Happy Halloween

I've been really busy the past week since photographing a wedding last Saturday, but here are some quick updates.

The weather for the wedding was fantastic! It was one of those sunny, crisp and cold fall days that just make the colors pop, with just enough clouds that we weren't squinting into the sun the whole time. The bride was a bit of a stress case and refused to put on a sweater or shawl for fear of wrinkling the dress, so there were a lot of pictures where she looked like she was freezing, but there were also plenty of good pictures too.

The next day, the weather was absolutely miserable with gale force wind and dumping rain. All week the weather has alternated between quite nice and downright awful with temperatures in the 40s F/4 to 8 C. It culminated yesterday when the drizzle went over to pelting cold wind-driven rain, to sleet, and eventually to snow! It took me totally by surprise. It was a wet snow with huge flakes (about an inch/2 cm in diameter) that melted quickly. After a couple hours, the snow started to stick to the ground, and it remained for several hours.


Last week my daughter totally shocked me by asking how babies are made. She's only 6! I thought I'd have a couple more years to think up an age-appropriate answer. I managed to dodge it this time, but I'm sure she'll ask again soon. Any advice?

For my friends and family on Flickr, I've added some pictures of my daughter dressed for a Halloween party. I love Halloween. In the states, it used to be my favorite holiday, and I went trick-or-treating even as an adult. I think the only year that I missed was when I was 12 and "too old" for that type of thing. Halloween is catching on slowly in Sweden now, and my daughter was invited to a couple of parties. So far it's mostly just a kid thing here, but I hope to eventually help spread the tradition.

This year my daughter and I carved pumpkins together with some friends. This was the first year that I let her carve herself, and she did just fine. This is a picture of our creations.

Happy Halloween!

Fall has fallen

Fall has fallen here in Skåne, and for the most part, the fall color just flew right by. As usual, it's too wet and windy here to get the really spectacular fall colors like in New England, but I did have the good fortune of being able to get out and take some pictures on the days that were nice.

Some of the pictures were taken while I was scouting locations for wedding portraits, others were scenes that caught my eye as I was driving by. (I'll be doing a wedding on Saturday, so let's all keep our fingers crossed forSome of these pictures are from locations that I was scouting as potential sites for wedding good weather.)

More Pictures

For those of you who are my "friends" or "family" on Flickr, I have posted more pictures from Montreal that you might want to see. If you'd like to be added as my contact on Flickr, or if you'd like me to send you a guest pass so that you can see the pictures without joining, please leave me a comment or send me an e-mail.

Nobel Prize in Medicine

Three people shared this year's Nobel Prize in medicine. One of them was Harald zur Hausen for the discovery of human papilloma virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer. I remember studying about this in my virology class, and I round it absolutely fascinating that a virus could cause cancer. This has even lead to a vaccine (rather controversial unfortunately thanks to the abstinence only crowd), but I'm hoping it will soon be commonplace. Congratulations to him and all the many, many people who undoubtedly helped him with this.

Congratulations also to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi (and their teams) who also shared the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Now not to in any way diminish their accomplishment, but there's a third person who is also deserving of this recognition: Robert Gallo. Back in 1985 Gallo in the US and Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi in France figured out HIV separately but at the same time. In fact, Gallo probably got more publicity for this at the time, and their professional rivalry turned ugly. However, in 1987 they agreed to bury the hatchet and share the credit. I know it's a long and complicated story, and I'm in no position to judge. However, if the rivals in question can agree to share, I think it's particularly bad form for the Nobel Prize committee to acknowledge two but not the third, thus promoting rivalry instead of cooperation. It makes me lose respect for the Nobel committee and the prize as a whole, and that's a shame. For me, the Nobel Prize in Medicine would be the pinnacle of achievement--better than an Olympic gold medal, or an Oscar, or a Pulitzer prize.


If you'd like to know more about the discovery of HIV, I highly recommend the movie And The Band Played On which, while biased, is both informative and entertaining. As an extra added bonus, it show biomedical researchers doing more than pipetting.

While I'm on the subject, I'd like to give an extra "you go girl!" to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, since only 4.2% of the people who have won a Nobel Prize in Medicine are women. If you were to look around research labs today, women are well represented, yet it's still the men who get the credit. I hope that that is changing.

New Dollar Bill

The horror

I was at the grocery store yesterday, and much to my horror, there was Christmas stuff for sale already. I really like that in the US there are two major holidays before Christmas to keep things from getting out of hand. October is usually dedicated to Halloween which is then celebrated on the 31st. In Sweden it seems to be the first Saturday in November, though I'm not quite clear on that (actually I think that's the feeling that a lot of people share). Anyway, Halloween keeps most of the marketing away from Christmas at least through October.

Then the fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving, and while all too many stores start with their holiday decorating and promotions earlier, it's not until after Thanksgiving that the Christmas season begins for real. A lot of stores open at 6 AM for the Friday after Thanksgiving, also known as the busiest shopping day of the year. There are tons of sales, but I've never found it worth braving the crowds.

I'm not even close to ready for the Christmas season yet. I'm not even ready for Halloween. In fact, I'm still hoping I'll wake up one morning and discover that it's still summer.

Montreal Day 10

For our last day in Montreal, we slept in, went out for a leisurely breakfast, then returned to the hotel to pack. We had to check out by 1 PM, but we didn’t need to leave for the airport until 5, so we stashed out bags and went for a walk. The guys were not interested in going to Biodome to see the Madagascar exhibit and lemurs, and since it wasn’t raining, I went with them.

A lot of walking, a lot of window shopping, some photos, and eventually a mid-afternoon meal. The guys were in the mood for pizza, and we found a rather classy looking pizza place with a very interesting menu. I had a Mexican chicken wrap, and it was great.

With nothing much better to do, we decided to head off to the airport a little early and to try to get better seats. At the airport, everyone was forced to use the automated check in machines. Several of the machines were not working properly, and quite a few people were getting very frustrated. There was nobody around to help until someone started yelling (even then, the guy didn’t actually help. It took me three tries, but I did get it to work eventually. I had reserved a window seat, but I was not surprised to find that they’d put me in the center seat of the center section. If there’s turbulence, I need to be able to look out the window or I’ll get sick. Luckily, I was able to change to the seat next to my husband, only one from the window.

The flight was uneventful. It was a bit late taking off because they had to fish off the bags of a no-show, but we were able to make up much of the time by the time we got to Frankfurt. We had more than enough time to hang out in Frankfurt, but we were a bit frustrated by the lack of seating. There was no seating that was not dedicated to one of the restaurants. We eventually found a McDonalds and McCafe with some open tables, so we ordered a little and sat there.

We were good and tired by the time we got home, but it was a good kind of tired after a fantastic trip.