Keeping warm at the Great Reno Balloon Race

Usually it was two bodies huddled together, but this quartet had the right idea!

Here’s what we all got up before the crack of dawn for . . .

Dawn Patrol

Girls’ Night Out

As many of you know, our daughter is getting married (next Saturday!). Her bridal shower was last Saturday, but it was not a “typical” one. Daughter eschewed gifts and opted instead for a girls’ night out. We got pampered at a local nail salon, Soak, followed by a price conscious dinner. I took the liberty of reserving the studio at Hatch for a little post-supper fun.

There are props at the studio . . .

We had a lot of fun . . .

I did mention the props right? Ali took one look at the headdress and rethought her decision to go veil-less.

We took a little time for some individual shots too.

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And finally, a portrait I’ve been wanting for a long time . . .

He’s Two!

Remember this little boy? This is our great-nephew, Mattix.

And he’s two years old now.

Of course, that meant a party! We started out at the water park at North Valleys Regional Park.

There was pizza.

And ice cream.

Cards and lots of presents.

And just as we were about to eat some cake . . .

. . . lightning strikes began and the park had to close. So we had to head over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to finish the party.

We finally get down the important part.

Then off to play some more!

And before it was all through, we got a group photo. I must say, I’m rather proud of myself on this achievement. I got everyone sitting and posed, Mattix was off to the side playing on the recliner. I told everyone, “No matter what happens with Mattix, keep looking into the camera.” I set the timer, grabbed Mattix from the recliner, threw him into his mommy’s lap, jumped into my spot and “Smiles!” Got it on the first take.

Gratuitous cute puppy photo. This is Bambi, the newest addition to my brother & sister-in-law’s household.

I’m still recovering . . .

Four days in the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for The Amaz!ng Meeting 2014, with a midnight arrival home on Sunday night, then back to work immediately on Monday hasn’t left me much time to catch my breath. I finally got through all the photos I took and posted them to Facebook and to SmugMug. I just unpacked today, sorted the dirty laundry and got the first load in the machine. The pantry is bare, so there’s that to do too, but I didn’t want anyone to think I’d abandoned the blog.

The Amaz!ng Meeting – from the web site:

The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) is organized by The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Over the last 15 TAMs, this event has become the leading conference in the world focused on scientific skepticism. Well over 1,000 people from around the world come to TAM each year to share learning, laughs, and the skeptical perspective with their friends and a host of distinguished guest speakers, panelists, workshop presenters, and entertainers.

Around 1,100 people attended this year.

Here are some of my favorite photos from Thursday, which was full of workshops. There are eight, but one person can only attend four workshops each as two run in the same time slot.

Teaching Skepticism for K-12 with Ani Aharonin, Barbara Drescher. and Daniel Loxton.

Barbara demonstrating the trick that is behind Power Balance Bands and other such “balance enhancing” items. See this video about Applied Kinesiology (link) in the

Advancing Skepticism in the Media – panelists: Sharon Hill, Jim Underwood, Richard Saunders, and Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (Dr Karl is basically the Bill Nye of Australia – or you could say Bill Nye is the Dr Karl of the United States!) The guy is awesome, and I got to chat with him a bit on Sunday morning at breakfast.

Rhetoric and Argumentation for the Skeptic with Miranda Celeste Hale, Robert Blaskiewicz, and Eve Siebert

Science-Based Medicine – How to Deal with Believers with Drs Harriet Hall, David Gorski, and Steve Novella.

Sounds of Reno

I was cleaning out some posts still in “draft” mode and realized that this one from last October should have been posted. I don’t know what distracted me. Anyhoo . . . here you go.

Box A-23, Reno Air Races, 2013. The shirt she is wearing has a special meaning. The owners of this box silkscreen a commemorative shirt every year, and we who volunteer at Box Seat Security are always given t-shirts as a thank-you. This particular version was the shirt we were all going to wear on Sunday in 2011. Obviously, the crash on Friday changed those plans.

So we all wore them on Sunday in 2012 for the Tribute.

This year, we were given new “2013” shirts to wear on Sunday. And we did. Proudly.

How I Spent My Sunday, Part 1

In the morning, Bark for Life! (My first slide show!)

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Bark for Life – Shameless Blegging

Nina and I will be participating in our local Bark for Life on Sunday, May 4th, to benefit the American Cancer Society. If you can spare a few dollars, would you please donate to this worthy cause? Click on this link, or Nina’s photo below.