Our Snowy Home Today, Dec 28 2007

It's beautiful here at home, but only if you like snow!

AMIS Moonrise

The recent news (Dec. 13, 2007) that the local chip manufacturer AMI, or more correctly, AMIS, is going to be sold to another semiconductor company came as a shock to Pocatello. AMI is the city's largest private employer, and has been around for 4 decades, making it almost as old as the integrated circuit itself.

AMI is considered a good corporate citizen, paying its taxes, keeping clean relative to other factories, and involved in all facets of Pocatello life including cultural activities, charities, and education. We hope the new owner keeps the existing facilities here.

This photo was taken in November.

Coonie, Nov 17, 2007

Coonie is a fairly regular night visitor. If we moved away we'd miss her. Wildlife photography normally requires a long lens. However, in this case, the photos were taken at a distance of about a foot to a few feet away, and so only a wide-angle-through-slight-telephoto lens (17-50mm) was needed!

Vivliothiki Mas

For many years I suspected that the German "Bibliothek" must have come from the Greek, and that the Greek word would probably be simply "Vivliothiki," for "place for books." However, I never remembered to ask a Greek whether my suspicion was correct. But last week we had a University Library Committee meeting, and on our University Librarian's (Kay Flowers') bag it says, among other things, "Vivliothiki Sou," or "Your Library." Hence "Our Library" would be "Vivliothiki Mas," wouldn't it?

Dhekemvrios 2007 - The "Vivliothiki Mas" has been verified by Prof. Dr. Andreas Grigoriou Andreou, o Kypreos my old friend who went to graduate school with me!

Noch einmal schrieb der Andreas....

So to be more correct, the meaning of thiki is that of a place to store things such as
 
apothiki (warehouse)
diathiki (will)
 
...
 
cheers
andreas

Judy's Muffin at College Market

Judy's hand-made muffins are a favorite luxury item at College Market.

Halloween in Pocatello

Like in all other towns across the country, Pocatellans decorated their homes for Halloween. This home's decorations caught my eyes when I was there yesterday late afternoon.

Prof. Steve Chiu teaching Computer Science at Idaho State University's College of Engineering

Autumn at Home up in the Mountains

Autumn in Town - Caldwell Park

Autumn in the Country

A wonderful deer in the Pocatello countryside. I can't understand why someone would like to shoot these wonderful creatures and call it a sport.

Recent Pictures from College Market

Also see this post.

Second Snow of the Season

This is our home today around 10:30AM. We had the second snow of the season already; now this is unusual.

Wild Coonie on a Wild Mountain Aspen Branch

I just read about photographers (the so-called "Paparazzi" after Fellini's character Paparazzo) chasing the UK's Prince William around, endangering lives. A better approach would be to make friends with the subject, as I did with Coonie, a wild coon that visits us at home once in a while. This photo was taken at a distance of about 4 or 5 feet away, a few days ago around the end of September after the first snow. The EXIF information doesn't include distance, but it does say that the focal length was only 72mm. The photo is slightly cropped, and the camera does have an APS-sized sensor.

By the way, it is snowing again! This is really more snow than usual, and this is our 13th winter here. The weatherpeople predicted a "mostly dry" weekend, but as of 12:30pm Saturday it's still snowing a little. We have maybe 10 inches of snow on the ground now. I took some snow pictures around 10:30 AM this morning, which I may post next.

Biking Buckskin on a Magical Autumn Afternoon

Autumn is my favorite season in the mountains of Pocatello. The temperature is cool and the air is often magically clean. West Buckskin Road, which is actually east of Buckskin Road and is therefore often just called Buckskin Road, gives mountain bikers a nice, fairly long, and hilly ride.

College Market: The Art and The Artist

This is a typical scene at College Market, a coffee house where many artists and intellectuals hang out. The illustration on the glass was done by Lou Pirro, and Lou himself can be seen through the glass sitting outside.

Pocatello Mountain Autumn Scene with Snow and Horse

Several of our neighbors keep horses.

Mountain Autumn Scene with First Snow - Pocatello, Idaho

This is what autumn looks like in our neighborhood. I photographed this scene this afternoon on my way down to town from our home up in the mountains. We received our first snowfall of the season on the night of September 28th, and the snow continued into September 29th. At the same time, the maples in the mountains are at their peak, and the aspen have also started to turn.

Season's First Snow at home - Saturday Sep 29, 2007

Up here in the mountains of Pocatello (our home is at 5770 feet above sea level) our first significant snow fall often happens in September or October. This year, 2007, today is the day for that!

Red Squirrel, Barking in a Scots Pine Tree (planted) in the Mountains

Up here at home in the mountains of Pocatello, there are magical wild animals, including a few species of squirrels. This red squirrel is cute even when aggressively barking at somebody.

Pocatello is in the Northern Rockies: View of Indian and Scout Mountains from Red Hill

This post further answers the question about the location of Pocatello. We are situated in the Northern Rockies. Pocatello's climate is best described as semi-arid. The north-facing slopes are likely to be green, whereas the southern slopes are more likely to be brushland, which can look bare and beautiful from a distance. So many people have told me that Pocatello is not pretty, but I have not found that to be true at all. I have been to places a thousand times more famous, and none is more magical than Pocatello.

Idaho State University's Hutchinson Quadrangle

Thanks for all your comments so far. I'm not used to blogging yet, and so may have put things in the wrong place. To answer the question on where Pocatello is, it is in Southeast Idaho on Highway 15, about 160 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the seat of Idaho State University.

Welcome to the Pocatello Photo Blog

Welcome to the Pocatello photo blog! I am new to this game of blogging, but Barbara C. Smith, a former Pocatellan who has set up a blog site for her post-Pocatello town of residence, West Sacramento, CA, suggested that it might be a fun thing for me to set a similar site up for Pocatello. So here it is. I have to admit that I don't have much time for the upkeep of this site, but hope that it will be of use to the public anyway.

I have a whole bunch of photos of the Pocatello area at http://pbase.com/vkantabu/pocatello, and have also posted photos of Pocatello at Webshots and flickr.com.