{"id":870,"date":"2012-12-28T10:13:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-28T16:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2012\/12\/28\/121228-christmasgifts\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T16:28:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T21:28:38","slug":"121228-christmasgifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2012\/12\/28\/121228-christmasgifts\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Bounty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas is not about the gifts. Well, not <i>entirely<\/i>. But it is at least a little bit about the gifts, and I know you&#8217;re anxious to see how yours truly made out in that regard. Short answer: awesomely. To wit&#8230;<\/p>\n<h3>Gaudy Skull<\/h3>\n<p>My mother gave me this Mexican ceramic cow skull and it&#8217;s <i>muy fabuloso<\/i>. Its 40&#8243; horn-spread will make a colorful addition to a patio wall. And before my fellow Ags give me a hard time about having anything related to longhorns, keep in mind that this is a Dead. Cow. Skull. If someone wants to connect that to a college in some fashion, knock yourself out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc;\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/xmas2012skull.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - Garish cow skull\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Terror From Above<\/h3>\n<p>My brother and sister-in-law surprised me with a Parrot AR.Done 2.0 &#8211; an awkward name for one of the coolest toys in existence. It&#8217;s a remote-controlled quadricopter that responds to flight commands sent via a smartphone or tablet, using its own built-in WiFi network. The &#8216;copter has two cameras, one of which films HD video.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/xmas2012parrot1.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - Parrot quadcopter\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 12px;\" src=\"http:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/xmas2012parrot2.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - Parrot quadcopter\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m just starting to get the hang of flying it (I crashed and broke it on its maiden voyage&#8230;fortunately, it&#8217;s easily repaired), but soon I&#8217;ll be able to spy on all the neighbors, which has been my dream for years.<\/p>\n<h3>Teensy Pictures<\/h3>\n<p>Last, but certainly not least, Debbie went over the top and gave me a new Canon <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usa.canon.com\/cusa\/consumer\/products\/cameras\/ef_lens_lineup\/ef_100mm_f_2_8l_macro_is_usm\">100mm macro lens<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usa.canon.com\/cusa\/professional\/products\/professional_cameras\/speedlite_flash_lineup\/macro_ring_lite_mr_14ex\">ring flash<\/a> for my DSLR camera. So, prepare yourselves for an onslaught of very big photos of very small stuff, such as&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 3px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/xmas2012macro1.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\" \/><br \/>\n<span class=\"smaller\">Tiny Christmas Elf<br \/>\n<\/span><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-top: 1em;\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/xmasmacro2.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\" \/><br \/>\n<span class=\"smaller\">Tiny palm tree frond<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Although my intent with this post was not to make you envious, if that turns out to be the case, then my work here is done. Enjoy your new socks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas is not about the gifts. Well, not entirely. But it is at least a little bit about the gifts, and I know you&#8217;re anxious to see how yours truly made out in that regard. Short answer: awesomely. To wit&#8230; Gaudy Skull My mother gave me this Mexican ceramic cow skull and it&#8217;s muy fabuloso.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2012\/12\/28\/121228-christmasgifts\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Christmas Bounty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14236,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions\/14236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}