High speed sailing

There is a very specialized facet of sailing that is obsessed with breaking the speed record for sailboats, which is currently just under 50 knots / hour over a 500 m course (57 mph, or 92 km/h).  So far, the fastest attempts have been using the simplest crafts - a windsurfer holds the official record, and the fastest speed is recorded by (get this) a kitesailor, which people aren't sure if it is a sailboat or not.

At the same time, there have been a progression of exotic craft built for the single purpose of setting records.  Indeed, until sailboards came along, these strange creatures have dominated the record circuit.  I have been recently obsessed with the newest of these, called Vestas Sailrocket.  This is a crazy craft with some really cool engineering and design behind it (reading about the design is very cool)- finally a design that as the wind blows more does not increase in healing moment at all, because the geometry is set up such that the sail lift exactly cancels the other forces.

The team, after several years of learning, designing and tweaking the boat, is now in South Africa trying to break the record.  Recently, after several weeks of waiting for perfect conditions, they finally got a good try, and broke some of the records, but not all of them.  They also knew they had some more speed in reserve... and went back to try for a second time.

Well, it didn't go as planned.  The complete accounting is in the "news" tab on the link above, but here, a picture tells all:

Occasional moments of rest and quiet...

I'm beginning to think that with my "new life", I should consider renaming this blog "Another day, another lesson", since this seems to be the theme of my life more than obsession at the moment.

Although we will declare Thursday a notable exception (!!!) , the last 7 days have been considerably calmer than those of the week before, a.k.a. "hell week".  Thanksgiving is past, the daily routine is mostly back in place, and things are not too crazy.  Heck, on a couple of evenings the kids essentially put themselves to bed, leaving G and I looking at each other across our respective computers, as if to say "what do we do now?"

The main event of the week started Tuesday afternoon, when Vika came home looking under the weather - then immediately fell asleep upstairs.   Definitely something wrong, no doubt about that, is the is far from normal behavior.  Sure enough, her temperature was going up and up, peaking at 103.1F (39.5C) in the late evening.  We gave her a hefty dose of acetaminophen, and took her to the doctor the next day, where she was diagnosed with strep throat (albeit with no hurting throat at all).

For her, antibiotics and sleep, and she was mostly fine by the next day - but not allowed to go back to school until 24 hours past antibiotics.  No, the real story here is about Diana.  Diana, never in great control of her emotions at the best of times, was furiously jealous that Vika did not have to go to school when she did (forget the fact she likes school), and (especially) that Vika got to follow Mom around all day long on errands on Thursday.  This was unpardonable, and resulted in some of the most pissy behavior you can imagine, with multiple (G lost count) mini-meltdowns.

But... come Friday, when Vika was to go back to school again, Diana was up and cheery - even early for the bus.  This morning Vika had the difficult morning (albeit with our sympathy) but made it nevertheless.

The tale of the mini-yolka

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, Christmas season is upon us in full.  The girls have been asking us about Christmas trees (which they call yolkas, after the Russian New Year's counterparts), and G replied "yes, next weekend we also will get a tree, and put it in the living room and decorate it".

Well, next weekend seemed to be an impossibly long time to wait for two girls, and they fell despondent.  The crushed joy of Christmas hung in the air. Depression loomed.  G then quickly followed, in an upbeat voice--"but we DO have a small tree we keep in the basement that we can get out, and it has many lights!"  Bright eyes again.

We then forgot about this until we got home, when it became clear that Vika had far from forgotten about it.  She went into the basement, and started randomly rummaging about (or so I imagine...) to find aforementioned tree.  This then was followed by a request for a parent, and the mini-yolka was found.

We plugged it in, and ..... nothing.  Sad but true, neither of the two strings of lights worked.  A quick check of fuses resembled this was not part of the problem.  So, I deferred, saying I would try to find the burnt out bulb later (knowing that this is hard to do).  Well, after about 4 reminders through the day, the final request came.  So, trying to keep my and the girls spirits high, we took it to the kitchen for a systematic evaluation.   This is where you remember G's statement of "many lights".  Many is right - I didn't count them all, but at least 100, and possibly double that in this little, 3 foot high tree.

Vika, Diana (a.k.a. "the bumblebee, Napoleon, or the randomizer") and I first started on the task of removing all of the bulbs and placing them on the countertop.  Vika and I could pull them off with our fingernails, while Diana used a small screwdriver, as her fingernails were optimized for scratching people, not removing bulbs.

This gave us a huge pile of bulbs sitting between us.  Then, in a great show of magic and capability, Dad produced a beeping ohmmeter to test them, each and every one.  I even showed the kids how to do it.  We tested and tested, resulting in a large bowl of "good", and a smaller bowl of (exactly) 17 bad bulbs.  I was a bit worried that we could find 17 replacement bulbs in the basement, but Vika and I went downstairs to look.  In the end, we found a non-working string of bulbs that seemed close, and removed 17 bulbs, with an extra two in case some of THOSE were dead.

We then came upstairs, and found a happy, giggly Diana, beaming, and proudly showing us how she had tested the bad bulbs AGAIN, found them to be all "OK", and placed them in the good pile!!!  The randomizer had struck again! ARRRGGHHH,  sighs, and "NO DAVIDS" were heard, and we refocused on the task of testing once again.

Much testing and recounting later, we had our bulbs retested, with the same dead count.  We then tested the "new" bulbs, and sure enough, out of the 19, 17 worked.  We added the good ones to the pot, and now knew we had as many bulbs as we started with.  Perfect!

Now the bulb restuffing began.  Stuff, stuff, stuff.  After a while, it looked like all the spaces had been filled in, but there were still about 10 bulbs left.  Search, find, search, find - 8 times. This got harder and harder, until we only had 2 left.   We looked, and looked, and looked.  They HAD to be there somewhere - didn't they?  Then inspiration - wasn't it two bulbs that had failed in the new lot?  Yup, you guessed it - the randomizer, twice in a day, and a clearly non-learning Dad!

Well, it was not likely to begin with, but sure enough, the tree did not work.  It was time to give up.  We took it to the living room, and all agreed that we had tried, at least.

But ... this story is not quite over.  Vika the resourceful apparently went spelunking in the basement once again, and had found a box of brand new lights.  She took them out and plugged them in, and ... one hundred points of light!  Joy, dancing, chanting - the lights are going, the lights are going ('edyot')!!  So, the girls spread the string through the living room, and Christmas is coming once again.

Let the holiday season begin!

I would love to know....

When searching for "electric kettle" at the Target site, it found some hits, but also had some "related" searches to help me along...

We found 51 matches for "electric kettle" at Target

Related Searches: kettle, shirt, cordless electric kettle, hot pot, coffee maker

What is the world is "shirt" doing in this list????

Early English Language Output

Over the last month, we have seen quite a bit of "English" emerge in our kids speech, especially Diana's.  First to be heard are ready-made phrases, but now we occasionally hear an attempt on a self-constructed sentence.  These are pretty basic, and often amusing.

The event of this weekend has been getting about 25 cm of snow, which is just enough to go sledding in.  While we have gone several times to the local school, were they have nice cleared hills, much of the sledding is in our yard.  Our yard has a few flattish areas, but also some trails that go careening off into the woods, on some pretty steep trails.

This afternoon I went to check on the kids.  Diana ran up to me, smiling and giggling.  She than froze in serious thought, looked in the face in her best, "am I saying this right" expression, and said in a halting manner:  Papa!  Me ouch... sled.... tree!

G kid progress report

Didn't you expect this behavior? Two weeks -- one might say rather hellish weeks, at least at times, have passed. One friend asked me recently, "Didn't you know to expect these behaviors?" and the answer is "Yes, we knew with our intellects... but that is far different from living it every day."

Yesterday was another 'takes two to get Vika to school day.' On Monday of this past week, Diana, who has been adopting her sister's best practices for being difficult, decided to try outright refusal to attend school. She went to school in her nightgown, and I think she's decided that the consequences aren't worth it to her. We will be glad when Vika makes the same decision.

Perspective: To give some perspective on our situation -- about which we are cautiously optimistic -- here are some comments from adoptive parents who have survived the first year and now mostly have 'normal' problems with their children:

....."For the first year, I wanted to hang a sign over their heads that said, 'ADOPTED'."

....."My son was really hostile to me for the first year, but now I feel really close to him."

....."Later my daughter told me that I'd been really mean to her the first year she lived with me. I asked her what I'd done, and she said, 'You made me say please and thank you.' I must have succeeded, however, because now she says them naturally and gracefully!"

And one comment from a kid who was adopted 5+ years ago:
....."At first I swore at my parents in Russian (using foul language), but then I began to understand what our pastor was saying..." And now she is very close to her parents and wants to become a missionary to the former Soviet Union.

Fetal Alcohol Exposure (FAE) and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) This week we had our first meeting with a psychologist who does a lot of work with adopted children and their parents. He has worked a lot with children adopted from Russia, and remarked that it is almost impossible that our children, with their background, escaped all consequences in utero exposure to ethanol. This is called, in its full-blown state, fetal alcohol syndrome. Prenatal exposure to alcohol messes up the sequence of development of the brain, both anatomically and the brain's response to development, pruning and the environment. Since Ludmilla Yurievna, their bio mother, is reported to be a confirmed alcoholic, we were naive to think that such lovely children escaped FAE unharmed.

The psychologist commented that alcohol use in Russia is about 5x (or maybe 10x) that of alcohol use here in the States. I hope that is per capita and not total consumption, as the Russian population is about half of ours, I think.

The psychologist was supportive, encouraging, and we are off working on a new round of behavior modification and therapy books!

Good times: Are there good times? YES! But the good times are often short, very sweet, and hard to capture. Oddly, one good time in my life is getting Diana up to go to the bathroom before I go to sleep. (She's had several accidents in the last week, so I'm back to doing that.) She is warm, and drowsy, and very clingy, and sweet.

She is usually sweet, by the way, and we have great fun tickling each other , giving each other raspberries, playing silly games, etc.

We have established a new routine for after dinner. It has destroyed kitchen clean-up but has been very good for bonding and for learning. We clear away the dishes and immediately start doing 'homework.' Sometimes this is real homework that the teachers have assigned, but more often it is some kind of math or word play that we do with the kids. It is amusing to watch Vika supervise her sister's counting! Vika doesn't realize how much SHE is learning from the repetition of Diana's work!

One game involves an egg carton and 78 pennies... Last night I put the pennies in the carton randomly and asked Diana to check my work. After checking a couple of places, she 'decided' it would be easier to dump out all the pennies and count them from scratch! 1, 1..2, 1..2..3, etc...

Vika is now reading -- with SUCH PRIDE AND ENTHUSIASM -- the first series of Bob Books!

Both of the children adore the dogs and the adoration is mutual. Tango the tooth is also Tango the incredibly patient with kids tugging and pulling and generally man-handling him. His teeth are all directed at paper and garbage, never intentionally at kids.

This week after school, both kids have been decorating some Home Depot moving boxes that I bought for storing things away. They paint the sides with tempera paint, and the results are rather cool! And it turns out that at 67 cents per carton, I am getting a good deal economically as well.

Last night we had a long session with the dollar bins at Target -- and their allowances. Got to teach them about money somehow, and this is a good start.

When they make the school bus, they get a smiley face on the allowance chart and they get their allowances. Missing the school bus results in a TURTLE on the chart, and forfeiting the allowance.

This week I was in Diana's class twice, for Math Action. I got to help kids do really simple Tangrams! My favorite! What fun that was!

Next week, I do Math Action with Vika's class.

A couple of weeks ago I did Science Action with Diana's class. These activities are REALLY FUN for everyone!

This week, I introduced Vika to a book on puberty. She is fascinated and we have spent some very sweet times together in Chuck's and my bed, looking at the book and discussing the issues that she finds compelling. And she refuses to let her sister look at the book, because there are pictures of 'naked people' in it! foflol

So, we are surviving, holding on, praying a lot, and being tired a fair amount, too.

Please keep praying for us!

G

B+ for effort....

Those who follow chocolate know that at the very high end of the market, strange things happen to chocolate - you can find it in herb flavors, with meat garnishes, all sorts of strange and exotic things that, frankly most would (and probably should) shun.

Well, tonight Diana has made her entry into this area of master chef.  True to her Russian heritage, she likes to chop and slice things.  And she also like to help prepare dinner, and often tries to make up a side dish.  Well, tonight, she skillfully chopped (mashed?) some apples with a plastic knife.  She spread them out rather artfully (OK, for a first grader) on a plate, and then put on the finishing touch..... fresh ground pepper!

G kid progress approach

I started this a couple of weeks ago, but was OBE (overcome by events), as Chuck likes to say.  So relative dates are now relatively meaningless.

Milestones for the children

I love you:  In the last week, Vika has told me that she loves me -- at least three times.  And, once, when she was very angry with me, she said, "I don't love you." instead of the "I hate you." that I expected.  And Diana has chimed in with her 'I love you." They have also told Chuck that they love him.  This is a big change from the days when they only loved the dogs!  ;-)

Neater eater:  It has been several weeks since we routinely tucked a napkin into the neckline of Diana's shirt, as a bib, when she eats.  She just was managing (with fingers, but that's another step) waffles very neatly.  "With your fork!" is our cry, much as other parents say, "Use your words!"

English and reading:  Last night, Vika read to me in English.  We read Thank You, God, some of The Princesses' Manners, and Goodnight Moon!  Today she and Chuck spent a long time reading together.

Seat belts for the baby dolls:  Although the first-ever seat belt meltdown happened last Sunday, after church, when Diana took hers off and refused to put it back on (which proceeded to kicking and throwing things), this past week also saw one stuffed animal latched carefully into the middle seat belt of the car, and great concern that their babies not be pushed in their strollers until their seat belts had been fastened.

English:  At dinner the other night I noticed that Diana has replaced the Russian 'и' with the English 'and.'  And Vika's English Language Learning teacher, Mrs. Brown, reports that Vika told her IN ENGLISH that we have a tent, that we go camping and that all of us -- including dogs -- sleep together in the tent.  Diana's teacher reports that Diana has begun talking to the class in English, single words, but trying to communicate.

Last Sunday the kids went to Sunday school and church for the first time ever.  Between that and Halloween, I think they were way overloaded, but they held up amazingly well in church!

No change in routine goes unpunished.  Chuck says that no change in routine goes unpunished.  [BTW, the 'punishment' can last as long as 3 or 4 weeks... but it always, always follows change.]  

To wit, he went to volleyball on Thursday night, and the kids were really, really difficult.  I finally called and asked him to come home early.  

Actually I said, "If you want live children and a wife who is not in jail, come home now!"  

They would not do anything they needed to do to get ready for bed:  wash their faces, brush their teeth, put on their pyjamas, etc. They wouldn't go into their bedroom, even.  Well, I guess I finally got them into bed, but then they kept turning the light back on, so they could play.  

The next morning, it took two of us to drive Vika to school, covered in mud and very angry, because she refused to get up and get dressed to catch the bus.  Fortunately, the school nurse and psychologist are very skilled, and Vika has a toiletries kit at school because this has happened numerous times.  They got her cleaned up and reported that she went off to class with a big smile.  

She certainly came home all bouncy and smiling, except for the persistent question, "Mama, why did I go to school today?"

WHY?  These "why" questions are particularly difficult because they are obstructive in the same way that children who do not want to go to sleep may ask for more water or to go to the bathroom one last time.  At this point, I often answer her question with a question.  My question either takes the form, "What do you think?" or "What would be a reasonable answer to your question?"

I think I've written about this before because often the question and her inability to understand an answer has more to do with lack of life experience and lack of agreement on cultural values.  It has just dawned on me that they really have no idea why I would want to keep their teeth healthy or why I would object to activities that damage the furniture.

FERAL CATS!   I've been trying and trying to think of a metaphor that would help others understand life from Vika and Diana's perspective and from ours, and I think I've got it.  Our children are like feral cats.  
.....They were found in miserable conditions and bad health.
.....They were removed to Lollypop Farm (our local ASPCA) to be gotten healthy and socialized enough that they could be adopted.  
.....They've been adopted by committed loving people.
But now that they are adopted, they are shy of everything new, they are difficult, they don't share our values, they don't understand why they aren't free to roam the world at will, as they did before the Russian government stepped into their lives.  

Even though their lives with us are much richer in experiences than their lives in government care, they are also more supervised!  In care, they watched a lot of television.  Here, television is a privilege that they don't get every day.  Before living under government care, Vika essentially never attended school.  Remember, she is now 11 years old.  That is a long time to evade school, and it is a difficult mindset to modify.

MEDICAL FUN:  We -- and the dentist -- discovered that Vika's gag reflex is so strong that the dentist thinks she will have to do Vika's dental work under general anaesthesia.  This week, I also noticed that the arch of Vika's soft and hard palates is very high and narrow.  We've been doing research about this because her teeth are misaligned and misshapen, and she is a mouth breather, hence the gagging.  Now we really do have to get her back to the ENT because this can be fairly serious.  Such fun.  She is so terrified of everything medical... at the moment she won't even take Tylenol and she objects most nights to putting the acne cream on her face.

Diana, on the other hand, found the cartoons on the dentist's monitor compelling and was very happy and relaxed while breathing her 'strawberry air' which really was nitrous oxide.  

The first big meltdown in public:  That is, Diana was relaxed until she understood that she really couldn't have pizza after the dental appointment, due to the xylocaine.  We had a lovely full-scale meltdown in the sub shop at the Perinton Wegmans, where Vika was eating pizza and Diana was refusing ice cream, yogurt, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, pudding, and soup...  

People kept saying things like,
..... "Can I help?  If I can help, I'm right over there..."  [ans:  "Thank you for your offer."] and 
..... "Should I call the store manager?"  [ans:  "No, thank you."] and 
..... "Is she having a seizure?"  [ans:  "That describes it very nicely."] and, 
..... when she had finally started to calm down, "Would she like to color with these pencils and paper?  That always calms my son."  [ans:  "Yes, thank you."] and then, 
..... "She can keep them if she would like."  [ans:  "No, thank you, I've already told her that you are lending them to her.  The last thing I want is for her to learn is that throwing a fit in public gets herpresents."]

Eventually Diana gave the picture she drew to the lady who lent us the drawing tools, and Diana even managed to say, "Thank you."

I took them back to school after that, even though it was 2 PM and school gets out at 3, because I needed a breather before starting in again at 3:45 when they get home from school.

Does anyone out there remember using time-sharing computer systems?  When I was at Clarkson, there was a period late every Friday afternoon when the system was so over-loaded that the computer barely managed to poll each terminal in sequence and to say, "Yes, I know you're there.  I'll get to you when I can."  I suppose the modern equivalent is a denial of service attack.  Or maybe trying to play a video game on an old, underpowered PC.  Anyhow, I am like an over-loaded time-sharing mainframe computer.  Either there is processing and no I/O or there is I or O or I/O but no processing, but not all three!  

I've been in this state for months.

VoIP now working

Our VoIP transition is now complete - we no longer have any accounts with our local telephone company, or AT&T for phone service.  Our combined $55 monthly bill for very little phone use (and probably no less than $30 in taxes) is now replaced with about $2.50 per month plus an extra $6 of usage charges ($6 buys 333 minutes).  So far, we are happy customers.  I will post the details on how we did it (in case anyone wants to copy us :-)

Now, an update from Chuck's POV

It was three weeks ago when G wrote that last post-- a period of time that seems like an eternity at times. The overall flow and sense of time seems to have changed here, as we slowly adapt to our entirely different life. At one level, all the days blend into one another - the alarm clock (for us) at 6:50 am, the shades up in the kids room in anticipation of the alarm clock, the kids alarm at 7, the (often, but not always) fight to get the kids out of bed and to the bus stop, work (for me), return home a bit before six, dinner at 6:15, homework (or something else), the negotiation of bathtime at 8-or-so, bedtime (fight, meltdown), then book, then Goodnight Moon, then lights out.... and finally, two precious hours to myself before sleep and a repeat tomorrow. (On most nights G spends an hour or so holding kids while they babble and then fall asleep.)

At another level, I don't think I have every had three months feel that it is passing so slowly - or rather that the elapsed time seems much longer than the calender indicates has passed -- it really DOES feel more like 6 months. The main question I have is - at what rate are we aging??? :-)

This week has been (finally!!!!) back to "normal", following two weeks of absolute fight, real tests for us. During those two weeks, I traveled first to San Diego for 3 1/2 days, and then on the second week traveled to Washington DC for 1 1/2 days. For us, totally normal, uneventful trips. The effect on the kids and their behavior could not have been more extreme, especially in Vika's case. Absolute, positive refusal to go to school. Running away into the woods, throwing things, melting down, lots of anger. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but I think G solved the puzzle, based on a short comment by Vika: at some unconscious level Vika was worried that I was not coming back, and that G was going to join me as soon as we had Vika and Diana packed away to school. Crazy... yes. But, fear is fear, and the results were telling.

Hopefully this period is behind us now - it was probably the hardest period we have had since adopting the kids. So far this week (knock wood) things have been going much better.

We continue to learn from experience all of the things we had known, been told, or read about in books on parenting adopted children. It is not that we even doubted any of them from the start, but truth be told, it is hard to totally restructure and reinvent one's life from scratch. Some things just have to be learned. G is doing an absolutely wonderful, even heroic, job of being the all-important [mostly calm] Mama, and I am trying to act as mortar to keep the pile of bricks standing as a structure. We observe, learn, discuss, and (try to) change.

At times it seems that we can't keep up, as the kids are changing faster then we can, while at other times I really feel like we are making progress. Either way, as a family, we are all "learning" each other.

At one level, we are having the same experience as millions and millions of other families - watching our children grow. But at another level, while analogous, our experience is rather different when compared with other "normal, bio" families.

Present in me is the continuous watch and anxiety on how my kids are progressing and "fitting in." Yet, at the same time, I have to keep reminding myself that while my older daughter is 11 years old, no amount of wishing will make her 11 for me at this instant. She was deprived of her childhood starting at age 4 or so (she cared for her younger sibling mostly by herself), and she has a full right, and a full need, to those missing years. So, we have thrown out most "normal" expectations for the moment, and instead are doing the best we can to "just" be loving, supporting, educating, guiding parents. From all this will come a rare present few will ever get to see - a complete 6 years lived in fast forward "real time" of only a few years.

And soon, just like the hundreds of millions of other families, there will come a time when we all wished it had happened much slower. We'll wonder how they grew up so quickly when we weren't watching.

Post from G: Family progress email

G sent this email to some friends - and since she is doing much better at relating kid progress news (and she also writes so well), I am posting it here:

On 21 October -- a week from today -- Vika and Diana will have been living with us for 3 months. What a wild ride it has been so far!

I don't remember the last time I had time and brain enough together to write a note. This business of having children is time-consuming and tiring ... and I think having older children who don't speak English (yet) adds to the fatigue.

At first the children and I spoke only Russian together, and my brain got so tired that I started making stupid mistakes. It is a stage that I have watched exchange students endure, the period in their exchange year when they make mistakes they would never have made before coming here and they know their comprehension has improved dramatically -- and they are confused and discouraged by the mistakes. In their case, increasing competency eventually overwhelms fatigue and their English gets better. My Russian has stayed rather sickly, I'm afraid.

On the good side, going to school has given the kids a very good comprehension of normal exchanges in English. Now they even speak a kind of pigeon-Russian where the occasional English word pops into Russian sentences.

I think both kids like school. School is easier for Diana than for Vika, because she is precisely where she should be both by age and by academic attainment: 1st grade. She is an indefatigable little bouncy trooper, or bumblebee, as we often call her. Cheerful most of the time, bopping around, doing whatever comes to hand.

Vika has a much greater challenge. In 12 days she will celebrate her 11th birthday. She has had one year of formal schooling, so logically should be in 2nd grade, but the gap between 7 - 8 and 10 - 11 is so great that the school chose to place her in 4th grade. She is doing well with her English language learning, and her teachers assure me that kids catch up, but I cannot assure her of that. There are many situations in which my Russian is inadequate, and this is one of them.

Right now, as I type, Chuck and the kids and maybe some dogs are out in the driveway, practicing riding 2-wheeled bikes. I think he is going to have Vika graduate from a very small bike with no pedals to a properly sized (for her) bike with pedals. She has mastered balance and steering, so now she can add pedaling. Diana is relatively fearless in this way, and probably is ready to start pedaling too.

The school system here is incredibly good and the teachers and special instructors are kind, competent and very supportive. Even the two people on the school bus, Bill (the driver) and Judy (the aide) spend a lot of time talking with and teaching Vika and Diana.

Over the weekend, we drove down to Lakewood to visit Chuck's mother and to have her meet the children. They were somewhat uneasy about meeting an amputee -- I decided I'd better explain that to them before they saw her -- but they did very well. We camped in her backyard and the kids did kid-things, playing with the dogs in the yard, drawing and coloring.

They have no concept of distance, really. Any trip that takes longer than 10 minutes might as well be a trip to the moon. "Are we there yet?" is a perennial question in Russian as well as English, it seems. And no answer makes sense to them.

I find that is a general problem for me. They ask me questions that I cannot answer, often for 1 to 3 of the following reasons.

.....1) There is no answer. ("Mama, why is Papa's car blue?" "Because that is the color he chose." "But, Mama, why?")

2) I don't have enough Russian. I have no idea how a Russian would express the idea that putting crayons back in their box will extend the useful life of the crayons. I could dance around it -- maybe -- but I cannot say it straight out, and if I say it, I have no conviction that the message I send will be the message they get.

.....3) They have no context for the answer. "Why do windmills make electricity?" Well, to understand that answer, you need to know all sorts of things that the average American child would have encountered but which these kids have not. They have never had a battery-operated car, they have never seen turbines in action at the Science Museum, they have never seen windings on a motor... and on and on. For them, electricity and magic have a lot in common.

Emotionally they are all over the map. In any one encounter, either of them can be 6 months old emotionally -- or slightly older than their biological ages. When you consider life experiences like playing, travel, imagination, reading, they are much delayed due to their background. They seem, however, to have formed reasonably strong attachments to us and to the dogs. Thank God, Tango is a lover-dog. They drape over him, he drapes over them, they roll and tussle together with only an occasional complaint that he used a bit too much tooth in the interaction. ("Mama, Tango gnawed on me!!!")

We have gone through several rounds of "You're not my Mama; he's not my Papa." Also a round or two of "She's not my sister." and one scene in which Diana said were were all bad, and then proceeded to name each of us in the house. I relaxed when she included the two fish, who clearly are not intrusively evil!

Every change, every new thing (even good things) throws them off balance. Diana, who is usually quite assertive, disappears and becomes quite giggly and limp when she meets new people. A couple of weeks ago, some friends threw us a shower. Hard as it has been to explain to everyone, most of the presents we received are still in our closet because the kids can only absorb a limited amount of new stuff at a time.

There is still a large group of people who have not had even a glimpse of the children. That will continue for a while. I've been thinking about what it will take for meeting people to be tolerable for the kids and us, and have concluded that they probably can bear two meetings with new people each week, but the meeting time must be before dinner. Meeting new people generally gets them pretty wound up (hyper) and we have trouble getting them enough sleep without adding in a delayed bedtime due to over-excitement. So, if you want to stop by to meet them, give me some warning and try to plan to be here for an hour between 4:30 and 6 PM. I'm sorry to be so limiting in this, but our survival at school depends upon it!

There is a place in The Sound of Music where Maria consults the Abbess about making big decision, and the Abbess tells her to find "a dream that will take all the love you can give, every day of your life, for as long as you live." Well, here, in our house, the dream has taken flesh and resides in the growing bond between two very cute little girls, two rather older beginning parents and two lovely Standard Poodles.

We haven't posted many pictures, fatigue and lack of time being what they are, but there are some photos here:

...THE GREAT ROOM PAINTING (Prep for kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/4926182_GQPJw#294340039_pp2eR

...KIDS: http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5579344_c7yaK#342142472_gDpV7

...RUSSIA TRIP 2 (one picture of kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5579309_V92oZ#342140053_jY5mH

...STAVROPOL (some photos of kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5604396_KPbPN#342141196_Vg5gP

...NOVGOROD 2008 (exchange students, families, not our kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5604404_DtyjL#342163331_rH56Z

...OKULOVKA 2008 with the Sobolev clan (the last vacation before the storm): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5607171_BTVK8#344195550_q6Us9

...SUMMER 2008 (Kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5159304_MgknF#372742697_PZaQK

...FALL 2008 (Kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/6030956_RDZpT#377507960_3Tn7o

So, greetings from your very tired but happy and satisfied friends who live in the Ark on the Ridge!

Another favoite XKCD posting

This one is really amazingly well done:

Obsession Report - Voice Over Ip (VoIP) phone service

It finally got to me - although we hardly use our home phone these days (since we get long distance as part of our cell phone plan, and otherwise just don't talk to people), I finally got fed up with paying over $50 to Frontier and ATT for the privilege of having an analog phone line.

The alternatives are two - just use your cell phone, or get a VoIP connection, running off of our high speed internet connection (which itself costs over $40 per month).  The cell phone only option is not for us, and we like some redundancy, so that leaves VoIP.

Why didn't I do VoIP before?  Well, a three reasons.  First of all, historically I didn't trust it from a call quality standpoint.  Secondly, I was uncomfortable with losing telephone service in the event of a power failure.  Third, there was a time when 911 was not properly supported (now, this is no longer a problem).

The first concern was overcome in two stages - my workplace switched over to VoIP several years ago, and voice quality is just fine, no complaints at all.  Then, in the last week, I selected a VoIP vendor, and this vendor lets me choose a "pay by call" plan, which (until you change your number over) can be run from your computer using a "soft phone" - this lets me evaluate voice quality, and sure enough - it is just fine.

This leaves the power failure issue (or internet failure).  This is still a valid concern, but for us, I feel an acceptable one.  Backup #1, we have cell phones, and backup #2, I have reliable phone service at work.  So all told, barring a long, multi-day power failure, I don't see a great problem - in an emergency, we could probably drive to a friend with a real phone :-)

At the time I write this, I have selected a service provider, and made a number of test calls using a soft phone from my computer.  The next step is to receive and attach my telephone adaptor, change over my number from ATT, and finally (the joyous part) cancel my phone service with Frontier / ATT.

My expected savings?  About $40 per month, or $480 per year.  AND - I get cheap international calling too (4 cents to Russia, good quality). Not bad.  Once I get the final setup working, I'll write a "here's how to do it" posting, for easy reference by friends.

!!!
What ARE these small people doing in my house, and why are they calling me Papa??

Mail order in America
Since a great number of Americans shop online these days, the competitive pressure to deliver products cheaply and efficiently is quite high. It is considered "typical" to order a product on Monday, and have it arrive by Thursday, for example. But today, we have a rare extreme example.

Since we now have kids, we need to figure out how to carry all of our "stuff" when we go on longer car trips. G and I debated many solutions, and at least one of the cheaper ones was to supplement the car's storage with a waterproof, soft-sided roof carrier.

I called one vendor that sold this product (in Seattle, Washington), explained that we needed it by this weekend, and asked if they could guarantee it by Friday. They indicated they could, and could even meet this with their standard "ground" shipping, which is free (since the product cost just over $100). With this assurance, I ordered the carrier from their web site just before noon on Monday.

Well, I just received the tracking information, and it is rather amazing - it is going to be delivered today (Tuesday). Here is the tracking information:

Recorded activity for UPS tracking number 1Z58FV860342192663:

Date	Time	Location	Activity
8/19/2008	6:39:00 AM	HENRIETTA, NY, US	OUT FOR DELIVERY
8/19/2008	6:28:00 AM	HENRIETTA, NY, US	ARRIVAL SCAN
8/19/2008	4:16:00 AM	E. SYRACUSE, NY, US	DEPARTURE SCAN
8/19/2008	1:50:00 AM	E. SYRACUSE, NY, US	LOCATION SCAN
8/19/2008	12:33:00 AM	E. SYRACUSE, NY, US	ARRIVAL SCAN
8/18/2008	8:58:00 PM	WILLIAMSPORT, PA, US	DEPARTURE SCAN
8/18/2008	8:24:00 PM	WILLIAMSPORT, PA, US	ORIGIN SCAN
8/18/2008	5:05:53 PM	, , US	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Another great XKCD post

Just couldn't stop laughing about this...

Snow in August!

It's true, it's true! This evening we were driving back from the yacht club through an incredible cloudscape. It was about 8 pm - the sun was setting, to a largely clear sky in the west in sharp contrast to the other horizons. To the north, huge, towering clouds had formed in the sky, with white tops and blue-gray flat bottoms. Below the bottoms of some you could see slanted shapes of gray stream to the ground - intense rain showers. Lightning could be seen in many directions off in the distance. The combination of the reddish-warm sunlight to the great grey clouds was eerie and surreal.

When we drove to the top of the hill approaching Victor, I felt disoriented, although I could not at first discern why. Everything seemed normal, yet not normal. Then it struck me - those white piles in the ditches on each side of the road were SNOW! Not just here and there - continuously, with patches of white also seen in much of the grass. After we descended into Victor village, it was gone again, left as only a memory (or was it an illusion?)

Of course it must have been fine hale from one of those storms we watched at a distance as we drove to the north. But, if for only a minute or so, I had the strongest urge to stop the car and dance -- dance for the snow. The girls got it too - they had already started singing a loud song - снег идёт! снег идёт!

Home for almost a week

Well, its been 5+ days since the kids arrived home, and so far things are going quite well. They both seem very happy with the house, and enjoy racing around, climbing staircases, playing with light switches and finding all the nooks and crannies. Vika absolutely loves both dogs. Diana likes Anya and has a love-fear relationship with Tango. She loves him when he is behaving, but doesn't like being chased - this scares her. We try to explain that if she doesn't run (especially on all fours!) and make girl giggly scared elated squeaky noises, Tango will not consider her a big animated chew toy, run after her and grab onto her clothing for a game of tug.

Now home, much of the idle time activity has changed from coloring books to the doll house, as well as playing with the dogs. Still, we find as parents we are listening to when it is too quiet - that's when the trouble begins for sure!

And then there is food - it is absolutely amazing how much food a small, 48 pound kid can eat. I sometimes wonder if she eats 2% of her body mass every day! Bottomless pit. Well, as we say with Tango - kids are but little walking chemical factories, that change food into kid (OK, and some waste products).

Only one major meltdown so far, and I don't have to tell anyone who. Diana tends to, err, be a bit defiant at times, especially to "come here" requests. To her, this is a big game, filled with giggling, and she KNOWS we don't enjoy said game. When this happens, the poor parent is given two choices - ignore it, or go and get her. And if you get her, you better hold on, 'cause if you let go she'll run away (and lock a few doors, or crawl under the bed, and increase her mass several fold). Its soft of like getting a kid attached to a large rubber band that leads, oh, under the crawl space somewhere - let go and zzzzzzip plop - she is gone. And no, we're not into just walloping her, tempting as it may be (we leave that to her sister, ha ha).

If, after returning said kid to where she was supposed to come in the first place, you want her to stay there, you start the wrestling match. Per the attachment books (we don't know if there is an attachment problem, or if she's just being a 6 year old - remember, we're clueless on anyone younger than 17 years old!), we hold her tight and close to us ("a "time in"), until she stops squirming....

.... or so the theory goes. In the past, we always gave up in the end. This time we decided to see what happens when we persist. Well, we got about a 15 minute squirmally wormally session, and then (possibly triggered by carrying her to her bed for a much-needed afternoon nap), she added in the crying rinse cycle with occasional punctuations of nose blowing for creative effect. After about 30+ minutes of this (the entire time we are talking to her, reassuring her we love her, etc), G finally put her in a shallow warm bathtub (cloths and all). She washed her, then toweled her down for 30 minutes, etc - she cried some more, then finally quieted down. Since the whole thing was about "if you will be still for 3 minutes in my arms, Chuck will take you to the park", I then did just that - almost 2 hours after our original planned departure.

Today we went to the lake. While I raced four races, the kids swam much of the time, until they are legitimate blue-lipped kids (yes, it really happens). They both loved it. Normal kids for the afternoon.

Next adventure, due this week - trying to formally TEACH them something!

The need for routine
One of the more recurrent themes you hear when you read about adopting kids that have spent time in an orphanage is the need to maintain routine. And, living in a foreign city with a random schedule revolving around embassy interviews, etc, we have not been doing a very good job.

It is said that kids have clocks in their stomachs. Of this we have a mixed experience, but something happened the other day that was funny at the time and so worth relating.

It was Friday, and our fixed schedule was to have an interview at the US Embassy at 2 pm. The kids were up by 9:30 (our standard time right now, they need lots of sleep and we need C&G time), and we ate breakfast (zaftrak) at around 10. We then at an early lunch for us at 12:30 pm, instead of our normal 2:30 pm. We went to our interview, which took longer than expected, getting out at around 3:30. From there we proceeded with out plan, and arrived at the Moscow Zoo around 4. Here we wandered around (complete with ice cream at 5:30), getting out at 7:30 or so. Our "normal" dinner time has been around 8:30, and we had nothing prepared, so for dinner we opted for street food, which in was pizza and juice in this case. We then did the Metro and walked home, arriving around 8:30. Diana set the table for breakfast the next day (she specifically said zaftrak), and we then proceeded to bathe the kids and watch the second half of a movie. Then time for bed - 10:00, about our standard bedtime. We told them the equivelent of "ok kids, time to get into bed", and we got an surprised face on Vika, who looked seriously at Mom and said, in Russian, "A, uzhin?", which literally translates to "but.... Dinner?". So dinner it was! The kids ate PILES of leftovers, and then slept like rocks.

Impressions of the kids

Both Vika and Diana have very different personalities. True, not knowing Russian, I am a bit challenged in determining their exact nature, but the trend seems clear.

Diana, at six+ years old, is not only the most curious of the two, but is also what parents nicely call "a bundle of energy" - someone whose "child care kit" may have to contain a leash, horse blinders and perhaps some duct tape. She is always getting into trouble, taunting and occasionally defying us, but is very sweet. She is really into sharing food (learned at the orphanage?), and will take anything she is given and make sure everyone has a share (if they want it or not). She is continually talking to either herself or someone else, and is by far the most outgoing of the two.

Vika, at 10+ years old, is a considerably quieter, more reserved girl. She has had a long, hard life, and it shows. Shy yes, but very warm and kindhearted. She looks out for her younger sister, is rarely defiant (that will come, we're sure!), and is clearly trying to make sense of this whole experience she is having. A rather small kid, she doesn't fit in with the 10 year-olds, yet in a few other ways, is older than her years, having to care for all of her siblings since an early age. Vika is a child we are going to have to love, love lots, teach, and watch her grow into her age. She is an easy child to love, though, and we look forward to it.

There are some interesting surprises we have had as a result of their orphanage training. First, for both kiddos, everything has its place, and there is a strong concept of putting things away after they are done with them. They also automatically make their beds after waking up (how long will THAT last), and recently, after being taught to set the table, Diana just started insisting that the table be set for breakfast the next day before going to bed.

Welcome to our family, Vika and Diana!

Back online - now with kids to distract me

OK, a long time has passed since last posting, but it was due to not being able to get online. Here's what's been happening:

Since we left our heroes (ha ha), we were waiting for court -- in the end, everything went according to plan. It is an interesting, albeit somewhat repetitive process. The proceedings take place over two days, and are conducted in Russian, of course, with a simultaneous translator tell us what is being said and translating our responses. The first day is a hearing between the judge, ourselves, our interpreter, lawyer, and representatives of the Ministry of Education and the two orphanages. For most of this session, the judge asks each of us questions, which we then answer. They are pretty standard ones, and we are briefed with the "proper" answers. But still, like any test, not knowing all the questions, and standing in a formal court setting can unnerve anyone - and we were unnerved. Several of the questions we were asked in the 1 1/2 hour session were:
Why are you choosing to adopt kids? Why not adopt from the US? Why Russia - what's with that?
What rights will the children have once adopted?
Do you get paid by your government to adopt the kids?
Are you adopting them to harvest their organs (just kidding... )
Your kids will certainly misbehave. How do you intend to discipline them? Do you believe in physical punishment?
What religion will you raise them (if any)? What if they want to go to the Russian Orthodox church? (I got to field this one...)
What is your understanding of the physical and mental condition of these kids?
How will you school them? What is the plan?
Does the school have special classes for kids who don't speak Russian?
Does the school provide psychologist and speech therapy?
The second day was just like the first, except this time the judge wore formal black robes, and a "prosecutor" and several other representatives were added behind us. Vika come to the courthouse because she was given the option to see us, but was not allowed in the courtroom. We started with the same question session (many of the same questions, plus some new ones), cross examinations, and then reports and cross examinations from each of the representatives. Each told their own story about their impressions of our qualifications, interactions with the kids, and recommendations. Luckily for us, everyone recommended the granting of the adoption as being in the kids best interest. Finally, there was a long summary by the judge of each of the 162 pages of our court dossier (painfully compiled by myself in the last three months) - complete with interpretation. This was then followed by a short dismissal, a nervous 10 minute wait, and then the ruling by the judge to sustain the adoption. YaY!

This is followed by a mandatory 10 day waiting period. At first we thought this was a period during which others could protest the adoption, but we were misinformed. Instead, it is a period during which we were allowed to change our minds. Since we didn't go through all this for nothing, we did not intend to do so (although we joked about it a dozen or so times). No, for us the 10 day period was a great chance to visit the rest of our family, i.e. our students, in Novgorod. So, we flew from Stavropol to Moscow, then took an overnight train from there to Novgorod. Here we visited Masha and Nina for four days, and then took the bus to Okulovka (an area rather like the Adirondacks, without the high mountains), where Natasha's family was vacationing in a rented cottage. There we stayed for four more days of good relaxation and visiting. After a Saturday midnight train departure, we slept until the train arrived in Moscow at 4:20 am on Sunday morning.

What a pain - tonce the train arrives in the wee hours of the morning (although the sun was rising in this high-latitude location), you can't sleep "extra" on the train, and the Metro doesn't open until 6 am. So you wander around dazed and confused. Eventually the metro opened, and we we went to Lera's - Lera and Alexander have been very kind and lent us their apartment! There we slept, stocked the 'fridge (although Lera had already left it stocked, as it happens) then got on a plane back to Stavropol.

Monday was gotcha day. It started out like any of the other 6 days when we visited. Our driver arrived at 9:30 am, and we started the hour-long drive to Konstantinofskya, where Vika's orphanage was. We had a standard visit, but this time there was a difference - when we got in the van to leave, Vika got to follow us! Happy Vika! From there we drove back to Stavropol where we picked up Diana. Then, a delivery to our hotel and there we were - instant parents! So we started our life, and the next day did paperwork in Stavropol - getting birth certificates and passports for the kids. (we already had airline tickets).

The next morning we left early to fly to Moscow - the kids first airplane flight, very exciting. We then moved into Lera's apartment, and began our temporary life for the following week. I won't waste words on a day-to-day chronology. In general there are four paperwork steps to accomplish - first, a medical exam for the kids (their third since admission to the orphanage) , second, submission of documents to the US embassy, third, an "interview" the following day at same embassy (which gets us formal kid citizenship on US landing permission and a travel visa) and a final step where the kids are registered in the Russian consulate (since they are also Russian citizens, and will be for life).

When we were in the US embassy awaiting our interview, there were probably 10 other adoptive families waiting the same day. And sure enough, it is true - most everyone adopts 18 month old infants (and of those mostly boys) - we were the only parents with older kids.

Sure, there are some very good reasons to adopt infants. But with older adoptive kids, you get some interesting fun which is really enjoyable. Since most of the life experiences we take for granted are totally new to both Diana and Vika, we sort of get our first 5 years of parenthood (so far without the diapers - FEATURE), in concentrated form in a week. Let's see, here is a very partial list of new "first" things, in approximate order: Elevator, air conditioning, pedestrian underpass, grocery store, airplane, loft beds, computers, escalator, trains, metro, zoo, shopping malls, tall buildings with windows (looking out over Moscow), etc. The moments of such discovery are priceless, as I'm sure any parent of small children can attest.

What's been happening for the last 6 months....

Well, here I sit in a hotel room in Stavropol, Russia - and on my second visit to Stavropol in three months. In January, I didn't even know there was such a city, and only vaguely knew about exactly where the region it is located in (the Caucasus) could be found. A lot has happened in these last six months. In some ways, you could say less has happened, if you consider "happening" to be activity from a variety of areas. But in one area specifically, there has been a frenzy of focused, obsessive activity.

Adoption. Ten years ago we would have never considered it, and would not even be capable of saying the word. Five years ago we briefly discussed the topic and quickly wrote it off as too risky a thing to even consider. Early this January, we both found ourselves joking about it with our friends - "Oh yeah, and Chuck wonders when the ten-year old is going to show up" - and then comparing notes and (totally surprisingly to both of us) agreeing to do it. What happened in between?

Well, you could say (in order) Natasha, Alicia, Tanya, Tasha, Masha and Nina happened. These people, all from a different country (Russia) and the same region (Novgorod), enriched our lives, taught us to love, taught us to learn and caused us to look at ourselves in ways we never would have guessed. They form the core of our family, and make us feel soooo very rich to know them. Today, they out there, building their lives, each in their own special way and phase of life. It is an awesome thing to watch happen.

The strength this whole experience as well as our becoming more willing to leave "the comfort zone" has given us is the faith to try being "real" parents to two young girls, from the same country, same culture, but a very different background. In two weeks, we will be parents to Diana, a 6 1/2 year of pile of energy, and Vika, a quiet 10 1/2 year old ready to build a new life with us. May the collective strength of the universe and whatever else is out there help us do our job well.

I will save everyone the boring logistics on doing an international adoption. Not only is it not for the feint of heart, it is a tremendous, time consuming hassle that words cannot possibly describe and few who have not been involved in adoption can appreciate. After doing our research for a month, we applied to a program in the end of January, and this began the paperwork. After literally 2 months of continuous paperwork, interviews and hassles, we received our first referral (well really the second, but we won't go there), and prepared to travel to meet these girls in mid-April. We then travels, visited each three times, and accepted the referrals. Then back to another 6 weeks of paperwork and several weeks of further waiting before we were given a "court date" - this is where things get serious.

Before the first trip was taken, the adoption process seemed almost a theoretical, disassociated thing - lot of work, reading, researching and fright from the possible outcomes. Then you see the girls, and the fright is replaced with elation and a different sort of fear - how can we possibly get our lives into shape and make a convincing family with a convincing home and traditions?

Then you finally complete that final dossier - and wait, and wait, and wait. They say this is the hardest of all, and sure enough there is truth to it. You literally do not know if you will be called in a week, in 4 months (there's that feared "summer vacation" problem, where Russia disappears during mid-July to August), or never if Russia were to decide stop doing external adoption at all. You worry about things, but at least to me it was date and program related worry.

Then you get that court date (in our case, we got about 13 days notice, about average). Suddenly, after arranging the tickets and last minute paperwork, you are really for the first time faced with near-certainty, that when you return from your trip, nothing will be the same again. Never. Its a feeling a bit like a roller coaster - you look at it, and decide to try it. You then stand in a boring line for a while. Then you finally start climbing the last flight of stairs to the top, and realize that once this thing takes off, you can yell all you want, but the ride will not stop. You just have to have faith that you will survive in one piece.

That's were we are about now as I write this.

Today we visited the kids for the first time since seeing them two months ago. They trusted we would return after those visits long ago, and were relieved and happy when they saw our smiling faces. They trusted us, now it is time for us to trust ourselves, and embrace their happy faces and hopes. We are now happy but scared parents-to-be. Tomorrow will be our first of two court days. That's the point in the ride where they have let you onto the ride platform and wait for the next roller-coaster cars to arrive. Then a ten day waiting period (mandatory wait), the judge declares them yours, and you're off.

Whhhhheeeeeeee!!!!

WARM!

Today is one of those days where the world forgets that it is January, and we get several days of Spring weather. All the snow melts, the world is wet, and then it starts to dry. Result - today is a wonderful day! The temperature is about 20C (68F) out today, and I just got back from a walk without jacket. Last night I ran with lightweight tights, and I was TOO HOT. Not bad for the 7th of January!

Of course, all things will come to an end. But that is OK, mini-vacation had, now back to reality.

The hot tub is fixed! The hot tub is fixed!

This may not be exciting for anyone else, but for me it is! As many know, I love my Softub hot tub. But over a year ago, it broke - the motor stopped working.

Well, after several lesser fix attempts (involving two filling / empty cycles in the process), I finally replaced the motor / pump assembly. Then put it back together, filled it with water, and.... it slowly leaked :-(

Next I replaced the gaskets - filled it back up, and it still leaked.

Finally I consented to having the hot tub store replace the liner - it apparently had grown old and developed some microcracks. I got it back about 2 weeks ago, filled it, and..... the motor didn't work!

OK, drained it, diagnosed it, and found that it was a problem with the ground-fault breaker. Fixed that, filled it and now it is fine (or at least as best I can tell).

Yesterday I used it 3 times! Happy Chuck! Happy ending!

Photographic color rendition under varying illuminants

Sorry once again for the non-fun blog. This will stop soon, promise...

I always wanted to do this experiment - take a sample, photograph it under several different light sources, correct the white balance for each, and once this is done, see how much different things look in the corrected photographs. From a practical standpoint, this translates to "how important is it to use daylight to photograph art or a still life?".

I am going to skip the discussion of color rendering index (CRI) and other related topics - if you don't know what they are, you probably aren't reading this anyways... Some day I'll perhaps provide at least some references. Meanwhile, on to the experiment.

G, my watercolor paint swatch obsessive wife, unwittingly provided a color test target - full strength tube watercolor paints. My goal was to take three nearly identical photographs, varying only the light source.

The first light source is the reference standard - mid-day daylight, in this case natural light under a cloudy sky (no direct sunlight of the target). The second source was a compact fluorescent light fixture (sorry, don't know the model) with a specified 5000K, 91 CRI 70W bulb (actually three 23 w. bulbs combined). Finally, I used a quartz halogen source. For this, I started with a halogen flood lamp, but didn't like the light distribution, instead using two 75w halogen floor lamp fixtures.





The targets were photographed using a Nikon D80 at f8, 50 mm, using Nikon RAW mode. Once the images were captured, Adobe Camera Raw was used to convert the images to Adobe RGB files. The following procedure was used for each image:

• Set the white balance using the white center of the color wheel. This is done by clicking in ACR with the white balance eyedropper.


• Set the exposure (essentially adjusting the histogram) as follows: view in threshold mode, and advance exposure until the first sign of clipping (this always happened in the oranges, but the paper white, interestingly enough...), then back off .05 exposure units.


• Rotate and crop the images so they are approximately the same size.


• Specify a conversion to Adobe RBG (which provides a wider gamut than sRGB). Then, for web viewing, (the picures you will be viewing below), also convert a copy to sRGB mode and save as a separate .jpg.

No other manipulation was done in Photoshop, save adding a text layer to identify the light source. So, here are the three resultant pictures:

First, the reference daylight picture:


Next, the Halogen picture:

Finally, the High color rendering index Fluorescent lamp:

Analysis - lots of thoughts, lots of things to say, no hard conclusions - but those will have to wait for a bit, as it is now time for bed....