Friday, December 31, 2010

Friday, December 31, 2010

Hippo Pic_a_day

Posted by Hippobean at 11:49 PM 0 comments
The Hippo was planning on taking a digital photography course so she could learn how to properly take digital pictures. E from work recommended a good instructor/class at CSM but they didnt offer this class at night. So she thought the next best thing was to get more practice. Imitating the Goose (as usual), she decided to take 1 photograph a day for the entire 2011. So, hold her accountable, but not while she's traveling because although she'd be taking tons of pictures during her vacation, it's not always easy to upload the images. She's planning on taking a picture during the course of the day and then preping and posting it before she goes to bed every night. That's 365 images! let's see if jquery.orbit can handle it. Mama Mia! So here Big Dog will close the year and start the new one. And what's next? A paragraph a day to finish off her books?

Btw, Goose, congrats! You've finished the year by completing the picture of the day!

Hippo Pic-a-day (mouse over the image to navigate)

Monday, December 20, 2010

Monday, December 20, 2010

total lunar eclipse in winter solstice

Posted by Hippobean at 11:57 PM 0 comments
When I went out around 9PM, the moon was full and bright.Back out again around 11:16PM, it was crescent.Out again at 11:36, it was covered by clouds. Waited in the cold till the clouds parted, and the moon was orangee/red and I snapped a few photos. Wished my camera had a more powerful zoom! Not much but as you can see, it was reddish brown. at one point when the clouds moved on, moono was bright and looked perfectly round and reddish. what an awesome sight! It was located just to the left and up from three stars of equal brightness and evenly spaced, the Orion's belt? Suddenly the sky was clear for just a few seconds and I saw a real bright star where the 3 stars were pointed to, Sirius? gosh, wish Tomaso was here to tell me! Did you wake up to see it? Hope it wasnt snowing too bad in Paris! Oops, Paris is _not_ in the western hemisphere, you're right, my bad. Just about missed the prime meridian. Didnt realized it's the first total lunar eclipse in 450 years that coincided with the winter solstice. No wonder Powerpoint killed my hard drive today!

See the images: 1 2

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Sunday, December 05, 2010

tree decorating

Posted by Hippobean at 11:49 PM 2 comments
Hawling the 4ft pine solo up to the penthouse wasnt the big deal. The big deal was to find a suitable stand for it. After a couple of days, I've noticed the needles were losing their green but the fresh pine scent still filled the room. Every now and then when I walked by it, I could sniff it and pretend I was in some cabin out in the woods with snow falling. So I woke up on Sunday extra early, and stood on my feet for 3 hours and cooked a feast. First baking the chicken with chimichurri, then frying onion and garlic and browning the squash, zucchini and eggplant. then in went the different color peppers, then the tomatoes and thyme and a few bay leaves. Tossed up the romaine and poured in the caesar mix. It took enough courage to pop the prosecco cork and finally chilled mimosa, with a cup of tropicana little pulp that is. With sparkling wine in hand, the aroma of the Ratatouille hovered the room, an enormous pleasure to my olfactory sense. A rare treat. Then they came and consumed the meal, decorated the tree and each selected a tiny plush microbe, a special order from ThinkGeek.com. A Black Forrest cake was presented to T with a dark candle that says 'over the hill, too old to count'! He proclaimed surprised (really? not convinced!), and opened his bathday gift wrapped in robot papers. "What the heck is this?" It's a turtle light! That is, a sea turtle with a shell that glows in ocean blue, and illuminates with twilight constellation. since T loves astronomy and ocean, I thought this would be a great gift. I rather like one for myself actually. Then more gifts, a bottle of Castello Amorosa Fantasia, bracelets that glow in the dark and butt paste from J. then we watched the latest Darwin movie 'creation'. B, after a brief creation vs evolution debate, didnt want to stay and see the movie. that's how they are unfortunately. But the movie, although with an outstanding performance by Paul Bettany (albino in the DaVinci Code) , was quite boring. From the BBC, so one quite expected that. But it did explore the inner struggle of the scientist with his findings that didnt quite mesh with his ingrained belief, and that tore his conscience. The rain continued to pour outside and splashed on the skylight window while I did the clean-up, accompanied by Debussy. A lot of work for one day but way worth it.



 

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