I Created a Monster

Okay, so I didn't create, I found it, I think it should still count. This is my new pet, Mani (after a lengthy discussion Mani was decided as the female version of Manny). I found her laying on the ground getting pelted with hail and almost frozen to death while walking between buildings during work. Personally, I think work really would be more fun with a pet preying mantis, but my boss told me if Mani flies and lands on him, he'd kill me, so Mani has come home with me. After some much needed heat, Mani seems fine and in good spirits.

No expense is too much for our pets, so Becca spent fifty-five cents on four crickets to provide some entertainment for us. Oh did I say entertainment, I meant much needed dinner for Mani. It was a tense couple of minutes, not knowing if this experiment would work, but in the end Mani locked on to her target, aimed, and fired a death grip onto a very unlucky cricket. She then proceeded to eat the whole cricket in a matter of minutes. It really was quite amazing.

She has proven to be a very fun monster for this Halloween season. I'm hoping to get some more use out of my macro lens and this seems like a perfect opportunity to use it. Who knew mother nature could be so fun! Can you see those death spikes on Mani's arms? Oh and the way she used her lightning fast reflexes to impale that cricket, then proceeded to devourer it while it was still alive ( I'm sure screaming in it's little cricket voice), like any movie can create that level of goory detail! Oh wait, maybe I'm the monster......nahhh!

Shania Twain, Marry Me!

Shania Twain |MTV Music

MTV hasn't been on the map since whenever they stopped actually playing videos (which was what 1989?). Well, they finally did something right in the 20 years since they stopped being cool! They launched their own YouTube like service that actually allows you to watch music videos on demand.

I've spent the majority part of the day watching old favorites, but have to admit, part of the fun was a game I invented. Because it's a new service, the view counts on the videos are kind of low. After checking out some of my all-time favorites, I thought it would be fun to find a video where I was the first person to view it. So, the search began. I was surprised, when even some of my obscure music even had 6 views already. Almost ready to give up, I thought about my dream girl, Shania Twain. Surely, she'd have some views, but I went to my favorite video (not song) of hers and low and behold the view count was empty! So, Shania, if you are out there, I want you to know your number one fan viewed you first...and yes I will still marry you!

Never, Return to the Crime Scene!

Here are the tracks. I did the unthinkable. I returned the scene of the crime. Hopeful, to repeat the great sunset of few nights ago, I returned to South Haven for another sunset. I should have know better. Sure enough, last night's sunset was blah!



The sun got behind those clouds and I was once again taught a valuable lesson. Just because it's good once, doesn't mean a damn thing. Photography is amazingly frustrating at times. Two sunsets within days of each other giving two extremely different results, one great, the other, hardly better then a bad Jim Carey movie.

The night wasn't a complete loss though (and I laugh because this entry is going to have more pictures then words), Becca and I rode a few miles on the Kal-Haven trail hoping for some fall colors. We didn't do great, I think best colors have already passed, but I did like this:



Then, I got this shot I titled "Road Kill":



That's dedication if I ever saw it! I'm glad no cars came, not because of her safety, but I'm really not sure if I was ready to deal with the dilemma of choosing to warn her....or keep quiet and get the action shot of a car flattening her!

Hmmmm, what was I saying about returning to the scene of the crime?!

Picture Perfect

Wow! A last minute trip to South Haven proved once again that no planning really does pay off! All that advice growing up from mom that planning was necessary to make a project turn out, completely out the window. If I can get results like this with a last minute decision, just think of the wonderful book reports I could have created waiting until the day before they were due!

This is a new day for me, gone of are the days of organization and planning. From now on, I'll be doing my taxes April 14th, changing my oil at 3001 miles, packing the day of my trip, and paying bills on their due day, not before! It's going to be hard for those of you that know me to recognize the new me, but I'm a changed man. Hmmm, wonder if this new theory of mine holds up for the expiration date on the milk? :)

This was a weekend for the record book, Picture Perfect.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

No, we didn't head down to the Four Winds Casino and start playing blackjack, but it kind of feel like it for me! First, let me explain this picture, last night was the "Dry Dive" dinner party with the local divers. The theme was "Dressed to Chill" with an award going to the best dressed. We thought it would be funny to take a loose interpretation of the chill and go as skiers. Personally, I thought we had the best costumes, but we lost to newly weds. I'm not disappointed though.

So, earlier in the day at the Geo Caching Event. My ticket got called to win a geo-coin. Win number one.

My ticket got called again at the dive party. The game was in the theme of Lets Make a Deal. Three curtains, some curtains have non prizes behind them. Since I was the second contestant, I was kind of at the mercy of the first contestant. She picked the middle curtain which happened to be a woman's rash guard with a shell bra. I thought for sure since she was a woman, she'd take it, but no she passed it on to me and choose a different curtain. So, here I am being forced to wear part of my prize:



As luck would have it, they did let me pick between my pink woman's rash guard, or the final door. Now, with the Cozumel trip coming, I actually thought Becca would want the rash guard. Apparently I was silly for thinking that Becca would be seen in something pink, because She told me to pick the other curtain and risk getting old dive gear without a second thought. I have to admit, it was hard to give up the shell bra, but I did and took what was behind curtain number one.



Turns out we made a good choice. Behind curtain number one was a dive computer! Sure, we already have our own, but it would make for a nice backup! Not a cheap prize at all! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! So, we were winners this weekend!

Fall Colors

This weekend was a Geocaching event that took place in a local park. It's always fun to visit and trade funny stories with fellow cachers. I'm slightly worried that one of them planted a bad seed though. He went on a three month, 19 state, caching adventure were he almost hit a thousands finds! That's the last person Becca needs to listening to stories from!

We got to play around with some of the trees that were changing as an added bonus. My favorite picture of the weekend is the above one, Becca getting in my frame, being goofy. She's a big helper, but turned out to be my favorite, so it's funny how things work out. I also found it humorous that the two of us never take pictures of each other, yet this weekend our favorite pics were of each other.

Travel Plans

The first dive adventure is officially planned! Last week, passports were ordered, so it safe to say we are headed some place fun. Next stop, Cozumel! After some debating, it seems like it's the best to head out with our local dive crew for our first adventure. It's was always been a hard decision to which island in the Caribbean would be the first choice, this trip happened to interest me, so Cozumel it is. Plus, with the local dive crew taking care of everything, I don't have to worry about running into pirates. The only challenge now will be packing! Where's Becca?

Someplace New and Cool

Last week was a disaster! Becca put all this work into finding a group of geocaches in a spot where it we could not only Geocache, but also take some pictures. I'm not sure which was the first sign of bad luck, the bridge that was suppose to be our subject for our pictures being under construction or the strange atmospheric conditions that had our GPS's bouncing all over the place. To give an example, we actually gave up going after a cache because it looked like it was on a small island in a park. Turns out, by some kind of blind luck, we found it on our way out of the park over 70 feet from where our GPS's said it would be! Trust me, that was the only thing that went our way the entire day.

By the end of the day, we were both frustrated and almost at each others throats. We had such a bad outing that I went on a rant saying how much I hate "parking lot" caches. Becca wanted to hit a few of the easy caches that wouldn't require much searching to at least say we did something. I put my foot down, the weekend on a bad note.



This weekend, Becca decided on one cache and only one cache. This one happened to be a number of trails in a hidden preserve that we've driven by hundreds of times and didn't even know it was there. These three pictures came from the trails. The highlight had to be the pine tree forest. It was so cool to not only see this, but know that it's been here here this whole time and we never visited it once. We walked close to two and a half miles, most of which was for the cache, but I'm not sure what was better the views, the exercise, or just simply being successful in the hunt for caches and pictures.



Definitely, look forward to visiting this place again for these views!