you can just see the excitement before his first class with a uniform. he was even more excited to show me the snap kick he learned how to do. 

original photo here.

i love seeing trees covered in ice, mostly because they always make me think of the one that covered maine in january of 1998. best mini-vacation ever. “in my day, ice storms lasted for DAYS, and we cancelled school because of them!”

no, it didn’t snow/sleet/ice until the 18th…

original photo here.

original photo here.

i’m a day late, but i was sick all day yesterday. never left the house and (in the way only a sick guy could exaggerate) could barely move. so this was actually taken tonight. 

i made wings! not buffalo wings, because it would have been too hot for the kids. but i found an easy enough recipe for mahogany chicken wings on allrecipes.com and they came out great.

3 lbs chicken wings, separated and with the tips discarded (this was absolutely disgusting, by the way)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup molasses
2 tbsp chili sauce
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

lay the chicken in a flat pan and cover with the marinade, made from everything else mixed together in a medium bowl. cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. bake in an oven at 375 degrees for 50 minutes, basting with the leftover marinade every now and then and flipping halfway through. the stickier you can get that marinade (read: the closer you can get your pan to ruination), the more delicious they’ll be. 

original photo here.

14a/365 – m is for morning

14b/365 – up on tiptoes

14c/365 – so many laptops, so early in the morning

my morning in three photos. another (very) early morning getting in to set up our laptops for NWEA testing. everything going well now, but i’m exhausted. very unfair to henry that he’s got to get up with me and get to school so early, but i’ve sadly got no other option. two months ago, i had to carry him to let him railfan on the uptown C. he’s thrilled that this is it for early mornings, at least for a while.

original photos here, here, and here.

we had a disastrous first day of testing on tuesday, so bad that we couldn’t even test. such a relief that today’s testing went off without a hitch.

this isn’t as good as a photo i took around this time last year of the same testing event. i didn’t have a wide enough lens with me today and, given how rocky tuesday was, didn’t want make a huge deal of documenting the testing in case there was trouble.

original photo here.

at my local railroad station, there’s an oddly-lit abandoned section of platform that no one dare goes into. it’s odd how there’s never been an effort to clean it up or make it look more presentable in any way. and considering that it has a “secret” passageway to a neighboring building, it really doesn’t make any sense.  

original photo here.

(and yes, i cheated. i took this photo this morning. but since i hadn’t yet been at work or even had a sip of coffee, i’m still considering this the previous day.)

so i did manage to catch some more sunlight before subterranean adventures began. there’s just nothing pretty about this picture. it’s tired. dreary. haggard. so fitting for what was the end of a too-long and too-frustrating day.

original photo here.
(this was taken at roughly the same spot as this picture but ten hours later.) 

this is very likely the only sunshine that i’m going to see all day — and it’s not even after a complete sunrise. i literally missed some amazing color by about ten seconds, as things got a bit duller after getting the camera out. the sun was mid-rise, though you had to peek through poles, trees, and buildings to see it.

original photo here.

this was a throwaway picture. i knew that i had nothing else to post from today so i snapped a picture on the subway home because i didn’t want to fall behind with this 365 project. the problem is that the picture i took perfectly captures will right now. this is so totally what i look forward to coming home to every night. well, except when he decides he wants nothing to do with me. 

original photo here.