Fishing in Lake Gaston, NC

Ann's folks rented a house on Lake Gaston, NC, so the kids did a bit of fishing while there.

110923 Fishing

110923 Fishing

The kids weren't the only ones fishing that day.

110923 Fishing

St Petersburg VA

In September, Ann's folks came to NC for a visit, and we spent one day touring some Civil War battlefields in St Petersburg VA.  Naturally, I have several photos involving cannons.  The final one is of Emmy throwing some cotton we found in a field southwest of the city.

110922 Petersburg VA

110922 Petersburg VA

110922 Emmy and Cotton

Hummingbirds

When we moved to this house, we put out a hummingbird feeder, and we were rewarded with a small but steady stream of visitors over the summer.  One day I sat out on the porch and tried to capture them on camera.  They were skittish at first, but I managed to get a few shots.

110806 Hummingbird

110806 Hummingbird

(Yes, these are from August.  I'm behind in my photo editing.)

7 Wonders

We bought a new game for my sister's family for Christmas, 7 Wonders.  It's one of those games that has lots of ways to win, but you can't do all of them, so you have to pick and choose which strategy you want to use.  We got to play three games over the holidays, and the game was quite fun.  It was hard to learn the rules, but easy to play once you got them, and games normally last about 30 minutes.  Despite losing to my sister all three games, I highly recommend it.  You can read more about it on Board Game Geek.



The Green Expansion

The Christmas holidays started with a bang at our house this year.  We added the Green Booster to our Killer Bunnies deck, which adds a zodiac theme to the game.  (We were worried there might be some weird horoscope stuff in this one, but there wasn't.)  Ann won the inaugural game, but the rest of us will get our chance for revenge:  Another game is scheduled for this evening!


Smoked salmon chowder

Ann is making smoked salmon chowder, and it smells so good.

Sequel

It's nearly a sure bet:  When it comes to movies, sequels are not better than the original.  This week our family watched a couple of sequels:  Cars 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2.  KFP2 was a good movie.  The graphics were markedly improved, especially the lighting.  But the plot was not better than the original; you almost knew how this would end before it got going.  Still, it was full of good Kung Fu action, and I might actually buy this one and watch it again.  C2 on the other hand was actually better than the original.  C2 went a new direction, spoofing James Bond, and the overuse of cliches was well done.  True, I don't think I'll buy it; it's a one-timer.  But it was well done.

Dog meets bone

Jezzy went to town on this ham bone.

ePub Reader

I don't read many eBooks.  If I did, I would probably get an iPad and read 'em there.  But I recently downloaded a couple of free eBooks on programming, and both came (only) in the ePub format.  Now what?


There doesn't seem to be any good and free eBook readers for the ePub format, but there is a nifty plugin for Firefox that works just fine.  It's not a perfect solution, but it's good enough.

What do you use to read eBooks?