In the beginning...

A few days ago Jolie convinced us that it would be a good idea to collect a few tadpoles from a puddle in an empty lot down the street from our house. Because I secretly had been hoping for one of the kids to ask the age-old question, "Can we catch some tadpoles?" I was an easy sell. In two trips to the puddle, we ended up with six new charges, certainly dazed and confused about their new surroundings. It must be a unique adventure in the life of a tadpole to go from a lovely puddle hidden in the tall grass of an empty lot to our kitchen counter in a recently re-tasked plastic peanut butter jar.


My pity aroused for their plight, the next day I rounded up the three nearest kids and relieved our local Petco of a 10 gallon aquarium and the sundry essentials of a respectable terrarium. It was the most sympathetic $68 I had spent in days. Reflecting on the move earlier today, it really would have been much more dramatic if we had played "Movin' on up," The Jefferson's theme during the netting and dumping. I guess we'll have a more refined plan should we have to replace any goners.

Random use of pictures, huh? That's the way I roll! Actually, my father-inlaw asked me to email him these pictures. I took them the other night at their house where I was excited to try out some great tips I picked up from the strobist website. I'm working my way through some terrific tutorials from the site and I will post decent examples here or perhaps on flickr as they present themselves.

Here's something else random... the picture below was taken with an off-camera flash mounted camera right at about 90 degrees to Audrey and about 2' above her head. The flash was snooted to restrict the light but was not diffused. Hence the hard, narrow light. Just imagine what you can do with two or more additional flashes! Don't tell Andrea I said that...

Well, how how this been for random? I've got one more thing for you. On the sidebar is a list of random things about me. I got this idea from the Glenn family newsletter. Several people have shared their lists in this letter, so I figured I would start one here-- I know that is a borderline non sequitur, but it matches this post. Although it isn't near 25 yet, I am working on it. Producing a list like this is actually an interesting thought exercise. Because my things tend to be a bit ephemeral, I will try to update past entries from time to time. Who knows, perhaps it will someday distill into a list of 25 things that I didn't think of the moment before they were written. Then again, this may be the first and last entry in this blog. Who knows...