Fluffed.

Running down by Baldwin Lake in Berea yesterday (my second run of the day), I spotted this guy. So of course I had to stop and try and get a picture of him. I think I annoyed him because he fluffed up at me. I also got a picture of him stalking along the water and just standing looking all impressive.

I also went exploring very briefly in an old cemetery and took some pictures of a few graves of Civil War soldiers buried there. For example, Drummer Hiram Vaughn who served with the 65th Ohio Infantry. The 65th Ohio had a fairly impressive combat record. Here is their combat record from Larry Stevens’ fine website Ohio in the Civil War. After the War, Vaughn was prominent with the G.A.R. locally.

As you’ll notice, I’m a member of Flickr.  I use it to store my digital photographs.  Some areas that might be of interest to my Civil War visitors include my best of the Civil War sets, sets from Gettysburg (working on adding more), and two “kitchen sinks” sets — every picture I’ve taken digitally at Sharpsburg and at and around Gettysburg.  Of course, there are “throw away” shots in the kitchen sink collections, but if you dig through there are all sorts of different angles and shots of the battlefields in there, especially at Gettysburg.

(I’m basically trying to distract myself from worrying about a “routine” CT scan on Monday. There never seems to be anything “routine” about my CT scans, hence the anxiety.)

Signs of Spring: Wildflowers

We have been blessed here in northern Ohio with two gorgeous days in a row — and by gorgeous, I mean it’s picture perfect and warm enough to wear shorts (even when you’re not running).

I’ve taken advantage of the nice weather and run pretty much all over the place.  The picture to the left is along my favorite running trail — the needles from the evergreens make a nice soft carpet for running on.  As usual, I take my camera along just in case I see something worth shooting.

(I carry my camera — a very thin Olympus point-and-shoot model — in an ipod case strapped to my arm.)

There are signs of new life and spring everywhere.  It’s hard to believe that a month ago there was two feet of snow on the ground.

Here are a few wildflowers I stopped to take pictures of along my running route:

Along the suburban areas of my regular running route, I also passed quite a few nice gardens with beautiful spring flowers:

And then of course there are deer everywhere.

signs of spring in Ohio

Signs of spring in Ohio … Even if it is 37 degrees right now and raining …

My Favorites

I decided to upload my 100 favorite photographs to my secondary Flickr account — the collection includes both Civil War and other stuff. Enjoy!

Photo 365

My friend Ben has been keeping a Photo 365 Blog. I have been long admiring Ben’s Photo Blog and decided I would borrow the idea and start my own. I started on February 28th. Here’s a link to my Photo 365 Blog.

(I used some of the 2007 dates to highlight some interesting or favorite pictures I took in the past if you want to also scroll back through and see more photography.)

good vibes

More good vibes needed for my pal Cody.

I hate cancer.

cold O-h-i-o

It is bitterly cold up here in northeastern Ohio, but the late February snow storm has left my hometown and my running trails looking rather starkly, icily, beautiful.

the lunar eclipse

I made an attempt at photographing the lunar eclipse last night.  However, I have a really severe case of Raynaud’s Phenomenon in my fingers (especially my right hand) as a chemotherapy side effect.  Consequently, I couldn’t stand outside too long looking at the eclipse.  I did capture this interesting, blurred image of the rusty colored moon that almost looks like it was taken in time lapse.  I’m sure I couldn’t reproduce it if I tried.

My friend Ben gave me some night shooting tips (I obviously don’t shoot at night very often) — you can see his much better moon shot over in his 365 day photo blog.

(By the way if you looked at the eclipse, the two bright “stars” near the moon were Regulus and the planet Saturn.)

Winning Colors

Euthanized yesterday due to complications from colic. She was 23. She was a dark gray who matured into an almost pure white horse (like many grays). One of only three fillies to ever win the Derby. And how could anyone who saw it ever forget the 1988 Breeder’s Cup with Winning Colors and Personal Ensign battling down to the wire? It was probably one of the best races I ever saw, and although I was pulling for Personal Ensign that day to keep her perfect record in tact, the fact that she did it against a gutsy fast mare like Winning Colors added a lot.

Genuine Risk survives as the only living filly Kentucky Derby winner (she also happens to be the oldest living Derby winner).

more babies

Normally, I don’t get this excited about my pets, but the baby fish really made my day so I am posting a few more images.

These are the parent fish.

The female is the top fish while the male is the bottom fish (closer to the right). They made their nest underneath the driftwood in the picture.

You can kind of see why kribs are called the Purple Cichlid sometimes. These fish are from tropical freshwater in Africa.

I tried very hard to take a picture of the babies, but they are no bigger than a coarse grain of sea salt. Nevertheless, if you look closely at the picture to the left, the gray dots below the father fish are the babies. To give you an idea of size, the father fish is about 2.5″ in length.

I know most of the little fry won’t survive, but it is very exciting to have the little guys, even if I end up only with a handful of adults out of the group.

As I said, I love watching my fish exhibiting their parental behavior. They herd the babies and even lovingly carry them in their mouths. This is a far cry from my horribly inbred angelfish (also cichlids) who devoured their eggs as soon as they laid them because all of their parental skills had been bred out of them to get fancy fins.