Halloween

I did as usual and wore horns for Halloween this year. These were fairly good, but the effect didn't come of as well as I'd hoped. (The latex didn't blend quite as well with my skin as it could have.) It was however somewhat appropriate; I gave a test to my Algebra students on Halloween. (I gave them candy too. I'm a nice demonic being.) Actually I had three people in my department who did not initially notice that I was wearing horns at all, which makes me wonder.

And of course I got home as soon as possible after my office hours to give out candy to the trick-or-treaters. I wasn't sure how many I would get, and I planned to give some to my students too, so I got a ton of candy. Turns out I'm now left with a ton of candy. (And I didn't even have to hide in my apartment with the lights off eating candy and pretending I wasn't home this year.)

I think I did pretty well with the decorating this year 'though, for having limited time:



I'm not sure you can really see the ghoul on the door, but you can see it in the entry picture below pretty well:



However, I probably have a ways to before I get as good as these people, whose house I passed when leaving the parade party earlier in the week:

Pre Halloween

Last weekend I got to see "the largest night-time parade in Pennsylvania", which is a Halloween parade held not far from here. My friends live on the parade route and hosted a party. We alternately stood inside (to get warm) or stood outside and "Woo"-d loudly for whatever group was passing by. (Well, OK, so the county Republican group only got an "Ah, yes.... Hello" and a polite wave from us, but most groups got a "Woo". I'm not sure why, but it was fun. I took a few shots of the parade going by:

Look! Here comes a skull! And Snoopy...



And a tiny car, for some reason:



It was an interesting parade, but sometimes kind of odd. A lot of the parts of the parade seemed to consist of trucks, possibly with a sign or people in the back waving. There were some floats, like this one:



In a number of cases, I couldn't really identify what the float was supposed to represent. (As near as I could tell, there was a float about satellite television at one point.)

There were a number of school marching bands, but they were riding inside school busses and not playing instruments because it was raining.

In any case, the party was fun, I met some nice people, and I even won an award for the best scary costume. I went as a Dementor:



(If you haven't read Prisoner of Azkaban yet, what are you waiting for? :-) )

As it turned out, the hood and gloves were fairly useful when standing outside in the cold.

That Darn Tree

I was pretty worried yesterday when all this white stuff started falling out of the sky. I was thinking it was snow, and went to ask why no one told me it snowed here. He assured me that it was not snow, but rather the leaves of a large, white tree outside. I was much relieved. Thankfully, I won't have to worry about snow this winter.

Unfortunately, he does tell me that the leaves from the tree really pile up like you wouldn't believe all winter long. And those fools at K-Mart don't even know what a "big white tree leaf shovel" is; I'm going to have to settle for what they call a "snow shovel."