Our first stop was “Dennis the Menace” park which was probably the only miss of the day: only mallards, Canada geese and gulls (never got close enough to ID). From there we went to the Monterey marina and the fishery pier there. It was crowded with divers and made me think fondly on my days of diving (it’s been a while). Then as we walked up the pier, Al pointed out my first new bird of the trip – a Pigeon Guillemot*, which was also my first alcid. I followed them around for a while, struggling to get nice shots of the uncooperative birds in tough light. Actually, the light was gorgeous but not when you’re shooting down from a pier. We spent a bit of time there then moved on to see what else was lurking. Turns out that a LOT of sea lions like this area: there were dozens in this little cove alone, along with a smaller number of harbor seals.

I’ve seen both species before but never together and never in quantities like this (Al commented later that he had never seen this many pinnipeds in Monterey before). So I took quite a few shots of these neat animals, who were laying on buoys, rocks and even the occasional boat. A harbor seal came up below me, looking eagerly for a handout, according to Al. After a short time, it seemed to figure out that I was fishless and dove into the cerulean waters.

On our way back to the car, I had a chance to watch a half-dozen more pigeon guillemots in the waters just below the pier, including one who was showing off what I’d guess was mating behavior (noisy little buggers!) and a California Gull* An extra treat was yet to come – in the marina just opposite of the car, a single cormorant swam happily among the boats – a gleaming blue eye stood out from the black feathers: a Brandt’s cormorant*!  Life list entry #3.

Monterey Bay Coast Guard Pier

Our next stop was the Coast Guard pier, a wonderful place to see a number of cool things: hundreds of sea lions everywhere, timid enough for approaching close enough to touch, of all ages – it was a wonder to see and experience. They were of all ages, and the young ones were undeniably cute. Further along we were greeted by a few seals, another few Brandt’s cormorants and a small flotilla of divers all along the jetty (I have to admit, diving among the sea lions/seals would be pretty cool). But the big payoff was at the end of the jetty: dozens of sea lions, including a huge bull and a nesting colony of Brandt’s cormorants. I had the privilege of seeing mated pairs building their nests on the rocks out of colorful seaweed and other debris pulled from the sea. The male would return with the seaweed, do a short presentation dance, bright blue throat patch extended and glowing in the light.  Then he’ d place the materials gingerly at the feet of the female, where they nuzzled and worked together to put it in just the right place. Hard to describe how beautiful it was watching them work to make their nest in what seemed like a tenuous spot on the bare rocks amongst the huge sees lions.

Monterey Bay / Fisherman’s Wharf

Al was determined to help me find the other new cormorant for me, the pelagic cormorant, so after checking in with Patty, we walked along the bay toward Fisherman’s Wharf. Little did we know that this short side trip would actually be more productive than just the pelagic cormorant (which we never saw despite several false positives). Waking past the picnic area, I noticed a number of small birds flying back and forth among some trees and something made me stop. I’m glad I did, as those little birds were my first chestnut-backed chickadee*; a half- dozen of the little auburn-accented songbirds flitted in and out (and just out of sight) amongst the branches. But a few pssts later, I was rewarded by a couple of them coming out into the light on the end of some branches. A second bonus was when a couple of white crowned sparrows joined the fun. I’ve seen these tons of times but rarely in full breeding plumage, and I figured I’d try to get some shots. Turns out that these were a coastal sub species – Nuttall’s white-crowned sparrow*.

After this short sidestep, we continued on along the bay. The place was gorgeous, a meeting of jagged islets and bright blue green water, coupled with a gentle breeze that complemented the near perfect temperatures coming off the bay. We spent some time investigating several cormorants on a small rocky islet in a cove, desperately trying to make one a pelagic cormorant, to no avail. But my eye caught another shallow in the water nearby, which turned out to be a Pacific loon*, another new species (#5 so far, incl. the WCSP sub species).

Monterey Bay Aquarium

At this point, Al is getting a little bent at not having produced a pelagic cormorant for me (which wouldn’t be a lifebird, but would be my first GOOD look). In my mind, I was more than satisfied with what we HAD seen, so anything else would be gravy but he was determined, so we tried one last ‘can’t fail’ spot – the platform at the entrance of the famed Monterey Bay Aquarium. Along the way, I got to see Steinbeck’s famous “Cannery Row” and the rest of the nice town of Monterey. A first stop just short of the aquarium produced only Brandt’s cormorants and more pigeon guillemots, and we hurried to the aquarium. Sadly there wasn’t time to go into this landmark, but I was having a good enough time regardless.

We walked to the end of the canterlevered platform and quickly spied more Brandt’s cormorants and pigeon guillemots, but none of or target bird. Suddenly Al yelled,” There! With the green back!” I got a brief glimpse of an ebony bird with green accents, too fast to be sure as it sailed under the platform beneath us, but definitely leading. Sure enough, it or another bird came sailing out and this time I definitively saw the green tint and white patches on the wings that were defining field marks for a pelagic cormorant*. Now to get a picture, which was tougher as these seabirds moved quickly. After several near successes, I decided to see if I could spy one underneath the platform – and was surprised to find a male preening no more than 5′ from me!

It was a beauty in its own way, the green-black plumage iridescent in the sun, giving way to the bright red face of a breeding adult. The KALEIDESCOPE of colors was both beautiful and garish at the same time, brighter and more eye- catching than either the double- created or Brandt’s cormorants. Three only problem was that with my 300mm lens, I was actually too close to fit the whole bird in the frame! So I moved to the another side opposite of where I had been, trading proximity and optional light for a full-body shot.

A bonus moment was our chance to catch the attention of some other aquarium visitors (probably in part due to my hanging precariously over the railing to get the best angle). Al and I were able to interest two couples in the bird, explaining a little about it and maybe planting a little seed of interest in birding.

Pacific Grove

Now that I had my trophy shot of a pelagic cormorant, Al and Patty prompted me for anything else I might want to see. It took only a short moment for me to rattle off a short list: Heerman’s gull, black oystercatcher, black turnstone. It took them only a few seconds more to come up with just the place and off we went up the road to Pacific Grove. The drive alone would have been worth it for the breath taking views of the Pacific ocean, deep blue ocean crashing in frothy chaos against the rocks of the shoreline. I was captivated by the scenery, trying to capture it on my phone’s camera since my Nikon lens could never capture the breath of what I was seeing through the narrow aperture.

We then made our way to a particular pull off and Al and I trekked onto the rocks to search for the trio of birds I had mentioned. Sure enough, a pair of mated black oystercatchers* appeared on the small island just beyond the spit of land we were on, the black feathers seeming to absorb as much light as their bright orange bills reflected. And nearby wandered not the requested black turnstones but something just as nice: a trio of surfbirds* which had lingered past their normal migration date. Other birds we encountered included numerous western gulls of all ages, a single 3rd-year California gull, a whimbrel and a Caspian tern. No Hearmann’s gull but a responding success nonetheless.

Monterey Bay preserve

Our last stop before lunch was part of the Monterey Bay preserve near Moss’s Landing. Housing a marina and access to the ocean, it also turned out to be one of the best spots to see the nearly famous California sea otters – nearly 30 strong, these large (~3 – 4′ long) mammals were a sight to see laying out and playing in the bay near the sea lions and seals nearby. Lucky for us, there was even one otter on the beach sunning himself (I’m going to pretend that’s all he was doing and he wasn’t sick).

Seeing the otters was an unexpected pleasure, but hardly the only one as a Clark’s Grebe* popped up amidst the otters and gave me a good show as well. Then, after several minutes taking pictures of these magnificent and amusing critters, we were off to the locally famous Phil’s Fish Market for lunch, with a quick stop to take a couple pictures of a pair of otters (mother/child) who were lounging in the marina on the way. Sadly, it was then time to head back as I had a workshop that night, and we stopped only for Al to show me a Eurasian Collared Dove that he and Patty told me would be in a particular 50-square-foot parking lot; true to their word, there it was (with a second one) almost as though they had dialed in their order.

Overall, I had a GREAT time in the Monterey area – the combination of awesome weather, great wildlife, good food and good friends (who were GREAT guides) really made the day a pleasant experience throughout.

• a lack of kitchenware that made it hard to cook meals
• the coffee maker that spit coffe
• the bed that had a Shenandoah-like valley in the middle
• the general uncleanliness of the place
• the hose with no nozzle
• the fenced in yard where the fence was only a foot tall in one place and where the gate fell of in the middle of the night.

But the big problems were to come.

It actually started to be a good day. We got some breakfast and went to the supermarket to buy some supplies and a replacement coffee maker. Then we went to Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge for some birding and a jaunt into town for some lunch and some window shopping on the mall. We took the dogs for a hike on the beach and had a nice dinner.

Then we started to see about finding someplace else to sleep – the hole in the middle of the master bed was so uncomfortable we were willing to try other options. The bunk beds in the second bedroom were out, because the mattresses were placed directly on wooden slats, and we sunk in between them. So we decided to see if the couch was a pullout. It was … but opening it was the WRONG thing to do.

To call it disgusting would be generous. It was obviously used and closed up without cleaning it. And the slipcover the put on the couch was put on upside down to hide all of the unidentifiable stains on it. There was even a big, crushed spider to add some accent. We were so grossed out that we actually pulled the slipcover off, grabbed the sheets and comforter from the main bed and started looking for laundromat. At 10 o’clock. On a Sunday night.

So we spent an hour driving around to local coin-op laundry places trying to find one that was open, without any luck. So we had to go back, skeeved out by what we had found. Needless to say, the cavernous bed was preferable to our alternatives, but we bee-lined our way to the laundromat the next morning.

We can laugh about it now (mostly), but it really dampened our view of the place.

When Friday came, we were nowhere ready to leave, but a forecast of downpours courtesy of Tropical Storm Danny gave us the chance to say we’ll get there when we get there. That, in turn, made the prep much more enjoyable. We left later than we wanted to, but still made record time (1.5 hours Haddonfield to Cape May). It was time for vacation to start.

The house was very small (5 rooms, including two bedrooms), but quaint. However, it did gave a few ‘quirks’: limited dishware, a half-assed cleaning and almost no furniture. A breakfast nook table, a sofa and a small table for the cable router was it. Other than the beds, there was NOTHING in the bedrooms.

Okay, so it was small – we could live with small, especially on the beach. And especially when we got the sunset we were treated to.

We got good news and bad news – good news: he doesn’t have cancer, he’s just fat. The lumps were ‘fatty deposits’ that were a combination of getting older and him being a lard ass. The ‘pimple’ was a cyst but nothing to worry about unless it doesn’t resolve in a week or two.

As for his stiffness, that’s the bad news. Miles has burgeoning hip dysplasia in both hips, and it’s causing stress on his bad knees as well. Luckily, the vet thought that him losing about 10 pounds, coupled with more EASY exercise and some OTC meds (anti-inflammatories, glucosamine + chondroitan, omega-3 fatty acids) should relieve many of his symptoms and surgery can be held off. Which is good, because with all of his other health problems, I’m not sure we’d spend the money on the surgery for him.

It’s a hard decision to make, but it’s not only hips – it’s all four knees which would have to be fixed too, and we simply can’t afford $10,000 for a dog who – while very lovable – is prematurely aging and probably won’t be around much longer. I hate thinking that we are already making decisions like that about him – sealing his fate, as it were – but it’s a necessary evil.

In any case, we can treat him and make him feel better, and since he seems generally happy (if a bit bored since we have been too busy to spend enough time with either dog), I hope that will be enough to help him enjoy his life with a minimum of pain.

So yesterday, I get a message from Shari that she has found the money. Unfortunately, she found it while cleaning the yard of the dogs’ ‘business’. Yes, that’s right – it was in the dog poop. Literally, the dogs did eat the money – about $80 worth. Near as I can figure, the cat – upon NOT getting her way – knocked the envelope to the ground, where our Dog Oakley investigated and, having a distinct penchant for eating paper (napkins, paper towels, coupons, rummy score sheets, etc.) decided that the envelope and its contents looked simply DEE-lish.

What to do, what to do?

Well, if it were $2 or even $20, I would have written that off. But $80 was a little much to just shrug away so I did what might be the second worst job I have ever done*, and I grabbed some latex gloves and went after the money. It wasn’t a pretty job, but a little ‘probing’ provided me with a bunch of scraps of $20 bills. Washing them off in the yard, I realized that I had parts of 4 different bills, but not necessarily ALL of the bills. Back in I went for round 2.

At the end, I had all of the scraps I could find, so I rinsed them off with the hose, then put them in a plastic bag with a ton of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide to sanitize them. After a couple hours in that solution, I rinsed them a half-dozen times with hot water and then dried them out. This morning, I put them together and taped them. End result:

• 2 bills are completely recovered – both serial numbers intact and most of the bill remaining.
• 1 bill mostly recovered – one serial number intact, the other partially there and a good 75% of the bill.
• 1 bill is very iffy – one serial number and barely 50% of the bill.

Now, according to the rules from the Treasury department, as long as a bill is over 50% present and is identifiable as U.S. currency, the banks have to accept it and give me a new bill. As you can see below, I think I should get all $80 back. But we’ll see.

As for Oakley, I’d prefer if he’s start laying golden eggs instead of recycling my hard-earned cash.

Now I was really scared. I managed to revive her again and get her conscious of what was going on although she still seemed dazed. I got her to three spare bedroom to lay down while I got some water and some clothes for her to head to the ER. But she was fighting me because she didn’t want to go to there, and she had an important photo season to do. I wasn’t having any of that and tried to call her clients for her, but I was determined to get her to the hospital. She was ago weak she couldn’t sit up or hold the cup herself, so I held her and gave her sips of water. I wanted to get her ready but was to afraid to leave her, so we sat there for a while as I tried to get some liquids into her.

As much as I pushed, she wouldn’t go to the hospital. I thought she needed an IV, she thought she needed Gatorade or something similar, but I was afraid to leave for long enough to go get any. But she wasn’t budging on the hospital, where she said that she would end up waiting for 3 hours to get an IV and spend all of that money, when she could just drink water and Gatorade. I let her know that people who lose consciousness usually get triaged higher than your average ER visitor (along with profuse bleeders and non-breathers), but she wouldn’t hear of it. Even after she was struggling with some cognitive functioning, she still wouldn’t go.

As it turns out, it took many hours but eventually she was able to function again. Her head was still pounding but she was ‘with it’, and could figure out what was going on and even eat some dinner. The doctor thinks it was severe dehydration coupled with exhaustion (she spent 10+ hours the day before shooting at Eastern State Penitentiary, and was a little dehydrated when she started), but we’re getting some tests anyway. I’m still worried about her – I have some pretty bad dehydration jags (dehydration leads to sinuses leads to migraine), but nothing like that. I still think she should have gone to the hospital, but sometimes there’s no arguing with her, especially since she HATES hospitals.

My Own Dumb Moment

When I thought she was well enough that I could leave her, I turned to get a few quick things done in the yard. First and foremost, I needed to rebuild the wheelbarrow, since I was going to need it to do a number of the other jobs (mulch, topsoil, putting out more of our ex-roof to the curb). The original part of the job was to replace a broken handle, but I found that both of the wedge pieces below the handle were rotted, too, so I went to cut some new ones. I was doing okay, but just as I moved my hand to steady the back of the wood, the saw kicked back and ran across my thumb. I was scared to look but since there were no body parts laying on the ground, I knew it couldn’t be too bad. Turns out that my quick release of the trigger resulted in one of the teeth on the blade embedding itself into my thumb at the base of the nail, and I quickly yanked it free. It didn’t look too bad at first — and then it started bleeding (as fingers tend to do).

The blade had dug all the way down almost to the side of my thumb and had broken the nail where it went it. It hurt like a bitch and bled like a stuck pig for a while, but I knew it wouldn’t require stitches (‘It’s merely a flesh wound!’), but I’m due to get a tetanus shot. I still finished cutting the wood (using the PROPER tools now), and got most of the wheelbarrow back together before the throbbing and renewed bleeding made me call it a day.

In retrospect, I’m pretty lucky – despite being ‘all thumbs’, I got to keep mine when it could have very easily been a much larger accident. Which would have especially sucked because I doubt Shari was in any condition to take ME to the hospital.

Movie Time

Watched two more movies this weekend, with mixed results.

The Projects

Before we left for our Arizona vacation, we began planning some long overdue home projects, as well as some new things we wanted to do. The weekend after we got back from vacation we started in earnest with getting those projects done. On Mother’s Day, Shari had asked me to take down our back porch. It seemed like an odd request, but since it was fix it or take it down, I gave in and pulled that sucker down (but not without a few small … issues). So, now that it was down, we have been slowly doing all of the stuff to compensate for there being a sudden lack of roof over the patio.

Our improvements continued over the last two weeks with installing new outdoor lighting among the driveway and gardens, cleaning and fixing the bird feeder stations, weeding and planting our gardens, having four large trees taken down in the yard, as well as most of the other typical weekly chores. This week’s project was to replace the gutters – or rather, replace the gutters that were there, since there weren’t any at the junction where the roof originally met the house. So, I got my introduction on installing gutters. I’ve never done Amy gutter work before other than cleaning them, but figured I would give it a try.

Never again.

I got it done, and I think I did a good job, but there was quite a bit to learn and things I hadn’t considered when I was planning, including the costs of the extra tools and things. I also had realized how hard it was going to be to replace the fascia and the flashing. What I thought would be a 1 day project turned out to take almost three days, not to mention a lot of weird bending and balancing on the ladder. And gutter sealant is a pain in the ass to work with.

But I got it done: the water runs out the downspouts (mostly), it doesn’t leak, it’s sturdy and looks good. So we missed a picnic and our plans to go to the beach or a movie. Combined with the other stuff we did do (mowed the lawn, installed more lighting, put on a new back screen door), it was a satisfying weekend … err, workend.

Movie Time

I haven’t had time to watch many movies lately, but at least I got to see “Star Trek” (4.5 stars). I wasn’t sure how Abrams was going to pull off the re-telling of the original story but he did a good job, and it will give him or others a lot of free reign to be creative in the future. I wasn’t particularly enamored with Zachary Quinto as Spock, but that might have been just my inability to NOT see Sylar in every scene.

“The Incredible Hulk” (2.5 stars) was just as disappointing as I thought it would be. Better than the Ang Lee debacle to be sure, but even Edward Norton’s passion for the project couldn’t compensate for the shortcomings in the story and the performances, which were almost all wooden and staid.

“Blindness” (4.5 stars) was better than I had expected. A sci-fi tale about a plague of blindness that lands our main characters in a hellish quarantine, where they find that being uniformly blind doesn’t stop the best and worst of man’s base instincts from coming out. Julianne Moore plays the wife of one of the quarantined characters, who happens to be immune to the disease but acts blind even while helping all of the others. Shot in stark high-contrast, the film does a great job in that it doesn’t make any judgments about right or wrong, just shows what would happen in this horrific situation. At the same time the story avoids one of the biggest sci-fi cliches in that it doesn’t ever disclose what caused the disease or show the characters finding the cure. The disease is irrelevant beyond the device the cause of the blindness, and the film leaves it at that.

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (4 stars) was pretty funny – a much-appreciated bit of humor after a long day of work. How I Met Your Mother vet Jason Segel stars as a slacker composer whose TV-star girlfriend dumps him (while he’s naked), and his long journey to get over it. Segel plays a bit of a simpering girlie-man, quick to cry at the slightest mention of his ex’s name, but things get even worse when he tries to get away from it all in Hawaii — only to discover he’s staying at the same resort as his ex – and her new beau. I found Segel’s character a little annoying at times (did I really need to see him naked 5 times?), but overall enjoyed the movie.

Well, I did some other chores first while she got everything prepped – pulled the furniture out, unhooked the hoses, moved the rose bushes, etc. Then came the moment of truth.

We removed the first 2 of the main support posts from the corners with no problems. That left only the center post to go – which would mean that it the roof of the porch would (hopefully) come gingerly down to the ground where we could dismantle it. Again, I was concerned about how the roof would come down – with fears that it would slam into the back wall and crack all of the brick, but also thought we had taken some precautions to prevent that.

So, we pulled the post and then waited as the roof at first held, then sagged a little … and then finally fell to the ground.

Unfortunately, it seems that one of the support beams was actually embedded into the brick, which caused a bit of damage (see below). Whoops!

But then we had another problem. Naively, I had just assumed that I would start cutting the roof apart and take the pieces to the curb. But I hadn’t really thought it all the way through, obviously, as it was a bit taller than me AND it weighed about 800 pounds (have to love that 80-year-old oak!). So we’d have to pull it over so that we could dismantle it.

With a little help from our neighbor, Dave, we were able to pull the roof onto its ‘back’ so that I could start dismantling it. Blair and Shari helped with the sledgehammer as we tried to break the beams off of the main roof part, remove whatever pieces we could with other methods and left us with a large pile of debris to be dealt with the next day.

The next morning, I set upon the debris with the new chainsaw (FYI – chainsaws are not meant to cut through treated lumber and 80-year-old oak 2x8s. Who knew?). I got through all of the 2x4s, 2x6s and 2x8s, along with other various large pieces of wood, gutter, etc.

Then came the hard part – the actual roof itself. I had to cut through the wood of the roof (plywood, oak 2x4s, tar paper and shingles) using a combination of our saws-all and the chain saw. However, it was a bigger project than I had expected, and even with 2 batteries, the saws-all kept running out of juice and the chainsaw’s blade was getting too dull to make it through the wood. It took me about 8 hours to get through all of the cutting, but finally about 5:00pm I was done cutting.

Clean-up took a while longer (we needed to vacuum up all of the paint chips and splinters at the two places we cut up wood), plus I had to finish with the old mulberry tree we had cut down, as well as clean up other various half-completed projects from the weekend.

By 7pm, I was completely spent – two full days of running around for supplies, chopping and cutting trees and patio roofs, mowing, excavating, building and hauling. It felt good to do so much work, but I was so tired that I was literally falling asleep at the dinner table.

We got an estimate today to fix the brick – $350, which makes this a bit more expensive of a project than first anticipated (since we had only figured we would have to replace the soffit and the gutter). But it’s done, and it actually looks good (pictures forthcoming).

Now onto to making the arbor to replace the roof!

Thursday was spent doing most of the prep cleanup, pulling out leaves we used to insulate the gardens, old/dead shrubs, weeds, trash, etc. What I thought would be a few hours of work ended up being almost a full day – and 18 bags and 2 trash cans full of debris later, it was time to call it a day. Friday came in with a deluge, which was a definite hamper on my plans. I got some other chores done in the meantime, and when the rain cleared, I tackled edging and mulching most of the front beds.

Saturday morning, it was back to work. Shari and I got an early start, cutting out all of the beds – including expanding part of our biggest one – and then we went to work spreading a big portion of the mulch. It was a lot of work, and my back was really aching bad after 3 days of bending, pulling, yanking, hauling, lifting and digging. But it really looked nice, so in the end it was time well spent. Sunday, however, ended up being less productive. Shari had a shoot, so I went out alone to expand our vegetable garden and dig out under the fence to make managing the grass easier. I was about 2.5 hours into it when suddenly my back started doing the limbo – I had spasms and sharp pains that danced their way up my spine, aggravating what was already a sore, sore, sore part of my body. I paused for a bit, then tried to go back to work with the same result — and that was the end of my 4-day ‘weekend’.

Time to Plant

There’s still a lot to do, but I have to admit that I’m very happy with the results so far. Next I have to plant the forest that is currently occupying our dining room table. I started some seeds a few weeks ago, and they grew remarkably fast and have exceeded my plans for planting. We used those Burpee ‘starter kits’, and they worked great. Green beans, sugar and snap peas, cucumbers and spinach are all growing quickly and the first 3 are definitely ready to go in the ground. I was amazed at how quickly they grew – I almost want to plant more so that I can take some time-lapse style pictures of them: there would be the barest stem breaking out of the ground when I left in the morning, and by the time I got home less than 12 hours later there would be a seedling that was 2″ tall sticking out of the dirt. Shari had more than a few laughs at my wonderment, but I thought it was really cool.

We also did some flowers: 2 types of sunflowers, delphinium, butterfly weed and hollyhocks are all growing quickly (especially the sunflowers). They were planted a week later than the veggies, so with the exception of the sunflowers aren’t ready to be planted, but hopefully soon — very soon.

Oooh, my aching back

A good number of 600mg ibuprofens later, my back pain is pretty tolerable. It’s still uncomfortable to sit in some positions, but it’s getting better – unlike last night where sitting for dinner was a tough thing to do. Speaking of which, had a delicious dinner at Vietnam Restaurant in Philly with Shari’s photog friend Ed and his wife. I had my usual – Bun Dac Biet (rice vermicelli with Vietnamese meatballs, spring rolls, chicken and beef), along with stuffed grape leaves and roast pork in rice paper as appetizers. It wasn’t as good as it has been at other times, but it was an 8:00 dinner on a Sunday night, so I’ll give them some slack. And it was still good – even this afternoon for lunch.

Four hard days of work, and a vast improvement to our yard, capped with a delicious dinner. A lot of work, but the rewards were worth it.

Countdown to Arizona: 22 days

All in all, it’s been a VERY busy weekend-plus. I helped Van with some ZPC stuff, FINALLY went birding again, went to lunch with my dad (and helped the parents get their Xmas decorations out of the attic), scanned the last of the old family photos, went to the movies to see “Cadillac Records”, and celebrated my birthday Monday by NOT checking work email our really working at all. And then last night I finally finished the ABC book that I have been creating for my nephew, Caleb.

Nikon D300

My wife is awesome and bought me the gift that I really wanted but didn’t think we should buy – a new Nikon D300. Lately, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with my shooting as the lens that is my ‘go to’ lens (the Nikon VR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6) really struggles at anything less than optimum light – a bit of noise and sometimes missing the shot entirely. The D300 is supposed to have superior low-light capabilities and so I was really looking forward to having the opportunity to get those shots in the early morning or twilight. The first tests I had, at Forsythe, seem to be promising although I tended to avoid upping the ISO as much as I should be able to – a lagging apprehension from my old camera. So, we’ll have to see how it goes once I really take it through the paces.

But I have to say, my wife is awesome for ignoring my protests.

Cadillac Records

It was actually a pretty good movie – good music, decent performances, good story. In fact, it’s funny because I found myself thinking that the critical reviews that I read were exactly wrong. The reviews all talked about how Beyonce Knowles was the saving grace among lackluster performances. I felt the opposite – I thought she was the weakest link in the acting chain. Her vocal performances were okay, but she is no Etta James. However, I thought that the other actors were much better and had stronger performances. And it did a good job at showing the history of the Chess Records brand – Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, etc. I ordered the “Best of Chess Records” CD for my father since he loves the blues, too.

ABC Book

One of my big Christmas projects was an ABC book for my nephew, Caleb. It started back when we visited him and my sister and brother-in-law back in April. I took lots of pictures of Caleb and we shared a bunch of really good times looking at nature, and I figured that I would try to blend those with an alphabet book.

I started by writing the poems – or rather, simple rhymes – which is harder than it seems. First of all, I had to pick a subject for each letter and THEN figure out a rhyme for each letter pair that didn’t sound completely lame (him being 3 gave me some leeway there). Then, once I had the bad rhyming done, it came to finding pictures that matched the topic – bird pictures for “T” (towhee), “G” (gnatcatcher) and “E” (emu); family pictures for “M” (‘uncle’ Marty), “P” (Pop Pop); random other shots for things I didn’t have a picture of. Then I added some artistic touches to those where it made sense – my ‘felt’ period, as it were. I used a felt texture and created shapes that looked like they had been cut out of pieces of felt.

Then came saving them all as .jpgs (when Photoshop and my computer didn’t crash, that is) and then using Blurb.com to create the 30-page full-bleed 7″x7″ book. I had to finish by midnight PST last night, so as of about 1:20 a.m. locally I was putting on the finishing touches and ordering the book. You can see some of the sample pages below, or visit the Flickr set I created.