Lake Scranton

leaf embrace for efatima
Uploaded by gailontheweb.

fiery sunset
Uploaded by gailontheweb.

I walked around Lake Scranton for the first time today. It's fairly close to our house, with an asphalted path around its four or so miles by the water's edge. It's owned by the Pennsylvania Gas and Water Company, and the gates are closed from dusk to dawn. Since it's a water reservoir, there's no fishing or recreation in the lake, and from what I've read, it has over 200 species of wildflowers and is home to nearly all of Pennsylvania's native trees.

We also saw our share of fowl such as geese and ducks, and the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed greedy bugger called the squirrel. The lake is adjacent to a posh development (no, that doesn't include our house), so the squirrels are fed gourmet nuts. You can see by the photo that this squirrel is far from starving.

More photos here: Lake Scranton

After huffing it around the lake -- with plenty of photo op stops, of course -- we went for dinner with David's mom. It was a case of life imitating nature: we followed the squirrel's example and stuffed ourselves silly, to the bulging point. For me, that would be with this obscenely large platter of Irish fare to celebrate St. Patrick's Day weekend -- corned beef brisket on cabbage, with boiled carrots and potatoes. It's still officially winter, isn't it?

The three of us have been getting into regular Sunday games of Scrabble, and I've taken to bringing my PowerBook along with me to show David's mom our weekly haul of photos and video while we wait our turn to play. I shoot digital regularly, and we usually go flying or on a road trip on Saturday, so there's always plenty to view. David's mom uses WebTV to view our online journals and Flickr photos, but it can only translate HTML and graphics, not Flash or anything that requires cookies. Thus, Sunday has turned into Multimedia Day. The last few Sundays we also went to see "Cats" the musical and wedding expos, so it's good to just play Scrabble this time around.

(I'm thinking of getting WebTV for my dad, since he's quite intimidated by the computer my brother set up for him, and missing out on a pictorial version of my life here. Somehow, I think we should give up the idea of him learning anytime soon. He just turned 68. I did show him the basics, put shortcuts on his desktop, and set him up with an internet connection and all that, but I think he finds it more hassle than it's worth.)

Me: "So Dad, have you been on your computer lately?"
My dad: "No, I tried to do something and it told me I did something very wrong."
Me: "Oh? What did it tell you?"
My dad: "I don't know what happened. I don't know what I did."
Me, persisting: "But what did the screen say?"
My dad: "It told me I did something illegal. I didn't!"
Me, bewildered: "Illegal?"
My dad, getting worked up: "Yes! Illegal! The screen was blue and said I performed an operation that was illegal. I couldn't do anything to make it go away, so I just shut it off!"

Great. My dad doesn't want to learn how to use a computer because Bill Gates told him he committed a crime. Now he's all paranoid. Thanks Bill.