1.31.10

Late lunch / early dinner at D.T. Kirby’s in downtown Lafayette. Pictured here is a double grilled-cheese cheeseburger – two patties in-between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Bacon optional (up to 10 pieces).

1.30.10

Andrew and Shauvon are best friends.

1.29.10

Andy Briston stopped by for a visit.

1.28.10

Examples from a task-building workshop I attended today. It was all about making hands-on activities for tier three intervention students so that they learn the same skills in a simplified, easy to correct way.

1.27.10

All right – I chose this picture for strange reasons. Personally, I think it’s a terrible picture – because it is. It doesn’t highlight the food in an appealing way, there are too many shadows, and the camera flash has washed everything out. But in a strange way, I was drawn towards using it. I shot this picture in a fully lit room, by the way – that should tell you how harsh and overbearing the flash is. I don’t know. It’s a horrible picture, but I like it in a horribly disgusted sort of way.

1.26.10

Marsedotes and dosedotes and liddlelamsedivey.

1.25.10

The current view through our building’s front door. A little dusty.

1.24.10

We found this fan on Craigslist for $10. It was covered in black gunk – so I took it apart and cleaned it up. It still runs, but it’s terrifying because the fan blades are so very sharp, and there aren’t any safety screens – the back is completely open, and the front has plenty of space for fingers to find their way through. So, we don’t use it to keep cool. I use it as a bookend for my records.

1.23.10

Some band at Hunter’s Down Under. I thought they were pretty good. I thought those mozzarella sticks were pretty good, too.

1.22.10

The Crazy Monkeys perform at Greyhouse, and their shoes tag along.

1.21.10

Mike is flat-out into this conversation.

1.20.10

Charlotte really likes the electric blanket we have on our bed. She’s never really spread herself out so much before.

1.19.10

Ara Buttons on an old-timey corkboard.

1.18.10

Some of the best examples of the scale model projects my students had to do this trimester - here we have the twin towers, the leaning tower, and the Coliseum.

1.17.10

Elias Glasch has a super fancy ceiling fixture.

1.16.10

Technically I took this today, so here is a ceiling fan with snowflakes on.

1.15.10

Tonight I was hanging out with the Crazy Monkeys at Party Central (Andrew and Shauvon and John and Eli and Joe and Kelsey’s apartment). This is a lamp at Party Central. No editing was done to this picture – my camera just takes ‘em like this.

1.14.10

Tomorrow is the math department’s turn to bring in Friday Food at school, so I made more of those Oreo Bites that Mary made last week. I wanted to use the popsicle sticks so they’d be easier to dip in the chocolate – makes them sort of like those cake pops that the internet recently made famous, but with much less work. I also used different chocolates – starting with white, then adding some semi-sweet, then finishing up with some milk chocolate chips. Makes for a nice gradient. All right, enough about me! And never mind the gaps where tasty treats once were.

1.13.10

If this wasn’t such a blurry picture, it would be a really good one of our cat, Charlotte. As it is, it’s pretty good. At least she was interested.

1.12.10

I made chili tonight (recipe forthcoming!), and with that came my old college (so weird saying “college” in terms of the past) practice of eating soup out of bowls out of hats. Since we (my roommates and I) never had any kind of table to eat on, I had to hold it and eat. (Eating at my desk instead of in front of the TV was just silly, and you shouldn’t have even brought it up.) So, I put the bowl in my hat. Kept my hands nice and un-burnt.

1.11.10

  Well, (like I’ve said before) Mary likes elephants, and I like incense. We also like old fashioned things, like banker’s lamps and swingy clocks and dried straw flowers you can’t see right now. The Monopoly board was painted by my grandfather (my dad’s dad), and we bought the clock on our honeymoon. The lamp? $2 at a garage sale. We are made of deals.

1.10.10

Thirsty? Too bad! Old Man Winter has no desire to fulfill your request for liquid refreshment!

1.9.10

View of our neighborhood on Ferry Street. Our building is the yellow one hiding behind the tree.

1.8.10

Today we had a snow day, so I went out to take some pictures to use for this Picaday nonsense. Turns out that I didn’t have to go very far. Yesterday, some fool (probably me) left the door to our back area (“porch” is too fancy a word) open, and we now have our very own mini snow drift. Fantastic!

1.7.10

My commute this morning. Pressure from the State level DOE has made it difficult for many corporations to justify calling school, or even a 2 hr delay. Fortunately, they made an exception for today’s weather, and although I still had to go in to school before the roads were plowed, we were able to go home a few hours early – right after lunch. Some people might say that taking a picture while driving makes it even more dangerous. To them, I say “yeah probably.”

1.6.10

I have a desktop full of fun things to amuse myself. I mean my students. Yeah.

1.5.10

This is the snowflake wall in my classroom. My students made snowflakes in their free time the week before break, and subsequently covered my wall with them. However, I probably made half of them - I had a lot of down time while my seventh graders were working on their scale model projects (some of which are awesome, by the way, and I might have a picture of one or two coming up). I'm not going to take them down until spring - mainly because it will be a huge pain. Maybe I can make some of the kids do it. I'll tell them it's for extra credit.

1.4.10

I'm cheating a bit by using this picture, because I took it a few weeks ago (maybe a month or two, actually), but I really like it, so I'm using it. It really shows off what a nice building Lafayette's courthouse is. Also, it's way too cold to go out and take a new one today. Plus, I'm sharing it in honor of Matt, who had to go to there earlier today for some trafffaffic mixup garbage. But I think everything turned out better than expected!

1.3.10

  

On a slightly less dreary note comes the photo for day three. It’s a happy gold elephant! We bought this on clearance from Target. It’s actually a bank, but it’s missing the plastic stopper for the bottom, so we don’t keep any money in it. Instead, it just jazzes up our living room. Mary loves elephants, especially jazzy golden ones.

1.2.10

 

For day two, I bring you the most terrifying statue/sculpture I think I’ve ever come across. I think it was supposed to be heart-wrenching, but to me it hits home in a place that awakens a kind of horror only felt when thinking about things like declawing cats, or accidentally eating moldy yogurt, or that time on Lost when Sayid shoved splinters underneath Sawyer’s fingernails. If you think I’m just being dramatic, it’s because you can’t see that baby’s eyes. They will disappear into your brain and re-emerge in your nightmares.

1.1.10

I think, while taking this picture, I was the coldest I’ve been so far this winter. This is a view of the Wabash from the pedestrian bridge between Lafayette and West Lafayette. The sound of the ice in the river rubbing together and on the bridge supports was really fantastic.