It’s midnight. Do you know where your monoids are? Ours are all over the counter, crawling on book holders and hiding under coffee cups. Finishing Laurie’s paper turned into a real math party — Laurie and Tristan bumped and ground along lattices testing cases, while I  had fun with LaTeX entering compositions and functions, then cleaning up headings and subheadings. David provided general support and entertainment.

We are finally evolving from stone age Internet service of 1.5 Mb/s to neolithic Internet service of 12 Mb/s. We might be getting on par with places like the Congo, but we remain far behind places like Singapore, Japan and Thailand. It took almost 10 years and Qwest getting bought out by CenturyLink before we could upgrade our Internet service — that’s about 10,000 years in computer time.

I had a photo session with a very cute praying mantis this afternoon. She really liked posing for the camera.

 

 

At twilight there was an afterglow on the yellowing foliage, making the bosque look like it would glow in the dark once dusk had finally put the sun to bed. Capturing what my eyes see at twilight with a camera is difficult. The camera wants to create a uniform exposure, whereas our eyes can adjust to the low, soft, almost imperceptible light seeing detail and subtleties in the landscape that the camera can only see by exaggerating the light. The lead photo is a rough representation of the bosque in twilight.

The other two photos are panoramas of the river, bosque and Sandias just before sunset, and the Sandias in purple just before the sun fell below the horizon, about 15 minutes before I took the lead photo.

I made two 18 pound green chile, pulled pork enchiladas this morning. We’ll freeze them in lunch-sized portions.  I spent the rest of the day helping Laurie with her paper, herding cats and processing photos.

I had a long day. I got the makings together to make giant enchiladas first thing this morning, took Stretch to the vet, cleaned the house, went out to the river with friends to photograph the fall colors, and then we had a great dinner. Guildenstern wanted us to worship him during dinner. Three of us were giving him attention, but the one person not interested in worshiping him was the one he pestered the most.

While we were standing along the river watching the mountains turn pink, the cranes started flying in for the night as the sun was setting, making nice silhouettes against the wispy clouds in the western skies.

Farmington motorcycle cops parked their Harleys in front of our office this morning while they got their boots shined next door. They were in Albuquerque to help with the Special Olympics. I asked how they liked the Harleys, and they said they’d rather have BMWs like the Albuquerque Police.

The world didn’t end, yet again. In case you didn’t know, the world was supposed to end today. And it’s a good thing too, because our new folding chairs that go with our fold out table finally came in today.  We were supposed to get them three weeks ago and the manufacturer sent them to the wrong person and address. They are very nice chairs.

When we drove up tonight, all the kitties were out looking happy as little kitty clams. The boxes of chairs were on the front porch and the front door was open, but the door knob was locked. I guess I must not have closed the door all the way when we left this morning — Stretch probably noticed and pulled it open. The doors are all still a little swollen from the rains a couple of weeks ago.

The vines at UNM are putting on a nice red.

Fall colors are coming on. We are getting harder frosts, however, so I expect the colors and plants will start fading pretty quickly.

 

 

Ronsencrantz refused to look at me while I laid on the couch and pestered him with my camera. Sometimes he poses like a pro, other times he doesn’t want to be bothered.

In spite of the winds, which seems to have blown most of the pain I was having yesterday away today, I managed to get some relatively clear photos of roses that where being whipped around by the various gusts.

A few weeks ago when Ben Lolli came through town, he, Eriks Chase and I filmed a spoof trailer that Ben had been thinking about for awhile. I provided the place, weapons and did most of the filming, Ben put it all together. The resulting trailer and making of are very entertaining.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KhvMOkTwx8&feature=player_embedded

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm2kzO9Y5ZM

 

 

I think the weather will change. My back and joints had been doing really well all week, but today I’m having a lot of pain despite the fact it’s been a beautiful, warm autumn day.

I ventured out to the bosque and river this morning to photograph the Sandias with the cottonwoods turning to gold. While I was standing on the riverbank a couple of cranes flew directly over me, looking like stealth fighter planes, before they soared overhead.

Iceberg was beautiful in the early morning light. She looks even better in B&W.