The Big DumpTruck

Heavy Sticky Snow Day, originally uploaded by Big DumpTruck.

As much as I enjoy getting the 6am "there's no school today" phone call, this one was horrible to clean up. 1 hour to clean the driveway WITH the snowblower. Why yes, there are days that I regret not buying a truck with a plow, why do you ask?

Labels: flickr, photos, snow, weather

I have owned the bigdumptruck.com domain for 13+ years now. I use BigDumptruck as my user name on a lot of sites (including twitter and flickr). I also collect Department 56 Christmas buildings (I started with the Dickens Village, supplemented with a couple of New England Village houses but for the past 4 years or so I've become obsessed with the North Pole Series - the fun Santa's Village buildings.

Last year I spotted a must-have: Dumpy's Toy Trucks. It's a dumptruck, tilted back! See the wheels and the cab and the hood?! It's awesome, and was my choice for the house I could buy this year. I don't think they'll come out with one any time soon that I like as much (or is as appropriate for me).

Labels: dumptruck, flickr, holidays, photos

My son had a sleepover here last night and all he got me was a short video movie he made with his friend. The file is stored over at flickr (they do video now too) and I think MAYBE you can download this one to watch on your iPod. I'm not sure if it will let everyone, or just me because it's in my account. Actually, can someone let me know? If you can't, I can try to upload the M4V version here with a link. Because I know you want to watch this daily on your iPod or iPhone. I know I do.

Labels: flickr, junior, outer space, video

I was going to slow down on blogging about the photos I've added to my photostream over at Flickr, but the photo above has zoomed up higher in Flickr's "Explore" than anything I've ever done. It hit #26 for July 6th, and I am just so pleased! It certainly makes me want to take more gumball photos.

The problem is that we keep eating the raw materials.

Labels: flickr, gumballs, photos

The ants arrived in the mail yesterday. Mr. Dump received them, and the first thing he saw when he opened the package was the following warning:
CAUTION! DO NOT TOUCH THESE ANTS
The harvester ant can inflict a painful sting that normally causes local swelling and itching. If you are stung apply ice to the area until the pain subsides. If symptoms persist see your physician. Persons who are allergic to stinging insects should be especially careful as they may need emergency medical attention in the event of an allergic reaction.

Oh my God. Killer ants are in my house. Did you ever see the movie Phase IV? That's what I'm picturing. Mr. Dump IS allergic to bee stings, so I'm pretty sure he was ever so happy to have received this package today. My fear is that knowing how clumsy Junior is, this container is going to hit the floor, smash open, and the ants will fly onto our faces. Or something like that. I can tell you, if something did happen (the lid seems REALLY secure) I wouldn't be trying to wrangle them back into the container. Can you say "Look out! It's a shoe!" little ant people?

When I have more time, I'll have to see if I can get a close up of one of them for you. They look pretty fierce. They were completely creeping me out last night because They hadn't started tunneling yet, so they were freaking out trying to climb the sides and there's something unsettling with a bunch of ants walking around on top of something as opposed to ants making tunnels and stuff. That is definitely less creepy to me.

Labels: ants, flickr, holy_crap, photos

I can't promise that if you go to Target and buy their exclusive red Peeps that you will have as much luck as I did dinosaur hunting, but you never know.

Labels: flickr, holidays, photos, Target

I had to stop by and see my friend Peg today, and we made arrangements to meet up at Hampton Beach. I of course took at least a couple of photos. This is one that I like just because I'm sort of stunned by how close the Church is to the water slides. As in practically touching. Maybe parents bribe their kids to go to Mass in the summer?

Feel free to check out the whole set on Flickr.

Labels: beach, flickr, humor, winter

As seen at Hampton Beach today. I'm glad Mr. Dump wasn't there to see it. He would have needed medication.

Labels: beach, dunkin, flickr

I just created a Leominster MA group on Flickr. There was already a Fitchburg group. I'm going to make the description that it's not just for photos of Leominster, but for photos from photographers from Leominster.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/leominster/

I'm going to try to go out and take a few photos today. I am really going to try to take advantage of flickr and the communities. I've already learned a couple of things from the Canon Rebel XTi group I joined.

Labels: flickr, Leominster, photos