Fun in Columbus

I visited some friends in Columbus from December 29, 2008 to January 4, 2009. I took various pictures of people, places, and things.

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Related Winter 2008 pictures:
   Rochester
   Cleveland
   Columbus

The Dison House

First stop was Catherine and Cabot's place for their annual New Year's Eve party.

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When I saw Carina, Catherine and Cabot's daughter (5 years old), I told her I wanted to take her picture. I think Catherine asked her to show how flexible she was. In the first picture, you can't actually see her feet, we had to ask her to make them stick out in so they'd be visible in the second picture. It's particularly disturbing, since it reminds me of Mel Brooks' character in Spaceballs, when he's beamed up and his ass is facing the wrong direction.

[A tall tree with Christmas lights on top]

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Cabot likes Christmas lights. The last few years, he's put a light at the top of the big tree. This year, he outdid himself. Not only are there lights at the top of the tree, there are lights spiraling around its trunk. It's kind of hard to see, but there is a star at the top of the tree. In front of their house, he set up an inflatable Santa in some sort of airplane sleigh, on some platform. It's powered, so the propeller spins.

A still image doesn't really capture the insanity of the christmas lights. So, here's a movie at night. The daytime picture let's you get a sense of how tall it really is. In general, it's visible from Route 315, a highway that's near their house.

Christmas Lights at the Dison Residence(00:52)

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Cath and Cabot have this funky fountain thing in their house. It looks like a sweaty, granite-colored bald man's head. Ravi shaves his head. He does not seem to sweat profusely, nor does he have a granite complexion. Nonetheless, there is SOME sort of resemblence. Note that Alli's finger is sticking up out of the top of Ravi's head simulating a water fountain.

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I'm not quite sure what Cabot was doing, perhaps shielding his groin from the camera's flash. Alli was making some important point (I think it related to "up" and "down" possibly Grover style) as Priya and Ravi listen enrapt.

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A shot of Dave Ralley. A close-up of his earring. And a super macro shot of his earring.

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Friends of Catherine, Betty and Dave, who I typically see once a year at these parties. Two shots of Mowgli, lurking in the kitchen.

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Cath and Cabot have a new New Year's Eve tradition. At midnight they get a fire going and people write down on paper things they would like to let go of from the previous year and things they would like to, um, fly away(?). OK, I'm not exactly sure of the details.

The first picture was taken with a flash, the second without. After that, we played Attacker/Defender.

Pam and Bill's place

I had dinner with Pam and Bill. Unfortunately, I only wound up getting one set of pictures with Pam and me and didn't take any others.

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Three shots of Pam and me. We seem to be getting less happy with each shot. Actually, she had just awakened after kind of crashing on the couch for a bit while Bill and I were chatting. I wanted to get a picture before she returned to the land of slumber.

Hocking Hills

On New Year's Day, I went with Steve, Sue, Beth, and Jessie Romig down to Hocking Hills, a little over an hour south of Columbus. We've done that a number of times before. The weather generally is good, even when it's been raining like mad in Columbus, and it's never crowded on January 1st. It was a bit cold, but sunny. We hiked around Cantwell Cliffs and then Rock House. The batteries in my camera died after 6 pictures, and the spare set I had didn't work. So I wasn't able to take all of the scenic pictures I had planned. Oh well. Oh, and I almost forgot that their dog Buffy joined us on the trip as well.

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This was at the entrance to the Cantwell Cliffs trail. Beth took a picture or two and Jessie admired it.

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The trail goes down a set of steps between two large rocks. The first picture shows Sue and Beth at the bottom of the steps that wind up and behind the rocks. The trail came from the top of the rocks.

The second picture is looking at the edge of a semicircular "canyon," that the trail winds around and then goes down to the bottom on the far side. The white spot is at the bottom of the "canyon" is a pile of ice from the water dripping down from the top. Going along the curve straight ahead is a little tricky, as the ground is pretty slippery, coated with ice.

The icicles were where the trail curves and were on the inside, wall-facing part of the trail and contributed to the ice and general slippery condition of the trail.

Post New Years Fun

After New Years, there were other events of fun at Catherine and Cabot's place.

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In the first picture, Catherine and Cabot. Though I have no picture, I was also wearing a chef's hat. Alli and Mowgi are in the second picture. I wanted to get a non-pretzel picture of Carina. I called her name as she was about to go downstairs. Unintentionally, I think I was like the third person who called her name in 10 seconds, so she gave me the "What is it NOW?" look.

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A picture of Carina and Catherine on the couch, and then Carina, Catherine, Ravi, and Charles. I'm not quite sure if 1) I just happened to catch Ravi while he was blinking, 2) Ravi was taking a quick micro-nap, or 3) Ravi was being the connoisseur of apple cider and savoring the bouquet to identify from which field the apples came.

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We played charades. Ravi was describing the first word in his clue. Priya was doing some animal. I think it was Curious George, but it looks like she's doing a bunny rabbit. Carina is on the left edge of the picture and helped her out. In the third picture, Catherine is in mid-charade, doing some sort of action.

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They had a vase filled with Christmas lights on top of a bookshelf. I took a few pictures of it, getting more blurry and more abstract.

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Catherine and I visited Alli's new house. Upon leaving, I noticed the sky was really beautiful, colored by the light of the setting sun. I took a few pictures.

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And finally, a picture of me and Carina, after I was showing her some of the pictures in the camera.

OSU Volleyball and The House Of Mowg

While in Colubus, I stayed at Mowgli's place. Dave Ralley, Mowgli, and I went to an OSU volleyball game. Back when I was at OSU, the three of us used to play volleyball together. I haven't really followed the sport much since I stopped playing (in favor of ultimate frisbee), so I was suprised at some of the rule changes (e.g., net ball on a serve is good), and I was suprised at how lame both teams were. Sure, it was an exhibition match, but one team (Waterloo) must've lost 10 points on serves alone. They were their own worst enemy. And OSU wasn't very impressive either.

Afterwards, we convened at Mowgli's place and cooked dinner. Dave made sharshukah, a middle eastern dish involving tomatoes and eggs, and I made cous cous with some dried cherries and blueberries. It all was generally rather good.

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Part of the reason I was taking pictures was to see how the camera does with fast things like sports and indoor lights. The first series was set to 400 ISO, so things are still a little blurry.

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I cranked the ISO up to 800 and the shutter speed up a few notches (like 1/125 - 1/150, I think) could take some faster pictures. The ball is still a little blurry, but not bad. It was moving slowly in the second shot, which is why it's in focus. The other two it was moving pretty quickly. The delay in the camera is not too bad once you half-press the shutter, so the camera meters and focuses. The hardest part is timing when to press the shutter button all the way, when I see the ball is about to be hit, and is a matter of just hoping it's in the middle of the frame.

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The cous cous and sharshukah in the bowl. We had bread with sun dried tomatoes as well. Unfortunately, the flash kind of bleaches out the color of things a little.

Related Winter 2008 pictures:
   Rochester
   Cleveland
   Columbus