Not the Zoo

I don't know where that kid gets his hair from. Anyway, Anke and I had a plan of going to the zoo this morning. It was early. It was raining. We thought we could wander around before the crowds showed up for Memorial Day Weekend. Umm... the crowds got up earlier than us. So we decided to check out Lauritzen Gardens instead. And it was a good choice. The weather was mostly overcast while we were there with the occasional light sprinkle. The grey sky really offset all of the green. It was rather nice, and a bit romantic. There was a bird sanctuary, which was really mostly a turkey sanctuary. Many nice little fountains and ponds with wather lillies. And the early stages of a Japanese garden with a fantastic gate and a small replica of Mt. Fuji. It's all very nice. I'll have to take Mom here sometime when she visits. I believe that she'd really enjoy it.


Also at Lauritzen Gardens is Kenefick Park which has two engines from Union Pacific. One is an old steam engine called Big Boy and the other is a diesel electric of the Centenial series. The Centenial engines are the larges deisel electric train engines in the world. They were built specifically for Union Pacific. It is really hard to get a grasp of how huge these are unless you are right beside them.

Still no transmission

I ordered a new four speed automatic transmission (200-R4) for my Cutlass six weeks ago. With the old Turbo-350 three speed, I'm only getting just above 10 mpg on the highway. I'm hoping to move it up to the 15-20 mpg range with the new tranny.

When ordering Megamax- the transmission company- said that it should ship out in three weeks or less. Well they still haven't even started on the bloody thing yet! I was planning on installing it next weekend, but that plan now looks shot.

Hind-sight being 20/20, I'm wishing that I'd spent the extra $200 and gone with their competitor. I don't want to raise too much hell with Megamax because they still have to build the bloody thing and ship it to me. If I bitch too much, they might rush it and ship me a shoddy unit and I'm doing the same damn thing next year. Which I don't want to do. I 'spose I'll just have to be patient.

What is herping...

... Kim wants to know. The precise answer is: Looking for reptiles and am- phibians in the wild. Generally it involves watching, photographing or catching and releasing the little critters.Anke and I take it beyond actual reptiles into insects and birds and butterflies and mammals and pretty much anything else that interests us in nature. Maurice was telling me about how he was on his farm a couple of weekends ago, just hanging out in his field one morning. He was sitting on the ground and looked between his knees and there was a butterfly. He thought to himself, "This is a perfect Scotty and Anke moment. Except that they would have a camera and take a picture of it." But I digress. Mostly herping is about lizards and snakes.

How did I get here? It all started out as a basic interest in lizards and snakes and frogs as a little kid. And I never really grew out of it. I had a newt first. I named him Isaac. He lived for quite a long time, for a newt. I kept him in a fist bowl with small rocks and one big rock. Dad had to fashion a wood and screen top for the fish bowl as our cats took an unhealthy interest in him. Unhealthy for Isaac, not necessary for Midnight or Jettero. Through the years I had several other lizards, culminating in a basilisk and an iguana. They lived for a while, but not as long as they should have. I was too young, and didn't properly understand the care that they require. I was really too irresponsible. I feel a bit of guilt about that now, I should have taken better care of them. I was probably around 11 or 12.

Then more than a decade went by and I didn't have any lizards, but I kept an interest in them. Anke and I went to western Colorado and eastern Utah (Canyonlands) in maybe 97 or 98 for hiking and camping. While there I photographed all of the little lizards that I could find. This was me herping, before I knew what herping was.

Later in 2001, just after we were married, Anke let me get a lizard for my birthday. We decided on a getting a Chinese Green Waterdragon. We found a nice litter of them at Petco so we purchased Loki there.

Afterward we joined the Nebraska Herpetological Society. Which is basically lizard and snake club. We met many interesting people through the herp society. Zoo keepers at Henry Doorly Zoo. Professors from UNL and UNO. And a grad student, doing her thesis on the ecology and conservation of the Massassauga.

It is with these cool people that we have done most of our herping. We've gone with Tracy (the grad student) to radio track Massassauga's. They are a relatively small rattlesnake with venom that will not kill you (unless you are Corwin, Kelton, or Jadon sized.) On other occasions we've found prairie rattlesnakes and timber rattle snakes and looked for copperheads. We haven't yet found the copperhead in the wild yet, but I put this down to bad luck. But these guys can kill you and me with a bite. But we go with people who are very cautious and know what they are doing. I never get too near the rattlesnakes. But every rattlesnake found has its location recorded using GPS. It is then weighed and checked to see if it has a radio identification tag. If it doesn't one is inserted into the snake, so if it is found again the data can be reattributed to the same snake.

Uncle Scotty!

Or perhaps it would be correctly Onkel Scotty. Anke's sister Inga has just had a little girl. Anouk was born on Saturday May 20th, 2006. She and mother are both doing well. I am very happy for Inga and Andre.

Not at Work

I'm at home with Corwin today. The daycare called at around 9:30 to let me know that he has a tempreture. I picked him up, and we came home. This illness probally explains why he (and Anke and I) slept so badly last night. But he didn't feel warm last night. I just checked it again and it's down to 100.0 f. So nothing serious, but the little guy isn't in top form.

It's not all bad though. We played a little this morning. Just in the past two days, Corwin has discovered the joy of giving. Here he is giving me one of his favorite toys. An old water bottle filled with silver bells.

It should be noted that I'm typing this all with my right hand, as someone insists on being held in my left. He just leans against my chest occasionally uttering a little pathetic whine. The upshot is that if my left hand ever gets lopped off in a tragic scimitar juggling accident, I can still probaly type well enough to continue being a programmer.

I've also got a picture of Corwin playing with his friend Maia, before leaving daycare last week. Don't tell Anke, but I think Maia may be in love with me. Everyday when we pick up Corwin, she runs up to me with her little arms in the air wanting to be held. And she is so cute- clearly the second cutest tiny human at the daycare- that I just have to oblige her.

New TV Movie proposal

The Dukes of Hazard Invade the Lost World! Starring Hunter the Evil Looking Yet Cowardly Water Dragon and A Hot Wheels Wannabe General Lee Car From My Youth. Which is incidentally a Challenger not a Charger. I'm ashamed to admit as a seven year old I never noticed the difference.

Hunter is an extremely impressive looking dragon, but he is also rather skittish. That makes it difficult to work with him as a model. Our Green Water Dragon, Loki, is much calmer. Unfortunately she has been rather sick this year, and she doesn't look as impressive as she has in the past. So she isn't the model for today. The good news is that she is going to live; hopefully she regains her past beauty.

I'm rather looking forward to when Corwin is older and he has toy knights. We will be able to stage wonderful battles against dragons.

What I don't have

So I was bidding on the really cool 18th century Persian buckler shield on Ebay.de. Really cool (did I already say that?), made of copper (maybe) with tiny engravings all across the face. Some rust along the edges, but a real shield that may have blocked an arrow or javilin to save some blokes life. Or the shield may have been too small and and the soldier mistimed the projectile and he could have been over come by a case of too much wood to the heart. So anyway I'm bidding on this shield, and in the beginning I can take it or leave it. I put in my high bid of 115 Euros and am prepared to wait it out. If I win great, if not that's OK too.

So the auction ends at 4:15 and I get home from work at 4:10. Happily, bidding on my shield has been stuck at 70 Euros all day. So I sit down and watch the bidding count down, like waiting for the ball to drop on New Years Eve in NYC. I refresh every minute. 4. 3. 2. 1 minute left. Everything is holding out. I'm feeling pretty good. 30 seconds left, and I'm now refreshing every 2 seconds. Looks like clear sailing. After all, it's 11:15 pm in Germany. Anyone else wanting this shield has clearly gone to bed. I'm now feeling a sense of ownership of my shield. 10 seconds. 5 seconds.

Current bid 116 Euros.

Some bastard came in and sniped me! I quickly tried to get in a 200 Euro bid- well above my own preset limit of 115- but it was too late. I felt like I had been robbed. I had already aquired a sense of ownership with it. It was my bloody shield! So anyway I propose a new rule to Ebay that anytime a bid is entered on an auction with less than one minute remaining, the auction be extended by one minute.

Hello World

So I've wanted to do a blog for a while now. I don't know why, perhaps it's vaninty of thinking others might care about what I'm doing. Anyway here is my attempt. Don't expect anything profound or insightful. You may get them occasionally. Or not. But at any rate, don't expect it. I also doubt that it will get updated all that often. But I'll do what I can.

My tip for the day is; have a listen to some Bob Dylan. My friend Matt got two free CD's of his for buying a couple pair of jeans, and gave me one recently. I've listened to it and decided that there is a reason Bob is so famous.