This isn't the Pennsic entry; this is the "you can see nice things when there isn't city build-up in your way" photo post. :-) Mostly sunsets, interesting clouds, and the full moon. ( Read more... )

We recently visited Living Treasures Animal Park, right off the PA Turnpike. It's nearby for us, but we'd never heard of it until we got a recommendation. It's a family-run cross between a small zoo and a petting zoo, with care for the animals being a top priority.

They have typical domesticated animals that kids (and others) can interact with. I call this first one "pet me!" and the second one "feed me!":

They also have some more exotic animals, like wallabies and bison, and some you definitely shouldn't treat as interactive, like brown bears and alligators. (According to their web site, their alligators winter in Florida.) Visitors can feed many of the animals; they sell appropriate feed, and exhibits are labelled with what you can feed them. For most animals they provide a chute (and a few can eat out of your hand); for the small primates they had a bucket on a rope with pulleys, so you could deposit food, send it over, and watch them take it. We didn't do any feeding ourselves, but there were some families there with kids who were very much enjoying this.

They had some miniature horses, which I've seen pictures of but haven't seen "live" before. They're proportioned differently from full-size horses and also from ponies. (They do pony rides for the kids, by the way.)

The enclosures were large and well-maintained, and the animals always had an "escape hatch". (And thus, there were some we didn't see, which is fine.) Even in late morning, those that wanted it found shade.

There was also a large pond with ducks, geese, and two black swans. I took this picture at maximum zoom with no other adjustments. Yes, the water really was that color -- never did find out what plant life was doing that.

When I've taken pictures of the chanukiyah in the past, I've usually been disappointed by how blurry the flames look. Photographing flames in a darkened room is apparently challenging -- it's not just me. I asked a question about it a while back on the Codidact photography community and got some interesting advice.

I've been experimenting this season. Here's one from tonight that came out decently well:

The camera settings were:

• Shutter speed: 1/90
• ISO: 1600
• Exposure: 0 (I don't know what this means; it's a scale from -2 to +2)

The other settings I have available are named:

• White balance: (scale of pictograms of sun, light bulbs, etc)
• Interval(s): scale from 0 to 60
• Focus: picture of flower, 25/50/75%, picture of mountain

I left those set to "auto".

I can make guesses (based on the scales) about white balance and focus, but "interval(s)" has me stumped.

Day 1:
Neis gadol hayah sham. (A great miracle happened there.)

Day 2:
'Al hanissim v'al hapurkan v'al hagvurot v'al hat'shuot v'al hamilchamot sh'asita l'avoteinu bayanim hahem lazman hazeh. (translation)

Day 3:
Mi yimalel gvurot Yisrael,
Otan mi yimne?
Hen be'chol dor yakum ha'gibor
Goel ha'am!

Shma!
Ba'yamim ha'hem ba'zman ha'zeh
Maccabi moshia u'fode
U'v'yameinu kol am Yisrael
Yitached yakum ve'yigael! (translation)

Day 4:
Ma'oz Tzur Yeshu'ati, lekha na'eh leshabe'ah.
Tikon beit tefilati, vesham toda nezabe'ah.
Le'et takhin matbe'ah mitzar hamnabe'ah.
Az egmor beshir mizmor hanukat hamizbe'ah. (translation and more info)

Day 5:
Ra'ot save'ah nafshi, beyagon kohi kala.
Hayyai mereru vekoshi, beshi'abud malkhut egla.
Uvyado hagdola hotzi et hasgula.
Heil par'o vekhol zar'o yaredu ke'even bimtzula. (continuation of the previous day)

Day 6:
Barchuni le-shalom malachei ha-shalom malachei Elyon,
mi-melech malachei ha-melachim ha-qadosh Baruch Hu. (translation)

(Lighting and posting before Shabbat, so you get Shabbat text today.)

Day 7:
לֹא בְחַיִל, וְלֹא בְכֹחַ--כִּי אִם-בְּרוּחִי, אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת.

Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6, from the Shabbat haftarah reading for Chanukah)

Day 8:
What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep alive in that flame?
[...]
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail!

Don't let the light go out! (From "Light One Candle" by Peter Yarrow; elision was to fit in a tweet.)

Last year I posted pictures of our new kitchen trailer, but (1) I failed to take interior pictures at Pennsic and (2) we've made some improvements in the last year. So here are some more pictures from this year. ( many photos behind the cut )

I visited our main office for a few days this past week. (Sorry to folks I didn't connect with.) I met our two new team members, one of whom is our new manager, and our intern for this coming summer, and I had lots of productive conversations. I also played one game of Caverna with coworkers.

I wondered what airport security was going to be like given the government shutdown. Monday morning in Pittsburgh the line was probably about 15-20 minutes long, but somebody came by to tell us the alternate checkpoint was open and had no line, so some of us went there. All of the agents I saw were polite, professional, and not acting disgruntled. I and several other passengers thanked them for being there despite the situation. Everybody there understood that the mess was not the fault of anybody there and taking out frustrations on the wrong people would be bad. Yay for people acting like adults!

Thursday night at Logan, the first checkpoint I found was closed but the second was staffed. It took me five minutes to get through. Again, people behaved themselves.

Wednesday afternoon our new writer and I took a walk through a park/wetlands area near the office. We saw lots of ducks and one heron. We later saw the heron catch a small mouse; I hadn't previously known that they ate mammals.

( photos )

Here are a few photos (from Pennsic) of our new kitchen. We brought it back to Pittsburgh to continue to improve it.

( Read more... )