The snow has mostly melted in our yard. As it melted, however, it revealed a horrible mess. Much of our lawn has been damaged by snow mold and burrowing voles.
The snow mold was likely our fault. I guess it can happen when you fertilize too late in the fall. These two pictures show the snow mold pretty well. This isn’t left over snow and ice it’s the weird webbing from the mold. It’s almost like a spiderweb.
The second problem we’re still trying to figure out. We have a horrible rodent infestation in our yard. Based on my internet readings, we think we have voles. Judging from the yards of our neighbors, we’re not the only ones with this problem. Here’s some examples of the damage. We have this in both the front and the back yard. The tunnels blanket some very large areas.
It’s clear to us now where that “big mouse” in our house came from this winter. It came from the large network of activity going on under the snowbanks outside of our house. As usual, when rodents start becoming a problem, I declare a full on war with the buggers. I set traps outside and put out a bait motel today. Within hours I caught the first one. It looked very much the same as the rodent we caught after we returned from Hawaii. I have yet to catch anything that looks like a mole. This adds to my vole diagnosis.
Here’s a slideshow of the lawn damage.
On the bright side, it was 64°F today. It was a wonderful day to be outside.
Two months. That’s how long it has been since Marie and I got back from Hawaii. That’s also how long it takes us to post a week’s worth of vacation pictures. Yes, we know we’re pathetic, but it’s helping us get through winter… Yeah… that’s it. Let’s blame winter.
Anyway… this is the end. I promise.
The last day of our cruise, we went on a short kayaking trip up the Huleia River. This lead us to a picnic and then a hike through the “jungle” to two waterfalls. The smaller waterfall is named Bamboo Falls and the larger is Jungle Falls. The Huleia River was used while filming Raiders of the Lost Ark. Marie will have some pictures. Her camera was in a waterproof case while we were kayaking.
Jungle Falls
We got back to the ship early. It was the only time that the ship sailed during the day. The itinerary was planned this way so the ship could sail past the magnificent Na Pali Coast. After seeing this amazing landscape from the cruise ship, we kinda wished we had found a way to enjoy it up close. Perhaps we’ll have to go back.
Na Pali Coast
The first day on the island of Kauai, we rented a car. We drove up to see Waimea Canyon first. Later in the day, we sought out a couple of waterfalls. Here are three albums from that day.
Waimea Canyon
Wailua and ‘Opaeka’a Falls
There are a few things worth pointing out. Our guide book said that this was probably one of the most spectacular views in the Pacific Ocean. I guess we missed that one. :) Kauai is a very wet island. The center of the island is touted to be one of the rainiest places on earth. It is clear the rest of the island benefits from all of that fresh water.
I stitched together two panoramas. The first is a panorama of what I’m calling the foothills leading up to Waimea Canyon. It is stitched from 7 horizontal (landscape) images.
The second panorama is from the Waimea Canyon Lookout. It is stitched from 13 vertical (portrait) images.
I know this will sound a little cliché, but the pictures really don’t do this justice. The canyon is 10 miles long and 3000 feet deep. It is truly an amazing site to be seen.
I’m sure Marie will also be blogging about this soon.
Or is it Octopi? I don’t know.
When we were in Kona (big island) we had to tender to shore since there’s no place for a cruise ship to dock. We spent the first half of the day with Captain Zodiac. The snorkeling was very cool. Anyway here’s the album for that day.
Can you find the octopus in this picture?
Marie’s post is here.
This album is from Volcanoes National Park on the “big island” of Hawaii. Marie has also posted her description of the day.
Here’s an album full of pictures from the first time we snorkeled. Marie and I were sharing her camera for this. We were off the coast of Maui at the Molokini Crater and also at a place they called “Turtle Town” (for obvious reasons).
Marie’s blog has a much longer description of the day… and also video.
As promised here are some more albums from our trip to Hawaii. Our cruise’s first stop was the island of Maui. We rented a car and drove the road to Hana. I really enjoyed the drive with the tight turns, one-lane bridges and amazing views. I could tell Marie didn’t like the one-lane bridges or the tight turns. She was all about the scenery though. I’m sure she will have a lot more to say about it on her blog.
Ho’okipa Beach
Miscellaneous Road to Hana
Garden of Eden
Wai’anapanapa State Park
Marie and I recently took a cruise around some of the islands of Hawaii. Marie is blogging about it in pretty great detail. I probably won’t go into as much depth here, but I will be posting a lot of pictures. We’re going to try to do a little bit at a time until we get everything up. Be patient. So far we have pictures (and posts) up about Pearl Harbor…
…and also the cruise ship we were on.
I bought a new camera this fall. On this trip I shot everything in Nikon’s raw format. I have over a thousand images from Hawaii I need to sort through. This poses a bit of a problem for me. I haven’t yet mastered working with raw images. I tend to spend a lot of time working with each image individually (using UFRaw). I don’t feel confident enough yet to do any batch processing, and I also don’t think I have the input color profiles figured out yet. I just don’t seem to be consistent with what I create. I do want to share them with everybody though. So I figured out a way to cheat.
I learned that Nikon’s raw files contain a full size preview image (basic quality jpeg) . The preview image is available in the raw file even if you’re not shooting in RAW+JPEG mode. This image is “exposed” the same way the camera would have exposed the image if it wasn’t saving the data in a raw format. Using Exiv2, I can extract this preview image. Once extracted I can copy the EXIF metadata from the raw image to the jpeg image. This is an important step as it copies the orientation field which is used by software to auto-rotate the image based on how the camera was oriented.
These preview jpegs might not be that great for working with the image, but they seem to work well for posting to the web. I can very quickly extract the preview images from all of my raw files with a script and post the interesting shots to the web without having to manipulate each photo. Since I’m shooting in raw, however, I still have full control over the exposure of the image if I need or want to manipulate anything later.
Of course this would all be easier if I was shooting RAW+JPEG, but I feel the jpeg would be a bit redundant in that case.
I had almost the entire load of laundry moved to the dryer tonight when the washing machine did that click… you know… the one it does before it starts the rinse cycle.
In my last post, I did a lot of Microsoft bashing. In this post, I’m going to explain something that Microsoft is doing right… or… at least mostly right.
I hate anti-virus software. To me it indicates that there’s something wrong with the operating system. You shouldn’t need to pay a different software vendor money to get protection for something that shouldn’t be a threat in the first place. There is also a clear conflict of interest at hand. The company that benefits the most from a widespread virus is the very company that we are paying to protect us from the virus.
On top of all of that, anti-virus software can cause programs to load less quickly. It uses processing power and memory that most of us would rather not give up.
If anti-virus software is truly necessary, shouldn’t it be something that everybody is running? Shouldn’t it be something that the OS vendor provides free of charge?
It seems like Microsoft is doing just that. They have recently released Security Essentials. This is free anti-virus software from Microsoft. It runs on XP, Vista and Windows 7. The only requirement is that you have a genuine (not pirated) version of Windows.
Microsoft is obviously doing something good here. I’m sure they feel that if everybody was running this tool malicious software would spread less quickly on their operating systems.
I just loaded this on my netbook today. (I finally got one… and it’s red.) If it does what it is supposed to do and also stays out of my way, I might finally have a tool to recommend to all of the Mr. McClickys out there. And we all know a few Mr. McClickys. 
