer ride than most of the others and it is pure fun. Dagbjört chose Wet 'N' Wild for the third day of our trip. We slid and slided and swam all day until thunder showers drove everyone home. We waited the storm out (as any Icelanders would do!) and then got in quite a few rides without lines when it stopped raining. The last day down there we headed to universal. We went forst to Isle of Adventure. This park is one of the coolest looking places I have ever been. Every turn exposes one to fantastical buildings and sculptures and such. Much of what one sees in the park is directly out of the movies but some of it is not from movies. The attractions at the Universal parks are really cool. They are more creative than your typical amusement park ride. Many of them involve real fire that's close enough to make you turn your face from the heat! In one of them, the whole ceiling catches fire! We stayed at the Radisson Barcelo and would stay there again. It's got a great location and was cheap compared to the quality of the room.
After Florida we went back to MA and then moved in with my uncle and his family. That worked out well and the rest of our trip was fairly relaxing and fun.