sylvar

I've been going through a shoebox of my old photos and scanning the ones good enough to bother with. When I'm done, I'm going to get rid of the prints and just let Flickr archive them.

I've gone through about 40% of the photos in the box, and of those I've scanned about 120; the rest were duplicates or uninteresting.

But I'm surprised how dull my brain has become while doing this. I feel like watching VH1's "I Love the New Millennium" so's I can raise my IQ a bit.

(if you need an explanation of the subject line...)

I took this photo at a rest stop on I-4. More grasshopper pictures here.

Jodi's new 'do

She gave twelve inches to Locks of Love and ended up very happy.

With the help of whatbird.com, I managed to figure out what I took pictures of last week.  Click the names to see my other photos of these birds...


Northern mockingbird


American robin   

Ben and Jodi at the Starlite Majesty

I ended up wearing the tuxedo jacket, black slacks, and a new white dress shirt and a solid purple tie that matched some of Jodi's skirt.

Jodi Geever, USF Graduate

See lots more photos in the complete Flickr set -- including hand-drawn announcements, if you're logged into Flickr as one of my friends or family.

Yesterday I met my new supervisor. OK, that's a lie; I've known him for years. But yesterday I met him *as* my supervisor. And it was good.

After work, and after a little bit of grocery shopping, I dropped off a prescription and came home. I hopped on my bike (though the tires were a little underinflated) and headed out to the bike store on the way to the pharmacy. And I decided to bring my camera gear, since I figured I would get some neat pictures. And I did -- this bird, for example. The guy at the bike store showed me how to use a French stem, and I inflated my tires. Man, that made a real difference -- it was much easier to ride out of there than it was to ride in.


On the way back from the pharmacy, I took a new road, one that's semi-closed to cars (53rd Avenue). And about halfway up the road, my rear tire burst. Dammit, that wasn't part of the plan. So I called tregoweth for a ride, locked up my bike near this sign being swallowed by a tree, and hiked up to Fletcher. On my way up, I got a call from Jodi, who was ready (much earlier than usual) to be picked up on campus. I explained the situation and fairly soon picked her up with tregoweth's help. We all headed to my place, where I fed them brownies. segnbora came over too, and we had a merry old time until I finally kicked them out around midnight. It was a good night.


Except for the bit about being woken up at 2:20am because Jodi thought Amanda was taking too long to get home from work, and getting scorn heaped on me because I expressed confidence that she would be just fine. That sucked.

But other than that, a good night.

I've taken a few pretty good photos recently:





Seagrape blossom and wasp (?) pollinating it



( 2 more photo thumbnails )

I've also gotten a few contributions to the "buy Ben a better camera" fund. If you've got something to buy, it doesn't hurt to use my link to Amazon.com, and it helps me. Thanks to those who have gotten this katamari rolling!

I wonder if any of my photos are interesting enough to sell framed prints of, say in a coffeehouse...

Last night I saw a special preview of S.O.A.P. (Snakes On A Porch). It was half a meter long, brown, and utterly panicked. It had obviously gotten in under the screen door but couldn't figure out how to get back there. I guided it back with a broomhandle and it slithered happily away.

After 11 hours of sleep (aah!), I woke up and went over to Starbucks for a dose of my drug of choice, LiveJournal. Oh, and their new green tea latte, which is only 70 calories with nonfat milk. (If you get the 'short' size -- which I didn't -- but it's still A LOT better than the chocolate chip Frappucino, which is a lower-sodium version of a Big Mac with a straw in it.)

I went back to the condo, watched a bit of TV, and removed the slab of ice from the bottom of the freezer in one huge piece. It didn't even entirely fit on top of the sink, so I used hot water to break it up into manageable pieces. Matt came by and helped me demolish it with a well-placed karate chop. Actually, he and I leaned on opposite sides of it, which snapped it in two across the sink's middle ridge. We got everything defrosted and put back in the freezer.

Then we went geocaching. Matt spotted a few caches before I did, and we picked up a very cute travel bug named Pat. She's sitting next to the GPS on my dashboard in this photo, though she has a habit of stage-diving as soon as I give it some gas.

We found three caches and took a travel bug from each, leaving two aloe-and-sunscreen kits for the next folks who come along. One of the caches involved decoding a hint written in a made-up language. If you want to try to translate it, you may find this page helpful. (If you don't want a hint, don't click that link!)

Greek salads, hummus, skordalia, and melitzanosalata (note: 'aubergine' means 'eggplant') with pita filled us up with healthy veggies. After dropping off the leftovers in the fridge, we came back to Starbucks to log our caches and upload a few photos, then went to Costco for $2.82 gas (the cheapest in the area). I dropped off a disposable camera and we shopped together.

I got a bottle of Panarroz Jumilla 2004 for $6.89 (hard to go wrong with a Wine Advocate score of 90 and a price under 1¢/mL, que no?), and Matt got two DVDs and a backpack with a two-liter water bladder that will serve him well in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. It looks pretty good for long bike rides, too, but I'm going to hold off and just use 1L water bottles for now.

Matt is now on his way back home because he's got a lot of work to do (he's a third-grade teacher, so he's got loads of progress reports to write and tests to grade). I'm chilling at Starbucks again, and I think I may go play some NTN trivia at Pizzeria Uno tonight. There's a bar area with booths and stools, and I can think of little else I'd rather do right now than act the know-it-all while having a cold beer.

In fact, I've just invited my friend Mrs. Dana Anderson. Yes, that's right, Sheryl Andersen Morgan Anderson got married yesterday with all their kids watching. I'm looking forward to hearing the details!

This mini-vacation is going wonderfully. Tomorrow I think I'll go to Flea World. How many people can say they got a haircut at a flea market? Well, I probably won't, although there is an air-conditioned barbershop there. I'll probably just cruise the schlock and play a few games at Fun World. Eventually I'll want to go back to Tampa and make sure the apartment has been certified poison-free, then go get the cats and bring them home to piss out their annoyance. I'd better leave some dirty clothes on the floor to give them a target I'd prefer: feline realpolitik.
 

Yesterday morning I woke up at seven so I could go out onto Flatwoods Loop, a paved trail for bicyclists, skaters, and pedestrians. There are some geocaches hidden in the area, so I clipped my GPS onto the handlebars. And I often see interesting wildlife, so I brought my camera gear.

I think it was worth it. I rode and walked about 15 miles, and I got hungry about halfway through. I guess next time I need to make room for some Tofurky Jurky or something like that.

No photos yet -- I shot 16 and there are 8 left on the roll. Some closeups of wildflowers, some pictures of birds whose silhouettes I'd never seen before, some broad shots across a saw palmetto prairie. Oh, and I found a few geocaches, though there are still many more for me to find on future trips.

It's Easter. We're mostly going to ignore it, though we may torture some Peeps by immersing them in chocolate fondue. (I'd recreate the Geonosis battle with Peeps, only I don't know any web hosts that could survive the slashdotting a stupid idea like that would bring.)