jgrussell – my world

It is September 11. Eight years later. Nothing more needs to be said.

2009 WTC Tribute of Lights

2009 WTC Tribute of Lights

2009 WTC Tribute of Lights

Every time I drive from the law school to the office, I drive past this one building with this set of barred windows. The only thing you can see from the windows is the street and a set of walls to another building behind a high fence topped with antipersonnel barbed wire. I’ve often thought of each of these as being in a room with no view…

Room with no view

So I was driving home after teaching my law school class tonight and decided to use my hands-free bluetooth phone link to call the house and leave myself a reminder about an email I needed to send. Hit the button, told the system to call, and instead of getting the usual “what name or number would you like to call” inquiry, I got the “no phone” message. I didn’t think much of it, since occasionally the bluetooth system loses its connection to the phone and I have to remind the two of them to play nicely together.

A couple of miles down the road, a niggling little thought occurred to me.  I couldn’t remember putting the iPhone back in its case after taking it out at the law school to check the time. (The clocks in the building are notoriously inaccurate, so AT&T gets to do the honors as to when class starts.) At the first stop light, I reached over, found the iPhone case and flipped it open to find…

… nothing.

Fortunately, the Law Library is open until 11 p.m., and a kind soul on the circulation desk was good enough to walk over to the appellate courtroom and retrieve it for me. I’ll pick it up in the morning on my way in to work.

But oh… how sad the empty iPhone case looks…

Where's the iPhone????

I looked up at the end of my workday and realized that the days are getting very short already. By just about 7:30, it was dark out, and there I was, with no photo of the day to my credit. So I wandered around the office to see what I could find, and I saw that my boss will never stop being a fan of the University he attended…

In the boss' office

So my backyard birds seemed to have it in their minds to make up for the general lack of birds at DeKorte Park yesterday. I had blue jays and cardinals (including a bunch of juveniles, one still being fed occasionally by Dad) and starlings and grackles and house finches and goldfinches and house sparrows and mourning doves and pigeons and hairy woodpeckers and the cutest little downy female who just posed and posed and posed…

Female downy woodpecker

So I managed to get out to DeKorte Park run by the NJ Meadowlands Commission today, taking advantage of the spectacular weather we’re having here this Labor Day weekend. Not a whole lot of birding action at the park — mostly great egrets — but enough to keep me busy and out of trouble, plus the park offers a lot more than just birds.

I grabbed a shot of the park entrance:

Park entrance

Among the birds I was able to photograph were a mute swan…

Mute swan

… a great egret …

Great egret

… an American black duck …

American black duck

… another great egret …

Another great egret

… a bunch of lesser yellowlegs …

Lesser yellowlegs

… did I mention great egrets? …

Great egrets

… even a “chatty” great egret …

… and a great egret hanging around with yellowlegs.

Great egret and yellowlegs

There were many very beautiful flowers all around the grounds…

… purple flowers …

Purple flowers

… a pink flower …

Pink flower

and the flowers were attracting butterflies, such as this monarch butterfly …

Monarch butterfly

… and this viceroy butterfly …

Viceroy butterfly

… and this red admiral butterfly …

Red admiral butterfly

… not to mention a snowberry clearwing moth.

Snowberry clearwing moth

But the predominant plants everywhere in the park are phragmites (reeds). They’re invasive and they have to be cut back a lot, but they are both attractive and lovely to listen to as they rustle in the breeze.

Phragmites

Lots of errands and running around today. Hope to get out to do some serious shooting tomorrow and Monday. But for today, I’ll settle for this little lady house finch…

House finch

Every once in a while, you see a toy, and you just HAVE to have it…

Return of the slinky!

I am waaaaaaay behind in reporting on the continuing organic adventure (my share in the produce of the Cook Student Organic Farm at Rutgers University). Since I was passing by there tonight, I stopped off and got this week’s goodies, so I can report today on the new things from last week AND this week.

First off, it appears that the summer squash season is just about over. Rather than begging us to take squash last week, they were limiting us to three summer squashes. But they offered some really nice new goodies to make up for the diminishing squash output. First, for the first time this season, we had Roma tomatoes to go along with the hot peppers:

Roma tomatoes and jalapenos

And there were sweet peppers and carrots too!

Peppers and carrots

And there were the usual suspects — beans and potatoes and greens and the like, plus a small red cabbage which was a pleasant surprise since we hadn’t seen cabbage in a couple of weeks.

This week, even more new things were introduced, and we had to bid a farewell to the summer squash altogether. Because the winter squash season is apparently underway, with pumpkins and delicata squash making their first appearances.

Pumpkin and delicata squash

Another new item making its appearance was the eggplant. Looking at last year’s harvest, we may be seeing eggplant quite a bit from here on out (another 11 weeks for me!).

Eggplant

And I encountered my first true disappointment of the entire summer season tonight… and it was entirely my own fault. Another new item showing up this week was melon: your choice of cantaloupe, honeydew or watermelon. I picked a nice small round watermelon, and decided I would scarf that right down as my dinner tonight. Only I’d forgotten one little detail… the fact that something is handed out in a share doesn’t mean it’s ripe to be eaten right on the spot…

NOT ripe watermelon

Sigh… maybe next week…

Class night tonight plus a very busy work schedule left me very short on time to try to get a photo for today. I tried to get a shot of a nightlight I use on the stairs, but every angle I tried seemed to get more and more uninteresting. Cats wouldn’t stand still. Nothing blooming for a macro. Wandered into the bathroom and finally saw the light. Literally.

The light