Miscellaneous Pictures
These are photos that don't have a category, or there are too few of them to warrant their own photo page. I have them up here because sometimes I need to point the URL to someone to say, "Hey, look at this!"
See my pretty roses. My friends Bruce and Cheryl had a previous roommate who left them a bunch of rosebushes in pots, and asked if we would like them, since they seemed dead, they didn't know anything about roses, and at least the pots were nice. We took them, but left them next to the shed where they didn't get any sunlight. The next year, they actually grew some straggly leaves, but only one grew a flower. I decided to give my hand at this rose growing thing, put them on the deck in the sun, and lo! By the summer of 2002, I had thriving roses! One of the plants died (due to listening to a friend who told me to cut them back, and I thought it sounded fishy, so I only did it to one, and sure enough, it died), and one of the plants didn't grow leaves until close to fall, but they grew! This on is the BIG bush in the white pot. When I hauled it up to the deck, it was only two mangled grey twigs with two brown leaves. Now it's almost a bush!
Here's a close-up of the vibrant flowers. The other surviving plant hasn't flowered yet, and probably won't until next year, but it's amazing that life can spring from a dead-looking root like that. I never fertilized them, and I just made sure they were watered when it was really dry for days. The rest mother nature did! Shortly after this picture, a squirrel ate the roses, but more grew back later. It's now ever bushier!
I work in a weird place where I test Internet connections all day. I have to get in early to make sure all the machines ran at night, and report or their status. Getting in early can catch some weird stuff. I was walking down the hallways, and I saw this. What is it? Well, I can tell you it's a Nerf ball in a plastic Slinky hanging from the ceiling. I can also tell you that underneath was a sandwich on a paper plate. In the middle of the hall. Of course, I was suspicious. I had to take a photo, but I accidentally cut off the sandwich part, which really just made a weird picture. I figured it was a trap, and left it alone. Later, the sandwich was gone, but this hung from the ceiling for a few more days.
I have three glow-in-the-dark rubber jellyfish hanging from my office ceiling. I like them there. When we have a power outage, they glow eerily, leading me to the door out of my office. I have no windows in my office, so when the power goes out, it's totally pitch black. So is the hallway. This is probably unsafe, but hey, they don't pay me to complain. So the jellyfish stay... as a tribute to Spongebob.
This is the view from my deck at home. I can see over houses, and feel very tall. It gives the deck a kind of rented beach house feeling, except instead of facing the ocean, I face some trees and the back of a shopping mall. Instead of the roar of the ocean, I get the rumble of tractor trailers. And instead of seagulls, I hear the screeching of stock clerks and other various alley noises.
This is the beach house we rent in Hatteras, North Carolina. Someday, I'll probably own one of these. At the time this photo was taken in 2002, it had three floors, a Jacuzzi, cable TV, and just a few steps from the uncrowded beach. This is taken from the dune, with the ocean to my back.
This UFO used to be an alien-themed hot dog and ice cream stand in Hatteras, but it blew down during Hurricane Dennis. Now it sits in a large lot. Their food was average, but it used to make a great photo op. I wonder if it's for sale... hmmm... "Will build to suit tenant?"
This is the ship, HMS Danmark, from Denmark, which was docked while I was in Baltimore at Otakon (July 2002). The sailors were in my hotel, having a great time. I was lucky to have seen it disembark Saturday morning, amid great fanfare and cheering. The USS Constellation even fired a mock canon salute.