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DC Redux

  • Jun. 4th, 2009 at 5:04 PM
baseline
As I probably mentioned in earlier posts, Mel and I went to Balticon, Washington, D.C., Gettysburg National Monument, and a wedding at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. The wedding was the son of a former colleague of Mel's.

Here are thumbnails of three select images from the DC portion of our trip. All three were taken with my iPhone. I have tons more pictures taken with my new Canon. Picture on the left is of me standing in front of the Stephen Colbert portrait at the American History Museum. The middle picture is the original model of the Enterprise from Star Trek, located in the basement toy store at the National Air & Space Museum. The last picture is of a train pulling into a DC Metro station. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.)

colbert.jpgenterprise.jpgmetro.jpg

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Select Recent Tweets

  • Jun. 4th, 2009 at 11:28 AM
mumra
A selection of my recent tweets within in the last 24 hours @clm122704. I decided not to put time stamps but the one at the top is the most recent:

RT @ryking: "Cheney Threatens to Further Isolate Republican Party:" http://is.gd/Og28 // Oh, please, please, please, please, PUH-LEAZE!!!!
Everyone needs a coffee table book (1/2 the size of an actual coffee table) on tractors http://twitpic.com/6lz71Oh noze! Now teh gay penguins are hurting traditional marriage http://bit.ly/12G5Se Damn you, Iowa! Damn you to Nebraska!

RT @markosm: Hannity loses head, claims Obama has declared America a "Muslim nation". http://bit.ly/dK4Ud // #assclownalert

RT @dmf71: The Common Link Between Writers & Mental Illness http://tinyurl.com/pfjf8q #writing

Commuter dogs in Russia http://bit.ly/137kVi

Teh stoopid. It burns! Glenn "Assclown" Beck & Jonah "Cheeto dust inhaler" Golberg verbally ejaculate http://bit.ly/IY5hW #tcot #p2

I wish they made giant gerbil wheels to burn off excess energy for small dogs and children.

Twitter as a venue for male bonding? http://bit.ly/27XPn

WWJS - Who would Jesus shoot? Would Jesus have walked up to Dr. Tiller in church and gunned him down?

Yes. No. No. No. Yes. Maybe. Yes. Maybe. Maybe. Sure, why not. http://bit.ly/K69df


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Gettysburg

  • May. 31st, 2009 at 10:06 PM
baseline

Saturday Mel and I toured Gettysburg. We hired a Licensed Battlefield Guide. He rode around with us in our car and we got our own personal tour of the battlefield. He was very knowledgeable. Pix coming soon. Maybe.

If I feel motivated enough, I'll do a Balticon, DC, Gettysburg and wedding report when I get home.

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DC

  • May. 27th, 2009 at 11:01 PM
baseline

Went to Balticon this past weekend. Had a great time. Saw Charles Stross, Evo Terra, George Hrab, Phil Plait, John Hemry, and many others. I might up a more thorough report but don't hold your breath.

Currently in Washingon, DC. This is my first time. Tuesday took the bus tour to get the lay of the land. It was raining so didn't do to much walking though we did brave the rain to see Arlington Nat'l Cemetery. We walked as far as JFK's gravesite. We also saw RFK's grave nearby. We later went to the Museum of the American Indian. It wasn't just about natives of the US but all of North, Central, and South America.

Today we went to the National Air and Space Museum. I don't think I saw a more concentrated collection of important historical objects in one place: Kitty Hawk, Spirit of St. Louis, Spaceship One, Apollo 11 command module, Yaeger's X-1, Amelia Earhart's Trans-Atlantic plane, plus lots of other cool things. And as an added bonus, I saw the Enterprise model used in the original Star Trek series.

Later I went to the Natural History Museum and saw the Hope Diamond. It was much smaller than I was led to believe. Yeah, as diamonds go it was big but somehow was hoping it was larger.

That's it for now.

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Hot Hot Hot

  • May. 19th, 2009 at 9:51 AM
baseline
No headlines to piss you off today nor another round of tweets, though I might do that later. Things are going well, Melissa has finished most of her travel month from Hell, though both of us are off to Balticon this weekend, plus DC, and a wedding in PA.

The weather around here is now in the high nineties. Humidity is low, so as long as you stay in the shade or drink plenty of water it's not unbearable. On Sunday it looked like storm clouds were brewing and after asking on Twitter if that was unusual for this time of year, the answer was yes. It didn't rain, but these ominous clouds sure looked ominous:



Went to the Desert Museum again. Had to exchange a book. I took a few pictures including this screech owl.
.

That's it for now.

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NextGen

  • May. 9th, 2009 at 5:07 PM
baseline
I really like Flickr but they don't allow you to create more than three albums unless you pay extra for it. So that's the reason I haven't uploaded any new photos to it. I found this really cool WordPress plugin called NextGen. I've installed it on my blog and I've uploaded two galleries. They need to be tagged and descriptions added to them, but you can check them out here:
Photos.

Here are two more pictures from my visit to The Desert Museum.



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Leaping Lizards!

  • May. 6th, 2009 at 2:14 PM
baseline
I was driving home from dropping the dog off at the groomer. I'd gotten on to Via Soledad when I saw this big lizard crossing the road. OMG that's a Gila monster. I stopped and pulled over. Got out my iPhone and got as close as I dared to take a few snapshots. I've cleaned and cropped these images below. Click on image for larger version.


gila monster


You don't really get a sense of scale from this image. This lizard was at least a foot long maybe 14 inches. They can grow as long as two feet.


gila monster


They are venomous but slow. So long as you give them a wide berth they won't bother you. It didn't care too much for me taking his photo. I got as close as four foot away. It stopped, turned it's head towards me and opened it's mouth at me when I got too close.


gila monster


Even though they are venomous, it's not fatal but very painful from what I've read. They don't leap seven feet in the air, they don't drop out of trees (or giant saguaro) onto your head, nor do they don't spit venom. But if anyone asks you can add "as far as I know".

And one more wildlife note. I saw my first bats last night. They were flying under the back porch overhang. I saw three or four swoop in like they were strafing the table. I still have not seen any rattlesnakes or coyotes or javalinas yet. Not in any hurry to see those.

Select Recent Tweets

  • May. 4th, 2009 at 6:55 PM
wg
OK. I thought I'd give it a try since I saw shadowhelm posting her tweets on LJ. Though I'm not using the same service. I'm doing copy & paste and I'm not posting all of my tweets for the day, just the ones I feel like.

Gauguin' cut off Van Gogh's ear? http://tinyurl.com/dyqepx

I'm being followed by @EthelTheFrog. We'll see how long that lasts since frogs are going extinct.

Joe the Plumber: Republican's expired jar of Baconnaise or freezer burned Jimmy Dean's Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick? Bush-Cheney Regime epitaph: Never has so much been taken from so many by so few #p2 #tcot #jebus Special thanks to Phil Gramm

From the time I received the email that @ezMoneyMaker was following me on Twitter until the time I blocked it was 12 seconds. A record. @cashewredneck you know how you can tell which Okla senator, Inhofe or Coburn, is more embarrassing? The one that's talking. #p2 #tcot

RT: @MistaBell: Want To Avoid Swine Flu? There’s An App For That Too: http://bit.ly/udL3u It's #StarWarsDay. These aren't the tweets you are looking for. Move along.

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ManBirdPig Flu (Updated)

  • May. 3rd, 2009 at 12:26 PM
baseline

Just read in the paper this morning that the first cases of The Formerly Known As Swine Flu have been recorded on Tucson, AZ. They'll announce actual numbers at a press conference later today.

I'm not too concerned.

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Update

Have people gotten dumber? You cannot get swine flu from eating pork. I knew this way back in 1976 when I was in the 6th grade. Flus are named based on their origins either location or animal. Since it's really a hybrid flu, perhaps they should have called in Mexico City Flu.

I see two upsides for me from this outbreak. I'll be able to get better travel deals and discounts on bacon.

Nature Sounds

  • Apr. 28th, 2009 at 8:18 PM
baseline
I got an iPhone for Christmas and one of the cool applications I downloaded was Griffin iTalk. It's a voice recorder. You can download what you record via an application you install on your computer. I'd intended to use it to record podcast interviews. Well the microphone is pretty darn sensitive and I have on occasion recorded animal sounds in the neighborhood. This is the first one that came out really well. I'm not going to id it till later because I wanted to give you all a chance to see if you can identify what kind of animal it is. I did process it a bit. I amped up the animal sounds and deamped everything else. It's 42 seconds long.

I'll give you a hint. The very last noise it makes will help you narrow it down. It's in MP3 format. Right click to download and save as or click and it should play in the browser or pop-up in an audio player. Enjoy the animal sound.

I heard it this afternoon about 4 pm. I knew it was coming from the center median. There's lots of cacti, brush and trees in the median. Anyway, I couldn't see it. I started recording and walked towards the sound. Eventually I spotted it but then the creature had moved on.

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Headlines To Piss You Off

  • Apr. 27th, 2009 at 10:44 AM
baseline
Where to start? It's been a while since, I posted a HTPYO. I know some will say it's a thinly veiled attack on Republicans. I don't know where anyone would get that idea.

Republicans Gutted Pandemic Preparedness Spending From Stimulus Bill
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=20479

Swine Flu outbreak
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN27523217

Republicans Decry Volcano Monitoring
http://www.seattlepi.com/connelly/404216_joel25ww.html?source=mypi

Volcano in Alaska erupts
http://newsminer.com/news/2009/apr/25/eruptions-alaskas-redoubt-volcano-spark-lightning-/

Republican Pundits upset DHS report targets right wing extremists
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/conservatives-indict-themselves-shri

Right wing extremist kills two deputies in Florida
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/cartwright_16963___article.html/elizabeth_deputies.html

Right wing extremist kills three cops in Pittsburg
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/emerging-portrait-richard-poplawski-<

Oklahoma Man Arrested for Twittering Tea Party Death Threats
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/twitterraid/

Those whacky teabaggers. Won't they ever learn? (dialog NSFW)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGNWCwCrUKk

The GOP: divorced from reality
The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,927819.story


Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.

Snakes Alive!

  • Apr. 19th, 2009 at 1:46 PM
baseline
I stepped out of house this morning to get the Sunday paper when I saw a snake crossing our driveway. I knew it wasn't a rattlesnake by the look of the tail, but didn't know if it was venomous or not. It's not. I was told it was a bullsnake by someone on Twitter. My Audobon Southwest book did not have it in there so I wasn't able to ID it. I thought it was going to be like identifying a bird. The pictures and illustrations sometimes don't really help. There can be a lot of variation within a species.




This is the first snake we've seen since moving to Tucson. I'm not going to worry about snakes in the driveway or in the front of the house. I'll just avoid them and they'll go away eventually. Though I suppose if I'm expecting visitors I'll have to warn them. If one gets into the backyard, garage, or--shudder--house then I'll have to do something. Anyway Melissa did not freak out. I guess it helped there was a screen door and 20 feet separating her from it.

I also took a short video of it so you can see its tail better.



So far I've seen rabbits, jackrabbits, quail, lots of other desert birds, chipmunks, ground squirrels, and a bobcat in our neighborhood. I've heard but not seen coyotes. I think my foothills experience will be complete when I see javalinas.

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