This is not a real post. You are seeing this only because I am trying to figure out why Evil Eyebrow’s feed is weirdly unformatted.
Peace.
I can conclusively say that the theme has nothing to do with it (although I had to edit out the call to the random quote engine.. but I seriously doubt that’s related.)
Yes, as of this weekend Nate has decided he doesn’t need to hold our hands to walk anymore. We knew it was going to happen any time… check out the video (about 6MB)…
The cats are so in trouble now.
We took Nate to the beach on Friday. This wasn’t his first trip to the beach, but the first time the weather was horrible and he was so small we didn’t get him near the water.
This time he played everywhere:
the dry soft sand…
the wet smooshy sand…
splashing at the thin edges of the waves…
watching the waves come in…
and wading in “deep”.
All of which culminated in some fantastic Daddy assisted body surfing.
More trip pics in the gallery.
At the Davis’ camp near Unity, ME, I found this beautiful moth. It was quite docile as you can see.
I believe it is a female Polyphemus Moth – Antheraea polyphemus (Hodges # 7757). BugGuide Moth Photographers Group The male has much larger (furrier) antenna.
Nate also played in the ocean, but I’ll want to write more on that later.
Additional vacation pictures are on the gallery.
With the grandparents watching Nate, K & I went down to the beach. After walking along the beach, we stopped in Old Orchard for a bite to eat. Parked at the side of the plaza was the “Conference Bike“*. Neither of us had seen such a thing and it is both a thing of creative beauty and a pretty cool mechanical gadget.
The quadricycle (double wheels at the rear) is powered by all seven riders while one steers and operates the brake and bell. Each rider has a seat and pedals (and can grab on the the circular bar in the middle) which connect by chain to a common drive shaft. The drive shaft is connected using universal joints to form a single drive which operates a heavier chain to the rear wheels.
The front wheels are turned via a steering wheel and what looks to be a rack and pinion type steering setup. The bike was available for rental at $70/hour.
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There are other pics from our trip so far up on the gallery.
After Nate and K had gone to bed, I drove up to the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park to watch and photograph the fireworks. The field overlooks the village of Cazenovia and the lake. You can also see Oneida Lake to the north, the Fenner windmills and much of the countryside in between.
I hadn’t thought to go up there for the fireworks before, but obviously others have, as there were probably 2-3 dozen viewers already there by the time that I arrived.
The sun had set and the twilight was fading, so I knew it wouldn’t be long before the fireworks started. There were already several other displays going off in the distance, and a few ‘private’ shows nearer at hand.
It was a beautiful night and after the fireworks ended and the crowd cleared (except for a few intentional stragglers shall we say), the lightning bugs came out and started putting on their own show. So Sis, the last two shots are for you. I think it will definitely warrant another trip up there when it’s darker and later into lightning bug season.
Here are some highlights, but make sure to look at the whole album.
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K & I survived our runs. K did great on the 5k with a 32:37 (officially).
Her 1km splits (based on her time across the start line not the gun):
7:01
6:37
6:17
6:32
5:45
—–
32:14 (She started her watch at the start line, but still can’t explain the 23 second difference.)
She said she felt pretty good, and her time was good enough I was able to shadow her on the last km with her before getting ready for my start (about 40 minutes after hers).
As I said in the last post, I had some kind of cramp (or strain sounds more likely from Lisa & Todd’s comments). I lasted about half a mile before the calf started to hurt, but I took it easy and pushed on. I figured if it was really bad it would hurt more and let me know. Since my leg was hurting/stiff I kept the initial pace down, and it only hurt me particularly badly now and then (one pretty bad spike at about 6 miles). By 7 miles I wasn’t really feeling it (or maybe noticing it) anymore and my pace picked up. Here are my splits:
8:46*
8:46* (I missed the split at 1 mile, so this is the 2 mile split divided by 2)
8:43
8:46
8:45
8:20
8:38
8:25
7:54
7:16
—–
84:21 (officially 1:24:11, I can’t explain where the other ten seconds went)
I’m pretty happy with that, but then I’m left wondering how much better I might have done if my leg had been better. Anyhow, a great day for a run, and it felt great to do well.
Of course now I can barely walk, but next week was vacation anyways so I have plenty of time to rest it.
The big 10 mile race is tomorrow. This is exciting. It’s also nerve racking because I’ve been suffering from a ridiculous cramp in my left calf since Tuesday.
K asked me when I got home from work “Are you still going to race?” I said “Well I have to try!”
It’s feeling better today, but there’s not telling if it will hold up. We shall see.
I spotted this little guy (gal?) on the concrete at the entrance to our garage, after I had driven in. So pretty much it sat there after the garage door went up and I drove completely over him.
Other than I think the image came out reasonably well, the real reason this is worth a posting is the rather silly way I followed it around with this piece of blue card stock trying to get a better picture. I tried to just sort of encourage it to walk onto the paper, but it would flutter a few feet and land (never flying terribly well actually). This was pretty much how it went for about 5 minutes: picture me with the camera in one hand and an 8×11″ piece of card-stock in the other, running in a sort-of hunched over fashion as I tried to slide it under the moth as it fluttered along. Finally it landed in the grass. As it crawled up through the blades I finally managed to get the paper underneath it.
I know practically zero about insects of any kind, so after searching through all of the beautiful and various images at What’s That Bug? I’ve submitted the image for identification. We’ll see if it’s anything interesting.
Update:
Based on searches at Butterflies and Moths of North America, the Moth Photographers Group and BugGuide.net, I’m down to genus, but no species. Based on web pictures:
Two choices for species seem likely:
Haploa lecontei:
http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=8111
http://bugguide.net/node/view/23290/bgimage
Haploa confusa:
http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=8112
http://bugguide.net/node/view/25949/bgimage
Update:
Bob Patterson from the Moth Photographer’s Group sent me this note in response to my message:
BPatter789@aol.com wrote:
Hi Chris,I’d call it 8112 – Haploa confusa, with probably a 90+% chance of being correct.
Nice photo!
Bob Patterson
Moth Photographers Group Website
Date: 12/29/2007
