Category: Slice of Life

Evening at Lakewood Park with Lani

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/5, 1/100 sec, ISO1000
 “Dog Park” Leander, 2020

Lakewood Park recently opened in the city of Leander and we decided to check it out in the evening. It’s really nice! There’s a lot to do there, including fishing, kayaking, a skate park, a splash pad, walking trails, and a dog park with three enclosed areas.

We took Lani there and she really enjoyed the walk and the dog park. She doesn’t see a lot of other dogs (our fault), but she did great! There was only one close encounter with two other dogs, who were sniffing her, but Lani just had a nervous growl and we led her away (she was still on-leash).

There weren’t a lot of people there, so when one of the dog enclosures was empty, we let Lani roam free off her leash. She was kind of tired at that point so she just explored slowly, and she was so good… every time I told her to come, she came straight to me. 😀

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/5, 1/500 sec, ISO200
 “Sunset at the Park” Leander, 2020

Besides having fun with Lani, Koa and I threw the baseball for 20 minutes or so while Mariko and Lani strolled around the park. We chatted with a fisherman who was packing up, and he said it was rare to see people throwing a baseball at the park, but as a former high school baseball player, he was happy to see us playing.

All-in-all, it was a good, socially-distanced evening!

“I Don’t See Color”

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I was reading a thread in a forum, and one of the commenters said “I don’t see color”, with the intention of conveying that race shouldn’t matter. Honestly, I thought this was an admirable sentiment, but soon learned how problematic this phrase is. I spent some time reading about the reasons why, and I now consider myself a bit more educated than I was a little while ago. I’m linking the articles below:

After 51-years of life, I’m still figuring out what it means to be mixed/multiple-ethnicity. It’s complicated, but fascinating, and surprisingly challenging to find information or groups that discuss mixed-Asian ethnicity (Asian-Asian, not Asian-Caucasian, Asian-Black, etc.).

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On a side note, the original commenter’s reaction to the links to the articles was defensive and hostile, instantly devolving into name-calling and personal attacks. Which reminds me of the saying, “when you resort to ad hominem attacks, you’ve already lost”, as in the entertaining feud between James Altucher and Jerry Seinfeld.

ISS Fly-By

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/2, 10 sec, ISO800
 “ISS Fly-By” Cedar Park, 2020

Tonight the International Space Station (ISS) was very bright as it passed over Texas, and I had my camera and tripod set up to capture it. I didn’t really know what kind of settings to use, so I just went with a typical exposure that I normally do. Unfortunately there were a lot of clouds obscuring the view, but I think the photo turned out okay.

I made a series of 10-second exposures, then stacked them in Photoshop to create the composite image above. You might notice that there appear to be double stars. This is because I hid a few layers in the Photoshop stack when the ISS was passing behind the clouds so the overall cloud coverage would be reduced, and this resulted in the star trails having a gap in them.

FYI, this website is a fantastic resource to see when satellites will be flying overhead. It uses Google Street View to show you exactly where to look from your viewpoint! Just make sure that your watch is synchronized to the atomic clock so you know when to look up.

Snapshot While Running

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Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/2700 sec, ISO101
 “Cloud up the Hill” Cedar Park, 2020

This is one of the longer hills near our house but the school bus gave me an extra bit of motivation to power up it today.

When facing a big hill, I usually think of a saying: “Just keep your legs moving and let the top of the hill come to you.” It’s worked every time! 😊

Have a great day!

As Seen on Today’s Run

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Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/1300 sec, ISO100
 “Scortch” Cedar Park, 2020

Today’s route took me around Koa’s high school, where I took a few photos, saw a mountain biker head off into some trees, followed him and found some nice trails and a shortcut to the adjacent neighborhoods. Lots of fun exploring! Of course, Koa said these “secret” trails are used by the cross country team. But still, new to me!

Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/220 sec, ISO100
 “Trail” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/900 sec, ISO100
 “Lone Star Shadows” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/1600 sec, ISO100
 “New Normal” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: motorola moto g(6), 3.95mm, f/1.8, 1/125 sec, ISO100
 “Drum Brake” Cedar Park, 2020
“Stencil” Cedar Park, 2020

Building an Owl Box

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/100 sec, ISO1000
 “In Process” Cedar Park, 2020

A few weeks ago, we saw in an local online forum that screech owls live in our neighborhood and thought that it would be fun to see them. With that goal in mind, I built a screech owl box by following these plans. It’s a fairly easy project, but the end result is a large and heavy owl box. From the photos at the website it doesn’t look so big, but using 1-inch thick wood gives it significant heft, and the longest edge is over two feet long. That may pose a challenge in finding a good place to mount it, which is what I have to decide now. 😊

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/70 sec, ISO3200
 “Owl Box” Cedar Park, 2020

I mentioned that the box is easy to make, but there is one thing to keep in mind, at least here in the US. While most lumber at the hardware stores has nice, round measurement numbers on their labels, these may be misleading. For instance, the 1″x12″x10′ piece of wood that is sold in my Home Depot actually measures .75″x11.25″x10′. Why is it like this? Well, there’s the concept of “Actual” and “Nominal” lumber sizes, which you can read about here.

This has the potential to cause significant frustration to unknowing DIYers (like myself) working on their projects, but for this owl box there’s only one piece that is problematic, which is the bottom panel. I cut it at 12″, but it didn’t line up flush with the sides, which were actually 11.25″ wide. It would have been nice if the nominal vs. actual dimensions were mentioned in the instructions. Oh well, live and learn! (the bottom panel was easy to cut down to correct size)

Anyway, I assembled the box, then put on a few coats of water sealant that I had leftover from sealing our deck, and now I just need to find a place to put it in our yard. It’s recommended to place it at least 15 feet from the ground, which is pretty high. We’ll see how it goes. And I hope we have some owls move in soon! 🦉