It's getting chilly

Back Hall at Union Station

Winter is definitely coming. Today is cloudy and chilly - the temperaturs in the upper 40's.

Went to the IAS Annual Meeting in Tampa two weeks ago. Very busy week starting at 7:30am Sunday and running through late Wednesday night. Good working session on Manuscript Central - now if we can just get something moving with Piscataway and ScholarOne to get a system on line. The target is May 1, 2007, and I would really like to see it sooner if at all possible.

I&CPS is having some problems with papers reviews. No surprise - it's mainly the Engineering Committee. They have had a leadership problem for some time, and they also lost some records with Mississippi State University erased the application that was doing on-line revews and records maintenance for them. Carey is working on getting things reconstructed and back on track by the end of the year. Its a big job but its clearly doable.

Linda and I went to Keith and Annette's soup party on Saturday night. Another very pleasant neighborhood activity, and actually quite clever. They asked everyone to bring a crockpot of their favorite soup. So we had a chilly afternoon on their deck, around a fire, with about six varieties of hot soup. Simple - and really enjoyable.

Progress is being made with the estate. Met with the lawyer yesterday to sign off on the papers to go to the Attorney General for his final approval. Once it comes back from that, there is a final disbursal of funds, and the final tax return. The whole process will have taken just short of three years, which strikes me as about twice as long as reasonable. Lawyers only have a sense of urgency when they want their bill paid.

This picture is from our trip last June to wine country. Really enjoyed the stop in Utica and the classic old train station. The image demonstrates that digital can't begin to compete with traditional analog processes for dynamic range - there is definition and detail in the highlights of this print that the scanner just can't begin to see. It's all about light.

The backstory behind this image is that someone walked out of the office at the far end of the hallway during the exposure, waited for the elevator, and then rode to one of the upper floors in the building. Fortunately, with a 3 minute exposure, I was able to close the shutter when the person appeared, recock the shutter, and start over once she got into the elevator. Large format is so much fun!