Fully decked, with Aliens

Three mystery photos this month:

While you ponder those, I have a new deck to introduce.   Here is a before shot:

This is a during shot:

This is one of the deck guys wondering what he got himself into with a labyrinth of steps:

And an after shot:

More before/after shots from a different angle: 

And here are before and after shots of the deck table and chairs (end of season is the time to buy this stuff!):

Finally, here is how you evolve a window into a door:

My shop participated in the transformation:

This is a fiberglass door with built in mini-blinds. After staining and varnishing, it looks very much like real wood:

Speaking of transformations, Boris and Irena have a pretty impressive transformation story to tell.   This is their back yard last year:

This is Irena envisioning what it could be:

And this is what it has become!

Lots of amazing flowers:

With lots of appreciative honey bees:

That first mystery photo is possibly the worlds cutest little dog, a 10 week old miniature Dotson (or Datsun, Dachund, Dashund, Dawtson, or  as sophisticated dog people like Zach would correctly say, Dachshund):

Marie, one of the residents, is the proud Mom.   She rigged up a little cage so she can bike with him:

We had a nice visit from Tom and Janet on their Go West vacation.  There RV gets 20 MPG … better than my RX8 got!

We again had lots of fun pool parties.  The solar heater beat last years record, warming the pool to 94.5 degrees!

This is our new friend Marina, a Russian born, Oxford trained Linguist from Germany.   She dropped by for the weekend after doing some research last week at Vassar:

That second mystery photo was a bubble ring that floated up to my foot while I was upside down in our pool:

Also called Toroidal Vortices or Vortex Rings.   Dolphins are the masters of these, although they can also be created by whales and volcanoes.   Some fun links here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCf7SNUb-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuVgXJ55G6Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=mHyTOcfF99o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_ring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring

I’ve been practicing them all summer.   You have go to the bottom of the pool and face up, so nose clips are key:

That last mystery photo is truly a mystery.    Work duties got us up early, before sunrise, last Thursday, when I saw a light appear on the ridge across the valley on a ridge of the Wasatch mountains.   It appeared suddenly, with what looked like smoke curling up from it, then faded out in a few minutes. 

My initial theory was something crashed, but there was nothing in the news.   So my current theory involves these guys:

Bruce