Nov 14 2012

Photo Drive, Part Two

Went over to Fry’s today to finally replace the second external hard drive that I use for my photo storage that had failed recently. I doubt I will ever buy another Iomega drive. They were my two most recent external drives and they both went bad much too soon. For a short while I thought I had lost many of the photos I had taken since 2005. Many of the tens of thousands of photos.

Luckily I was able to spread my photos across some other drives including my iMac just before the second drive died. I replaced one of the drives real quick but for a while I only had one copy of all my photos. I hate having only one copy of all my photos.

But now I’m backing up my main photo drive and all will soon be a lot less stressed in my digital world and my iMac will finally get back all that hard drive space it gave up for storage.

Fry’s in Mission Valley
Selection of hard drives
The one I brought home
A nice pair

Nov 11 2012

Barcoding Biodiversity in Costa Rica

I attended a free one-hour lecture at the San Diego Natural History Museum last night. With the title “Biodiversity Development: The Path to Conservation of a Complex Wild Land” I wasn’t sure what kind of presentation to expect. All I knew was that I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures.

Even though the graphic artist in me who has spent years creating speaker support graphics cringed at the way a lot of the slides were presented, it turned out to be a really fascinating and educational presentation.

Introduced by Dr. Michael Hager, President and CEO of the museum, Dr. Daniel Janzen presented his information in a very casual and friendly way. Dr. Janzen is the Kyoto award winning Technical Advisor of the Área de Conservación Guanacaste and president of the Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund in northwestern Costa Rica.

His presentation covered the main aspects of his many years of attempting to catalog and restore the biodiversity of the area with a heavy emphasis on barcoding the DNA of the 350,000 species of plants and animals living in that small region of Costa Rica and on educating the local population, especially the children, on the importance of the bio-conservation of all the species along with their habitats.

He showed slides of butterflies that looked almost identical, that nobody would be able to tell were different species, unless you looked at the barcodes of their DNA. He used tiger conservation as an example of how saving the tiger is meaningless unless we also save its habitat. He showed many images of school children eager to learn about respecting the biodiversity of their lands and of the importance of conserving it. He also showed the mass deforestation that began after WWII, and how it’s slowly but steadily returning to its native state in the protected areas.

It was a truly eye-opening lecture that I was very glad to have attended.

The NAT in Balboa Park
The Kaplan Theater
Terrible photo of Drs. Janzen and Hager
Post-lecture meandering

Nov 11 2012

Quick Zoo Visit

Before heading to a lecture at the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park, I had about an hour to kill so I walked over to the San Diego Zoo for a quick half-hour visit.

I headed straight for the recently opened Reptile Walk since I’ve been having good luck with photos there of late. Didn’t stay very long before walking over to the Orangutans to see some big, hairy mammals. Spent all my time sitting in front of one of the glass panes watching Satu, a male Sumatran Orangutan, who was also just sitting there, watching the people watching him. It was a very relaxing way to spend a few minutes.

It was a bit on the chilly side so on my way out I stopped at the espresso hut to pick up a delicious hot chocolate, made even better with plenty of powdered cinnamon sprinkled on and mixed in.

Then it was just a five minute, hot chocolate-clutching walk back to Balboa Park.

Cabrillo Bridge over Hwy 163
Zoo entrance
Zoo entry
Mexican Giant Tree Frog
Giant Horned Lizard
Two-headed California Kingsnake
Satu, 17-year old male Sumatran Orangutan
My hand-warming hot chocolate with powdered cinnamon

Nov 11 2012

Comic Fest 2012 Wrap-up Meeting

There was a really good turnout of about twenty-five staff members for our Comic Fest 2012 wrap-up meeting at the Ontell’s house in Tierrasanta. Department heads talked about how successful the con was in their specific areas and the Fest’s organizer, Mike Towry, commented on the Fest’s success as a whole. He also officially announced the dates for next year’s Fest to be held once again at the Town & Country Resort on October 4-6.

As successful as our Fest was, there were many lessons learned and they will all be implemented or solved for the next one. I have no doubt that next year’s Fest will far outshine this year’s. There are so many new ideas, and old ones made better. It will be even more exciting and impressive with terrific special guests, more programming, added live entertainment, cosplay, costuming classes and a masquerade ball. Artist Alley and the Art Exhibit will also be returning and a newly themed hangout/musical/presentation/deli area will be replacing the incredibly successful Café Frankenstein.

Enthusiasm is already running very high.

Back at the Ontell’s
Planning Comic Fest 2013
To make sure everyone was comfortable

Nov 10 2012

Veterans Day Salute

Just like last year, I was lucky enough to capture the San Diego Salute flying formation team as they did their annual Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial ceremony fly-over in their Beechcraft T-34s. Unfortunately, this year they didn’t fly directly over my house and there were fewer planes, but I truly honor their commitment to this wonderful yearly tradition.

Just the sound of the planes’ props chopping through the San Diego skies is enough to send me rushing into the backyard to look. One of these days I will have to attend the ceremonies on Mt. Soledad to get the full emotional effect.

Nov 04 2012

Larvae Nursery

Came across this odd collection of tiny, elongated spots on one of our outside walls in the backyard. Upon closer inspection they turned out to be super tiny, newly hatched larvae of I think some kind of moth. They actually look really pretty with all their hairs sticking out. You can even make out some unhatched ones in the middle. Interesting how those are all along a central corridor and the outlying ones are all hatched.

And they didn’t gross me out because I knew they would be crawling away, if they even survive.

The patch

The close up

Nov 03 2012

My Photo Made The Popular Crowd

After having so far posted 58 photos onto the photographer’s website 500px, the last of my three underwater polar bear photos, which I posted today, finally made the popular list with a ratio of views, “affections” and comments. Not a terribly big deal since my photo was on the 107th page of popular photos, but since it was my first time making the list it was a big deal to me.

Oh God, the pressure to get something onto page 106 is now killing me.

The image
The email I received
My photo on the page

Nov 02 2012

Visited By Royalty

Was able to get quite friendly with a recently emerged female Monarch Butterfly by getting it to crawl onto my hand and then transferring it to my shirt. It stayed for about a minute before then flying north.

This was actually the second day in a row that I got to do this. The day before it was a male Monarch that crawled up to my shoulder, stayed a bit, and then flew towards our canyon. Those pictures turned out completely sucky so use your imagination instead. (I said imagination, Lisa, not fantasy.)

Nov 01 2012

Two Stages Of Butterfly Life

I was amazingly lucky to be able to watch a Monarch larva transform into a chrysalis, followed closely by a healthy Monarch butterfly emerge from its chrysalis, which then I was able to temporarily place on my shoulder before it flew away.

It was a good nature day.

Chrysalis

Butterfly

Oct 30 2012

Jeff’s Secret Mission

Picked up my ol’ Disney pal, Jeff, who was in town visiting from Austin on business, from a discreet location to begin our evening of reminiscing, eating, drinking and merriment. We began in La Jolla and ended up in Old Town where we had a wonderful Mexican dinner and talked about how good life is. Then we walked around checking out the various decorations for the upcoming Dia de los Muertos celebrations that will begin at the end of the week.

We also, in the “spirit” of things, stopped by the Whaley House to tempt fate.

Oct 26 2012

Best Day Ever…While I Wasn’t Watching

So a few days ago, while I was still on my unofficial blogging hiatus, I unknowingly had the most views ever on my blog for one day. Over 2,000. (It was followed by the second most on the next day.) Do not know yet if it was a spambot checking back every few seconds or if it was 2,000 unique visitors genuinely interested in my post about Poison Dart Frogs.

Either way, I got over 2,000 views in one day!

Oct 26 2012

Video Chat with B – Halloween Style

My latest video chat (through Google hangouts) with Princess Brenda. She wanted to show me the costume that she wore while teaching her class on their dress-up day. She went as a vampire. A happy, friendly vampire. Cool costume. Crazy red glowiness to her ginormous eyelashes.

She also had a spooky collar for Musi so he could participate at home.

Oct 26 2012

A Shot In The Arm

After an inexcusable, four-month long, self-inflicted hiatus, I’m returning to the blogosphere with a post about getting my flu shot today at a local Costco. The vaccination will take effect in about two weeks so the nurse advised me to stay away from anybody who is sick. That’s advice I tend to heed all the time.

Boy it feels good to be back. I almost forgot how to do this.

 

Jun 29 2012

Lost A Baby, Helped A Baby

After losing the Phoebe chick this morning my day was a bit of a downer. Later in the day we found a juvenile alligator lizard inside the house just resting on the kitchen floor. I didn’t want anything to happen to this little fellow. It had already lost its tail once and was in the process of regrowing it.

After it scurried around a bit while I tried to corral it, we finally nudged it into a small cardboard box. I took it outside for the prerequisite close-up shots and then let it loose by the garden, free to live a life of religious fulfillment.

This morning’s Phoebe incident is ever so slowly becoming just another memory. With photos. And two headstones.

Jun 29 2012

Nature’s Unfortunate Side

Today I watched a Phoebe chick die.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was busy enjoying my annual visit to the San Diego County Fair with Rodrigo and Sylvia, I got a call from my mom saying that she found two Phoebe chicks on the ground after they had fallen about eight from their nest under a roof eave. She wanted to help them but wasn’t sure what to do. I told her I didn’t know since I couldn’t see how small or how feathered they were. I couldn’t tell if they fell out, were pushed out or just tried to fly out.

She ended up placing them into a small, plastic basket which she lined with a soft, bunched up hand towel and then brought them inside the house to keep them warm overnight. I saw them when I got there later at night and they seemed to be resting comfortably and peacefully.

The next morning my mom told me that one of the chicks had passed away overnight. She carefully wrapped it in a paper towel and left it in the basket. After taking a couple of photos of the still live one, I decided to take the basket outside and place it on a small work bench directly beneath their original nest in hopes that the parents would still be able to find and feed the remaining one. They kept flying around, chirping, but never landed on the basket, almost as if they couldn’t tell that their chick was there.

This was at 8:00 and we had gotten ready to take it to the local Project Wildlife office which unfortunately didn’t open until 9:00. While I was watching the baby through the living room window I saw it suddenly stretch out its tiny wings, then stretch out its body including pointing its head straight up, and then gently fall backwards onto the towel. This all happened within about two seconds, and then it was still.

I ran outside to check on it and confirmed that it was no longer alive. This day was not starting out well at all. Matter of fact it sucked. Both chicks had died under our care. But that’s when I noticed that a third chick was still in the nest, quietly seated on the edge. At least the parents had one more baby to take care of. Hopefully.

I carefully buried the two chicks next to each other in one grave and then placed two stones as markers.

I hate it when animals die, but especially younglings. I hate it most when I see it happen. That’s something that stays with you.

Morning shot
Post mortem
Burial ground
In the grave
Almost buried
Headstones
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