Moon and Venus (Closer)

The sky was clear last night, so I took some photos of the Moon and Venus during their closest approach. 

Moon and Venus

The Moon is getting close to Venus.  It's supposed to be nearer tomorrow, but given the penchant for cloudy skies in late Winter, I figured I should take pictures now.  In a few more days, the Moon will sail past Aldebaran and the constellation Taurus.

While I was setting up, Cicero jumped up on The Fort and just happened to line up with the crescent moon.  I'm not sure why he was up on the very top rail of The Fort; maybe he likes to be as high as possible in an attempt to survey as much of the neighbors' yards as he can. 

On the Writing Front:  I've been cleaning up a 20,000 word manuscript.  Thank goodness for the computer's ability to speak text -- I've found a couple of phrase echos and a number of stupid clerical errors.  I also ran into a weird Scrivener bug where it would display one version of my text if I was looking at it on a scene document-by-document basis and an earlier version if I was looking at it on a pan-scene Folder basis.   I ended up having to create a new Scrivener file and copy-and-paste the scene documents in. 

On the Gym Front:  I went to the gym Monday (2/24) and did the Push-Pull Routine.  I went kind of late and felt tired the next day.  So tired, that I made Writing Day Hot Bath With Candles and Recordings of Singing Bowls Day and skipped the gym Wednesday. 

Sunny Day at the Raptor Center

Wednesday was such a clear and sunny day that I went to the Cascades Raptor Center.  Again.

The nice thing about visiting them during a weekday afternoon is that there's fewer visitors there, and I don't have to worry about being One of Those Photographers Who Stands In Front of Everything so much.

Wednesday was the brightest day I've visited, which introduced new challenges photographing the residents.  I'm not sure if using an ISO at 800 is a good thing or a bad thing--on one hand, a number of the raptors think a camera tripod is the handle to a bird net vets use, and a fast film speed means I don't have to use the tripod to get a still shot.  On the other hand, some of my photos seemed washed out, and I'm wondering if a lower ISO and a slightly slower shutter speed would have resulted in better hues.

Dmitri (Eurasian Eagle-Owl), looked stereotypically professorial in his aviary.   In addition to being a photogenic animal to begin with, his aviary is lined up along a east-west axis, which allows for good lighting on him and not on the aviary mesh.   He wasn't as vocal this time around as he was the other day.

This time around, I managed to catch Banjo (Eastern Red-tailed Hawk) being fed outside her aviary.  Usually, Banjo perches near the front of her enclosure and puffs up her chest feathers; this is cool, because Banjo's chest feathers have a kind of crescent and oak-leaf, brown-and-cream pattern on them.  I really do want to study the design on her feathers and transfer it to a creamy, ruffled scarf.

Eating snacks on a leather glove, she looks more streamlined.  I hadn't realized how dark she is on top because her perch is above eye level.  I felt lucky to see her out of her aviary, and I especially appreciated being able to get a photo of her with her wings spread -- the arcs and curves of the wings are beautiful, and the arrays of patterned feathers are fascinating.

Ra (Burrowing Owl) was out and about, and many of the other residents were resting.

It did occur to me that I had just visited the Center four days prior, and that this second visit was possibly a little obsessive.  I enjoy visiting, and I'm trying to work out why.  Part of it is raptors are cool; part of it is a desire to appreciate their natural beauty, with a notion of attempting to reproduce it in art; part of it is the Center is in a wooded area that's relaxing; part of it is that it's an excuse to photograph things.  In any case, I think I do want to pace myself so I don't burn out on it

I visited everyone, and then was thinking that I should head back home when Dante (Golden Eagle) came out for his feeding and training session.

Dante is a vocal raptor, and makes a lot of excited squeaky noises as he's fed bits of rabbit haunch.  What was most interesting was that his handler had to get some more rabbit bits, and Dante knew the tread of his walk across the gravel from twenty-five feet away on the other side of a fence.

Dante is also handsome and photogenic.   He also is dog-like with respect to food.  As I've written before, Dante slobbers a lot in order to be able to swallow rabbit haunches whole.  The new Gross Bird Fact I learned was that he sometimes cleans post-feeding fur bits off of his beak by rubbing it on his handler's beard.

I'm pretty sure this is a few degrees worse than having Smokey groom us.

Moon And Jupiter

 Wednesday (2/19)morning, I tried to take some photos of the Moon as it swung by Jupiter.  Luckily, I didn't have to get up at 4:30 to take pictures.

 I think the cold must be affecting the camera, or else I'm doing something fundamentally wrong when I focus the scene:  a majority of the shots came out blurry (I'm wondering if some combination of my progressive lens glasses and my far-sightedness is coming into play).  Another possibility is that the sky has been turbulent, resulting in wavering images.

In any case, many of the photos came out blurry or slightly out of focus.  The best photos are the "arty" ones with utility lines dividing the sky into sections.

Because it's been kind of nippy out, and because the moon is so low in the sky, I've been throwing my old Black And Purple Cloak on and scampering across the street to photograph the moon over our house.   I'm hoping that one neighbor in particular, who can be very timid, did not happen to be awake and looking out of her kitchen window.  I can imagine her calling 911 to report a Satanist (me, in a cloak) performing some kind of lunar ritual (or something) in the street with a strange device (my camera tripod).

This morning (and yesterday when the Moon was right next to Mars) string of the planets and the Moon was stunning.  Thursday morning, when the Moon was next to Saturn, the clouds and fog were out, so the sky was mostly featureless -- although the moon rose so near to sunrise that I'm thinking it would have been very difficult to see even with a clear sky.

Gym and Involuntary Equipment Interlock-Out

Gym Report:  Made it to gym Wednesday and managed to do the Push-Pull Workout -- since I went about a half-hour later than I normally do, I had to get creative near the end just to get onto a machine.  I'm sure there must be a word or phrase for mixing up one's routine to accommodate other gym-folk and then getting stuck on the floor waiting for the machine for your last routine to become free for use.

I ended up having to improvise standing overhead triceps cable pulls and seated (or in this case, kneeling) overhead biceps cable pulls on some other equipment and skip the lat cable pull-downs completely.

When this sort of thing happens driving somewhere, I call it 'cascading traffic fail," ...although cascading traffic fail is more like, you leave 30 seconds late, so you hit a traffic light when it's red, and then a school bus turns off of the side road and lets children off in front of you, so then you get caught in the congestion ten blocks down, and therefore you get into the parking lot two seconds after an undeserving SUV takes up the last two open parking stalls.

I think the gym thing should be called involuntary equipment interlock-out.

Moon and Mars

My alarm interrupted a dream where I was attempting to photograph the Moon and Mars and the timetables were wrong and then a big black cloud came up....

I stumbled around the house, and managed to get up and see the Moon slide away from Mars (although I didn't manage to get any before and after shots).  

The first few photographs were blurry for some reason, I'm not sure if the tripod was slipping, or if the cold was affecting the camera, or if I hadn't used the remote.   Some later photographs came out okay.  The difficulty photographing the Moon is that if it is too low, it's difficult to get a clear and focused image.  It probably doesn't help that I'm near-sighted. 

The next few mornings may be interesting to photograph:  the Moon will be sliding close to Jupiter and Saturn over the next few days.  Jupiter will be the easiest, although the dawn glare could be interesting.  Typically, a fog comes up just before dawn, so that could add an additional challenge. 

Monday Post-Migraine Gym

Went to the gym Monday.  And did the Aerobic Routine.  Okay, full confession, I skipped out on the burpees.  I  think I get extra points for going because earlier, I had one of my flashing-lights migraines--which meant I felt a little off and tired, and occasionally, my head felt like it was being pressed between two very firm pillows.

Valentines and Owls

Whew.  What an odd week.  Monday at work there was a lot of network problems, which made it feel like a stereo-typical Mercury Retrograde Day.  It was a rainy week, too, which made things like the electric throw extremely attractive.  I forget which day having the throw really helped my feet feel like something I could walk on instead of places where someone had stuck icy-cold electrodes into my toes.


Saturday, Mark and I went for a walk downtown and had a belated Valentine's Snack.  Our reasoning was that if we tried to eat on Friday night, we'd be packed in between wall-to-wall Valentine's Day Couples.  We found a cute little place on Willamette and 14th, which used to be a Really Large Antique Store, but is now a series of Big City Style cafes and eateries.  Our stop was a brewery-pub with a kind of Arts And Crafts feel.  We ate a lot of yummy and fatty snacks, the most popular being battered and fried cauliflower, dipped in plum sauce.


Sunday, the skies cleared, which made it a good day to visit the Cascades Raptor Center.  I turned up the ISO to 800 and left the tripod home.  This time around I missed events where the birds were brought out of their aviaries, so I failed to have cage-free photos.  I did manage to blur out some bars while taking photos of Dimitri the Eurasian Eagle-owl.  The sunlight streamed into his aviary at just the right angle, and, fortuitously, was illuminating him and not the mesh of his enclosure.  I even managed to get a few photos of him saying, "Who-whooo," which makes the white feathers at his throat bulge out.

Mark joined me and we visited Puck, who flew up to the edge of the aviary to show us the mouse tail he was eating.  Other bits of mouse appeared to be stashed away at various corners of his enclosure.  Newton seemed to be speaking to Mark, and we wondered if he wanted us to feed him.  Apollonia wasn't as agitated as she's appeared in the past.

Just before we left, we got to see Dimitri get weighed and fed--he became excited, and made a deep sound like, "Naaaah, naaaah!" which I thought was a small child or possibly the sound created by some folks who 3-D printed an Ancient Egyptian's larynx.  But no, it was Dimitri, which became clear when he flew nearer, and said, "Naaaaaaah!" from a perch right next to us.   Then a trainer came in and directed him to roost on a scale and other perches for pieces of rat.


I managed to get to the Gym Monday (as previously reported), Wednesday, and Friday; doing the Push-Pull, the Aerobic, and the Push-Pull routines, respectively.  


On the writing front, I managed to polish and submit a story.  I should submit some more.

Moon Shot

Venus, Mars, the Moon, and the Gym

Went to the gym Monday and did the Push-Pull Routine, with the exception of the triceps pull-down, the seated overhead biceps pull-down, and the inclined bench work.  Considering this was my first time back in a week, I'm okay with skipping a few things.

Venus has been visible the last few evenings, which is a bonus because this time of year it typically overcast and cloudy.  The other morning, I saw a ruby Mars, and I've been hoping to catch sight of it again, but we haven't been so lucky with clear skies in the mornings.  Venus, on the other hand, is so bright, I think I was able to catch sight of it about an hour before the sun set.

Saturday night, the full moon rose extra orangey, and the Rabbit in the Moon showed distinctly.  I took a few photographs, but I haven't downloaded them yet.

Everything And The Kitchen Sink

The last week has been a quiet one; we've been a little under the weather here, with low activity levels.

Also, I had to replace the ten-year-old water faucet in our kitchen, which required multiple trips to multiple hardware store to scope out replacement parts, purchase a new faucet, and finally obtain a massive, three-foot-long water-valve key to turn the water off to our house.  I seem to recall a lot of swearing.  On the plus side:  we can use the sink without a mini-jet of water coming out of faucet; and I now have a tool that will allow me to pose, Poseidon like, shirtless and with one foot resting on a writing mass of pipes, waterlines, and wrenches.

Mark continued to conduct quests to Delta Ponds in order to see beavers.  The latest trip, early on Saturday morning (2/8), the water in the side-chanells was down, and there were no beavers to be seen.  I guess without the extra foot or three of water gone, they were less inclined to corpuscular morning activity (or else they were exhausted from a previous evening's worth of cambium gnawing).

We did come across a nonchalant heron stalking fish.

On the craft front, I came across a star design set in an octagonal grid system, and riffed off of it.  Stars, with their pentagonal symmetry, are tricky to work with, mostly because 60 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, and 72 degrees come together awkwardly in two dimensions.

What I've discovered is that pinching or opening the angle of the stars' points is a tremendous aid to cleaner designs when distributing stars around a regular polygon, like an octagon or a hexagon.  Specifically, if you trim a 45 degree angle off of an octagon, duplicated the angle five times and rotate it 72 degrees into a star, the resulting stars will project octagon-friendly grids more readily than a regular star.  Also, you can work with how the exterior and interior angles suggest zig-zags in lines for designs that look tangled on purpose instead of recursive snarls.

The star design on the left is using stars with points made with 45 degree angles, which makes for a more orthogonal design; the similar star design on the right uses points with 60 degrees, so hexagons look more regular.

Also on the craft front, I decorated an Altoids tin with a Valentine's design.  At least, it was supposed to be suggestive of Valentine's.  I was attempting to make two raptors, back-to-back, into a heart shape.  I did this all by hand instead of using the plotter-cutter, and got (more or less) identical shapes by tracing hard over my original design over colored cardstock.  I'm not sure if the heart shape is coming out or not; the end product has a pareidolia effect going.  Mark looked at the finished product and said they looked like parrots.  The background I chose gave the whole thing an Arts And Crafts feel, so I'm pleased about that.

On the writing front:  going slowly, but I did manage to submit a short story.  Yay.

On the gym front, I went last Monday for a Push-Pull Routine, which felt like running through molasses.  I was fighting off some kind of stomach bug.  I felt too run-down to go Wednesday.  Because of Thursday's plumbing adventures, I had pulled something in my hands that left my left thumb particularly pained when I grasped things, so I wanted to give my hands a rest Friday.   And Saturday.   And Sunday.

Bike Path Beaver

Friday evening after some errands, Mark and I went for a walk along the Willamette River.  Thursday, Mark had been walking along the Delta Ponds Bike Path and had seen beavers, and he wanted to see some more.

I brought along my camera, not realizing that it would be fairly dark by the time we got to the waterways.  As we were walking toward a car dealership from the Valley River Center, Mark showed me the gnawed roots of a tree where he'd seen a beaver the previous night.  A few steps later, he spotted a wake in the water.  He pointed out where a very large, log-shaped shadow swam in a pond-like side channel of the Willamette. We must have gotten too close, because there was an explosion of water as the beaver dove.

We spent about a half hour or so, creeping along the sides of the bike path, looking at shadowy forms of ducks, nutria, and geese.  We stopped at a spillway.  Water surged from the Willamette in to the Delta Ponds wetlands, which was surprising, because usually the water flows the other way.

We turned back, and around here, Mark noticed a lump by a tree.  "Is that an animal or a stump?"

I looked.  "I think it's a stump."

It was a beaver.

A really big beaver.  Chewing on a very small log.

 Mark turned on his cell phone light, and I hunched down about eight feet away from the beaver and attempted to take its picture. 

It gnawed on the bark, then looked at me and took a few steps toward me.  In my mind, John Cleese as Tim the Enchanter was saying, "It's got teeth like a... it can jump like... Look at the bones, man!" 

The beaver took a few more slow, lumbering steps toward me.  It looked like it weighed forty pounds.

"I'll just move reeeeally slowly."  I stood and took a few side steps back to the bike path. 

The beaver waddled over to where I had been, and continued to a path along the riverbank to the water.