Yet Another Olde Photo

This one is perhaps the most difficult one so far. It starts out as a tiny 2 ½ x 3 ¼ print, so there’s not a lot to work with getting started…

Before and After showing progess of Restoration

Still quite a bit of work to do yet on this one.

Another Olde Photo

This one took a LOT of work. Not helped by a very inopportune Photoshop crash

Before and After of Olde Photo

Fixing Olde Photographs

Here are a couple of before and after shots of some olde photos I’ve fixed up for a friend.

Young Pat Smith

Young Pat Smith's Sister

After scanning the photos it was lots of time with the tools available in Photoshop to Clone, Heal and Patch the damage. The second photo had been torn nearly through and then “fixed” with sellotape at some stage in the long ago past – what a mess!!! It kind of reminded me of watching the curators work on the Dead Sea Scrolls some years ago when we saw them at the Field Museum in Chicago – gently scraping away the decades olde tape that had been put on them.

First Lego League Michigan Finals

One part of the Michigan State finals of First Lego League was held at Carman-Ainsworth Middle School in Flint, Michigan on 12 December 2009.

The team from Byron Center – Team <Default> – made it to the State Finals for the first time ever thanks to their performance at the Regionals at Grandville on 20 November 2009.

Overall as a Team they finished in the lower half of the 48 teams present, but they learned a lot from seeing and competing against the other teams. They did however win the “Alliance Challenge” – a time limited challenge whereby 4 teams had to work together on a plan to have their robots each drive down the course and for all of them to end up parked in the smallest possible space.

Alliance Challenge Winners

Kyle’s idea of having the Team <Default> robot run up a ramp that was on one of the other robots, thereby effectively parking 4 robots in the space occupied by 3 robots proved to be the winning idea. A photogallery of images from this is available when viewing the whole post. (click link below if it’s not showing.)

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Corn Harvest

We live adjacent to a large field that is planted in either corn or soy beans each summer. I don’t know who owns the ground, nor who does the planting and harvesting, but they sure have access to some very large machinery. At the end of November we got an inch of rain over Thanksgiving, which came on top of already very wet and soggy conditions, and it seemed like the corn might have to stand all Winter, or at least well into the Winter until the ground froze enough to let the get on it. But on 30 November a monstrous combine harvester on very large rubber tracks turned up to harvest this corn. And it needed all of that support and drive that the huge rubber tracks and large rear drive wheels could offer to get around the field. It was accompanied by an equally large IH Case tractor with 8 drive wheels pulling a large bin that was on rubber tracks to take the corn from the combine out to waiting semi-truck and trailer that was beside the road.

Here’s one picture, and a gallery shows if you open this post.

John Deere 9770 STS

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Chihuly Toledo

On 25th November Lisa and I took her Mum down to the Toledo Museum of Art to see the exhibit of Dale Chihuly glass works “Chihuly Toledo!”

We had been to the Toledo Museum of Art during the Summer to spend a day there looking at displays, including a fascinating glass blowing exhibition in The Glass Pavillion and learned of their upcoming Chihuly display. So the day before Thanksgiving we headed off there to take a look.

In the Chihuly exhibit room I didn’t see any signs saying “No Photography” as I walked in, so took a couple of pictures before I got scolded. Turns out the only sign was in such a place that you’d see it only as you exited the room. So here they are…

 

Lego Robotics Regionals

Saturday 20 November was the “Smart Move Regional LEGO League Qualifying Tournament” of “FIRST Lego® League” at Grandville Middle School, Grandville, Michigan.

The Team from Byron Center is Team <default>. The ended up finishing 6th at this tournament, including 1st place in Research, so are off to the State Finals in Flint on 12 December. Congratulations Guys and Girls!!!

Here are a few photos taken by Uncle Roger.

 

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2009 was at Kurt and Ann’s house again. Everybody got into the spirit, and a great time was had by all. Even Balto the Brittany reluctantly got into his costume – a glow in the dark set of ribs and skull cap.

As usual there was lots of good food, and even the pavlova I made got into it by having black (or very dark purple) filling and orange whipped cream on it. It looked a bit odd, but tasted just like it should.

 

2009 Making Strides for Cancer – Grand Rapids

Saturday 17 October was the 2009 Edition of “Making Strides for Breast Cancer” – a 5 km walk in downtown Grand Rapids, starting in Calder Plaza, along side the Grand River, through Ah Nab Awen Park, past the burial place of President Gerald R Ford, past the Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum, the Amway Grand Hotel, the Civil War Veterans Monument, Veterans Memorial Park, down Jefferson Ave to “Hope Lodge”, up onto “Heritage Hill”, then back down past Grand Rapids Community College to the Calder Plaza – whew!!

Thankfullly it was a sunny day, even if not so warm at least initially.

Pictures below.

 

MLA Rally at the Capitol

Thursday 10 September 2009 was the day of the Michigan Library Association “Rally at the Capitol” where Librarians and other interested parties from across Michigan rallied to express their displeasure at the proposed funding cuts to Libraries in Michigan overall and specifically the plans to dismantle and disperse the collections of the Library of Michigan, which have been being collected for more than 180 years.

The theme of the day was RED – people were encouraged to show their support for Libraries by wearing a red shirt – and there were a LOT of RED shirts. Thanks in no small part to Gale Group of Michigan who were giving out free red shirts that said on the front “Protect Michigan Libraries”. Others were wearing red shirts from the Grand Rapids Public Library that said on the back “I ♥ Grand Rapids Public Library”.

Roger Moffat and Shirley Hodges on the Capitol Steps

It was also the day chosen for Michigan Fire Services Awareness Day so there was a large presence of Firemen, and firetrucks present with displays of firefighting and HazMat equipment. I hope they knew we were coming, or else they got a large surprise when a crowd that was about the same size as the “Hands Around the Library” event a month earlier.

Below is a photo gallery of some photos from today with the “Sea of Red” or is that the “See of Read” perhaps?