American in Spain

For her second birthday, Nora received, from my Godfather and Godstepmother, an assortment of plastic animals. To me, these are way more interesting than dolls. The detail is absolutely exquisite. I applaud whoever designed the molds in China and the factory workers that painted them. I thought they would make an interesting subject for some practice at inanimate studio photography. I used my “tinkerbell lighting” technique of a long exposure and a moving LED point source of light.
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In June, 2011, I’m going on a golf vacation to Ireland with three of my best friends, Paul (my father), Jeff, and Jacob. Six years ago, we took a similar golf vacation to Scotland. At the time, I posted photos and commentary to a website that predated this blog. In preparation for our trip this year, I’m re-posting my commentary on that trip in October 2005.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2005, my 27th birthday, we played the Jubilee Course at St. Andrews. Unfortunately, it rained. Hard. After four holes, we decided to hop over to the back nine and play 15, 16, 17, and 18 back towards the clubhouse. You can’t play just nine holes on these ancient golf courses because the ninth hole doesn’t pass back by the clubhouse like newer courses do.
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In June, 2011, I’m going on a golf vacation to Ireland with three of my best friends, Paul (my father), Jeff, and Jacob. Six years ago, we took a similar golf vacation to Scotland. At the time, I posted photos and commentary to a website that predated this blog. In preparation for our trip this year, I’m re-posting my commentary on that trip in October 2005.

On Tuesday, October 11, 2005, we played the New Course at St. Andrews. It rained steadily for the entire round. Such is my excuse for no in-round pictures. Boy the shower in the St. Andrews Links Clubhouse felt good!
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In June, 2011, I’m going on a golf vacation to Ireland with three of my best friends, Paul (my father), Jeff, and Jacob. Six years ago, we took a similar golf vacation to Scotland. At the time, I posted photos and commentary to a website that predated this blog. In preparation for our trip this year, I’m re-posting my commentary on that trip in October 2005.

On Monday, October 10, 2005, we got up early and drove to St. Andrews to play the most famous golf course in the world: The Old Course.
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Over the last year, our boiler (the appliance that uses propane gas from our community tanks to heat water for the sinks, showers, and radiators) slowly stopped working. Well, it heated the radiators just fine, but the hot water in the showers was only lukewarm at best. My wife and I could be brave and take cool showers, but towards the end, we were having to boil water separately to fill the bathtub for our daughter. Finally we couldn’t take it anymore and we called up our friend, Manolo, who says he’s not a plumber, he’s a Hydrosanitation Engineer.
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I’m sure the behavior displayed in this video is completely normal for a toddler, but it’s a good example of where Nora’s social and lingual skills are at the moment. She’s good at arguing. Since spending a week with her grandparents in Extremadura, she now interjects an exasperated ¡jolín! (a bowdlerized version of the Spanish F-bomb) “properly” into her arguments.
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I woke up this morning to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US troops in Pakistan. I turned on the news and found a bunch of non-journalism time-filling fluff with a pretty Spanish woman with a microphone going around Madrid asking passersby for their opinion on the news. I turned to the internet and learned that there were parties in front of the White House and Ground Zero with mobs of Americans shouting “USA! USA!” and waving flags. My Facebook feed was full of comments like “From now on, May 1st will be known as Vengeance Day!! Booyaah!” Later, when I went to the local grocery store, where I am known for my nationality, I was greeted with salutations of “Congratulations!”
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This video is a couple weeks old, and I finally got around to subtitling it. Nora really likes her umbrellas, although we’ve yet to let her use them “in anger”. A few Sundays ago, while her mother was having a first-trimester-induced siesta, Nora was rolling around on the floor and discovered her umbrella, which I had hidden under the sofa to make her stop playing with it a few weeks earlier. “Look, Daddy! Under the sofa! My umbrella!!” She was ecstatic. So I let her play with it for a bit before distracting her and putting it away.
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