Little Fish - AKA Goldfish

I must say it is crazy to think that we have had this cat for a whole year now. It was on October 16, 2011 that I made the post about the tiny kitten chasing leaves down the street. He is known round these parts as Little Fish and Gold Fish.

Happy home day... I guess...

 In celebration he is tearing apart paper, which is his current favorite toy.

Some Macro Pictures from Letchworth

Thought I would post a couple of unique macro pictures from Letchworth.

I have never seen a Grasshopper with white eyes. This guy was staring right at me.

Love how I got to miss the rain, and still find droplets.

This Summer was over in a flash, a recap in a flash

It has been quite a while since I have posted here... That will change. I was in both Wisconsin and Michigan for a combined 3 weeks. This of course was after I started off the summer with a full month of camping from Memorial day through mid June. It was a busy and fun summer. I will share some highlights.

I spent two weeks in Wisconsin, one at a conference, the next, on the water with some of the best weather one could ask for.

This is lake Michigan, and it is flat besides these 10-15 waves. These waves are interference waves between two different bits of water within the lake, we came upon them miles from shore. These were very striking, and I must say feeling that they were the most "perfect" waves I have ever seen.

 It was then Michigan's turn. Unfortunately the weather did not favor us again. Although the first trip saw many days where the temperature was above 90, some even over 95. The second trip saw the hottest temperatures of the summer, and oh yeah, it included 20mph winds! It made for some difficulties for sure, but we made it through. It was still gorgeous.

 Picture from parking lot of the hotel.

 When I got home there were only two things on my mind, the upcoming school year, and the time remaining I could use for a break. I decided to travel to Letchworth Park in New York. This stretch of land has been called the "Grand Canyon of the East". Here I concentrated on HDR images, this one I processed in my tent, uploaded it to my phone and shipped it around.

Beautiful Letchworth, will return soon.

That is all I shall report tonight, more soon.


p.s. I have still been on the lightning kick, so be prepared.


  Have a good one
           - Chris

Yesterday my band published its Facebook page. We have some music up, I suggest Get Away from Me which we finished today. We have 6 songs in our upcoming EP which we are having professionally recorded in Ithaca, picture below. My next post will discuss my evolution at nighttime photography and will feature some historic and present shots from the darkness, so keep an eye out!


http://www.facebook.com/VagaryBand

 Our blog page is http://vagaryband.blogspot.com/

The Price

5/3/12 - 5/4/12- The thunderstorms were raging when I left the concert. After the brief stop at the ice cream shop for a twist I return to my house in Clay. I parked, and saw a blinding flash which lasted in my eyes.

     " Ok, time to go take pictures." Is of course what I thought to myself.

I left to where the three rivers motel used to be on 57. With little luck I was rained out there and moved then to the boat launch under 481. After this failed I realized  that I could probably get better pictures back at the junction. It was no longer raining so I went back and spent a few minutes capturing nothing.

I had to go North. If you don't know about swamp road(Peter Scot Road) it has a dark history. Infamous for being the scene of many Fatal Tragedies. It just so happens that on this very same road I finally found success. For hours through pouring rain and 45 mph gusts, I had been trying to get pictures of lightning.

Braving the rain for the last time, I stood by the trunk of my car and shot more pictures. After half an hour, a few curses and many aiming adjustments I saw a car pulling down the road. I had parked on the left side so my brighter 4 ways and headlights pointed at oncoming traffic. He pulled a little toward my side of the road and I swore.

In a flash the truck squealed sideways missing my front bumper by inches.  I ran backward camera and all. Missing the swamp on the other side of the road he sped away leaving me dumbstruck and angry. I got in my car and drove away thinking how lucky I was to not become another statistic. I guess that moment of terror was the price I paid for a gratifying result.

Spring has more than arrived

   Central New York has seen another mild, to understate it horribly, winter. This has led to an increase in biological activity already this year. The birds and bugs are all returning and the trees are preparing to bloom. Even though this week was foreshadowing for the severe heat we can look expect this summer next week will be more seasonable. Due to the bad winter however I must utter several words of caution, be careful of these guys:

Tick that latched on my ankle in Wisconsin, encountered two that day...

Ticks are arachnids and therefore have 8 legs. They have very intense sensory organs, and like bedbugs and mosquitoes can detect CO2 mostly. They will even congregate along areas which are frequented by animals, including humans. These little buggers are specialists at attaching themselves to hosts. They do this by placing themselves on the ends of branches and leaves, when a creature brushes against their branch or leaf they hitch a ride and walk along the body until they find a dark warm spot. To be perfectly honest I was happy about the one I got on my ankle, my first was just below my armpit on my back, almost impossible to reach.

The main worry about ticks, besides the fact that they are pretty disgusting, is that they carry diseases. One of the most common tick born diseases is Lyme disease which is usually accompanied by a "bullseye rash" and is very dangerous. If you are bitten by a tick DO NOT BURN IT OFF, it is a mistake. Use tweezers like in the picture above and be sure to remove the whole thing, if not, remove the whole thing as you can by whatever means you have it will be hard. Thankfully ticks release anticoagulants which in my case made it so I did not feel my little biopsy. I used a pocket knife, the body became brittle when we burnt it and the head popped off. The head is the most important part, if left in it can continue the process of infecting you.


To leave all of that ugliness behind, enjoy the weather :)

Oh by the way I forgot to mention the Robotics team was kicked out in the semifinals, we fought to the very last, and we can only be impressed and satisfied with the excellent game we played.

Liverpool High School Robotics

   Today was the second day of the RIT First Finger Lakes Regional. This is one of the competitions in which the Liverpool high school robotics team (arctic warriors) compete. Teams are given six weeks to build a robot given a specific task or game (link to this years game: http://www.youtube.com/user/FRCTeamsGlobal).

It is amazing to see the team go from planning.

To a fully functional robot

 

 

A turret on top of the robot fires the balls into the hoops to score points

A manipulator allows the driver to tilt the platform so they can drive up it and balance for 10 points

The team actually won an award for our innovative 360 degree independently steerable wheel system, what is so cool is that instead of using the usual chains we used a system of pulleys, taking last years drive train with a similar setup from around 80 pounds down to just under 50!?

Team 174 is tied at the moment at first place. We are doing remarkably well and I must say I hope the best for the team tomorrow. Here are some photos from the competition, enjoy!