Tracking Santa's Progress

Despite the idiotic partial government shutdown, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, will continue to track Santa's progress from the North Pole across the nation. Not sure, but this image could have been from last year's mapping system or this year's Garden Glow display at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Monday Morning

Ellie on Christmas morning. My little friend got quite a haul. Green is her favorite color and her best gift was a new green bike with training wheels (she's ready for it) and a green bike helmet. When it gets warmer, there's gonna be action.

This is one of my first pictures with the Fujifilm X-T2. Its control and menu system is very different from my Canon DSLR and the transition will take some time. But it's so much lighter. I notice that the reds are truer than on my 5D Mk III, which tends to oversaturate them. I need a lot less sharpening and get somewhat less noise at high ISO. On the other hand, I wish it had simple M, Tv and Av exposure settings, to use Canon's terminology. You can do the same thing on the Fuji but it's less intuitive. And it seems to underexpose when the scene is on the dark side. Lots to learn.

Merry Christmas From Saint Louis

Could It Be?

Local news outlets say that St. Louis last had a white Christmas in 2010. 2016 was foggy, misty and dark (but I liked it). We got the first snowfall of the season in the early hours of Saturday and may get a bit more today. The weather should stay cold enough to keep some of it. So maybe this year?

Ellie woke up yesterday, looked outside and squealed with delight. In no time she was outside making snow angels. According to the family botanist (not me, since I grew up in the concrete jungle) the plant just below is called heavenly bamboo. Doesn't look like that to me but I love the berries. Ellie deigned to pose before it. Lastly, chez Crowe with extra white accents.       

Naughty Or Nice

After the children's pageant and pot luck dinner at St. John's Sunday evening, who should appear but a merry old elf. Ellie looks a little concerned. How do the scales of justice hang between naughty or nice? As an observer of her behavior I'd say there is a definite tilt toward nice but, well, nobody's perfect.  My sources tell me she's going to make out very well this year.      

Christmas Day In The Lou

This is the ghost of Christmas present. Chilly and damp. Fog, thicker and thicker as you approach the river. Not approved by Charles Dickens, Santa Claus or Macy's. But, hey, it's home and we're together.

Top to bottom: Forest Park, Maryland Plaza, Citygarden.         

Christmas In St. Louis

From Madeleine and all the Crowes.          

Christmas Is A Time For Giving

Look carefully at the sign in the window. The contrast is poor but check it out. It's not really a product of the times. In fact, it's very old. See Matthew 26:11. It was about 6F/-14.5C when I took the picture.

Found on Cherokee at Jefferson.         

My Strange Family

Weird Crowe family tradition: this ornament has hung over the Christmas dinner table for 40 years, first at my father's house and now my sister's. Someone spins and spins the string, then lets go. When the ornament stops turning, whoever Santa faces will have bad luck in the new year. Everyone calls him Evil Santa. Did I say we go through a lot of wine in this family?

Below, quality family time - a niece, spouse and brother sucked into their iPhones.

Every family has ups and downs but this one has had less than its share of bad luck. I am the oldest of four siblings. We are all still alive. We are all still on our first marriages. Everyone graduated from college, and there is a Ph.D., an M.B.A. and a J.D. sprinkled around the group. We all still like each other and make an effort to get together a couple of times a year. We turned out okay.

Christmas Brunch At The Chase

As mentioned, the Crowe and Horrocks families had a sumptuous Christmas brunch at the Chase Park Plaza, Chef Brian presiding. 

Above, an ice sculpture Christmas tree in front of a real one.

Below, Madeleine with a "Santa got me what?" look (wearing grandma's glasses, which she thinks is funny) followed by Ms. M and her parents. The bottom pic needs explanation. Our flight is so early tomorrow morning we're spending tonight at an airport hotel, leaving Emily and Brian's home before they serve dinner. So my wife and I could get something to eat, I bought what is probably the loneliest product in the supermarket. However, we're still so stuffed from brunch we'll likely put it in the freezer. 
               

Madeleine Monday

Last night was the children's Christmas pageant at St. John's Episcopal Church, where Madeleine and her parents, Emily and Brian, are members. The little kids got to play lambs. Emily was a shepherd but could not possibly have had a big enough crook. Ms. M was reasonably cooperative. There was a payoff at the end. 

This was a color correction nightmare for a photographer, with a mix of flash, fluorescent and incandescent lamps, along with front and back lighting. I'm not real happy with the results but probably no one cares but me.           

Merry Christmas From St. Lou

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it from St. Louis. Christmas Eve here was cold and wet, and certainly not white. Mrs. C and I are in the air today (first time ever flying on Christmas Day), heading to New York by an annoyingly indirect route. More about that later, perhaps. Easy drive from LaGuardia to my sister's home in the New Jersey suburbs. This of one of those rare nights when there will not be a traffic jam on or around the George Washington Bridge.

I'm sure we'll get into the city in the next day or two.                            

Christmas On Wall Street?

Actually, this statue is in front of an investment company's headquarters, just across the street from my office building. The symbolic bull and bear, gaily decorated for the season, attack each other viciously. The statue seems to say that life is a zero-sum game, some win and some (most?) lose, and none of that goodwill-towards-men business. But it's worth a wreath and a red ribbon.

I just shake my head. The security guard in the lobby of our building told me she hates having to look at it all day. It upsets her.

My children, and probably me and my siblings many years ago, used the word below as a synonym for Christmas presents. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
                         

Forget The Milk And Cookies

But Santa, Little Billy cried, won't bacon grease get on your nice white gloves?

Ho ho ho, Little Billy, don't worry, the jolly old elf replied. They're latex. You wouldn't believe the slop I see in some of these houses. Anyway, milk and cookies are full of cholesterol and sugar. Here, have some fried pork fat with a bit of meat yourself. Ho ho ho!

What will the marketeers think of next? Does this billboard make you any more likely to buy bacon? (Vegetarians are not allowed to vote.)

I know advertising is part of a market economy. My firm advertises. But all of it is hogwash (except, of course, my own).
                           

Seasonal

A bit after sunset in Citygarden. The globes have many colors of LEDs in them, constantly changing hues and patterns. Wish I took a video.                              

Please Don't Forget

A billboard along a crummy stretch of I 44, asking people to make Christmas donations to the Salvation Army. They do a lot of social good.

Mrs. C and I agree with the idea. Sure, it's nice to give a gift to someone you care about at this time of year, but we are more and more turned off by the season's coarse materialism. We're getting a few things for our children, their spouses and particularly for Madeleine but it's nothing fancy. However, we are not buying anything for ourselves. We've got enough stuff, too much. We have each other, a relationship that's lasted more than 40 years and keeps getting better. That's plenty.

If anyone wanted to give us something, we ask that they make a contribution to the education expenses of Januka Basnet, a wonderful young woman in Kathmandu we have helped support for a number of years. We've met her a couple of times - here's a picture of her and my wife taken five years ago. She has now graduated from the equivalent of 10th grade and passed the all-important Leaving School Exam, which I think is something like the A Levels in the UK. Now she's starting Nepalese college. If you would like to help, too, click here.                  

Christmas In The Lou

Christmas Day on the South Side at Emily, Brian and Madeleine's home. Brian's parents and brother were here, along with our son Andy and his fiancee Claire.

Madeleine, of course, made out like a bandit. Above, Aunt Claire helps her inspect a new toy.

It is a good thing to have a professional chef in the family and Brian lays out quite a spread. He is doing something with duck as I write this.

Below, Grandma Carolyn tries to keep our star amused. Even Killian, the family dog, was dressed for the day. And it wouldn't be Christmas without a new lens for the author of this blog (picture taken with the gift itself).

We'll be in New York by late this morning, over to New Jersey in the afternoon. Sure to be a photo safari in the big city.        

Thursday Arch Series

"Tis the season. There aren't a lot of places to go Christmas shopping downtown since Macy's closed the city center location. There is a good book store. You can get Cardinals hats and shirts at the stadium. Lots of places to buy a drink. We had a Fiat dealer but that only lasted about a year. Thus go mid-sized American cities.

But, hey, we're not Detroit. Always look on the bright side of life.        

Something You Don't See Every Day

A spinoff, I suppose, from the Festival of lights in Kiener Plaza - a group of Christmas carolers at the corner of 7th and Pine downtown, just around the corner from my office. In general, if I rounded this corner heading for lunch, say, and saw a group of eight people like this singing, I'd think a movie company was shooting a remake of Meet Me In St. Louis. 

The group is standing in front of a state office building that houses the regional Court of Appeals, the workers compensation office and the Missouri attorney general. They could use some glad tidings and good cheer.          

I Didn't Know They Were Acquainted

Santa and Ms. Missouri seem to be on very friendly terms. If I were an old guy with snow-white hair I'd find this exciting. Actually, I'm not that far off but I dress better than Santa.

The whole Ms. America/Ms. Missouri (formerly Miss) thing is pretty awful. I remember watching Miss America as a kid and thinking it embodied unattainable elegance. There was an evening in a cousin's living room in Ireland when the whole family, young and old, watched the local equivalent, the Rose of Tralee Pageant, with rapt attention. But really. It's such an out-of-it vision of women and their place in society. Makes me think of Frank Zappa's Suzy Creamcheese.