I haven't really kept a blog since the old MySpace days, and it kinda shows. I like to write. I haven't even kept a journal though. I'm rusty as hell! My typing is even slower :( This is bad. I must start writing again. Right now I'm so sleepy... *yawn*... I don't know that I really have all that much to say! Surely as Davis ages I'll have more time and cause to write. These days all of my extra time is spent sleeping lol. Oh well. Hopefully this will be the beginning of something, rather than a false start.

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It's funny, my mind is working overtime all day long.  Thoughts, ideas, memories... like some sort of cloud around my consciousness.  Words get caught in my head in much the same way that a song would, repeating ad nauseum until I seek out another to silence it.  Binomial Nomenclature is a common one.  I don't even know how it ever gets there.  It's not as if it's a word that I hear regularly.  I guess it's like an echo of a childhood song, stored for years in some crevice of your brain, popping out at a seemingly irrelevant moment to haunt you.  I wonder though, IS it irrelevant?  What triggers the memory?  Is it a similar state of being that connects you, or is it something more tangible?  Perhaps a smell, or a season.  Perhaps the first time I ever heard "Itsy Bitsy Spider" was on a crisp fall day, and now every autumn I'm doomed to hum it for a day or so.  So when did I first hear binomial nomenclature?  What feelings, in these moments that it pops up, do I share with the Laura that first learned of it?  Honestly I don't even recall it's meaning, so that makes it a little hard.  Seems to me that it's a scientific term, and my mind thinks that it was in 8th grade science class.  Who knows?  I'll have to look it up.

Anyway, this blog isn't really ABOUT anything.  I just noticed that my recent blogs, although full of content, really lacked any substance.  Well, any of ME anyway.  Just copied and pasted articles.  Not really the reason that I started blogging to begin with.  Unfortunately I'm a full blown "knowledge addict", and I always want to share it with others when I learn something cool.  Like these two articles on Geomythology (here and here).  So I guess this blog is a compromise.  If nothing else, it's a baby step toward letting some of the crap that's in my head out :)

Oh, and AS an admitted knowledge addict, I can now tell you that it's the term used for the formal system of naming specific species.  Must have been 10th grade AP Biology then. 

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Skwerlz... I luv dem!

LOLspeak = soooo much better than textspeak :P Anyway, here are some squirrels:

Photo-blog 5/30/2008

Remember what I said about never knowing what I'll find to photograph?  Well, this next one takes the cake (Cliff... I better get a cake!).  I'm heading to WV by way of Faith's (YAY!) so I took the shelter photos yesterday.  Here's what I happened to catch as he/she was being taken by the Rescue guy:


 



 


Sometimes I LOVE this place lol!

Ok, here are some doggie photos:

JJ

 


Star

 



Welch

 



 


Cooper

 


And one of my all-time favorite shots: Cooper taking a leak lol.  Just look at his little tongue sticking out, like he's putting everything he has into the activity...


 

And here are some photos from my walk yesterday:

Alligator Snapping Turtle

 


Common Grackle

 
 


Young Squirrel (the young ones sit still longer because they are better at blending in than they are at escaping yet)

 



Some sparrows

 



Black Locust Tree (with vines)

 


 

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They Meant Something

I'm sure that there are plenty of blogs today about recognizing our fallen soldiers.  I'm also sure that there aren't enough, so here's one more. 

364 days out of the year it takes a lot to make most of us think of those people over there in Iraq.  Those men and women who are missed so desperately by their families; who, themselves, have little time for the luxury of homesickness since they are so occupied with trying not to let their brothers and sisters die, trying to make a difference and trying not to die, in that order.  In that order.  Don't believe me?  Ask the comrades of 19 yr old Ross McGinnis, whose lives were saved to fight another day when he sacrificed himself by smothering a grenade.  These are men and women who literally overcome the natural instinct of self preservation in order to work toward a higher calling: freedom. 

I couldn't care less how many parades, flags and barbecues I see today.  In typical American style, we celebrate.  I think that it is also important to remember, though.  When I say that, I don't mean that it's important to say "I remember that there are people who died for my freedom".  I mean that I think it's important to sit for 5-10 minutes or so and think about these people, because they meant something to someone outside of their military career.  Hell, they meant EVERYTHING to someone.  They used to be the person with whom someone woke up every morning and ended every day.  They used to be the someone that a mother sent off to school every weekday morning and who got nagged to clean his/her room.  They used to be someone with a future.  Someone with potential.  Someone whose life was cut short out of their need to do more.  Imagine your brother, sister, uncle, best friend or child and think about how much you love him/her.  Now imagine that he/she lay beneath one of those tombstones in Arlington Cemetery and you'll see the point at which I am aiming.

I feel like although we should honor these men and women, we should also thank the families who were left behind when they died.  The families who raised these people to be the heroes that they were.  Families who supported their decision to join the Armed Forces, who sent them letters and care packages and missed them at birthday parties, graduations and weddings. 

So please, take a moment today to really think about this.  If they are old enough, talk to your children about it.  Explain to them the real purpose behind Memorial Day, and that each of these people who died was, once, just like them.

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I never know what to expect when I take off with my camera...

but I can assure you that I didn't expect this:





She was just waddling along, out in the open here in our gated oasis. At first, I thought that she was just fat. I followed her for a while, and once she decided that I had gotten close enough she went up a small tree where I was able to see her better. As you can see, she's clearly pregnant:





Not wanting to stress her out, I took a couple more shots and left her alone. I hated to, but it was the right thing to do. Here are a couple more shots:









Naturally I took other photos, here are a couple of the less interesting subjects:

















Aaand last but certainly not least, my latest favorite picture of Lawrence :)

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