Wordless Wednesday - Beach at the golden hour

Photo Hunters - Creative

I've always been fascinated with photos created by moving light in long exposure photographs known as light etching or light doodling. Adam is always more than willing to help create these shots and here are some of the pictures we've created over the years.






Lastly, here is an awesome stop motion video which creates animation with light doodling by Takeshi Nagata and Kazue Monno, who are obviously far more creative than me! Here is a the link to their Pika Pika 2007 film and below is a Sprint commercial they did. Via Boing Boing.

I've been blagged!

Image from London Toy Fair has nothing to do with this blag (blag = tag + blog), but I can't post without an image!!

I've been blagged by Theresa at Sleeping Kitten Dancing Dog.

These are the rules and details of the Blag:

• Each player starts with eight random facts or habits about his or her self.
• These blagged chosen ones are to write posts on their own blog about these eight facts.
• They are also to post these rules.
• At the end of their blog they will list eight people they have chosen to blag by listing their name and a link to their blog.

Here are some random things about me.

• My favorite season is winter.
  
• My favorite color is purple.
• My favorite flavor of ice cream is coffee heath bar crunch.
  
• I love rollercoasters.
• I was due on December 25th, but was born 10 days late on January 4th.
  
• I gained 35 pounds while pregnant with Adam and 27 pounds for Dova (OK, TMI)
  
• I am always worried that people will discover that I'm just faking my job.
  
• I have a secret celebrity identity on Twitter as well as myself.

Here are the eight people I have blagged. Have fun and Happy Blagging.

• Mike at Mike's WeBlog
  
• Quentin at Perspectives from NH (that's in the Upper Area of the Right Coast)
  
• Bridget at ..."And Miles To Go Before We Sleep..."
• Criz Lai at Criz's Sanctuary
  
• Angela at angela giles klocke ... be creative with a purpose
  
• Melody at Slurping Life
• Kelly at Kellyology
  
• Morgen at It's a Blog Eat Blog World

Whew! I think the toughest part about this tagging business is coming up with the tag list! Please leave a comment if you've been blagged and blag about it! (No time pressure, it took me 2 months to get this up)

TT #11 - Children's Book Recommendations

Thirteen children's book recommendations. These are all books that we have borrowed and enjoyed from the local library.

1. Henry Hikes to Fitchburg by D.B. Johnson. Henry as in Henry David Thoreau, and Fitchburg as in Fitchburg, MA. An excellent introduction to transcendentalism for preschoolers. But if you don't want to think of it that way, it is a good reminder to practice mindfulness.
   
2. Henry and Mudge and the Happy Cat by Cynthia Rylant and Suçie Stevenson. A different Henry in this one. This book is especially endearing to me because it doesn't have the obligatory sappy happy ending and the cat looks like "mashed prunes", which our own Ebony often looks like after a rainstorm.
   
3. The Saturday Kid by Edward Sorel and Cheryl Carlesimo. Beautifully illustrated and a great story. I am extremely disappointed that someone dinged this book as being too violent. Bullies beat other kids up, they certainly didn't learn it from a book.
   
4. Oonga Boonga by Frieda Wishinsky and Carol Thompson. This book is so true to life in our family. Sometimes the only person who can calm Dova down in times of total meltdown is her silly brother Adam.
   
5. Skippyjon Jones in the Dog-House by Judy Schachner. The enclosed CD made reading this book a lot easier. I didn't care for it much at first, but the kids loved it and pretty soon we were talking about Skippyjon Jones all the time.
   
6. Old Macdonald Had an Apartment House by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett. I love the imagery of carrots growing through the ceilings in this classic book.
   
7. Old Granny and the Bean Thief by Cyntha DeFelice and Cat Bowman Smith. A great story including a cow patty as a character, set in the desert Southwest.
   
8. On the Moon by Anna Milbourne, Laura Fearn and Benji Davies. The only non-fiction book on this list (I am female after all), this is a nice introduction to space for toddlers.
   
9. Granite Baby by Lynne Bertrand and Kevin Hawkes. Another story from New England, this time a tall tale from New Hampshire. I love the larger-than-life illustrations and the super industrious women.
   
10. Twister by Darleen Bailey Beard. Extremely vivid, slightly scary, but wonderful.
    
11. Play, Mozart, Play! by Peter Sis. Dova and I spent hours looking at the illustrations by the author of Scranimals, but Doug felt it was just too bizarre.
    
12. Max's Words by Kate Banks and Boris Kulikov. Extremely creative story with excellent illustrations.
    
13. Car Wash by Sandra Steen. Cool illustrations and fun times.

You'll note that I made a special trip to the library to remember all these great titles just for this post!

My New Favicon and Viral-Icons

Hey Firefox users, have you noticed my new favicon ? Of course all you Internet Exploder users are out of luck here. I couldn't quite figure out how to get it onto my feedburner feed, but at least it gives me a smile every time I see it in the window tab. While I was at it, I created a gravatar, but have yet to use it. Loving that Photoshop.

Ilker Yoldas of The Thinking Blog started up Viral Icons, so everyone join in please!

———Copy and paste the VIRAL-ICONS and instructions below this line———

Instructions:

Important Update - Please read here!

1.) Copy and paste the matrix of “Viral Icons” below courtesy of Ilker Yoldas from The Thinking Blog. (to support Ilker’s quest of launching his own Internet Startup with a student budget, please consider subscribing to the Full RSS Feed and enjoy interesting posts in the meantime. "Knowledge grows when shared!").

2.) Upload your non-animated favicon (GIF image of size 16x16 pixels) to ImageShack, a similar free image hosting server or to your own server provided by your hosting service if you have one.

3.) Substitute the Host Icon and one of the “Viral Icons” in the matrix with your ALT text of choice and your blog’s URL. Maximum of 3 specific keywords for the ALT text are best for it to be effective.

Here is an example:

4.) When you get a ping back from someone that has your icon in one of their “Viral Icons”, practice good karma by copying his/her Host Icon’s code (automatically the associated ALT tag will also be copied) and paste it over one of your “Viral Icons” below.

5.) Invite your readers to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

Host Icon:

VIRAL-ICONS

Rules: No Porn Sites, Only 1 icon per person (i.e. don't hog the ViralIcons!), and please don't tamper with other people's ALT tags, URLs or favicons.

Important: Once I get a ping back from you (I promise to do the best I can), I will add your favicon and the associated code you designate as “Host Icon” here, replacing one of the “Viral Icons” from the matrix above. Feel free to drop a comment here with your blog URL, ALT tags and favicon URL (we don't mind if it is the same all over the blogosphere).

Optional: Display the “Viral Icons” badge on your sidebar and promote your blog. As more and more bloggers copy and paste the “Viral Icons” from the matrix above, the more backlinks you will have with your ALT text, and in turn the more promotion your blog with get. The sooner you participate, the more link love you will receive!

———Copy and paste the VIRAL-ICONS and instructions above this line———