Moab pictures

Just a teaser, mind you. I pulled out a few of the pictures, just to get some up here.

Moab preview

These are from Arches National Park, where we were last Wednesday. More soon.

Moab-minivan

Moab-minivan, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

This was our rental (free upgrade!) for our trip around Utah. We flew into SLC, drove to Price, then to Moab, then back to SLC to pick up my parents, and then on to Park City for the wedding of Graham and Malena. I'm still sorting through the "real" pictures from the trip, but rest assured that many of the highlights will make it to the web. I have about 700 pictures from the Moab area, and at least that many from the weekend festivities.

Coffee cubes in our iced coffees-genius!

Coffee cubes in our iced coffees-genius!, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Arches National Park, near Moab

Arches National Park, near Moab, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Lunch in SLC

Lunch in SLC, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Menu plates

Menu plates, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

RDRUG

RDRUG, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

RDU

RDU, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Wool E. Bull on the rampage!

08-20-05_2153.jpg, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

To be fair, Stef snuck up on him. He was acting in self-defense.

Play Ball!

08-20-05_2050.jpg, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Classy fan

Classy fan, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

For some reason this picture didn't come through very clear, or even full size, which is a shame. The guy is wearing a shirt, and the shirt says, "Hey Saddam, get ready for your INSPECTION" and the image (stick with me here) is of a DOG, wearing an UNCLE SAM outfit, and putting a rubber glove on. I don't know where to begin. He obviously loves the shirt enough to keep wearing it, even though the inspections are long gone, and Saddam is in custody, etc. But why is there an UNCLE SAM DOG preparing to do a full body cavity search on the shirt? It gives me strange hope that I can put whatever I want on a t-shirt, and provided that I can get it in front of the right audience, those shirts will sell. Like hotcakes.

Du' Bulls

Du' Bulls, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Hottest damn day of the year and what am I doing? Knitting.

a sweater vest?

No! I have "completed" one sleeve of my skully sweater!

Still have some sizing issues to work out, but the body seems great and the sleeve just needs a bit of widening at the top, underneath. Some sort of gusset is in order, I believe. Freedom of motion and all those other inalienable rights, don't you know...

I think my next sweater should have turtles on it! Just kidding. But I'm sure there are some great turtle sweaters out there.

FREEDOM! HORRIBLE HORRIBLE FREEDOM!

Shelly has just been released into Lake Crabtree, hopefully to live a long, car-free existence.


Scenic Lake Crabtree.


The moment of truth.


Wild turtle! Wild turtle!


Awesome.

Early parole...

The turtle doctor called last night to say that Shelly is actually fit to return to the wild. I guess the intake vet was not a turtle expert, so the real expert had a look later in the day, and determined that even though the shell is cracked, the skin's intact, so on the lines of "gloves don't fit, you must aquit", Shelly is water-tight and ready to get back out there. Val and I are going to go pick him up and release him this afternoon.

Goin' to the turtle doctor!

08-13-05_1421.jpg, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Shelly is going to live with the nice people at Piedmont Wildlife for the next quarter or so, while his shell heals up. Seals up, maybe? They'll be giving him some antibiotics and keeping him safe from infections and predators. I got a case number so I can check on how he's doing, and I will probably even get to release him back into the wilds of Morrisville in a few months. Turtles are awesome.

Speaking of awesome, B-rad, who met Shelly this morning, has joined the blogosphere. permalink over there...>>>———>

Greenbeam

Greenbeam, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

SAFE!

I was headed home from work last evening and I saw a turtle franticly attempting to cross Airport Boulevard ( He was in the crosswalk. I pulled a U-turn and came back to the intersection, hazards on, jumped out, and after looking both ways, ran out to pick up the turtle, which had retreated into it's shell and seemed to have given up on the attempt to cross the street. Normally, and even as recently as last week, I help a turtle cross the road and then I'm on my way. This turtle was headed from the office park on the Hooters side of the road to the office park on the Taco Bell/KFC side of the road, so I decided a little more intervention might be necessary.

I put the turtle in the car, on the passenger side floor, and decided to bring it home. My plan was to keep it for the weekend and bring it back to Morrisville and release it near a pond that is right by work, in an as yet undeveloped lot. After researching turtle release info online, I found that that is probably the best solution. Turtles apparently have a strong homing mechanism in their little brains, and even if they are pleasantly relocated, they can be disoriented and their little homing compasses just kind of spin around and tell them that they are lost. I called the Piedmont Wildlife Center this morning, and I'm going to bring Shelly (the turtle) by for a check up. It looks like he's (I think it's a he) tried to cross before and narrowly escaped a crushing. There's some shell scarring on his hindquarters. They'll check it out, and maybe hang on to him to give it a chance to heal up.

NOW, on with the show...


Shelly's temporary home


Lots of in-shell hiding action!


The road and the damage done.


A pleasant portrait.


After a little pep talk...


...we took a little deck walk.


Nice coloring.


So, let's review.

1) Best bet, if it's safe, is to just help the turtle cross the road, in the same direction that it was originally headed
2) Relocation is an option, but the closer to the original location the better
3) Turtles are awesome

Mouse!

Mouse!, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Phone photo phix

Phone photo phix, originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Well, this is better than it was. I couldn't get the phonecam posts to be any bigger than the tiny little thumbnails that kept getting posted, which you, dear reader, then had to click on to actually see what the picture was all about. Should be better now, and I'll keep at it. Thank you for your support.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Brew-berry...

Brew-berry...,
originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Now the transfer is complete. Another week(???) and the bottlin' will ensue. I have pictures of the whole process around here somewhere...

Blueberry brew

Blueberry brew,
originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

Blueberry beer transfer from the bucket to the glass. Not the drinking glass, the further-fermenting glass. Looks gross, smells great!

Couldn't sleep

...and lucky for us all, it turns out. I found this. Featuring, among other things, this, this, and especially this.

Infectious post infected...

Damn anonymous comment 'bots. The previous post received the following "comment"...

Infectious, no?

Stu's photoblog

http://blandom.blogspot.com

also perma-linked over there on the sidebar>>>———>

Ahhhh cameraphones. They're the PXL 2000s of the aughts. Except not as cool. And anyone can get one.

Lately, this has been the only photoblog I need, a page that shows you the lastest 40 images posted to people's LiveJournals.

http://fuzzysquid.com/LJ.php

Thanks (I think) to Malena for that link. It is severely addictive, and potentially unsafe for work viewing, if your workplace is adverse to totally random images. The worst thing I've seen so far are from young Russian white supremacists, and their images were just of their collections of favorite clothes (polo shirts, jeans, and KKK embriodered patches). It was an odd collage to be sure.

The best part that I've noticed is that if you look at it at odd hours, you get these international "flavors" (like the Russian postings), that blend into each other as people post entries as they get up, go to bed, before work, at work, after work, etc. The Russian posts slowly turned into a larger and larger number of Harry Potter related images, mostly from England. If I can stop staring at the images, I plan on taking a look at the script that makes it tick.

In other Malena related news, Val and I are headed to Utah for Malena and Graham's Wedding in two weeks. Ms. Cupcakes has a bit about our agenda on her blog.

Mmm...iced lakewater...

Mmm...iced lakewater...,
originally uploaded by doctorhectic.

This is an "Iced Green Tea" from Panera Bread. It was tasty, but not what I expected. It looked like lakewater and tasted like Kool-Aid. Very little tea involved.





In other green news, I got my Anscoflex II on Friday. I had some 120 film already respooled on a 620 roll, so I loaded it up and burned through a test roll on Saturday. The camera is not as immaculate as I had hoped, but it seems functional, and with a more complete cleaning it should be ok. It still looks cool. It came with the flash attachment, flashbulbs, and even had some vintage "photo equipment" batteries.


Complete with case, travel case, flash, bulbs, batteries and instructions.


slide open the front cover...


and you're ready to shoot!


Built in "close up" and b&w "contrast" filters!


Pictures forthcoming.

Praises be to FSM! Arrrr, yarrrrrrrrrr....

http://www.venganza.org/