drorzel

When Kate and I were looking for a house back in late 2002, one of the things that sold us on this place was the back yard. The lot is very deep, unusually so for this part of Niskayuna, so there's a lot of space in the back yard, and it was pleasantly shaded by trees. We've since taken down the…

I've been neglecting the photo-a-day thing for the last week-and-a-bit, but for a good reason: I had a deadline of, well, today, to finish a chapter I was asked to contribute to an academic book. And while I fully realize that actually hitting that deadline is not typical academic behavior, I have…

One of the things about being a physicist that makes it tough to have any sensible work-life balance is that I'm constantly seeing little things and thinking "Oooh! Physics!" then getting distracted from what I'm actually supposed to be doing. Take, for example, our bathroom sink. I have noticed,…

The Center for Quantum Technologies is running a "Quantum Shorts" contest, where they solicited short stories exploring some aspect of quantum physics. They cut their large number of applicants down to two short-lists of ten, one for the "Open" category, and one for the "Youth" category. They'll be…

Over at Scientific American, Amanda Baker has a story about what scientists say they would tell their younger selves. I reached out to eight of my colleagues who are currently in STEM fields and asked them a series of questions about their childhood interests in science, school experiences, and…

As mentioned last week, SteelyKid is doing Odyssey of the Mind this year, and her team has elected to build a balsa wood structure. The goal for these is to support the maximum possible weight, and the first step of the testing is to put a "crusher board" on top. This is a couple of 18" square…

When I arrived to pick SteelyKid up the other night, she and her friends were light-saber fighting with long balloons, which is fairly typical of that bunch. While I gathered her stuff up, though, she stopped and twisted her balloon into an animal shape: SteelyKid's balloon dog, and The Pip's clay…

This past weekend, Kate went to Arisia, and in order to get a change of scenery and a bit of adult backup, I took the kids up to visit friends in northern Vermont. They have two boys, the younger of whom is just a few months older than SteelyKid, and I was pretty sure the kids would hit it off. I…

We have a couple of bird feeders near the house, one just outside the bay window in the front of the house, and the other on the side of the house right next to the dining room. (That one used to be farther out in the yard, where it functioned well as a means of luring bunnies and squirrels into…

SteelyKid is in second grade, and The Pip goes to full-day day care at the JCC, so we get a LOT of kid work sent home-- various homework assignments and class worksheets for her, and assorted art for him. A lot of the art is just a few random crayon scribbles on paper, but some of it's pretty good…

It's been a disgracefully long time since I did a links post covering what I've been posting over at Forbes. In my defense, December was a complete mess of a month... Anyway, here's a great big bunch of stuff: -- Football Physics: Can We Do Better Than Tossing Coins? In which I try to ease the…

Back in the fall, a note came home with SteelyKid about an organizational meeting for an Odyssey of the Mind team for her elementary school. My father coached this for several years back in the 80's, and one of my sister's teams went to the World championships (held in Cole Field House at the…

This one's a bit of a cheat, but the only pictures I got Tuesday that turned out well had other people's kids in them, and I won't post those. So here, instead, is a picture from over the weekend, mostly because I want to tell the cute-kid story that goes with it. On Sundays, I take the kids to the…

Having picked up a new phone last week, it seems sort of appropriate to give a photo-a-day to a picture taken with that phone, as a kind of test. Also, I realized while on the way to SteelyKid's taekwondo class that I had forgotten to take any photos with the good camera, and wanted some insurance…

One of my recurring half-serious grumbles about this photo-a-day business is that our neighborhood doesn't offer a clear view of the horizon, making it impossible to get nice sunset pictures. On sunday afternoons, though, we have a babysitter come stay with the kids for a while so Kate and I can do…

I try not to have this be Cute Kid Photo of the Day, but really, when these are the subjects, how can I avoid it? SteelyKid blowing a bubble toward The Pip, at MiSci. This is from yesterday's morning excursion to MiSci, where they have added a soap bubble area. This, of course, led to the kids…

When schedules permit, I like to take the kids to home basketball games at Union. This works out well for everyone, as almost nobody goes to the games, so the kids can rampage all over the gym and get good and tired without upsetting anyone, and we add somewhat to the crowd supporting the home team…

It seems appropriate to use a power-of-two day for a new digital device, so here's a photo of my new phone: My new phone on the wireless charger. Getting and setting this up took up much of yesterday. It's a Droid Turbo, which is basically the Verizon-branded version of the 2015 equivalent of…

After a ridiculously warm December, I was lamenting the lack of winter this year. Which led, of course, to its sudden return for at least a few days of blowing snow and single-digit Fahrenheit temperatures. The snow is, at least, kind of photogenic, though: Crescent moon over the snowy roof of our…

For 11 months of the year (give or take), our Christmas decorations live in plastic storage boxes in the cabinet under the stairs in the basement. Of course, when we stow these away, there's inevitably one or two things that get missed in the initial sweep, and end up outside the boxes. And when I…

One of my Christmas gifts this year was an external flash unit for my DSLR, replacing one that broke a while back. Given that the camera has a built-in flash, you might wonder why I need this extra bulky gadget, so to answer that question, here's a composite of five pictures I took today:…

One of our Christmas presents for the kids was a slackline kit, which they wanted set up pretty much the instant I got home. So I put it up over the weekend, and on consecutive days got these pictures: The slackline strung between two trees in the back yard. SteelyKid's feet bouncing above the…

After the trip to my parents' for Christmas, I flew down to Charleston, SC to attend the Renaissance Weekend (though none of it fell on an actual weekend day...). This provided some much-needed stress relief, but was not great in photo-a-day terms, as it's a strictly off the record event, so I…

I'm back after the traditional family holiday and a less traditional trip to Charleston, SC for the Renaissance Weekend meeting. Which means things will start to return to what passes for normal around here, and that means it's time to get caught up on photo-a-day pictures... What with one thing…

Normally, I save a .jpg of our holiday card and post it here. This year, I forgot, but fortunately my parents have one, so you get a photo of a photo card: The Chateau Steelypips photo card, 2015. Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, have a lovely Friday otherwise.

It's been a couple of weeks since my last photo-a-day post, for a variety of reasons. First we were in Florida, then Emmy died, then I had some disk space issues that kept me from getting photos off my camera. That's all sorted at last, just in time for me to leave town again... In an effort to…

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk at TEDxAlbany on how quantum physics manifests in everyday life. I posted the approximate text back then, but TEDx has now put up the video: So, if you've been wondering what it sounded like live, well, now you can see...

SteelyKid's second-grade teacher sent home a couple of books about kids dealing with the loss of beloved pets-- one of which, The Tenth Good Thing About Barney is surprisingly atheistic. We read them at bedtime the other night, which was a little rough. After we finished, and moved her to her bed (…

We lost the Queen of Niskayuna tonight. Emmy had been having some health issues for a while, and while we were in Florida this past weekend she wasn't eating for the pet-sitter. We tried yet another new version of the new diet food today, with only limited success. And this afternoon, she fell…

The topic of sports injuries is unavoidable these days-- the sports radio shows I listen to in the car probably spend an hour a week bemoaning the toll playing football takes on kids. Never a publication to shy away from topics that bring easy clicks, Vox weighs in with The Most Dangerous High…