Pumpkinography 2012

This year took the kids to a new pumpkin patch, let the little one play for a few minutes on the "jumpy thingys" and got two pumpkins. One for Jr. to carve and one for Team "daddy and the little one" to carve. 

We did an okay job till daddy ruined the flying witch by detaching one side of the entire thing. Fortunately Balaji had enough small nails to get the witches hat and broom nailed back into the pumpkin. However, the nail head actually shows up in the photograph like bones in an x-ray! The other pumpkin came out great. Both Jr. and the little one are getting good at carving straight lines and small curves. 

We are happy with the end result though and it goes out on display outside the house tomorrow.

Here is the entire linup of pumpkins carved by all kids.

The kids have been convinced to go low budget on the costumes and the older one is going as a cat and the little one is going to be a devil again. She is proud to reuse the costume on condition that she gets to spend the money on something else at Target. Knowing she will spend money at Target anyways, it is a win win deal for daddy!

Pumpkin picking at a local patch and carving it at Balaji's has definitely become a family tradition to the point where the kids ask for it like a routine and look forward to it for a week in advance! Guess this is how family traditions start..

Trick or treat

The little one seems to have a problem with the world in general, not to mention special issues with posing for daddy..

This is all we could manage after getting her to smile.

Jr. on the other hand totally enjoyed going out today.

All thanks to mommy for taking them out to the cousin's neighborhood for trick or treating. Daddy did not do a thing except stay home and dole out two candies, yeah, two candies, one each to the two four year old's who showed up over a 2 hour period!

Guess a street without street lights or a pavement does not invite many kids. Also the kids in the street have practically all gone to high school or college. That explains the drop in candy seekers in our area!

The kids are both at an age where they appreciate dressing up and love candy. Judging by our friends kids, guess we have just two more years before Jr. starts losing interest in this thing.

Until then, time to capture Halloween in pumpkin and costume pictures!

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Pumpkinography continues..

This year the Halloween weekend has been a hectic affair with Grandma traveling, an exam week at Tamil school and Jr. having her annual day function at her music school.

Got together with the cousins for a couple of hours as the weekend got to a close and carved a pumpkin.

It has become an annual event since BB started this as a tradition of sorts in 2005!

This years effort..

and the lineup photo!

Work is hectic but interesting and the busy schedules have kept me from doing a lot of things like Blog at least twice a week, call family members on phone more regularly, take more photographs, check out DPS etc. In a few weeks will get used to the new routines and will get back to these missed things more frequently.

One thing though that has changed is that I am not checking facebook status anymore. So much that Facebook sent me an email saying "Hi Sundar, here is some activity you may have missed on facebook"... Guess when you are trying to find time to go take a bio break every now and then, Facebook activity is not going to be on the priority list!

On the bright side, back in the Yoga room. Was sitting out a few poses the first few classes post surgery, but yesterday tried the entire sequence. There is great progress with the hand. Has been one month since the surgery as of today and managed a locust pose today without any pain!

The festival and birthday season is here and things seem to be on the right track. What more can one ask for?

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We are still carving pumpkins

Five years ago, when the little one was still inside mommy's tummy, we had our first encounter with pumpkin carving!

There were grand plans to start a new festival called Walloween and daddy's road to becoming a congress lobbyist to promote Watermelons, which unfortunately has not materialized!

Daddy is still with his day job and the years rolled by..

The little one who must have been sensing things from the inside is turning into a maestro carver! We were initially apprehensive of handing the carving blades to a not yet five year old, but she was so confident that we decided to let her have a go at it.

The result was amazing, to the point where daddy exclaimed "She is my true heir to the carving throne!"

Jr., who is more of a carving critique than a carver herself decided to do her bit as well this year.

Mommy supplied us with all the pumpkins thanks to her employer having a contest of sorts at work. Daddy coached mommy on the fine art and she won a nice prize + a free pumpkin to go with the prize...

We also had the cousins over to join us with the carving today and did the lineup photo.

Today in Tamil school there was a parade for all the kids. 1000+ kids all dressed in costumes doing a parade after Tamil class was over. It was quite a sight.

We did do the local trick or treating over a half hour period before the little one got scared by a small dog. They had elaborate scary mechanized ghosts, skeletons etc.. a fog machine and eerie sound effects and she braved all that and went to the doorbell (while Jr. stood far away in fear), but the sight of the small dog that licked her knee, sent her scurrying!

All said and done, it was a relatively quiet and nice Halloween.

The Pumpkinography will continue..

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Two plus two plus two equals...

Pumpkins + some time available on a gloomy Saturday afternoon + new lens = HDR photos!!

High Dynamic Range photos, created by superimposing multiple shots of same object with a constant exposure time but with different f stop settings to get fine details on over exposed and underexposed areas of picture.

If that was all information overload, the idea is to create a photo that closely captures what the human eye can see. (It also adds a depth perception)

A glass globe on our dining table (composite image from 4 images 1/8 s exposure f2.5, f3.2, f4.5, f6.3)

and the pumpkin, a composite of 5 images with 1 second exposure and f11.0, f8.0, f5.6, f4.0, f2.8

Okay, time pass is over..

Off to do more serious things!

Wishing all those who celebrate a "Happy Hallllllloooooweeeeen!"

ps. Updated globe..

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