It just came to me: 50 more urban species. An average of about one a week (maybe no fewer than one a week, with no penalty for going over 50?) seems like a workable project for a part-time blogger, full time zookeeper. You may have noticed I've continued doing 3:00 snapshots, too. I've always liked that project. I can see doing it long term. Anyway, just needed to write this down.

By now you should be a big fan of the Giant Elephant Shrew. If not, please look at this video from the Yale Peabody museum which includes horribly adorable footage of one drinking water.

The same website has a good page of information about the species and its close relatives. They have a very small home range in Africa, which is threatened by development etc. North American zoos have had some success in keeping and breeding these weird and wonderful creatures.

While looking around on that site I found this amazing and hypnotic page animating the evolution of different arachnid groups. Most of the intermediate stages are guesses, but the idea is great. I'd love to see it done with other taxa.

And finally, another conservation issue that my zoo is actively involved in is our threatened population of Blanding's turtles. This video explains what the project involves, and shows what goes into conservation biology (mucking about in cold swamp water early in the spring). They finish by describing the invasive process of determining the turtles' sex, which is done by my boss at the zoo, and by a vet at the New England Aquarium. (Then my job is to take care of the turtles as they recover from the laparoscopy.)

A package, for me?
(Thanks, g_weir!)

In the past two days I have smoked an entire pack of Newport Lights, babysat for one of my favorite children in the universe, written a poem for the actor Raul Esparza, finished my personal statement for Columbia and worked on my response to Noelle Kocot's book "Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems," gone to African Dance class, laughed hysterically on the phone with my father, finished & delivered a two hour mix to a friend, baked an applesauce spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, listened to three hours of The Moth (www.prx.org/the-moth). Now, going to Pilates, then seeing Dorothy, then making roasted brussel sprouts and potatoes for dinner & movie night with my sister. I do actually really enjoy being alive.

A cute video starring the president of Zoo New England and many of the zoos' animals. Beau the giraffe gets a bonus for producing a baby!

http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/2009/12/23/iso-kids-game

http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/?p=843

Dear Lazyweb:

I’m looking for well-designed computer games that meet the following criteria:

(1) Appropriate for a bright four-year-old with low vision (but able to read large print)
(2) minimal/no advertising
(3) preferably Flash/web-based
(4) some educational value (math, reading, etc.)

A few Google searches haven’t turned up much promising. Any suggestions?

Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there.

Hi everyone!  Tanya and I are currently sitting on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand enjoying our nice honeymoon!  It’s summer here, so things are about exactly the same as they are in LA- maybe a bit warmer, more pleasant, air easier to breathe, and sun is out till around 9pm.  We spent the first couple days in Abel Tasman National Park up on the top of the south island after taking a little propeller plane down there from Auckland.  We did a random 8 mile hike for some reason and then took a boat back to the beginning.  The water there is perfectly clear blue and looks a little too nice.  That’s because it’s horribly cold and it dashed my great plans of going swimming all day and not hiking.

The theme of our trip so far has been bird attacks as for some reason we’re making them very angry by just being alive.  I have this great video of us getting stormed by this especially angry type of bird while Tanya runs away screaming ‘protect me Ian!!!’.  It’s par for the course for an Ian and Tanya trip.  Anyway, no major car breakdowns yet, so we’re doing well [oh and they didn't lose our luggage this time].

Since I finished fall classes one of the things I've been able to do in my extra time is spend some time with my pictures again. I've been scanning, organizing, and uploading - most impressive is that I am actually up to date with uploading all decent digital pictures onto my Flickr. This is a serious feat, people - for the last three years at least I have been constantly uploading things from six months ago; now I'm all caught up, and it feels so satisfying! This shows how small and boring the things that satisfy me are.

I miss updating this journal, I know in actuality it documented my life far better than my other livejournal ever did, back in the day when I actually updated both. New Years resolutions, anyone? Perhaps, perhaps.

East Coast tomorrow night! Family and friends and snow and presents, here we come!

Am I late with this? You bet-ya!

I'm going to do holiday New Year letters this year. If you changed mailing addresses since November of last year (2008), please contact me with your new address. If you want a card and don't think I have your mailing address, send it to me now.

My information is always here if you're on the whitelist to view it.

I put comments to screen, but use the e-mail, Facebook, or other forms of communication if you want to keep things under wraps.

I'm not really one for boutique footwear (particularly in orange), but I could definitely rock a pair of Skywalkers.

Star Trek, re-dubbed. Brought to you by the smooth taste of DJO Apple Juice.



Video link here.

This is setting up to be a tremendously horrible day. NO! A little perspective: the family is healthy, the dogs are healthy, the friends are mostly healthy. It's just the goddamned car, which, after 3 short years of it being in my life, has somehow become something i can't do without. I'd switch back to riding my bike right now, but it's not in rideable condition, and the roads are still covered with goddamned snow. I need to look at this, to chill me out:



Ahhh. That's better. If I had a working car I'd take him out for a walk in the snowy woods!

Boston ivy fruit on my bedroom window screen.

So long, Luanne.

Thanks to featheredfrog for the link.

The previous two days were cold. Before this when people would say "it's cold" I would reply, "not yet, but it's getting there!" But this was definitely cold. I know I complain a lot, but it annoys me when people complain about it being cold before the cold actually gets here. It went down near the single digits (Fahrenheit) overnight, and was like 12 degrees when we walked the dogs in the morning yesterday. It's 17 degrees now. I did a lot of outdoor work yesterday morning, and it was plenty uncomfortable.

I don't know if my Muddy River picture from yesterday conveyed "cold" but that's what it was about. The exhaust from the MATEP tower was pouring out as a huge cloud. Likewise, when I went past the BostonEdison plant:




Today we're going to go look at a new (used) car for me. I'm not really looking forward to it, but it's gotta happen. Then we go to g_weir's house for some Rock Band, then the snow comes. They keep updating the snow prediction to be more apocalyptic. States southeast of us are supposed to get whomped, and the Boston area isn't supposed to get out with less than 3 inches, probably much more.
Just in time for the first day of winter (sometime this week).

Needless to say, we've been looking at San Diego real estate on Trulia.

While the discovery of the new, water-rich "Super Earth" GJ 1214b might be exciting stuff, it sucks a little wind from the sails to be reminded that maybe all that flying around and fighting aliens won't be quite as fun as we'd hope. And besides, why go off to another wet planet when there's so much exciting life to explore down here?

Take, for example, the recent footage of an octopus who not only snatches up a coconut form the ocean floor and runs away with it, but hinges it open and crawls inside for shelter. Totally wet, totally local. And if swimming around and hiding in nuts isn't your thing, we've already got a pretty bizarre pre-canned zoo thing going on down here which has actually reached its most adorable right in our own backyard.

Because come on– look at that face.



But if you're really just in it for the discovery of the unknown, maybe we should just finish up down here first.

The obvious problem with the internet is that when it presents us with a totally awesome audio/visual feat, it's difficult to even entertain the idea that the feat in question might be legit. However, in the spirit of the holidays, I choose to believe that this is real. It's what Santa would have wanted.



Video link here.

12/30 Capitol Theater Backstage -Olympia, WA w/ Japanther and Broken Water 7:30 $8 all ages

1/9 The Rickshaw Stop -San Francisco, CA w/ Your Heart Breaks and Angelo Spencer 5pm $12 all ages

1/10 The New Parish -Oakland, CA w/ Your Heart Breaks and Angelo Spencer 8pm $12 all ages

1/11 Zami Coop -Santa Cruz, CA w/ Your Heart Breaks and Angelo Spencer

1/14 The Smell -Los Angeles, CA w/ Your Heart Breaks and Angelo Spencer 8pm $8 all ages

Originally published at Wedding Photography Blog by Los Angeles Photographer Ian Grant. Please leave any comments there.

This my friends has been my favorite new purchase as of late.  It’s called the Digital Harinezumi camera and it’s about as cheap as it gets.  The camera sports pretty much plastic everything, a joke viewfinder, and looks like an old 110 camera.  That’s where the fun comes in, this company called SuperHeadz which is based out of Japan designed this camera to shoot video that looks like your grandfathers 8mm film.  It shoots 25fps, so it automatically has a distinct film roughness and it also doesn’t shoot any audio.  SuperHeadz also color timed it so it looks a little purple, and has super vibrant colors at times.  Focus is questionable, it has horrible lens flares, and vignettes like nobody’s business.  Basically it’s the exact opposite of my beautiful 5DM2.

So with that, it’s going to be documenting our New Zealand honeymoon coming up.  When our future offspring see our memories, they’re going to think we grew up in the 40’s before the advent of clear vision!  I’m doing some good testing with it right now and actually bought a makeshift underwater housing for it the other day.  FYI: They just released a new version 2.0 camera which does record audio and B&W video.  Lots of exciting things to come!  See a test video with it below with our favorite neglected pets.

http://www.vimeo.com/8183328