Simon

Simon
Originally uploaded by davidandbecky

To be fair, here's a Simon picture too!

Alice

Alice
Originally uploaded by davidandbecky

I'm not crazy about the orange background, but otherwise not a bad kitty portrait.

Crow River Dam

Crow River Dam
Originally uploaded by davidandbecky

This is a test of blogging a photo from Flickr. If it works, I may use this all the time killing multiple birds with one shot. Like a shotgun.
This is a shot of the dam on the Crow River, from the water's point of view. Except, of course, that the water is frozen so I can stand on it and people can drive snowmobiles on it, the frozen bits, not the liquid bits.

Back to it?

We did get out and take some pictures today, so I thought I'd post something while I was waiting for the turkey to get done roasting.
Merry Christmas!

The Curious Incident of the Snowmobile on Christmas Eve

Becky and I live in a smallish town in Minnesota. Snowmobiles are more common in the winter than bicycles are in the summer. The Crow River runs through town, and there is a small dam, near a park just north of downtown. I think the dam probably had something to do with the mills in the old days, but for now, it just slows the river down a bit and makes a nice are for shore fishermen. In the winter, it does make for a bit more challenging snowmobile ride, since the water doesn't freeze going over the dam. Maybe it does sometimes, but it certainly wasn't frozen yesterday, and its been below freezing for 9 days and below zero for much of that time.
Yesterday (Christmas Eve) after we got done working, we decided to go around and enjoy the sunshine which was the first we'd had in a few days anyway. We went down to the river to see the dam and see if there were any opportunities for pictures.

While we were there, we saw this snowmobile driving up the river, fairly quickly. Since we'd just been at the dam, and seen tracks going across (apparently jumping over it), we thought maybe this guy was going to do it for us as a show! No, that wasn't his plan; he just didn't realize that the dam was there.
It turned out that he was a 17 old kid, and this was his first time on his Dad's 2 week old (used, but new for him) snowmobile. Some other guys took the kid up to the bar to get warm (he was soaked!) and we worked with his dad, and a guy who lived near there for awhile trying to get the sled out of the river. They finally called a tow truck and winched it out. What a terrible way to start out Christmas for them...

Changes

So I'm really behind. Really behind.
I started this with two intentions: 1) take more pictures and 2) get some of my older pictures out there for people to see. I'd say that I was about 1/2 successful on each point. Just an estimate.
I am getting more pictures taken, but the weather doesn't cooperate really well up here. Monday through Friday we drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. I'm setting up a mini-studio in the basement, but that's still a work in progress.
There will be a few more old pictures that get some attention here, but there aren't as many as I'd hoped that I want to share. Go figure.
Bear with me while I figure this out.
Thanks.