our little family

Photos, tall tales, handicrafts, obsessions and little vignettes from my family and other animals.

Last Exile - Fam, The Silver Wing

good reads 2012

So this was the year I got totally enraptured by HTML5, CSS3 and modern JavaScript. I had a huge technical book habit. Plus I'm in grad school. When I wasn't soaking up new client-side coding skills, I relaxed by watching anime. Here's the big-big jumbo list of my favorites from 2012.

American Born Chinese cover

good reads 2011

I soaked up a lot of content this year. Anime, fiction, technical books, graphic novels. This may be the longest “good reads of” article I've done yet, and the irony is that this is just the best stuff. Hope you find something you like here.

Mikey the lolcat

fifteen minutes of fame

Early this year, my car and I had an adventure and I was famous for fifteen minutes. Maybe sixteen if you count the Slate article. Don't worry, it didn't go to my head.

Vagabond manga cover

good reads 2010

Ready for a big list of good stuff? My favorite books, manga, and anime of the year 2010 follow. Let's start 2011 out right by being honest and putting the anime right up on top. Also true to life is the slightly-behind-schedule delivery of the 2010 list in early 2011. But don't worry, I should have the 2011 list done no later than 2013...

Anathem audiobook cover

good reads 2009

This last year was pretty intense and technical for me professionally. I mostly read for pleasure or watched anime in odd moments to sort of turn my brain off. But hey, even people with their brains turned off need quality entertainment, right? In keeping with my year-end tradition, here are noteworthy fiction, non-fiction, manga and anime titles that I've read or watched during 2009.

The Arrival graphic novel cover

good reads 2008

Seems like a good tradition to share some of the great books and other mind-filling content I've run across this year. Here are my favorite fiction, non-fiction, manga and anime titles that I've read or watched during 2008. All have links to Amazon, but many can also be found at the library.

deck chairs in the snow

big snow 2008

Bing Crosby attacks Seattle! All you hardy winter folk in Finland and Wisconsin will laugh, but a couple weeks of snow in a hilly city like Seattle is no picnic. Articulated buses jackknife in the middle of the road. Snowplows squarsh it all down so you can spin around faster. And I'm not kidding — they don't salt the roads because the salt might get into Puget Sound (a large body of salt water connected to the Pacific Ocean). A few snapshots from our winter wonderland this year.

Lain anime image

1280x800 anime wallpapers

Reader M wrote and requested anime wallpapers in a more convenient snack-size serving. Happy to oblige. Some of these will be familiar, others are new here.

In The Night Garden cover

good reads of 2007

I'm a big reader. Here are my favorite fiction, design, business, and manga titles that I've read over the last year.

Poppy the cat

remembering Poppy

We were first introduced to Poppy when she leaped on me from a low tree branch at the breeder's. She came home with us that night, mewing all the way from her box on Cheri's lap. Remembering Poppy, our sweetest little kitty friend.

xxxHolic manga

xxxHolic manga wallpapers

Another great manga series by CLAMP is xxxHolic (called simply “Holic” by most readers). This series crosses over with Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, also by CLAMP. The wallpapers here were created from scans that I've cleaned them up. I removed text, eliminated gaps, and repainted as needed, but mostly tried to stay faithful to the originals. I'm more of a technician and a fan than an artist here. All are at 2560 x 1024 dual-screen resolution.

Tsubasa manga

Tsubasa (and friends) wallpapers

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle by CLAMP is my current favorite manga. The Tsubasa and other wallpapers here were created from scans of book covers, magazines or other illustrations. I've cleaned them up, removed text, eliminated page gaps, and repainted as needed, but mostly tried to stay faithful to the originals. All are at 2560 x 1024 resolution for dual screens.

Eureka 7 anime

more anime and manga wallpapers

Here's another batch of dual-screen anime wallpapers, all at 2560 x 1024 resolution. I scanned most of these from magazines or manga, then cropped and retouched in Photoshop. Seems to be my hobby lately. Thanks to all the kind people who dropped a line to say you enjoyed my earlier wallpapers — I think you might like some of these even better.

Ah My Goddess manga

anime wallpapers

I'm a pretty serious anime (animation) and manga (graphic novel) fan lately. I enjoy looking at these images while I work — maybe you'll like them too. I work on dual-monitor systems, so all wallpaper images on this page are 2560 x 1024. Nothing all that fancy or creative on my part, just scans from kind websites or magazines cleaned up and brightened a little bit. Enjoy!

Miles in the treehouse

treehouse

I just stumbled across this fun picture of Miles in our treehouse and Pal down below keeping an eye on him.

planting a tree

plant a tree

We planted several fruit trees at our other house, but the one we loved the best was a Prunus salicina “Elephant Heart”, more commonly known as an Elephant Heart Plum. The tree was a cloud of pure white blossoms in Spring, filled out during Summer, and towards the end of the season delivered the most sweet, delicious plums we've ever eaten. Here is how we planted our new little Elephant Heart Plum tree.

miniature figure that Miles painted

miniature soldiers

Miles and his friends are serious fanciers of miniature military figures. Ancient Rome, Warhammer 40,000, Lord of the Rings, they take them all seriously, customize and paint them with great care.

giant panda at the zoo

a day at the zoo

Our little family took a vacation trip to San Diego earlier this Spring. It was sunny and warm, and we all enjoyed the break. We tore ourselves away from the pool long enough for a fun day trip to the zoo. Miles brought along his camera.

papyrus painting

papyrus art by kids

Cheri volunteers in the Shoreline schools as an art teacher. One of the projects her kids did last year was to make Egyptian paintings on papyrus. They made their own papyrus too. I thought they looked very impressive and scanned a bunch of them.