Bright Idea #263 - How to Rescue a Turtle

So I dont know what it is with me and "Bright Ideas". In recent memory there was the no infamous, thanks to my best friend Chris, the "Behive Incident", the "Golf Ball Incident", the "Duck Incident" and now I can add one more to the list... the "Windmeadows Turtle Incident". A while ago I posted this image of a Floridian Soft Shell Turtle. Now the one that concerns this story has a shell diameter of about 40 cm / 16 inches.



Jenee and I were heading out to lunch after a nice long ride in the summer sun when we spotted our new friend "Clive" making his way across the car park. Pulling up next to him I opened the door and proceeded to talk to him. He actually poked his head out of his shell and looked at me, and in a way making me feel less stupid for talking to a turtle. After a quick discussion we decided that Clive needed to be relocated to the stream where he was apparently heading. So I picked him up, and got Jenee to open the boot. As I was making my way to the car Clive popped his head out again and looked up at me revealing a decent sized fishing hook caught in his upper jaw.

Now being the nature conservationist that I am, I decided that it was my duty to try an remove said hook. Of course, everyone knows that the first thing to do when attempting to remove a hook from a mouth, is to see if said animal will let you put your hands near its head. Fair enough I thought, and since my hands were tired up doing the holding I suggested that Jenee should put her pinky on the scientific chopping block. After I was informed that it was a dumb idea and if I wanted to help the animal, then I should use my own pinky. Fair enough I thought, so I propped Clive

against my leg with on hand and proceeded to move my free hand towards his mouth. Now, perhaps I should have thought this through some more, at the very least I should have known better, because I have watched one of these turtles snap small fry in the stream near my work but I wasn't expecting him to move very fast at all. The truth was, he snapped at me so fast that he caught me off guard and managed to brush my finger as I flinched away from him. As a result I dropped poor Clive and he landed on the tarmac with a thud.

So, lesson learned. Don't put your hand near the mouth of a turtle, lets just be thankful he wasn't one of these: an Alligator Snapping Turtle. Why? because I would have most likely lost a finger.

In the end, Clive was safely relocated to his new pond and only had to endure a rather fast trip around the complex with me holding him over the back of the car. Just another adventure...

Bright Idea #112 - Shave your cat...

So, as you may or may not know, Jenee and I have two cats; Sable who is pictured below (Hymalayan Seal Point) and Marble (Calico / Siam mix). Now the distinguishing feature of Sable is her 5-6 cm (2") long fur and the distinguishing feature of Florida during summer is that its hot and humid. Putting one and one together, I decided that I would alleviate her suffering and give her a little shave with my electric clippers. So here is Sable pre-shaving.


As you can see, she has beautiful brown hair and she is very naughty because she is sitting on "Momma's" shelf because its cooler than the floor, or because she wanted to because she is the essence of badness. Anyway, Jenee and I decided that we would double team her. One holding, one shaving. This was somewhat a decent plan and as you can see in the next picture below, we managed to get a decent patch on her back (the whiter patch), and some of her belly before she politely informed us that this was not dignifying for a princess and that she would like to leave. She was a good girl in her defence and she was rewarded with some treats.

Round two: This time, I held Sable, and Jenee shaved, but this time we were better prepared. I had treats ready as well as an open bag of catnip for Sable to sniff and eat. After 20 minutes of struggling, wriggling, fighting, hissing, growling and groaning we managed to give Sab's a new do. An here she is:


As you can see, her hair is much shorter (3 cm / 0.5") but what possessed me to think shaving a cat was a good idea beats me. At least she is a little cooler around the apartment, and Jenee and I had a good laugh at the whole ordeal. For the record Sable is much happier and even a little more playful and, she keeps going to the bathroom, as if she is asking for more to be taken off...

Grocery Shopping in America...

Well I just got back from doing the weekly food shopping and I thought I would share the experience with youse. Much like Australia, the supermarkets have all the usual food items, but with a higher percentage of things coming pre-packaged.

One point of interest is that most supermarkets have a beer / wine section. Ours has 1.5 isles worth dedicated to brewed beverages. I think its funny that you can't buy alcohol before 1 pm on Sundays though, how I wish I could take a tinny to Church. Now our local store is a part of the "Publix" chain. Strange name, in fact, when Jenee and I first road tripped here back in December 2005, we were following a Publix truck from a distance, and thought neither of us said anything till later, we were both thinking the same thing: "Pubix? These Floridians are dirty..."


So we avoided all the Publix stores until later, someone informed us that it was a grocery chain. Still to this day, its refered to as Pubix though, lol. Well, the hilight of the Publix shopping experience is going through the check out, where I get to catch up on my gossip. I find it so amusing. On any particular week three different magazine's will proclaim that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt are getting back together, Brad Pitt and Angeline Joulie are breaking up and Brad and Angelina are pregnant and adopting another baby: a little consistency would go a long way people! then there is the National Enquirer. Did you know that Bigfoot fought an Alien that was trying to abduct a child and it was caught on video camera, but only later it was discovered that there was no tape in the camera?!!?

So entertaining. Now, no Publix experience would be complete without the bagging assistant walking you out to the car and on the way using the very accurate scales to check your weight. Yes I have put on some weight, and no I am not going to tell you that I am 89 kg / 198 lbs ...

Sun, Friends and Ratatouille

Like 6 hours of road trip driving wasn't enough for blog entertainment, we went above and beyond the call of sacrificial entertainment duty by bundling in the car again, this time with the Wilsons and drove all the way to the beach to have fun in the sun and eat delicious ice cream.

Kilwin's ice cream is delivered on an train!

Yup, that's right, we went to St. Augustine again, but this time brought Brandon and Krista along for the ride. Apparently the girls concluded that they were extremely happy that Brandon and I were play mates because we didn't annoy them every five minutes to swim, or play catch or something fun. So while Brandon and I threw the Aerobie, body surfed and flew kites, Jenee and Krista cancer farmed on towels and then ate all the grapes under the worlds most amazing, 3 minute to assemble, Gazebo in the world. Later we went downtown and did the usual walk in St Augie and ate delicious ice cream.

Brandon showing off the cool way to wear your camera.

Us boys took our cameras along for the afternoon walk through the town and between the two of us managed to snap a few pictures. While we were there, I tried to use the old corner your woman against the wall and try a few lines... "Hey baby, your looking mighty fine. You wanna take a look at my arm pits."

Hitting on teh hot chick, the Fonz style (apparently she has a husband).

Good ice cream.

Sometimes you find something spectacular in the most unusual places. On the way back to the car Jenee spotted this amazing flower. Good thing I don't listen to the teasing and always bring my camera.

Unusual flower, Passiflora Incarnata or Purple Passion / Maypop - Amazing God.

We also had a special treat. The local cinema was showing a special 2 week early special sneak preview of Pixar's Ratatouille (Rat-at-too-ee). It was great and we laughed our heads off. I'm not going to spoil anything but the main character is a rat and he TALKS!

Remy - Ratatouille

And I'd just so you all know the price of this entertainment that you enjoy on a regular basis, Jenee's stomach is fluorescent pink and my head is just a lil red O.o Ahh, the Floridian summer!

(Updated) A Rainy Goodbye to SC & Hour-by-Hour

At the request of Krista, here is the hour by hour for the road trip returning home:

2:15 - We leave the Radisson and hit I-26. The going is good.

2:25 - We are stopped in traffic. Not going anywhere. Jenee looks drowsy.

2:50 - We pass a sign that explains the reason for a traffic jam.

3:20 - After 10 miles (6 more that the sign said) we reach the scene of a not to serious 6-car smack up. Apparently our side of the road slowed down for nothing more than a look. so annoying.

4:03 - Finally we hit I-95 and turn south for home. 5 hours to go. Jenee is gone.

4:40 - The sky is dark and the rain is falling so, so heavy. I can see maybe 10 car lengths ahead and the traffic is moving at 75 mph / 120 kmh. Seriously, the traffic didnt even slow down, and the funny thing was all the pellets were in the center and right lanes, so Nate takes the left lane and avoids everyone else's tyre spray.

5:20 - Still raining. Jenee is still asleep.

6:40 - The rain starts to slow down, and the sky clears up. Jenee wakes up. We start to play a game. It's kinda sad really. The game is, name an actress and then put her into a bracket: "wow", "almost wow", "girl next door" and "creepy". Kinda sad, but we had good fun and some funny arguments about certain people. At least it kept me from falling asleep.

7:27 - Quiznos for Dinner, Shibby!

9:20 - We arrive home 20 minutes before I guessed it.

Traffic Tickets: 0
Witnessed Accidents: 1 almost
Hours Driving in Hard Rain: 4:30
Hours Jenee Slept: 3

*********************************************************************************

The conference is nearly over which means it's nearly time for Jenee and I to head back home and its raining.

Jenee said I wasn't allowed to play in the rain in case I catch a sniffle....

Got Me a Pedometer!

Well there is one good thing about going to a conference or the like, and thats visiting the registration desk for goodies. Now, my first experience was probably a work promotion I went to with my cousin Eugene, where I helped myself to some nice new pens. Things haven't changed over the years. I have collected pens, carabiners, bbq sauce, an automatic pipetter, mints, magnets, an air powered foam rocket and even a rubber sea urchin ball thing that flashes but today I got perhaps the most practical of them all. My very own, low quality personal pedometer.



Yep, I've been steppin' all over the place, I owned this Hotel today with more that 2400 steps. I've stepped upstairs, downstairs, to the banquet hall, to the conference hall, Starbucks and even to the pool. Can you tell I am bored?

All in a days work.

(The good news is that I have read 80% of the literature that I set out to...)

Destination: Columbia, South Carolina

Yup, this exciting edition of Nate's Weblog (where we get the word Blog from, learn something new everyday) comes from the above destination. So why am I here? Well, I am here on a reading retreat, while Jenee does her thing at the SEAGEP conference. SEAGEP is the The South East Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate program run by the lady that she works for and Jenee practically organized this conference for 50 people in her spare time at work. Isn't she amazing. So here is the run down so far:

6:02 am - My cousin Eugene rings me from Australia and we talk for 1 hour and 20 minutes while I get ready for this trip.

8:03 am - We hit the road and head North. Jenee talks to me for a while then falls asleep due to low oxygen levels in the car. I find a 'pearler' of an 80's rock radio station that stays with me for the next 3 hours.

10:40 am - Enter into Georgia. Jenee is still asleep. Starts to rain.

11:30 am - Stops raining.

12:03 pm - Jenee wakes up and I am hungry so we make a stop at KFC in some podunk town off the highway. Takes 15 minutes to order, pay and get our food. The chicken strips were not too good...

12:20 pm - Jenee is asleep again. More time to think... running out of topics...

12:40 - Enter South Carolina

1:34 pm - I am not paying attention to my speed (80 mp/h - 128 km/h) and by the Grace of God I don't get lasered by the sneaky cop on the bridge with the laser gun. Lesson learnt. Back to cruise control.

2:05 pm - We arrive in Columbia. Initial impression is that its not an overly exciting place by the look of things. The hotel is nice though and we have one of those 'Sleep Number' beds that you adjust the pressure to suit your needs.

2:06 pm - Bored of playing with Sleep Number bed. Move on to Internet, anything but reading papers.

So there you have it, its been an intense day of sitting and steering and thinking. As you can tell I am bored, and now I have to read through my papers so if you would like you are welcome to send me an email to distract my from my boredom.

Bob The Amazing Flash Drive!

AMAZING FEAT OF FEATINESS

Here's the scoop. On Saturday Jou-Jou and I went to Rob and Sarah's for a swim, pizza and a movie. No big deal, I even took my shuttle pictures on my 1GB Lexar Secure II flash drive. Sweet. On Sunday, Jenee and I went for a swim in our pool here at Windmeadows. Well come monday I couldn't locate said flash drive. 'No worries' I thought, I frequently misplace small items and they inevitably turn up right where I put them.


Well its now Tuesday evening and I just found my flashdrive. In my bathers. That I wore in the pool on Sunday. Yup, good ol' Bob (the drives name) went for a 30 minute swim with me. He even went to the bottom of the pool several times, did a couple of dive-bombs, and a swim-race with Jou-Jou.

Here's Bob the Flash Drive Working Just Fine Thank You Very Much

Needless to say I felt a little sick realising that some of my important things were still on the drive. So what does one do? Well, he felt pretty dry when I found him so I put him in the USB slot of my Laptop and whadyaknow he fired up! Then crashed... Not to be so easily defeated, I took the drive out and give it a bit of love in our toaster oven. A good 40oC for one hour and presto - he works like a treat and I got all the data off him. Howzat!!!

Seems that I have this strange habit of disasters with water. Last week I accidentally poured my cup of water over the top of my work computer and it survived, and then yesterday's adventure in the rain. What gives?

Another Nate and Jenee Adventure...

It seems as though Jenee and I have an affinity for long walks right before it rains. Last night we decided to go for an after dinner walk over to Best Buy. The sun setting in the west was lighting up the huge clouds with brilliant tones of pink and orange. God is so amazing with his creation. 20 minutes later we made our purchase and started to head home. I think the "you should have brought an umbrella" sign was the massive lightning strike that triggered the following torrent of rain. Luckily we could make it most of the way home under the balcony's of the shopping complex we live next to, but we still had to make a 400m dash for glory through the warm rain.

Being the smart people that we are, we only had thongs / flip flops for shoes, and a plastic bag to protect our phones, car keys and my new memory card reader (and was I happy that I didn't bring my camera!). The rain was so warm, and the droplets were so nice that we walked, until the rain really started to fall hard. Now trying to run in thongs/flip flops in the rain isn't so easy, despite my determination to make it work, so we had to run bare foot through the parking lots all the way home. We arrived home soaked to the bone, but safe, to two cats that seemed rather amused that "mom and dad" were so silly and so wet.

Just another Nate and Jenee Adventure.

Brandon's Launch Pictures and Other Camera Info

Brandon took his brand-spanking new D40 along for its first real outing for the Shuttle Launch.

For the camera nerds, he used a Nikon D40 with a Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR on Auto everything and shot jpg's, I used my Nikon D70s with a Tokina AT-X Pro 80-200 f/2.8 and 2x extender, stopped down to f/5.6 and shot RAW. We both used burst mode and spot metering because of the saturating brightness of the booster rocket flames.

Take a look at his fantastic pictures at his blog.

Other tidbits, I shot on my tripod (being that I had 600 mm equivalent focal length lens) and kept the shutter above 1/400 th, Brandon shot hand held with VR on / active mode. We both used San Disc Ultra II's. Thanks to Stephen for loaning his Ultra II SD card for the shoot, we wouldn't have 1/10 th the pictures we do with out it. Despite what some camera shop assistants and "experts" think, card speed can and does matter when you are shooting, especially in burst mode.

STS-117 Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch

I don't even know where to start? Right now it is the morning after and my mind is still buzzing with awe and excitement after seeing one of the coolest man-made phenomena period. I think its worth waxing on for a little bit to share the whole story. It started way back in March when Brandon, Stephen and myself all got up before the crack of dawn to go and see Atlantis launch. Half way there, the launch was scrubbed and we turned around and at least I went back to a sleep in with my wife.



Last Friday, Brandon and I decided that the two of us would try our luck again and make our way down to the Cape. By the following Friday afternoon, our two man count had grown to 10, consisting of, Brandon and Krista, Stephen and Anna, Nathan, Sarah and Nathan's Parents and of course Jenee and myself. We set out a little later than we had wanted but pretty much had smooth sailing until we reached the Orlando International Airport and the tollbooth-a-mile stretch that follows. There were thousands upon thousands of cars all heading for the same place we were: Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Stephen ' The Middleman' and Anna actually arrived an hour before us and found a fantastic spot along the shore line. Stephen even managed to convince the lady who was renting the car parks to hold them for over 30 minutes until the rest of the party arrived (Stevens', Wilson's and Ott's). I don't know how he did it, but he did and thats all that matters. Thanks to Mr Ott and his GPS we discovered that we had a direct line of sight of the two launch pads, 11.8 mi / 18.9 km away. Now you might think that is pretty far away, but remember, the structures and Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) are monstrous and were easily visible.

We played around for an hour or so waiting for the all clear, talking amongst ourselves and some of the other people near us. Stephen once again came through, making friends with a gentleman who works for United Space Alliance (USA) who kindly updated us about the launch status and other tidbits of trivial as we waited for the time to come.

The first indication that something was about to happed was that several people got out of their cars and started looking through binoculars. That was my cue. Checking the camera settings one more time I waited, poised on the shutter release button... all of a sudden a hugh plume was visible on the south side of the launch tower, then the north, then the bottom of the tower glowed bright orange and with in a few seconds the shuttle had lifted off and cleared the tower. A few seconds later the shuttle was rapidly accelerating and made its pitch change for the north, shuttle rotating to be underneath the boosters and fuel cell. Then about a minute later we could just see the boosters fall off and the shuttle continue on as nothing more that a bright star, and then it came...

Now, as a scientist, I had been curious as whether we would hear any noise from the launch, being so far. I thought about it, realising that the line of sight was clear, so I decided that it was likely, which made me wonder, "well then, how loud would it be?" Precisely 55.24 seconds after lift off, my question was answered.

It started off as a low rumble that my senses could tell was rapidly approaching over the water. It quickly built up to a loud thundering rumble that was so strong and low in frequency it was shaking our bodies and drowned out the whole crowds cheers. It was just amazing. I guess thats what happens when a combined 11,700,000 kW or 11.7 Giga Watts of power is unleashed.

It's amazing that after more than 117 shuttle launches, almost a half a million people came so see the spectical of a lifetime. We were all so excited, and I think a few of us are still buzzing about it a day after the event. STS-118 Endeavor is scheduled to launch on August 9, 2007 and we are already planning on being there.

To finish off this post I have some interesting trivial to share with you. Did you know that a few years ago, NASA launched a rocket with a multi-billion dollar satellite that they terminated only a few moments after launch? Well, apparently if the space shuttle veered of course by only a few degrees such that it would endanger the viewing crowds they would destroy the shuttle in a heartbeat... wow.

Calm before the Launch

Blue Dragonfly

Its Friday morning and to be quite honest, its beautiful outside however, I'm inside, but I get to go outside in a few hours which is exciting because: I'm going to the shuttle launch today! Yup, at 1:30 I am outta here and I am going to drive down to Titusville Beach and hopefully, weather conditions permitting, STS-117 will be launching for space. The closest that I can get is 7 miles to the launch site, so I am not guaranteeing any amazing photos. One experienced photographer commented that unless you can gain access to the NASA site, you would need a 2000mm lens to get a close up shot of the shuttle (a 2000mm lens = a large telescope). Anywho, to tie you over until I can post the shuttle pics, here are two I snapped yesterday of a Floridian Softshell Turtle and a blue Dragonfly.

Florida Softshell Turtle (Apalone ferox)

Well I was in a good mood...

... until Blogger didn't autosave my post that I spent the last 30 minutes working on. Now I have lost all motivation to rewrite it so instead I will give you a dot point summary of all things Jenee and Nate:

• Tropical Storm Barry was not very exciting.
• We now have more picture frames hanging in the apartment than you can poke a stick at.
• I strongly dislike CVS (a pharmacy) and their stupid walk-up photo terminals and stupid people who decide to print duplicates of every photo they have...
  
• Jenee has a new Barbie kite
• Krix decided to make a matching center channel loudspeaker to compliment my Esoterix loudspeakers... which I SOLD because they told me there wasn't a market for such an item (jerks)
  

I'm not really in a bad mood, I think I am having my patience tested and before I could finish this sentence the computer shut down because the battery died. Hence, I think it is time for me to go and do something that doesn't require batteries or relying on other people like read, or exercise or something like that. Hope your all doing great.


**** Edit ****

My evening did get better. I went to play disc golf and threw a 4 over par which is a P/B.

Tropical Storm #2 for 2007

So we are two days into the official Hurricane Season and Florida is being hit by the second tropical storm of the year. Tropical Storms are a step below Hurricane. Anyway, as you all know, it is customary to name the storm, and this one is called BARRY!

I think that name so funny, Barry just isn't that threatening. I mean, Barry sounds more like the guy who is always at the neighborhood street party with a pot-belly and 5 kids, or the big friendly guy at the local who drinks way to much beer.

Anyway, Barry is bringing something to the party this time. Loads and loads of rain, just like I hear is happening back home in Adelaide. Isn't God good and faithful to us, he has answered prayer again.

You might be wondering what a drought in Florida is like? well, it isnt at all like a drought in Australia. Here, the trees are green, the rives have some water in them and the native fauna is still kicking, but, and here is the important part, the ground cover is dry enough that we have had wildfires burning for more than a month. Hopefully the rain we are recieving will help in aiding the firefighters and ease some of the 100 odd fires still burning.