Yesterday, we had a little Winter party with a few friends. One of the things I did was teach Kayla how to make hats with a loom. Super easy!

We also made some cookies. We didn’t make as many as cookies we made for Halloween because there was a little cookie disaster earlier that morning, but I saved the day! I also made red, green, and white icing. In the next day or so we are going to make a lot more.

This past weekend, my friend Angee asked me to take photos at her daughter’s sixteenth birthday party. It was an 80’s themed celebration. Lots of eighties inspired outfits. Armed only with my Nikon D200 and SB-800 Speedlight, I was able to walk away with some good candid shots of the evening. I’m not posting them all, but you can see a few more photos of Kayla’s party on my Flickr site.

We had a few friends over on Christmas Eve. Tim’s son Phoenix really liked Photo Booth! I think he took about 50 photos! That’s him in the front with me in the back.

Last Sunday, I spent a couple of hours with Bourbon Renewal at Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, New York. Clockwise from top left: Per “Bacco” Bergquist (bass), Dennis Cotton (drums), George Fletcher (guitar/vocals), and Peter Pashoukos (guitar/vocals).

I almost forgot about this one! After work one morning, Doug and I went to Sarge’s Triangle Restaurant for some breakfast. I had my usual biscuits and gravy. In my opinion, their biscuits and gravy can’t be beat. At most other places, they throw a biscuit on a plate and drizzle a little bit of gravy on it. Not at Sarge’s! They serve it in a bowl of gravy. There is so much gravy you can’t even see the biscuits. Tasty. On the ride back, the vanagon, aka the “love bus”, stalled a couple of times. Once we got back to my house, it didn’t take long for Doug to figure it out the problem.

Our friends Doug and Sonya invited us to a “Winter Celebration” yesterday at Lisa and Jim Carter’s house in Granville, New York. Shortly after arriving, Lisa greeted us all and gave the grand tour of her beautiful home. Every room we explored was filled with so many unique antiques. The best part were the stories Lisa would tell about many of them. For example, she showed us an antique writing pen that her Grandmother used in a one-room school house. It still had the dry ink in the jar!

The house was also filled with some fascinating individuals. We met many new people including Geoffrey Gee. He spent part of the evening filling the house with some great piano music, but did find some time to chat with us. He is a pianist, composer, and sound designer living at Hebron Hollow, a farm for arts and ideas.

Afterwards, we went over to Doug and Sonya Just’s home in Hartford, New York. Doug gave us a tour of the huge historical house and showed us some of its unique aspects including an old outhouse and a few secret compartments. He has done an amazing amount of work of it. Some of the home improvement projects he has undertaken can seem overwhelming for one person, but he somehow figured out a way. Check out Doug’s Flickr site for some photos.

Congratulations to all the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics graduates from RPI! It has been a long rough road, but we finally made it.

From Left to Right: James Olson, Jeremy Lawrence, Shane Baldwin, Cliff Wendt, Alejandro Duran, Aaron Sprague, Chad Miltenberger, Matthew Polega, Scott Porto, Me, and last but not least John DuBose.

Today I finished my last lab at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute! That’s my lab partner John setting up the Michelson Interferometer. He was a little tweaked since he had been up all night at work prior to coming in for class. He’s an exotic dancer. Just kidding. The past week has kept me busy writing lab reports and finishing up a final project for school in addition to working full time. Once I get my Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics degrees in December, the past few years will all have been worth it.

My section at work has a flag football team. They were playing this afternoon so I stopped by to take a few photos.

Last night we went to the haunted corn maze at Liberty Ridge Farm. Our friend Doug and his family joined us. Inside the maze, the silver glow from the Harvest Moon lit the eerie path. Along the way, we encountered a few characters each telling their part of a spooky story about the spirits of the corn.

The maze was fun, but that was only half of the adventure. Inside the 3D haunted house, you wore polarized glasses so all the paintings on the walls jumped out at you. The best part was the rotating cylinder you had to walk inside. It felt as though I was going to fall right over. Jennifer even got a little woozy.

All the activities that are normally available during the day are lit up at night for everyone to enjoy. We raced the human powered go carts. Doug’s son Jonathon and myslelf did this one twice. He beat me both times, although I did come back to beat him on the giant hamster wheels.

On the way back to the main house, we stopped at the underground slide. I think everyone enjoyed it. I did this one at least three times. The only one who did this more than me was Doug’s son Grant.

Before heading back home, we all devoured some apple cidar donuts on the back deck of the main house. I washed mine done with some warm apple cidar, while Jennifer opted for the hot chocolate. The deck overlooked the corn maze. Ever so often you could see the flickering lights of people working their way through it.