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Hoop Dreams

Photo take today at Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth NH, as Mr. Dump made every effort on the planet to give me a typical touristy vacation day. They have some old-fashioned toys available for today’s modern child to try out. Junior was VERY taken with rolling a hoop and trying to get the little wooden ball into the cup. (Shades of Stewie Griffin, anyone?)


old-fashioned toys, originally uploaded by Big DumpTruck.

He was also very taken with the Jacob’s Ladder toy. Seriously, we were amused by how much he loved these hundred + year-old toys. I could trade in a bunch of his video games and buy some little wooden toys. I’ll bet that would go over really well.

Actually, this is a kid whose most valuable possession is a beat-to-hell blue plastic bat. So wooden toys might be good.

Please note the blinding sunlight in this photo (actually screwed up most of my photos so I have to add fill light in post-processing). After we grabbed a traditional Irish Pub [late] lunch at Molly Malone’s (Mr. Dump had bangers and mash, nuff said.) we headed home – into the worst thunderstorm so far this summer. And that’s saying something. I’m waiting for the power to go off.

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Catching Up On Other Things

With NaNoWriMo over, I’m trying to catch up on all the other stuff I’ve been putting off. I have to do Christmas cards (maybe…I’m getting really bad about them) and our annual Christmas calendar (which requires a little more work than I’ve had time for).

I am also still going through all the Disney photos from October…slowly, ever so slowly.

Here’s another one for you, because you’ve been patient. If you like this one, there are a few more like it over in my flickr photostream.

Musical Spectromagic

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Really spaceship-y earth

really spaceship-y earth
really spaceship-y earth, originally uploaded by Big DumpTruck.

I am still going through the 900 or so photos we took when we were in Disney last month. It’s slow going. I have picked few more to post on flickr, but this is my favorite one from the batch.

I would just like to point out that my family was basically trying to run their little feet off back to the hotel while I was attempting to take a decent photo of Spaceship Earth, my favorite “thing” in all of Walt Disney World. Sure, Cinderella’s Castle is great, but if I could put Spaceship Earth in my front yard I would so do it. I think I’d need a bigger front yard, however.

Have I mentioned recently how much I absolutely love the lens I got (as a very early Christmas present) to take with me to Florida? It’s fantastic. I love it. I wish I’d gotten it the day I got the camera.

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What I do for you

Do you know how much I love you people? In 2004 my family watched the Sox win the world series from Walt Disney World. So we decided to do our part and go to WDW again so that the Sox could win the Series again this year. I am a giver.

I forgot my phone charger so I haven’t been able to keep you up to date – I would have told you earlier but I was afraid you pranksters would TP my house.

I will be able to read all my mail and do a better update on Wednesday when we get back. We’re off to the Magic Kingdom to see if they decorated with Red Sox balloons like it was the last time.

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All Full Up, Tinky Winky

I haven’t uploaded any more of the 700 or so photos I took last week because, interestingly, the hard drive on my Mac became full. That causes two problems. I can’t burn DVDs without having buffer space on the hard drive (a 4.7 gig DVD needs 4.7 gig on the hard drive, etc.) and moving things off the hard drive messes with LightRooms head, because it can’t find files it previously imported. Oh, and you need buffer space on the hard drive to edit photos, too.

I picked up a 500gig external drive at Best Buy for $119 yesterday (tax free, on sale) and I’m moving things off the Mac hard drive slowly but surely. Actually, I have no idea how I filled up the hard drive that quickly. I mean, other than something simple like shooting approximately 10gig of photos in a week. Not counting all the photos I took before last week. Hmmm.

So while we wait for me to go through the rest of the photos, I’ll take a moment to give quality feedback about last night’s showing of Grease on Nickelodeon. I liked that movie a lot when it came out a million years ago. It hardly even bothered me that high school senior Rizzo was played by a 34 year old woman. Hell, Olivia Newton John was 29. John Travolta was 24. But that’s not my complaint. My complaint (no, not the fact that “You’re the One That I Want” is now stuck in my head) is all the smoking. This movie used smoking to show that the characters were “bad” and “cool” all at the same time. You know Danny’s a bad-ass when school starts because he turns around from talking to three middle-aged high school girls and there’s a butt hanging off his lower lip. I wanted Junior to watch this movie because I remembered it one way. But his first comment was “Why are they smoking?” Sure, it’s set in 1959, and maybe smoking was actually allowed on campus back then, but good Lord, even Sandy pulls on a butt (amateurishly) in the final carnival scene to show that she’s no longer a goodie-two-shoes. What the hell? And now that I’m an old lady myself, what the hell is wrong with being a goodie-two-shoes? Why can’t we keep the Pollyanna version of Sandy and the lettermen sweater version of Danny at the end?

I still like the movie, and other than that (and the Rizzo pregnancy scare) it is a fun movie with good songs. And it’s fun to show the boy what High School Musical was based on. But with someone smoking in literally EVERY scene of this movie, I’m questioning if it belonged on the Nick at Night lineup at 8pm. Call me a prude, but it was a bit much, even for me.

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