Christmas 2024


While they were there,
the time came for the baby to be born,
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.

Greetings, friends and family,

We had a good year in 2024, doing some travel, a bit of drone flying, some art, and a number of different jobs and activities at our church. Since a video is worth a thousand pictures, we have five of those new in 2024.

Dinner with Kyle and Manya in LA In February we joined an American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) tour of Hawaii's volcanoes and geology. We went to LA first, and were able to have dinner with niece Manya and her new husband Kyle, who reside there. Our plane to Hawaii was canceled, but we finally made it there, a day late. We spent most of our time looking at the natural wonders of Hawaii rather than the beaches and gift shops. I flew the drone for a few days as you can see from the video, which also has a great sound track from Karen Green. (Appropriately enough, four of the people on the tour actually can be heard singing on the sound track recording, including Laura and me. If we're properly blending, it shouldn't be easy to pick us out.) Watch the video with a good-sized 4K monitor or TV if you can, and listen to the music with speakers or headphones.


Unfortunately, the weather was unusually windy, and when the drone encountered its first volcano, the winds shifted and it was unable to return. It became a bit of a sacrifice to the volcano goddess Pele, as it were. That's the first time that has happened to me; I blame climate change. It's not a big problem to lose a drone here at home, but when you're on an island, if they don't have any in stock near where you're going to be traveling, you're out of luck! All was not lost since we had our handy Pixel phones which also shoot 4K video. Check out the second video to get a look at the rest of the trip shot from the ground! That Hawaii scenery still looks pretty good, and this is a slower, more peaceful take. It also has the volcanoes that the drone did not survive to record.


The chickens and peacocks are something to see in Hawaii, especially on the island of Kauai. See some of their antics in the predator-free islands in the third short video.


Around home we often walk to Great Meadows Wildlife Refuge, usually home to a few great blue herons as well as sundry other birds and critters. This April we were surprised to see a large group of mute swans seemingly taking over the refuge from the herons! They are largely herbivorous while the herons are largely carnivorous, so maybe they can coexist, but we didn't see any blue herons around! The swans were diligently nest-building, so they seem to have acquired real estate in the refuge and perhaps have plans to stay for a while.


Aurora in Bedford, MA Comet in Provincetown, MA

A number of things were happening in the skies in 2024; we didn't travel to see the total solar eclipse so that was partial here, but we did observe the aurora and the comet. In May the solar activity kicked up and we saw the aurora right in Bedford, MA. The picture shows the view from our neighbor's house (thanks, Ruth) looking right over our house. The colors were impressive, but it wasn't quite bright enough to give me any power from the solar panels! Laura and I were at the Cape in October for a few days, just in time to see the comet in a great location near the Provincetown Causeway.


Drone and sunset in Truro Batik rendition of Provincetown house We went to Cape Cod in July as usual, meeting up with many family members and some friends. We always get a few of those fantastic Cape sunsets, and shoot some pictures as well as some drone video. The kids are always up for some drone flying, and you can see the sunset and the drone in the picture at left. Laura continued to do some art, especially batik, and made a batik of some workers and a rather bright house near the Provincetown Library at right. (If you're interested in that one, it's too late as it sold at Gallery Twist.)


The 2023 American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) annual meeting was in Washington, DC, and Laura and I drove the Kia Niro EV down rather than flying, reducing our carbon footprint and taking a little more time to do it through Pennsylvania. Driving straight down the Eastern Seaboard isn't our favorite thing. It's always fun to see our friends and talk about science and Christianity. I gave a talk on Exploitation of Social Media by Disinformation Campaigns and if you click on the link and scroll down near the bottom you can find my name and click on "details" to read the abstract, listen to the audio, and see the charts, if you are interested. (They haven't put up the video of the talk yet, and I don't know if or when they will.) If you want a disinformation update, disinformation topics switched from Ukraine to the US election around the summer, and then switched back after the election. Also Pekka Kallioniemi released his excellent book Vatnik Soup, the ultimate guide to Russian disinformation, identifying the sources of a large part of it.

Coming back from the DC meeting we visited with our friends the Greers in the Lancaster area and our nephew Ian in Philadelphia. Drone flying around DC is prohibited, but we did fly it in Pennsylvania, as you can see in the video. I promise that I didn't do any drone flying in New Jersey on this trip, or after, so I can't be accused of contributing to the drone hysteria there!

Have a great 2025! We made it through the election, although I hear not everyone is happy about it. Try to avoid the covid (still here) and the bird flu (increasing?).

Tim (and for Laura)