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 couldn't resist trying to get a shot of the full moon tonight. Click it to look at larger versions.

Labels: moon, photos, sky

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

I'm starting to post more photos to my photography website, Photo-Gnome.net. All photos on that site are actually for sale! You can order prints of anything on the site. If I see that I'm selling anything, maybe I'll pay for the upgrade at SmugMug so that I can actually make money off each sale.



This is a picture I took on the way to work this week. I've been driving up to Merrimack NH every day, and I take back roads through Lunenburg MA. I spotted this barn on Monday and knew I had to take my camera with me.

Labels: fall, photos

My son picked out a movie at Movie stop. I knew I wasn't going to like it because I've tried to watch it before, but really, there are two reasons this should be a good movie. 1: Mel Brooks can be funny. 2: Parodies amuse me.

However, the movie in question is Spaceballs and it's pretty much unwatchable. I say pretty much because every once in a while there is a line that in a funny movie would be fabulous. Like the line "What's the matter Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?"

Oh look, Mel Brooks showing off all his movies on VHS! Wait, there is a self-reference to the movie Spaceballs in the movie Spaceballs? I think some brain cells really and truly just exploded right now. Deep Hurting.

So to prevent extra pain from actually watching the movie, I think I finally got my new website running with a template I can live with, at least for now. Take a spin over to Photo-Gnome to see what I've been doing. Oh, and by the way, if you try to go there yourself, remember that someone else got the .com, I'm the .net (and the .info, but who is going to remember that, right?)

Labels: movies, photos, URL

Went horseback riding with my sister, her kids, their friend and my son. I knew they were going to have to give me a horse to fit my riding experience, so I picked this one. The kids all thought he was awesome. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me have this one. Instead I got something akin to a Clydesdale. I'm pretty sure Domino could have easily plowed the back 40. He knew he had an easy mark on his back and went out of his way to eat everything he saw. "Don't let him eat anything!" Oh, easy for you to say. Domino disagrees with you!

Labels: funny, photos, Vacation

I uploaded a handful of the photos I took yesterday while we were out and about looking for someplace with electricity who could sell us some coffee, preferably hot and in a cup with a lid. The pictures don't do the view justice, but it's the best I have to offer you, my adoring fans. Do me a favor and click on the link and at least look at a couple of the other ones so that I don't have to post them all here. You don't want that, do you?

I believe we were in the Sterling area when I took this one. There was a soul-crushing amount of ice on the trees in that town.

Labels: ice_storm, photos

I let another domain I owned lapse, but replaced it with a new one. So that's two I let go but one new one. No hosting required, it points to a subdirectory on my current hosting account. Lots of storage space = love.

http://www.photojody.com No "real" content yet, just a placeholder photo. I should do something about that, but I realized I don't own HTML editing software. D'oh!

Labels: photos, websites

I basically spent the long weekend taking photos and getting a brake job on the van. I preferred taking photos. Went with one kid and husband on Saturday, and other kid and his friend on Sunday and Monday. I will slowly fill my flickr profile with the best ones. Or the ones I feel like forcing on all of you.

I spent a long time today working on getting just the perfect photo of a swan floating on a little man-made pond. You know, he was a great model.

And then I got home, uploaded the files, looked at the swan photos...and realized it was plastic. People who knew much have thought I was a huge moron. Or maybe they did it on purpose to amuse themselves. Actually, I suspect they did it to try to keep geese away, and it appears to have worked. Still, would it have killed them to put up a sign that said "I don't care how much you really want a photo of our swans, they aren't real."

Labels: camera, kids, photos

It's never good to get an email from someone with only two words and a link in it, if the two words are "Uhhh, Jody?"

So I have no idea why this person has sent me a link to a Huffington Post article (originally published in 2007, republished Saturday), until I get about halfway down, and see, much to my amazement, my picture. A picture I modified using Paint Shop Pro 3.5 years ago, that to this day floats around the internet as an example of a bad makeup job. Even though it's not makeup, it was me playing with photo editing software. A photo that originally appeared here on the BDT on the day of my 40th birthday party, because I was wearing my birthday tiara.

Mr. Dump asked me if I was going to contact them for credit, and I said "Are you kidding me?" Here's the thing. That's not how I look. That's not real makeup, and I don't smoke. Do you think people will take the time to find that out? Do you think they will look at the original photo and the modified one and figure it all out? No, they'll think I'm Tammy-Faye-Courtney-Love LaFerriere. And that would be bad.

On the other hand, I find it INCREDIBLY amusing that a photo of me is used next to one of Reese Witherspoon on a hugely popular multi-national website. I hope people don't confuse us.

Labels: funny, me, photos

The thing about living in New England is that you're never really that far from the ocean. And if you've had to run an errand to the Apple Store in Salem NH, you're REALLY not that far from the ocean. So we took a detour out to Hampton Beach. It was fairly bustling, considering it's still the middle of May. There were plenty of people sitting on the beach, some in bathing suits, even though it wasn't all that warm. Perhaps they were visiting from Antarctica and considered it to be blistering hot?

We intended to park at the Hampton State Park and walk on the rocks, but apparently there was some kind of mega tow truck show or something. These are the tow trucks that you see pulling fire engines and dumptrucks, the kind that make you really wonder what kind of gas mileage they get. Anyhoo, they filled the ENTIRE parking lot, so we had to go down to the lots near the bathrooms and stuff.

At North beach there were a TON of people surfing. Not that there was anything too special about the waves, but it's been kind of crappy so I think people where just happy to get the heck out of the house.

I know I was!

Labels: beach, junior, photos

We rode to and from Junior's baseball game in Mr. Dump's car. He parks on the right side of the driveway. That means I have to get out of the car on the edge of the driveway near the holly bush. Tonight, the holly bush was alive with bumbly bees, the big fuzzy wuzzy ones. When I say alive, I mean the bush sounded like it was vibrating. Lots of buzzing. So I tried to be brave and take some bee pictures, which is relatively had to do at dusk, when you need to slow down the lens for the light, and the bees aren't standing still or posing where you want them to.

It also doesn't work as well when you don't have a macro lens. I'm going to make sure I have a macro lens in my basket over at Amazon. And if anyone wants me to take more bee photos for them, they can buy me a lens. See, it's easy!

Labels: photos

Saw this at the mall last night when I was running an errand. Hard to tell if it was coming or going, but I assume it's up for the Mother's Day crowd.

For the record, I do not want to go to a mall parking lot carnival for Mother's Day. Sure, I'm a fan of mall parking lot carnivals in general, but not for Mother's Day. Those are for Father's Day.

Labels: fun, holidays, photos, weather

My desk at home is next to a window, which if you know me, is practically a need, not a want. I love looking out the window. This morning I was rewarded with a trash truck ballet, in which two different trash trucks slid and skidded and basically had no control. Ya, it's slippery on my street. No sanding again, which is nice. Eventually the truck that slid past the end of my street was able to get itself turned around before the other one almost took out a small snow bank. Eventually they just parked the two trucks and all stood in the street talking, probably asking themselves if it was really worth it to come in to work this morning.

Photo evidence of the two trucks out my window.

Labels: driving, photos, weather

With NaNoWriMo over, I'm trying to catch up on all the other stuff I've been putting off. I have to do Christmas cards (maybe...I'm getting really bad about them) and our annual Christmas calendar (which requires a little more work than I've had time for).

I am also still going through all the Disney photos from October...slowly, ever so slowly.

Here's another one for you, because you've been patient. If you like this one, there are a few more like it over in my flickr photostream.

Labels: chores, Disney, photos

I am still going through the 900 or so photos we took when we were in Disney last month. It's slow going. I have picked few more to post on flickr, but this is my favorite one from the batch.

I would just like to point out that my family was basically trying to run their little feet off back to the hotel while I was attempting to take a decent photo of Spaceship Earth, my favorite "thing" in all of Walt Disney World. Sure, Cinderella's Castle is great, but if I could put Spaceship Earth in my front yard I would so do it. I think I'd need a bigger front yard, however.

Have I mentioned recently how much I absolutely love the lens I got (as a very early Christmas present) to take with me to Florida? It's fantastic. I love it. I wish I'd gotten it the day I got the camera.

Labels: Disney, photos, Vacation

Labels: award, Lego, Leominster, photos, Robots

After a long and winding ride home from New Hampshire today (the better to take pictures with, my pretty!) we stopped at the Playground in Lunenburg again, and got stuck in a brief downpour. At one point, it was raining on one side of the car but not on the other. Weather is really cool when it isn't trying to kill you.

I realized we should be able to see a rainbow and found it. And we were stunned to see that the darker one (which was so dark that in person you could actually see the violet, which I normally can't see) ended at....a gold tree. And as you can see by the photo, it's the only gold tree in our line of site.

Thank you, rainbow!

Labels: fun, photos

This afternoon I went to Gove Farm to see if they still had tomatoes. They are definitely out of corn for the year, but they still have squash, tomatoes, beans, etc. I was VERY VERY excited. They'll be open through the end of the month, and then the stand will be closed but they'll have a self-serve table (honor system, I assume) for as long as there are still veggies to pick.

I'm recovering from a bout of something or other that I ate yesterday, so I'm staying away from eating these today, but you can bet your butt I'll be having one of these beauties for lunch tomorrow!

Labels: food, photos

Earlier this summer we promised Junior we would rent a convertible and just drive it around for the day, thus getting that need to feel the wind in our hair and bugs in our teeth right out of our systems.

So Sunday we went up to the Manchester Airport and rented this Mustang for the day - total price approx. $125. (If you decide to do this near you, the new rules say you have to either have return flight information or a utility bill in order to use a debit card. Just FYI.)

We took the car over to Maine for the day - it was a big chilly at first, especially driving on the highway, but by the time we got to Kittery it really started warming up. And because we have a new TomTom navigation system, we decided to just drive on any road that looked interesting, knowing that we'd be able to plug in Jane (we call our TomTom the same thing my brother-in-law calls his - Jane is the voice they use) and she'd get us home no matter how "lost" we were. It really makes road trips MUCH more interesting. In fact, we took a road we'd never been on (route 103) and stumbled upon Fort McClary, a fantastic, fabulous find. See my flickr photostream for some cool shots taken at the Fort.

Labels: car, fun, photos, weekend

When we saw it raining with the sun out last night, Junior and I hopped in the van and rushed up to to a high, clear spot - in our neighborhood, that's the Orchard Hills Park parking lot. Sure enough, God wanted us to shop at Best Buy so badly he gave us a double rainbow leading us there.

Labels: photos, rain, rainbow, shopping

Okay, I'm not that bad. Well, I did throw my arm across my forehead like a 1930s movie star when I saw how much laundry I have to do, the lack of food in the fridge, and the fact that the upstairs toilet doesn't want to flush. You know, all the goodness of home!

I'm pulling the final vacation photos off the cards right now. We stopped for lunch in Sandwich (heh) and Mr. Dump requested water view dining, which over the course of the week cost the 7 of us approximately $400 for two meals (including a lunch where two of us had tuna melts), so you know I was a little apprehensive.

We were headed for a place we ate lunch at in 2005, but we spotted "Seafood Sams" in the same area and decided that would be a much cheaper choice. And it was. Food was pretty good (clam strips and FANTASTIC ONION RINGS) with a view of the channel, so we saw boats going by, including a tugboat hauling ass and a very large ship that we couldn't figure out for the life of us. It looked like it had HVAC stuff on the deck, so we decided it was full of frozen fish. We have no idea if we were right, but who is going to tell us it wasn't?

Mr. Dump let me take a bunch of photos in the marina and on the canal, thus ending my vacation with a little photo shoot that actually made me feel happy because it meant that my day included something other than packing and driving home.

On the canal I spotted a ginormous yacht...I mean, words don't do this thing justice. I made sure I got a picture with the name of it so I could look it up. I'm on the website right now, looking at the photos of the interior, and it's enough to make you ill with envy. The funny thing was that this yacht was towing a boat that most of us could never afford. Sort of like a million dollar motor home towing a BMW behind it. So here is my photo of the yacht, along with the link to the info about her.

Labels: boats, photos, Vacation

The place we're staying is surrounded by killer rabbits. At least, that's what we call them. Actually, now we call them the No Trespassing Rabbits because obviously they don't care for our signs and warnings.

So far we've seen a ton of rabbits, a doe, and a fox. Deb thought there was a fishercat sort of growling in the tall grass near the house, but we don't have a visual confirmation on that. It definitely wasn't a rabbit. Well, it could have been a killer rabbit, I suppose.

Last night we had a pouring rainstorm (we estimated about an inch of rain based on what was inside a large plastic bin we had out on the deck and had emptied earlier in the day. This morning it's just dank and foggy and we all feel completely wet. They say there will be sun later today, but it may rain again. That's okay, we haven't been to a Christmas Tree Shop yet, plus we still need to find some pirate ships that will actually float in the water. You know, the life of a vacationing 9-year-old is a busy one.

[More pictures uploaded, including another version of the sun behind clouds photo from Sunday]

Labels: fun, photos, Vacation

Hello everybody! It's day two here at the Cape, but the photo I'm sharing was from day one. Your best bet for following along with us on vacation is to keep an eye on my Flickr page, because I'll be uploading photos every day but I won't be posting all of them on the Big DumpTruck.

Yesterday the humidity followed us down to the Cape, and it was just gross-sticky, but today it's GAW-JUSS down here. The kids and my BIL and Sister went for a bike ride, and I took a walk down to one of the little beaches where I got fantastic photos last year. This morning there were too many boats to get a good shot (I'll take what I can get, if I'm stuck with the 2005 photos, that's okay) but I found a little field with all these amazing flowers in them!

Labels: photos, Vacation

I'm the kind of person who finds planning a vacation as relaxing and enjoyable as going on one. Maybe more so, because when you are planning, everything and anything is possible, there are no lines or bugs or heat, no need to pull out the credit card every fifteen minutes, no maps to read or refold. I love trying to pick just the right hotel at just the right location. I could spend hours on travel websites looking at the interiors of hotel rooms. I'm smart enough to know that if a hotel's website only shows closeups of the pillows on the bed or the bedside table, the room is probably the size of a small dog.

So every time we go to Florida (and sometimes even when we aren't going) I am in planning mode times 12. I get books. I read websites (lots of them) and my favorite email newsletter from allearsnet.com (If you enjoy Disney and don't get this weekly newsletters, your Tuesdays are a cold and dank place I don't want to be.) Remember, one of my photos is on their website (scroll all the way down - the last photo on the page is mine.)

This time around, Mr. Dump asked to be the planner guy, and I said yes. So my role has been greatly reduced. I only got one updated guide (I'm saving all my old ones...some day we'll read and look at the pictures and say "oh my gosh, it hasn't been like that for 10 years!"). But I also got a book called Oddball Florida: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places (Oddball series). It's really really good and now I want to take a trip to Florida and just hit all these awful tourist attractions! By the way, my new favorite street name comes from the location of the Water Ski Hall of Fame and Museum - it is located on Holy Cow Road in Polk City. Holy Cow Road! I want to live on Holy Cow Road!

So that's all I have to say today. I'm still killing time. I can tell you, I won't be finishing the Oddball Florida book in the next few days.

Labels: florida, fun, photos, Vacation, wierd

Everyone is showing off the quality of the photos taken with their
iPhones, so I feel I should share a photo I took with my SideKick of Junior on an
inflatable bucking bronco. We did this at the Oak Ridge Farm Stand when
they had their strawberry festival. It's not as good as the ones taken with an iPhone, but it's not awful.

Labels: phone, photos

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

I told you we had good seats! Actually, when we got the tickets we assumed we were in the 6th and 7th rows. However, when we got there we realized the rows started with C, not A, so we were in the 4th and 5th rows.

So that was two Sundays in a row we went to Spinners games. What the heck am I going to do *this* Sunday, now that it's a habit?

In non-baseball chatter, anyone doing anything fun for the 4th? We're going to just roll out of bed late, fire up the laptops and the grill, and relax. I suppose if I were really awesome like Chuck (http://flickr.com/photos/plastereddragon/) I would have planned a day out taking photos, complete with maps, GPS and a field guide to small bugs and flowers. Maybe I'll just take more photos of my feet, as they are creepily very popular and got a lot of people into my photo stream. (My foot picture is actually of gumballs, with the feet used as a reference for the size of the container.) If I'm going to do that, I'm going to have to put a new coat or two of nail polish on my toes. Too bad I don't own white and blue, I could make little flags!

Labels: baseball, feet, holidays, photos, summer

I am moving some of my archived photos over to Flickr, if they are good enough to live there. This one, taken the day after the Sox won the World Series in 2004, is one of my favorite photos ever, combining my great love of Walt Disney World and the Red Sox.

We watched the game(s) from our hotel room at the Beach Club Resort. The day after the win, we went to the Magic Kingdom, because as they say in the commercials, "I'm going to Disney World!" My eyes COMPLETELY teared up when we saw the entire length of Main Street, both sides, lined with Red Sox balloons. I could not have been prouder at that moment.

Oh, so anyway, Flickr has this thing called "Explore" that everyone wants to get into because typically only the best photos are in Explore. This photo was added, then dropped, and added and dropped again this week. If you look at the little picture over on the right that links to my flickr photos, it currently says 1 photo in Explore. If it says 2, that's a good thing. If you happen to have a moment, could you click on this photo to look at it in detail on the flickr site? You don't have to comment on it if you don't have a flickr account, but it would be really cool if I could get this one back into Explore.

Labels: Disney, photos, Red_Sox

I got to be a chaperone today! We went to Sturbridge Village today with all the third graders from Junior's school...that was five busses worth. I only had Junior and his best bud to watch over, so the three of us basically did whatever we wanted to do. THAT is a great school trip...I felt like I had basically just taken the two of them out to do fun stuff for the day. Plus, as a bonus, I got to ride on the bus there and back!

Here's a photo I took today. I'm getting so much better at this photography stuff, if I do say so myself. Maybe someday I'll get some of this printed and my home can be filled with original artwork. Or something like that.

Labels: 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

Okay, Junior and I were taking photos today. That was our activity. We did take a bunch of pictures up at Skyview Middle School, which can be seen in my personal Leominster set (they are also in the Leominster group I linked to below.)

That little trip went fairly well, considering it was about 500 below zero up on top of the hill so we decided to take most of the pictures from inside the car.

When it was closer to sunset (i.e. good light) we headed over to Evergreen Cemetery to get a few more shots. I went in the main entrance to see if I could get a good shot of the sign (I couldn't) and then headed up the road to the right that goes into the "old" section. I got to the part that curves uphill...and it was snow-covered with big ruts. Uh oh, my van was not going to make it up the hill. But when I went to back down, the car didn't turn, it just sort of slid straight down. I didn't hit anything but snow, but that snow got good and jammed and my car got stuck. So I tried to rock it back and forth and started to get nervous that I was getting too close to the stones, given that I was trying to do this by myself.

I eventually called Mr. Dump to bring a shovel to save us. How embarrassing. But I don't think this is my fault. If the city didn't want to plow that whole road (it was plowed up to that curve) they should have blocked it with a barrel or something. And looking at that immediate area, it looks like I wasn't the first person to get stuck there.

If the city is going to plow the roads in the cemetery, they should plow all the roads in the cemetery, or block them off so that people like me don't get stuck and there isn't a risk of anyone damaging the stones.

So Mr. Dump freed us, and we went home photo-less. I told Junior we'd go back...after the snow melts.

Labels: 01453, car, Leominster, photos

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