Welcome to 2008!

Heron in Japanese Garden

When you give a cat some catnip...

This kitten decided to sit in the garden tools basket

After one sprig of catnip...
Sleep comes easily after the excitement

Beautiful weather phenomena

Here's a picture of a 22-degree halo that appeared yesterday as a cold front moved in.



Notice faint rainbow colors
Twenty-two degree halo

Trains and Graffiti

When completing the outer loop trail in the Arboretum I always climb over the small fence enclosing the center to go the train tracks right next door. Often there are trains standing there. The cars are usually brightly decorated with graffiti.

Solar energy at $1 a watt

"A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar has shipped its first solar panels — priced at $1 a watt. That's the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal. While other companies have been focusing their efforts on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, Nanosolar took a different approach. It focused on manufacturing. 'The company [has developed] a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.'" The outfit also happens to be backed by Google, a fact that's getting some attention at tech media sites.

Frosty Monday Morning

The first frost of the year snapped in overnight. Good thing I covered the peppers.


Garden Early Morning
Frost on grass
Sunrise
Frosty grass of bayou

Chanukah Pictures

Chanukah was delightful. On the eighth night, mom and I had a photo op. Mommy made sufganiyot twice. Hers are small balls reminiscent of donut holes but with a firm texture, glazed with powdered sugar after being fried in luscious olive oil. Here is a picture of the sufganiyot:



Sufganiyot

It's been a busy past month

This past November, I was really busy, mostly with SAT prep. My last Reasoning Test was on December 2nd. The math section wasn't as great as it could have been; panic overcame me on the last 20-minute section. However, the essay was better, and I anticipate paradoxically better scores on the Writing and Criticla Reading sections. But now it is all over. Freedom! I did not write about our high-school retreat, which was from SUnday, November 18, to Tuesday, November 20. We had a form of color war, i.e. 'Gender War'. I will upload some of the best pictures later this week, hopefully. They can also be found on Facebook, albeit in lower quality. Here is one album, and here and here. After the SAT, I downloaded a "Linux live distribution for penetration testing" called BackTrack 2. It has hundreds of tools for testers, including network surveillance tools, password and brute-force crackers, and much more. Get it Right here. Download the 690 MB distro and burn it to CD with Nero in Windows or just right-click to burn onto CD in Linux.

Back from Retreat

From Sunday to Tuesday this week I was at our high school retreat at Camp Cho-Yeh, Livingston, TX. It was truly my best retreat ever. I bonded with everyone like never before. Pictures are on Facebook, and here are the first day's pictures.

From the photo archive of Forward newspaper

Leo Tolstoy's daughter at the Tolstoy farm, 1927
Marc Chagall
Dalai Lama is listening to Rabbi Schahter Shalomi's explanation of Kaballah

Thanks to mother for going to exhibition at the JCC and photographing these photo prints.

The cats (8 year family association)

The garden in October

Meyer's Lemons
Red Zinnia
Young Edible Ornamental Sweet Peppers
Lemons
Eggplant flower

We call her Lemon Eyes

Lemon Eyes

Terabyte Thumb Drives Coming Soon

Sunday outing to Downtown Houston and Hermann Park

Sisters jump from a bench
Posing by a fountain
Tiger Swallowtail
Two ducks

First we went to Downtown Houston to photograph some law-related buildings for my father's new work website. The wind was sharp as we walked in an amusing park near which my dad used to work. A tiger swallowtail flitted around. In Hermann Park, E. and R. (sisters) rode on their scooters as the raucous ducks floated serenely.

Jeremiah Grossman gives talk on XSS vunerabilities.

Last Wednesday, my father and I attended a talk given by Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security, on the subject of Ten XSS (cross-site-scripting) vulnerabilities. It was held in a Microsoft suite in the same building as BMC Software. There were about 15 people there, all security specialists of Houston. Mr. Grossman gave a demo of some attack methods, which I videoed, and it is available here. His presentation is available on the OWASP Houston website.

Joost is great

I just tried out the free ad-supported TV application from Joost and it's great. They carefully insert small ads in the show one is watching, and it does not much detract from the viewer's experience. I discovered the world of documentary TV shows, and watched part of "Picante", from Terra, about the hot pepper. It was incredibly informative. You can also create your own favorite channels. Try it out.

Last month's Lunar Eclipse

Got out late



Due to interruptions in the way I get pictures on my computer, these pictures are coming on really late. However, they are still great. The eclipse began at around 4AM.

Trip to the Arboretum on September 30

The day was great, pleasantly stormy. The walk along the path was peaceful. When we arrived at the meadow, it was flowering. The pond was covered in lilies, too. We fed the hungry turtles bread, and they voraciously consumed it. We even caught three turtles: two medium-sized ones and one small one. They were happy to be released after being handled inquisitively and carefully, running with vigor off the jetty.

Some berry (inedible)
Small mushroom
The meadow
Ester and rebecca admire the pond
An inquisitive turtle
Captured turtle
View of the pond with an island in the middle
Turtle on a log
Flower with tiny pollinator
Banana spider
Posing butterfly
Butterfly
Another spider (10 feet above the path)
Serene woods
The pond