Fairweather Zealot

I’ve always been a sketcher during meetings, but unlike many other people where doodling is a sign of boredom or inattention, with my ADD, it actually keeps me focused. By keeping my hands and my right brain focused on the paper, it keeps my ears and mind on Wednesday is being said. Strange but true.

My doodles have cycles: a week or two of realism, a couple weeks of abstract line art, a period of typography, etc. Lately, I’ve been doing bird sketches from memory in the margins. I’m not sure if it’s because I still have birds in the brain from Arizona (probably), if I just have birds in my head right now (definitely) or if I am just enjoying doing some realistic drawings of something that I have a fairly decent picture of in my mind’s eye. Regardless, it’s been fun to try to draw a reasonable likeness of some birds from memory in my notebook. Some samples are below. I just wish I had a better scanner for them (the details didn’t come out very well).

For our fourth day, we decided to reverse our previous days’ path, except we still wanted to start the morning at the South Fork. We had heard that many people were hearing the Elegant Trogon* right near the bridge, so we started there. Initially, things were a little slow as the sun was just starting to peek into the canyon, but they quickly picked up as all of the birds started to wake up, producing a magical post-dawn chorus. Numerous Empidonax flycatchers were joined by warblers and orioles in song, while other, quieter birds like the Painted Redstart and several hummingbirds flew about in frantic activity. Vireos and a few warblers (including a few Townsend’s and Wilson’s) were flitting about in the tall sycamores by the creek, while Acorn Woodpeckers competed with Canyon Wrens for top song of the morning. Soon, it was almost impossible to keep up with all of the movement and chittering on the trees. Continue reading

Well, we finally did it – we won a game. For some reason, our team has really struggled all season – and for what seems like different reasons each game. One game we can’t hit to save our lives; another game we are scoring runs but giving up twice as many on bad fielding and poor throwing mistakes. But on Wednesday, everything came together – hitting, fielding, base-running were all excellent, and we beat Avenue A-Razorfish 23-2. Now, I can’t say that some of it didn’t have to do with the fact that we were playing the only other winless team in the league, but it seemed like we were just more together – everyone wasn’t swinging at the first pitch, we were running the bases well, making good throws, etc. If we had played that way in other games, I think we might have won 1 or 2 of them. But you know what they say about ‘could have’…

Still, I’m playing better overall, although it seems like I am only getting one at bat per game, regardless of how long I’m in. Wednesday, I went in for the last 4 innings of the 7-inning game … except it got called after 5 innings, right as I was coming up for my second at-bat. Oh well. But I’m getting the ball out of the infield this year, so that’s nice – last year I would pound the ball in batting practice, and then shank it when it mattered. I was a one-bagger through and through. This year, I’ve got a couple of doubles already and even two of my outs have been sacrifice flies.

Now I just have to get my first home run…

So far, this year has been good for viewing new species, even if I haven’t had much chance to get out so far. Continue reading

Well, it’s a week-plus since we moved to the new office in the center city, and I’m still getting used to it.  I was torn about leaving the old office, as I really liked the location (right on Rittenhouse Square); however, the interior needed some serious work, particularly after the move was finalized and they stopped putting more money toward maintenance. Continue reading

It’s been a busy year for me – lots of cool projects at work and a couple of side projects to boot. I’ve let much of what used to occupy my time fall by the wayside: I’ve read fewer books, spent less time blogging/reading blogs, FAR less time birding than I would like and in fact spent less time just ‘down’ than I have ever probably had in my life. And yet, strangely, I’m still mostly content – it says something that one can be this busy with fewer breaks and still like what I’m doing. Continue reading

I’ve been really busy for the last month, particularly for the past two weeks. I’ve been juggling more than a dozen projects at work, plus working on ZeroPercentCards with Van, and a book release site for another client. This weekend was supposed to be a bit of time off aside from some stuff around the house. And for a good part of Saturday, it was just that.

It started with a MUCH-needed morning of sleeping in. Two of the previous 3 nights I had been up until 4:30a.m. and up by 7. So, I slept to a ridiculously late 11:00 in the morning, with my wife keeping the animals occupied and (mostly) out of the bedroom (a feat considering we have no bedroom door right now because we’re rebuilding the door frame). Once I got my lazy butt up, we decided to do something we rarely do anymore – go to the mall and just walk around.

The mall is a pretty big mess right now as they are remodeling about 80% of the place all at the same time (which seems odd if you ask me). We were hoping to hit the remodeled food court for some sushi at Yanagi Too but alas, the mall has only 2 restaurants set up in the new food court – while having the old food court completely under construction. Since Saladworks and DQ/Orange Julius weren’t really what we were looking for, we decided to go hit the only remaining choice – The Bistro – at the other end of the mall. Yes, you read that right – a big mall with only 3 restaurants in the whole place.

But the food was worth it. An open air restaurant with seating around a central ‘kitchen’ in the middle of the mall walkway, the place actually has pretty good food. I got the pepper-crusted tuna ceasar salad, while Shari got Seafood Penne with Vodka Sauce, which was delicious (and probably better than my meal).

After eating, we did that rare thing: shopping. She and I are both relatively anti-shopping, particularly at the mall. As we walked past the stores where we would NEVER go (is the 80′s fashion scheme really coming back?), we had to laugh at how many stores we didn’t even recognize or that had changed since the last time we were there (before Xmas last year). But it was still fun to do a little window shopping and even pick up some new clothes (although she didn’t get any shoes, like she wanted. I’ll never understand the desire for lots of new shoes).

When we were done at the mall proper, we went over to the Container Store and Crate & Barrel. It’s funny, but the stores have been there for over a year, and we always joke about going in (I’m a sucker for cool gadgets and new ideas for how to put up things on my bulletin board) – but we had never made it in. Okay, so we’re strange when it comes to our quests for places to visit. We don’t get out much.

Sunday was spent doing things around the house – and I actually enjoyed doing them. I know that I’ve been so busy and stressed that doing chores has been just that, but this was nice because I did stuff that made the house and yard look better and I had a decent time doing it (sure, I’d rather have been birding, but I could always say that…). It’s nice to be productive AND happy.

Well, we have another softball game today – and since we already have 1 loss in the playoffs, it could be our LAST one unless we come up big. We’re playing the #1 seed, and while they didn’t kill us the last time we played, they weren’t exactly in dire straits to beat us. And coming off the 18-2 drubbing we took in game 1, our confidence is a bit shaky. As a team, we aren’t hitting very well and although we’re playing decently in the field, if you aren’t scoring runs, you aren’t going to win. Continue reading

This shot just makes me smile – and I needed it after a long day.

I had to go down to Wilmington for some software training today – a prototyping software called iRise that looks pretty cool. Complicated but cool. And of course, after spending today and tomorrow learning it, I have to have a site prototype done in the next 10 days using it. Learning curve = logarithmic.

On the way home, I decided to pop in and see my grandfather at his shop. When I got there, however, I found out that he was in the hospital – they had taken him there a couple of hours before. So, I rushed over to the ER to find out how he was. Luckily, it seems to be mostly dehydration and weakness from not eating for the last couple of days. He sounded very weak and tired when I got there, but a couple of hours of saline and a ham-and-cheese sandwich later, he seemed to have some of his vigor back.

So, back to the emu – and the fact that I makes me laugh. It’s from my trip to see my nephew in April, and I just had to get a shot of this guy trying to stare me down. He won, by the way – I wasn’t going to mess with someone who was looking at me like that.

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Some days are better to go to work for than others. Yesterday was one of those days. I was focused at work, and got a lot done, which is always nice since there are times that I struggle with staying on focus. Then came ‘the talk’ in my grand-boss Brendan’s office… Continue reading