Okay, I'll eventually get more photos posted from Thanksgiving, but this one in particular deserved its own showcase. Here's my Special K, blissfully unaware of why I was taking this photograph.

With a day of no concrete plans other than a trip to the shoe store (baby needs a new pair of shoes!), I found time to shoot -- even if only for less than an hour. Results were not terrible.



Shot at the railroad bridge and Visitors Center park in North Lawrence, I got a handful of photos and 2 or 3 HDRs out of it.

It's November, Autumn is meteorologically over, there is frost on the windows and mornings are welcoming us with temperatures in the teens, yet this stupid feline continues to exert deft ninja maneuvers to scoot out the door as soon as it's opened.

These are the looks I get from him on the occasions I actually manage to grab him by the tail as he rockets past me, headed for freedom. If I listen closely I can almost hear his little feline brain saying "While you're at work today I will do unspeakable things to your pillow."

I wandered into the front yard to try and photograph the Christmas lights on the house the other night. When I realized I couldn't get a decent shot hand-held, and was too lazy to go back inside and get my tripod, I decided to take a different approach -- open the shutter and wave the camera around. The results were kind of cool.

Don't get me wrong, we do like having the biggest tree in the neighborhood. A 100-year old oak shades our house in the front yard. When you look at the sattelite imagery, it dwarfs every other tree around. But this is the third time we've raked the yard this year and once again, you can't tell we've done a thing.

But, the kids love it. Andrew and Logann actually don't mind helping with this chore, provided it's not freezing outside. Martin and Jess are all about the leaf piles -- it works out pretty well.

And while the weather was nice on Sunday, the boys were ambitious enough to string lights on the house for Christmas. ...Though half of the lights can't be seen from the street because of that darn oak tree.

More photos here.

Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, now abandoned and in the process of being demolished, is about 20 minutes away in Desoto, KS.

One of these days I'll go back and hop the razor-wire fence to get some shots on the inside.

Making breakfast Saturday morning with some fresh mushrooms bought at the local grocer. Just looked too cool to eat without first shooting the ingredients. No other reason.

I got this impromptu shot of Kaysia at the kitchen table the other morning. Pure luck, but I really like the way it turned out.

Okay yes, I was one of those people years ago who made fun of management for not actually "doing" anything. I reveled in my role as one of the trench workers as we thumbed our collective nose at management -- especially middle management.

...How I long for those days. Here was my schedule today:

8:30-10:00am	Meeting / conference call with software vendor
10:15-10:30am	Daily stand-up meeting w/ developers
11:00am-12:00pm	Discovery meeting with Events staff
12:00-2:00pm	Webinar with software vendor and AMS staff
2:00-3:00pm	Meeting with CME staff to further refine project requirements
3:15-4:30pm	Meeting to discuss data conversion

I knew I should have taken the blue pill.

I wish I could write this story in its entirety, because that would mean the saga of my number 2 molar (as I've learned it is called) had come full circle. However, I am currently wading in the middle of the sea of anxiety I'll refer to as "dental drama". To date, the events have unfolded as follows:

Wednesday, January 24th, 6:45am -- En route to the office on my daily K-10 drive, I am nagged by what feels like a popcorn kernel stuck in one of my teeth. Odd, considering I haven't eaten popcorn in who knows how long. As I try to retrieve said phantom kernel with my finger, I instead come out with a sizable chunk of tooth; followed shortly by another slightly less significant morsel of bone. ...Now am I worried. What to do? One question had to be immediately answered: what of my hot coffee? With great trepidation, leaving one hand on the wheel I cautiously raised my travel mug full of a steaming hot dark sumatra roast to my lips. One small sip; bracing for the white pain of exposed nerves colliding with hot liquid... nothing. Another sip... still nothing. Braver now, a gulp of hot java swished around my mouth... yes! At least I knew I could lower the alert level from orange to yellow since the largest threat had passed without casualty. With my coffee intake no longer in jeopardy, all I had left to deal with was the razor sharp piece of bone that was breaking off inside my mouth.

Being one of those people with an admitted unfounded, irrational fear of the dental trade, I have not been to a dentist in well over the recommended 6-month cycle. In some manner, I could justify my fear of the dentist by professing a concern for keeping my blood pressure at a healthy level. Given the fact that I nearly break out into a sweat and feel my heart pumping like a piston in the engine of a souped-up GTO whenever I pull into the parking lot of a dentist office, I feel that in some way, I'm protecting my body from undue hardship by avoiding dental check-ups as a practice.

That, and the fact that every time I do force myself into the dentist office and ultimately into that chair of torture for a "check-up", the result is always the same: "Wow, Mr. Merritt, how long has it been since you last saw a dentist?"; and then, said to the ever-judgmental dental hygienist (read: aid to the executioner) "You might go ahead and get another sheet of paper to take all of this down. We're going to be here awhile." This always ends with a look of "I've never seen anything like this before", and a summary of "Well, you have cavities in eighty-seven of your teeth and we'll need to schedule twenty-six more appointments in order to get things back on track."

...Or something like that.

This latest saga is just in that first stage of the game. Nice dentist office, as dentist offices go, but that's kind of like saying "Do you want me to use the gun or the knife?", you know? So, I left with the same broken tooth in my mouth, with much more than I ever wanted to know about nerve endings, and a referral to another sadist (professionally referred to as an endodontist) for a root canal.

To end this chapter in what will no doubt prove to be a tragic novel, when I called the endodontist's office to schedule the root canal, the receptionist kindly took my information and worked with me to schedule an appropriate time for my "procedure" (apparently that word is less terrifying than "root canal" or "drilling multiple holes into your skull and sucking out the rooted nerves while you're awake and listening"). When I asked her how long I should expect the "procedure" to take, she said "about an hour-and-a-half, absolutely no more than 2 hours". "Two hours at the most?", I asked for confirmation. To which she replied, "Yes, sir. It should take less than two hours... unless something goes terribly wrong."

I feel so comforted.