Incidents and accidents

My cards are in! I ordered 100 glossy-coated rounded-corner cards. I love the rounded corners, but the square corners inside look a bit odd. That will have to be fixed for next re-order. Also, the glossy coating looks nice, but doesn’t seem to stay on very well. It’s already flaking up on the edges of a few, and they’re not even out of the box yet! I’m glad I didn’t go ahead and get 300 of these. Now that they’re in, I can start ‘advertising’ by stalking local playgrounds and such. I also need to work on getting the site a bit nicer. I have set my rates a little more, and also offer a ‘Day in the Life’ book servie. I mean, I do one every week. It’d be fun to do DITL’s for other people.

Got my Official Photographer shirt for the GA Hummingbird Festival next weekend. It’s two day, so there will be plenty of photos. Those of you in Georgia should all come by. Not only do they offer banding demonstrations (you can even release a real hummingbird), but also kid’s activities, tours of the plantation, music, hay rides.. etc.
Friday, August 11, 2006 from 12:00 to 8:00PM and Saturday, August 12, 2006 10:00am - 6:00pm
Directions: On I-20, take Exit 98 (GA11). Take GA11 south through Mansfield. Make a right on County Line Road (4th or 5th road after getting out of Mansfield). Make a right on Henderson Mill Road. Make a right on Davis Ford Road. Once on Davis Ford Road you should see Gaithers Plantation on the right. Gaither’s Plantation: 270 Davis Ford Rd. Covington, GA 30014

Nope… Bats. I found a blog from someone in Tucson while looking for hummingbird photos. Instead, I found photos of bats at the feeders. You don’t believe me? She got lots of photos. Wow! Not only are the bat photos neat, but her whole blog is a wonderful read if you’re interested in plants and wildlife. Which I am, so her blog is now linked on the right side there in ‘Internet Freinds’. It’s fun to see in photos what me can look forward to seeing when we get there in May.

I know not many of you go through the photo albums on a regular basis. If I don’t put it up on the main page, no one sees it. To that end:

Christine moved: 98 photos.

I played with school toys: 1 photo.

Stephen and John and I flew kites: 1 photo.

John smiled: 1 photo.

http://surbercontinued.blogspot.com/2006/02/you-cannot-help-but-laugh.html

This video is sure to make you laugh. I promise.

I listen to a lot of music, but it’s all different music. I don’t buy much either. For those of you who listen to new music all the time *cough*Scott*cough*, this may come as a bit of a shock. Here’s a few artists that I would buy or have bought their albums:

Rob D/ Rob Dougan: His wonderfully graveley voice lends itself perfectly to the industrial beats and melodies of his songs. Some of them don’t even have lyrics!

Weird Al Yankovic: I own every CD he’s published but for three compilations. I prefer his earlier stuff, but most of the recent stuff is pretty good too. I’ve even been to see him live, my only concert.

Audioslave: Moody and slow, but yet powerful. I just want to sing along to just about everything they put out. Very unique lead singer’s voice.

Dave Mathews Band: Not my normal stuff, but it’s very nicely upliting. Slow and melodious, it makes me smile.

David Bowie: From Labyrinth soungtrack to his UK rock, it’s all weird and great.

Enya: Soft, soothing, beautiful. I can sing along with this for hours. It makes me think of how elves sing.

Evanescence: Yes, yes. i know it’s pop, and some people hate them. I, however, love them. The lead singer’s voice is stunningly powerful. I could sing slong in my car with this until I wore my voice out.

Metallica: I love hard rock with melody. It’s not screaming into the microphone with nasty hair… it’s real songs sung with real melodies. With and awesome beat.

Michael Jackson: Yes, I know. Yes, he might touch little boys. Yes, he’s got a nasty nose. Neither of these things impact the sound of his music. I like his songs.

The Cure: Come on. Everyone knows why.

Tracy Chapman: Great voice! Slow-ish beaty songs. Nice to listen to on a rainy day.

Maroon 5: Another somewhat gravely voiced group with somewhat pop-y songs, but I love them.

There are plenty more one-hit-wonders that i love, but I won’t name them all.

The Stump has been eating more and more cat food lately. Either she’s still got worms (likely), or she’s bored (more likely). I’ve been attempting to cut her down on food a little because she’s begining to develop a bit of a pudge on her underbelly. Fat kitties are cute, but she doesn’t need to become a fat layabout. Anyway, we keep the cat food in a big tupperware lock-tite container unless we’ve just bought some. It doesn’t all fit in the container, so the rest gets rolled up in the bag and stored near the bowl. Stumpy runs over to the bag, yowls one big long yowl, then tips her empty food dish over. Well, yes ma’am! So I go over and unroll the bag of cat food, and the photo to the left is what I find. LOL! John’s gone for the weekend, but he knew I’d find it and have a laugh. Silly man.

On Monday, John and I had planned to go to the new Georgia Aquarium. It’s about a hour from here, so we hopped in the car and went. Before we left though, I had to ship out the Sony to it’s new home in Alabama. As we were heading out to do that, someone knocked on the door. It was UPS with my new tiny-canon! My old-new (I owned a Canon s400 before the Sony) s400 had arrived from it’s old home in Calafonia, so I was happy. I shipped out the Sony, and we drove down to Atlanta with two cameras. We got there just fine, found the aquarium, then saw the signs out front. “No walk-up ticket sales. Sold Out!” Damn! No getting into the fun fish place.
We said ‘Damn’ and went to go get John’s school books for this new semester. I found a pretty notebook with hummingbirds on it, and he was nice to me and let me leave with it. So, we spent the rest of the day wandering the bookstore and the mall near John’s school. Barnes and noble there doesn’t have shit in the way of hummingbird books. I was dissapointed. They did have some nice photography books though. We wandered around the mall for a while, talking about tis and that. John wanted to take a dog home from the pet store there. I wanted a bird. We ended up taking home a black corset with white leaf embroidery on it. It’s similar to this one, only reversed. The embroidery is prettier on mine too. The we got to see Atari and the rest of the PsiU gang at Hooters, so that was awesome. i even got a nice photo of the local marriott in the rain, to the upper left. It’s also on Flickr too.

The camera closed out at $305. This was totaly due to Blixem. He is TEH AWESOME. Really.

I played in a new Eberron game with Justin and a group of his male gamer freinds. They were somewhat shocked to have a female in the group and consequently got nervous, which led to drinking, which led to drunk. This led to them being very loud and very obviously hitting on me. Note to self: make sure all know I’m not single. The game seems fun, however. I’m playing a half-giant fighter with a HUGE greatsword.

Stephen came to visit this weekend. We took him to the Eberron game, where he played a loincloth-wearing fighter. He too had a little too much to drink, and being Stephen, said some things that were somewhat offesnive to the rest of the group. Second note to self: no beer or booze at games. Ever again. He stayed over with us and for lunch we took the customary trip to Taco Stand. It was fun playing with his new camera. He got a Canon sd450 on my advise, but I’ve never played with one before. If memory cards weren’t an issue, I would have bought that one. It was a very windy day, so we took my 50 foot mylar dragon kite out to fly. The wind was a little too rough for it, and it decided to shred itself inside-out. No loss though, as it was only $5.

John and I are headed to ARIZONA! John’s dad is sending us for a week in early May so I can slobber all over 13 species of hummingbirds (and photograph them) while John laughs at me. Here’s the sketchy pre-planning phase schedule:

Day 1: Leave Atlanta, arrive in Phoenix. rent car, drive to tucson. Check in to hotel, spend the rest of the day messing about in tucson getting coupons and transit schedules.
Day 2: Arizona Sonora Desert Museum has a hummingbird aviary among some other really awesome stuff.
Day 3: ASDM again, since it’s reccomended to take 2 days to go through.
Day 4: Drive down to Sierra Vista for Ash Canyon, Beatty’s Guest Ranch, and Ramsey Canyon.
Day 5: Ash, Beatty’s and Ramsey some more. Or if done head to SABO’s banding station. Perhaps drive over to Paton’s Feeders or Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve.
Day 6: Another day for the canyons or drive back to Tucson for Colossal cave Park, Tucson Botanical Gardens or Reid Park Zoo.
Day 7: Zoo, Cave, or Botanical Gardens again.
Day 8: Drive back to Phoenix, drop off car. Get on plane, return to ATL.

Here’s a map! We may change the entire Sierra Vista bit with the first two days in Tucson, just so we can have the entire tucson stay at once, rather than in two seperate bits. It’s just hard to say how long we (meaning I) will want to stay in the canyons. I will have to get some more memory cards for my camera, or borrow a laptop to download pics to. I will certainly have to get some more batteries. Let me know if you have any borrowable/sellable Compact Flash cards.

Actual phrases that have come out of my kids’ mouths:

Child: Miss Hedder! I need to tell you a secret!
Me: Wassat?
Child: (whispers in my ear) I love you…

Child: (holding up a lump of playdough) I made poopie!

Me: I’d be so happy if you peepeed in the potty next time.
Child: I sorry. I no mean to peepee in my diaper.

Me: (Just walked in to work) Morning!
Child: (pointing to his butt) Miss Hedder. I can’t talk to you. I got diarrhea!

Child: (pointing to his penis) It’s just too big!
Me: It’s what? Who told you that?
Child: Daddy.

Chil: (running back from the bathroom) I peeped the pot!

Me: Your pants are falling down again.
Child: Yeah! I need a belt!

Child: (holding up a large and small stick) It’s a mama stick and a baby stick!

Child: (hands down her pants) Look Miss Hedder! I got a body!

Child: Miss Heather… I like your breasts.
Me: You what?
Child: I like your breasts. I have a penis.
Me: Oookay.. we’re not talking about that anymore.

Child: (spinning around in circles) I’m so busy!

Child: (pointing at her nose) I gots burgers!

Me: We’re having some cole slaw too!
Child: No. It’s COLD SLOP.

Me: Here, take this egg, okay?
Child: Thank you! That’s so sweet!