big times,
little times and
random times in our lives
little times and
random times in our lives
| February 6: Bye-bye Snowstorm, Hello Advil | |||||
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| Above: I rigged up my camera and flash to give me a change to get some photos, so I had some fun. Below, the neighborhood at night. | |||||
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| February 5-6: Mighty Big Snow Storm Arrives | |||||
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| January: Sledding at Wolftrap Farm Park | |||||
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| December: Robin Becomes a Doctor of Pharmacy | |||||
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| Early August: Northern California Vacation | |||||
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California Landscape: Wind your way far enough uphill around fishhook curves and you may get a beautiful reward. We did, right before sunset on August 3. More photos |
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| May 9: Sprouting Radishes | |||||
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Erica has a long history with radishes. |
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From left: Radishes, broccoli, volunteer pumpkins, beans I hope to have climb the netting. |
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May 2: The Sprout Film Festival
The festival is terrific. Anthony Di Salvo, the founder and co-executive director of the annual New York festival, commented that it's hard to get people to come to see movies about people with disabilities. I guess that's because people don't expect to see the amazing abilities on display. I got to see several films and unavoidably missed several I wanted to see.
I am happy to say I got to see my friend Karen Gaffney, plus her parents, Jim and Barb, at the show, too. Karen was the powerhouse swimmer who crossed Lake Tahoe in September 2007, the subject of my film at the Sprout Festival, "Crossing Tahoe: A Swimmer's Dream."
It was really good to see the three of them in New York, and to spend a little bit of time after the festival at a dinner thrown by the Sprout folks. Anthony has a noble ambition with the festival, and in a city of millions, it's amazing that only a few dozen people made it out. Fortunately, the little company has a touring division, too, which Anthony says often attracts bigger crowds. Here's the home page for Sprout. Lots of good programs for people with disabilities.
That's Karen, at left.
May 1: The Sprout Film Festival
The whole crew is in New York City to attend the Sprout Film Festival today, tomorrow and Sunday. My documentary film "Crossing Tahoe: A Swimmer's Dream" is being shown Saturday at 2.
On the train ride up, Mason and Erica explored the train. The vestibule between cars was especially loud and rocking and interesting.
Cool stuff awaited us in the ground floor children's reading room at the NY Public Library. These are the stuffed animals that inspired A. E. Milne's stories for Christopher Robin. Look carefully, and you will see a forlorn button dangling from Eeyore's right eye. You can't see it here, but Piglet has a sporty little belt on his back side. All these little animals look well-worn and fragile.
On our first slept-over morning, Mason went to the desk of the Fitzpatrick hotel, where the clerk appeared to ignore him until I prompted the clerk to attend to Mason, who wanted a plastic knife to cut his doughnut into manageable pieces.
January 10: Pinewood Derby
Mason and I begin to work on his Pinewood Derby car last night. The derby itself kicked off at 9 this morning, so we were a bit late in getting underway on vehicle construction.
Mason's car had been in the shape of a caterpillar in the previous two years. That had taken several hours of work, lots of coats of paint. His ambition this year was to make the Magic Bus, of book and TV fame. Forty-five minutes of Dremel Moto-Tool work yielded something that really did resemble a bus but was in no way magical.
Mason handily won his first race, but was bested in his next two. In double-elimination events, after two losses you're out.
Below, you'll see some of the "cars" created for competition. Some people go for speed, some people go for visual effect. Both the Driving Santa car and the Chipmunk in a Block of Cheese car did very well in both regards.
The Next Page of the Pinchworks Diary: Wedding, Boise, Dad
