Snow drift parking

Yes, it snowed here … a lot. The DC area officially had 18 inches or so of snow this past weekend. Many people outside of the immediate DC area were up in the 20’s, with some as high as 30 inches or more. I could post lots of pictures of the snow, but thought I’d put up two interesting ones here. There’s more on my flickr page.

After I cleared off the back of my car, the sun did the rest. This shot looks like I drove into a big snow drift and buried the front of the car.

The snowman here was actually from the pre-snowpocalypse. We had about 6 inches of snow last Tuesday night which is when this guy was built. He’s ready for a hockey game.

NASCAR Richmond Race

Richmond Turn 4

We went to the Richmond NASCAR race again this year. This is the last race of the regular season before the chase begins. Our seats were great and we bought pit passes online before the race. I’ve never been onto the infield before so this was something new. The highlight for me was walking across the track to go back to the grandstands.

Mil-OSS in Atlanta

This past week I was in Atlanta for the Military Open Source Software working group. The event was hosted by the Georgia Tech Research Institute which is on the campus in Atlanta. Mil-OSS.org is an organization that promotes the use of Open Source software for DoD applications.



On Wednesday night, dinner was on the top of the parking garage outside. It was a great location. At first I thought it might be a bit too hot, but the weather really wasn’t all that bad. As you can see from the picture, we had a great view of the city.

The next one is planned for sometime in the Spring on the west coast.

Who’s been eating my house?

I have a problem at my cabin in the woods in West Virginia lately. Something’s been chewing on the wood in places. I first noticed about two years ago that something was chewing on unfinished deck railings. Generally once I put WOODguard on them, they were no longer as tasty and it stopped. I saw a large critter once or twice, but never up close as I scared it away too quickly. Recently I noticed new attempts to eat the place where the wood was treated.

Having bugs, animals and such eating and generally doing harm to wood structures is pretty common around here. Talking with neighbors, squirrels and porcupines were the most common theories.  One neighbor’s dog recently tangled with a porcupine in the woods between us and had to go the vet.  There are also plenty of squirrels around but they seem too small for the damage.



Now I know. A few days ago I heard wood chewing sounds coming from outside. Through the basement window I saw this guy chewing on a pile of scrap wood. I managed this and another picture before he left. So now I need to figure out what animal this is and if there’s any good ways to stop him.

Postcard of Sydney Opera House

I took this picture of the Sydney Opera House from the top of the southeast pier (pylon) of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s featured now as a header image for the page. Taking pictures on a nice day in Sydney is so easy, because there’s incredible views everywhere. Almost every picture you take could be a postcard.

There is a museum with an outdoor observation deck on the southeast pylon.