Friday, February 19, 2010

Musem of Science

This week was Massachusetts' Feb. vacation. We went to the Museum of Science on Monday, as did much of the state!


It was very crowded, but we had a good time. We saw an Omni Theatre movie on Arabia, which was amazing! We also saw a 3-D show on Planet You. This freaked the kids out with how much bacteria lives on you and learning about bed bugs!



Even though we were at the museum for 5 hours we didn't see many exhibits. Rachel had not seen the lightning show before, so we made point to see that one. It was great. While Abram was driving into Boston I read How to Photograph Absolutely Anything. I noticed a few pages dedicated to take pictures of fireworks. I am glad I read up on this because I used the same function while we saw the lightning show. Here are some of the best pictures I captured.







This one reminds me of Harry Potter and wizards shooting lightning from their wands.




No one noticed the painted mural in the back of the room until I showed them this picture. It is wonderful how the camera can capture light that our eyes don't see in the dark.





Before we left Abram wanted to go into an exhibit called Running the Numbers. The kids and I laughed because "of course Abram would want to go in there", but honestly it was one of the most interesting exhibits we had all been in. Each one of us enjoyed it for different reasons.


Here is the Museum of Science's description of the exhibit:


Sociologists tell us that the human mind cannot meaningfully grasp numbers higher than a few thousand. Yet, understanding the consequences of our choices requires us to comprehend the incremental effect of millions or billions of small acts. How can we sensitize ourselves and, in turn, change our choices?
Photographer Chris Jordan's large-format prints, assembled from thousands of smaller photographs, dramatically translate the raw language of statistics into powerful images of global mass culture that we can respond to emotionally. Seeing the cumulative impact of individual actions through this talented artist's lens awakens us to the enormity of our personal decisions.



I took pictures of Chris Jordan's work from afar and up close.

this is a picture depicting the amount of trash found in the Pacific Ocean. It is as large as the state of Texas. All the material used in creating this piece of art was taken directly from trash in the Pacific Ocean. 'The Great Wave' is a famous print by Japanese artist Hokusai.




This is a close up of "wave" art.


This one depicts the number of plastic cups used every 6 hours on airlines in the US - 1 million.
Here's a close up.

This represents the number of paper bags used daily in grocery stores. This number was also close to 1 million. I like how he created a mural of birch trees with layering each bag.

The close up:


'A Sunday on la Grande Jatte' is by Georges Seurat.Here it is recreated with individual soda cans! Wait until you see the close up. I forgot to even look at the statistic being represented here.

I was impressed how he used different can, with amazing detail, to recreate the right colors needed for the art work.


Here's my painting of "We're Done"!




There were other pieces at this exhibit. The ones I showed you were my favorites.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Leagues in Winter Track

Tobin has been running winter track. He mainly runs the 2 mile. In most indoor tracks he has to run 22 -23 laps around the track to complete the 2 mile course. I haven't been able to see many of his races because they are often far away. When the meet is in Shrewsbury I usually don't know when he will be running his race. A meet can last 3+ hours.

Saturday, Feb 7th was the Leagues race in Fitchburg, MA. Abram was able to get there just before his race began. Here are some pictures from that race.





Tobin was competing this day with a teammate, CJ. They ran cross country together. CJ had been able to finish a few of the races faster than Tobin. CJ is the guy to Tobin's right in these two pictures. Today was different!




Tobin pushed it hard to the end, as you can see in the expression on his face. He PR-ed with a 10:37 2 mile!

Today he will run again on the same course for Districts. He hopes to place third in the race. he's running with two of the fastest guys in the state.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Tobin Got Lighter

When the cross country team went to State's they all shaved their legs. Tobin decided that for winter track he would not cut his hair on his head.

These pictures are from his race at Leagues on Saturday Feb. 6th, 2010.


Tonight a transformation happened. Tobin decided that during our family dinner with Jenna and Isaac, he would cut his hair short.

Here is the process:

The first cut,

The mullet look,

Touching up the ears and sideburns

I had been refusing to cut his hair this short. I finally said Jenna could while I took pictures. He does look good, but I do miss the curly locks.

Here are the contrasting pictures: