Taunton Green 2012

I said I’d get there. It was just a matter of time. The weather hasn’t helped but we finally got a beautiful sunny day so when the sun set the skies were still clear. The perfect night…I thought.
I arrived at the green in the center of Taunton a little before sunset. It was definitely getting colder but you expect that after sunset.
What I didn’t expect was a 20+ degree drop in temperature in less than an hour. Cold as it was the sky was still clear so it was perfect. I began snapping away. I’d only have about an hour before I’d lose the “blue hour”. That’s the time between the afterglow from the sunset and full dark. The sky gets a deep , deep blue and the glowing lights seem to “pop”.

Mother nature isn’t making this easy for me. Now on top of the cold the wind has sprung up and not just a little breeze. The branches on the trees with their hanging lights are really blowing and swaying especially the 40 ft. Christmas tree on the corner of the Green.
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The few people strolling the green departed quickly as the winds became blustery. Ready or not it was time to pack up and leave.

And the Winner is…..

The time is finally here. 3 supervisors from another department converged on our little corner of the work world to view and rate our decorating efforts. The first place team would get a month of special parking privileges right near the front door. This is an awesome prize for those cold winter mornings!

The runner-up would get a free pass for a week of jeans.That’s always popular in this department. Any chance to wear jeans instead of office attire is welcomed by everyone.

The judges strolled around taking notes and then retired to a little enclave to tally their results. This was then turned over to our department supervisors to make the announcement and the judges ran!

FIRST PLACE: THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE to no one’s surprise as this was an engineering marvel. All it lacked was a roof. Covering both cubicles it was a massive effort.

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SECOND PLACE: WINTER WONDERLAND was a little more difficult. I thought there were 4 entries that were so attractive that any one of them could have taken the runner-up spot. I was lucky that the one chosen was the one I was involved in.
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Now we’ll leave everything up…at least until Christmas maybe New Years. It was fun. Maybe if we do it again next year we’ll get even more participation. That would be fun.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Around the office the elves are busy pinning and taping. Various displays are beginning to come together. The early birds add the finishing touches to their cubicles while watching in awe as the late-comers throw themselves into their project with deadlines looming.
WFO Christmas 009 copy Every where you look there’s a tree or snowman or wreath or so it seems.
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Management concluded that the department supervisors couldn’t be the judges (probably a good choice) so 3 supervisors from another department are being coerced into the role of judges. I wouldn’t want to try to choose. All of the displays are beautiful or symbolic and everyone contributed work, idea, or decorations.
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Decking the Halls

Busy, Busy, Busy. The Taunton Green officially switched on the lights on their Christmas Display on Friday. I was working 🙁 But I’ll get over there for pictures soon. Today the city held their annual Holiday Parade. But once again I was working. 🙁

But all is not lost. Work is sponsoring a cubicle decorating contest. Deadline for setting up the display is next Friday but some of us have started already.  So here’s some of what has been set up.

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Just a Day in The Life

Not much to share. I missed my Monday post because I haven’t done anything newsworthy lately. Monday I had a busy day.

I started the day with a photo shoot for Christmas Cards at my friend Nancy’s house. We hung the stockings on the mantle and moved the love seat in front of it. Then we squeezed everyone, including the dog, into the love seat. It took more time to set up than take the pictures…kind of like cooking that Thanksgiving meal..hours of cooking for 30 minutes of eating! LOL. But I got to try out my new studio light set and it made all the difference in the world..no shadows..no motion blur from the puppy.

Then it was pack up and head to my next shoot. This one was a location shoot but at the last minute it canceled so I met the family for a consultation instead. Probably a good thing because it took longer to get to work than I expected and if we’d actually done that shoot I might have been late.

Finished the day off by working overtime 3pm – 8pm. So as you can see, not much to talk about and not much time to write even if I did have something to say.

I’m not going to give away the picture that the family chose for their cards but I will share one picture of  Dawn. I love her eyes in this picture.

By the way, that’s not “dirt” on her face…it’s one of those temporary tattoos of a dog. 🙂