General Music Chat

I visited my parents in Florida a few years ago. They're about 80 miles north of Miami. They've got a miniature Everglades park a few miles from their house with a boardwalk to walk out and observe the birds and animals. Swimming around was a bunch of HUGE softshell turtles. They looked to be over 100 pounds. Their bite is supposed to be worse than a snapping turtle. All the other animals there were steering very clear of the softshells. I think even the alligators don't like them (I never saw an alligator there).

That is so true FB as a boy down here on the Gulf coast in the 60"s I used to catch soft shell turtles and the only ones that ever chewed thru my net were softshells .

80 miles north of Miami sounds like Vero Beach to me, or maybe Hobe Sound (I lived there for a while)
.. or Ft. Pierce?

Well, guys, I'm no hunter, just a driver here. I drive all kinds of cars for a living. From the rickety to the classing. I work at an auto auction. When I'm not at work, I am usually messing around with the guitar, or playing some war combat game on my playstation. If not doing those things I'm probably asleep. LOL I love being out doors though, just allergies supress me at times and dont allow me to get out as much as I would like, yet when able to I hang out at the park, and talk to the squirrels, birds or whatever will listen to me LOL. I use to ride a kawasaki 100 enduro bike, yet all the crazies out there sent me on a motorcyle strike, my last accident broke me and I quit riding. Basically I am just a homebody, LOL outside of music and games and my job.

Hey! The local observatory is doing stuff!

MCOF March Stargazing Party
Morgan County Observatory will be having a public star party this Friday evening March 27th beginning at beginning at 8PM. The planets Venus and Saturn, the Great Orion Nebula, the Pleaides, the Perseus double cluster are all visible in our spring skies. There will be stargazing, refreshments, movies and hands on astronomy exhibits to entertain folks of all ages. Come out and see the Morgan County Observatory and get a peek through the powerful 16" Cassegrain telescope housed there. Admission is free to all and donations are encouraged.
Come out and enjoy the dark skies of Morgan County while learning more about astronomy and the stars. To get to the Observatory from Berkeley Springs, follow Rt 522 South 2 miles and take a left on Winchester Grade Rd (Rt 13), then travel 9 miles just past Greenwood School on the left. For information 304-258-1013, http://www.nitesky.org , or dynsol@crosslink.net.


If da pneumonia gets better by then, I'm going!

Phil,
That sounds like the thing to do tonight!

I do more readin' about astronomy then actual observing these days.
I sent my old refractor home with one of my sons, since he has less light pollution where he lives. The clearest skies I've ever seen on the east coast was out on Hatteras Island, which is quite a few miles out to sea and relatively free of city lights.

If you wanna do some real useful astronamy and you have a computer but no scope, check out Galaxyzoo.com. You get to help classify actual galaxies. I haven't had time to participate myself, but my son is into it. Very cool!
HJ

Philby, you should offer the MCOF some live music to accompany the show.

Discovery undocked this afternoon after 2 astronauts installed the final solar panel on the ISS. The 1st EVA was over 6 hours! They looked tired. They'll be back to Earth -touching-down- in the shuttle on Saturday.

Went back out to the photo blind a few days ago, got a few new pictures worth showing off. First, a Tricolored Heron, close relative of Great Blue and Little Blue (formerly called Lesser Blue) Herons. This is the first one I've seen and the only one present that day.



Then the Little Blue Heron. Don't know why they keep changing their names, I wish they would just let them be...damn birds are going to develop an identity crisis if this keeps up...3 or 4 of these were in various places, around 9 of them the next day.



Also several Snowy Egrets running around feeding, these guys are a hoot to watch. The herons and Great White Egret basically walk around fairly slow and look for a crawfish or small fish to grab, while the Snowy Egrets either walk around really fast grabbing anything that looks like food, or walk through shallow water slowly scratching on the bottom to make minnows, bugs and crawfish move, (crayfish to some of you yankees) which they see and grab. Got a picture of one with a crawfish in its bill but don't have it resized and converted to gif format yet.



Also spotted a Yellow Bellied Woodpecker hollowing out a cavity in a tree so he can move in for nesting, got several nice pictures that will also be for another post later on, after a bit of editing is done. Other birds spotted were a White Ibis, Yellow Crowned Night Heron, Greater Yellowlegs and I think an American Bittern, but not positive. Only saw that one for a few seconds off in the distance.

A raccoon was hunting around the edge of the water but no pics, got decent pics of the Night Heron and a couple of the Ibis, but none of the Ibis worth showing off. Some Blue Wing Teal and Wood Ducks and a pair of Mallards were swimming around too, again no good pics. With digiscoping (digital camera through a spotting scope) they can be seen and photographed pretty far away but focusing is difficult, so I get very few good shots.

Right now the original pics are in JPG format and 2048x1536 size, way too big to post and pretty large file sizes, around 1.5 MB per picture. I resize them and convert to GIF for web use, smaller file and picture size and allows much quicker page loading.

Aside from the FT job and playing sessions, I'm also a family man. My wife and 2-yr old daughter get most of my time and attention when I'm not working or playing sessions. My daughter and I play, watch Noggin, go to the park, play bass together (I hold my bass up vertically and let her smack the strings), and a bunch of other cool daddy stuff! I take the family downtown a lot, and we go out to eat, walk around the city, and go to the downtown park.

Crip- We need a GIF of you spinning on your head and break-dancin'. Can you do that?

Been out of town for a few days with no online access, busy working on a shower for my sister's place, so I didn't get a chance to check in.

Nice pics crip, I like the break dancing idea too. hehe

Did get a chance to snap a few more pics while out of town, but don't have anything ready to go yet, so it'll have to wait. Wildflowers are starting to bloom and that's always a favorite of mine, finally figured out the macro on my camera and got to user it a little, those tiny flowers smaller than a dime are not easy to get even with that, since it wants to focus anywhere else but where I point it...I'll drop a couple in later when I have some time.

Nice pictures Billy!
I've been working n playin my butt off. God I miss getting out into nature.
Had an invite to help a gent who lives out in the sticks thin some of the wild hogs that a tearing his place to shreds. Going to make some time for that one fo sho!
This little piggy goes to the freezer!

I finally just said "to hell with everything" & went fishing with my son yesterday instead of helping the wife look for our still-missing pug. Yeah I caught lotsa hell for that, but I also caught a nice 24" channel cat & a 10 " perch while canoeing in the local lake.

Then I came home & ate 'em with my wife, son & grandson.

Felt great to be outside.

It's raining today, of course, so I can't work, but I'm a lil sore from yesterday, after being off for more than 2 weeks convalescing, so it's prolly for the best.