Water

This is a rafting trip my son went on with his Boy Scout troop. There's a raft there somewhere.

Next week's theme: Clean

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Bunny Ears

You've seen them, you've done them, bunny ears in a photo. Now you can read the history behind the phenomenon: The History of Bunny Ears

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Wordless Wednesday

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falconstars

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Wordless Wednesday

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Responses to Reader's Comments:

Imran said...Since the parents keep coming back to raise a new family, what happens to the young after they leave the nest?
Response: They stick around for a couple of months while they learn to fly and hunt, then they are on their own. Peregrine means wanderer and it is a Peregrine's nature to leave and make a life for itself. 

Imran said...Will they also come back to the same nesting area as the parents or are they territorial, each couple has its own territory to raise their own young?
Response: A male fledgling who has not bred may return the next spring to the nest site where it was born, but usually they are never seen again.  Peregrines are territorial and will defend an area of one to two miles around it's nest. They do return to the same nest every year.  

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Eat Well, Live Well, Yada yada yada

My company is offering the Eat Well, Live Well program again this year, in conjunction with Wegmans, our local grocery store chain. I signed up again the is year. You form teams with other employees and you all pledge to walk 10000 steps a day and to eat 5 vegetables or fuits each day. They give you a free pedometer. You log your progress online each day.

Yesterday I visited the company cafeteria at 12:20 p.m., i heard this conversation at the salad bar:

Woman 1: Why aren't there any vegetables?

Woman 2: Yeah, you wouldn't think they would run out this early.

Woman 1: It's like McDonald's running out of french fries.

Woman 2: Yeah, you just keep making them at lunch time

Me: Today's the first day of Eat Well, Live Well

Woman 1: That explains it then.

So I was on the treadmill, trying to get up to 10000 steps, which is a lot of steps people, and my son joined me down in the basement. Ususally he doesn't like to go down there by himself, so he's glad when I'm down there. Lots of his toys are in the basement so he always has fun there. I was almost to 10000 steps the other day when he was particularly enjoying one of his toys. He asked if I could please do a couple thousand more steps, the answer to that was no.

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How to Update Old Blogger Posts Without Screwing Up Your Atom or RSS Feed

Don't you hate it when you're reading one of your posts that is a few days old and you notice a spelling or grammar faux pas? It happens to me all the time! If I update the post it goes to the top of my RSS and Atom feed and everyone that reads my blog through a reader gets my old posts just like it was new again. This can be aggravating for both readers and publishers. I didn't like it so I found a way around it. The wonderful people at Feedburner found a solution for blogger blogs.

I wanted to copy some of my old Kodak falcon posts to my other blog, falconstars, but I don't want the feed readers to pick it all up. I'm going to give this a try. It sounds like it will work. I hope it does.

By the way, Mariah laid an egg!

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Backyard Birds

The backyard birds have been very entertaining. I've seen a couple new ones this weekend.



This Starling and 4 or 5 of his friends made an appearance. I'm not too happy about having them as guests, they are aggressive birds who will destroy the eggs or young of other birds.



The Robins have returned! That is a sure sign that spring is here.


I haven't seen this Nuthatch in a few weeks, so I'm glad it turned up at the feeder.

Here's the female Cardinal that I finally was finally able to capture a picture of without a branch in front of her. She looks smaller on the ground.

The American Goldfinch love the niger feeder I've set up for them. It's in a birch tree, which is a favorite tree for them.

The House Finches like the safflower seeds.

The female House Finches have arrived, they winter further south than the males. I have twice as many House Finch now!

These Mourning Doves are eyeing up this feeder as a nest. I often see one of them just sitting in there.

My son and I are on pins and needles waiting for Mariah, one of the Kodak Peregrine Falcons, to lay her first egg of the season. She keeps going into the nest-box and hovering over the scrape, it should be any time now. You can follow the action over at my other blog, Falconstars.

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Empty

This is the nestbox of the Kodak Falcons, Mariah and Kaver. They have dug out a hole in the rocks, called a scrape, to lay their eggs in. Right now it is empty.

Next week's theme: Water

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Kodak Falcon Blog: Falconstars

I have decided to restart my Kodak Falcon Blog: Falconstars

I will post all the Kodak falcon related material over at Falconstars, I hope to see you over there!

I will continue with all my regular postings here. I hope to see you here too.

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Twelve Bird Photos and a Quote

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
-Emily Dickinson

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Thursday 13 Hub

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Responses to Reader's Comments: 

Suldog said...A quick question for you, Barbara: Is it "mourning" dove or "morning" dove?

Response: It's Mourning Dove Suldog, named after their plaintive call.

Responses to Reader's Comments: 

Melli said...Beautiful Barb!!! Are all of these yours -- or did your son take some?

Response: I took these all by myself this time. :)) 

sitta said...did you use one of the flickr mosaic tools to make the collage?

Response: Yes, it is one of the Flickr Toys

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Wordless Wednesday

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How to Tell Mariah and Kaver Apart - A Guide

Size. Kaver is on the left, Mariah is on the right. I took two photographs and merged them together. They were each sitting on opposite sides of the ledge on the nest-box. Mariah is bigger than Kaver. Male falcons are 1/3 smaller than female falcons. The word tiercel is derived from the Latin word tiertius which means one third, a male falcon is approximately one third smaller than the female.



Legs. Here's a picture of both falcons together, Kaver on the left, Mariah on the right. Kaver is famous for his tall skinny legs.



Cere. In the photo above Kaver is on the left, Mariah is on the right. If you look at the feathers right above the cere (beak) you'll notice that Mariah has a small patch of white feathers. Kaver has all black feathers above his cere. This is one of the easiest ways to tell them apart if they are facing you.



Sideburns. Kaver is on the left, Mariah is on the right. You can see that there is a different pattern to their sideburns.

Head coloring. Kaver is on the left, Mariah is on the right. See the spot of whitish feathers on Mariah's head? Kaver doesn't have this.

These are some of the most obvious ways to tell these two falcons apart. I hope you found this guide useful.

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Get all the latest Kodak Falcon News at my falcon blog: Falconstars
The new Rochester Falconcam can be found here: http://www.rfalconcam.com

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Kodak Birdcam Pictures - 2007

All the birdcam pictures I can grab from Rfalconcam get posted to my Flickr site.

The new Rochester Falconcam can be found here: The new Rochester Falconcam can be found here: http://www.rfalconcam.com

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Theatre, Museum and Church

Friday and Saturday night was show time for the middle school production of "The Music Man Junior". what a wonderful musical the children entertained us with. My husband and I went both nights, our son was part of the stage crew. He had sole responsibility for the rocking chair, he even had a mid-scene rocking chair grab. He was phenomenal. His father and I were so proud every time that rocking chair showed up where it was supposed to be. He's hoping to move up the stage crew ladder and possibly, if he's really good, he can wear a walkie-talkie in a couple years when he is in eighth grade working in the crew. A boy can dream, can't he?

While I wasn't at the theatre I was at the museum, my son was working on his chemistry merit badge at a special program the Rochester Museum and Science Center offers. It spanned two days and culminated in freezing things in liquid nitrogen. The instructor bounced an indestructible racquetball ball, then froze it in the liquid nitrogen, then tried (unsuccessfully) to bounce it again. The ball shattered on the floor to the oohs and ahhs of all the scouts.

Today was also Scout Sunday, the boys attended a special service at the church that sponsors their scout troop. The church did a nice job of including them in the service. During the children's sermon the pastor pointed out the similarities between scouting and church life, e.g. the recitation of meaningful passages. The boys were asked to recite the boy scout oath and law for the children in attendance. They also performed a flag ceremony, passed out the program and took the offering. The scouts also perform community service at the church each year.

I tried to squeeze in a little bird photography and blog the opening of the Kodak Falcon Birdcam. Quite a busy weekend. I've been a little lax in my blog visiting the last few days, but as always, I'm trying to catch up.

Thanks for reading here.

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Mariah and Article on New Falconcam

It's a cold, windy day in Rochester. Here's Mariah, guarding the nestbox from potential interlopers. The Democrat and Chronicle (local Rochester newspaper) had another article on the new falconcam.

Lord Garavin went up to the nestbox to clean the camera lenses for this season. He took his camera with him of course and you ought to see the stunning pictures he captured of Kaver and Mariah, truly incredible.

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Kodak Falcons 2007 - Mariah

Mariah. Here's my first picture from the new Rochester Falconcam.

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Responses to Reader's Comments: 

Disclaimer:  I have no formal training regarding birds, I am strictly an amateur. But I am happy to share what I know. 

Melli said...Awwwwww... cool! I just got ONE question. HOW do you KNOW that's Mariah? How do you know that's not Kaver? WHAT is the identifying mark? i think they should put name tags on these birds...

Response: Mariah is larger than Kaver.  Female falcons are 1/3 larger than a tiercel (the official name for a male falcon)

mon@rch said... How awesome?? I have a question for you also!! So, how many hours did you watch the falcon cam to capture this?? Only kidding!

Response: I got lucky and saw this right away, but I was willing to wait much longer.

Lazy Daisy said...So they go back to the same nest every year? Do they mate for life?

Response: Falcons do go back to the same nest unless it is unsuitable for some reason.  They do mate for life. 

FRIDAY'S CHILD said...That is Mariah now? This is the same place where she nested isn't it?

Response: Yes, this is the same spot Mariah's nested for ten years now.

Lazy Daisy said...What's the average life expectancy for a falcon? You mentioned that she has been nesting in the same place for the last 10 years. Do female birds keep reproducing or do they have menapause too?

Response: 12 - 18 years in the wild, Mariah has been nesting at this site 10 years and falcons usually start nesting in their 2nd or 3rd year.  She has done more than her share for the peregrine falcon population. So Mariah is an old falcon, but she seems oblivious to the label. If Mariah is any indicator, they keep reproducing. It is just remarkable that she is still with us.   

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Kodak Birdcam 2007 - Now Live

It's live!

The new Rochester Falconcam can be found here: http://www.rfalconcam.com

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Drink

Here's a tufted titmouse stopping for a drink. I snapped this picture because I had been diligently putting out water for the birds all winter, but I never saw one go anywhere near it. Finally, on February 3 this bird actually took a drink. I was so excited I had to capture it digitally.

Next week's theme: Empty

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Mariah & Kaver in the Nestbox

The splash page at K Falcon Cam shows some pictures from Thursday, March 15 of Mariah and Kaver. While you're there you might consider joining this discussion board. They have all the latest news and pictures regarding the Koak falcons.

Link to K Falcon Cam: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/kfalconcam

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visualDNA

Saw this at Gem's first, now it's everywhere. I thought I better hop on the bandwagon while it's still in town. I love this visualDNA.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

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Kodak Falcon Update

Lord Garavin has posted some wonderful pictures of our favorite falcons and he's provided a little history on what they've been up to.

You can see Lord Garavin's pictures without having to sign into anything.

Read Lord Garavi's post here.

The new Rochester Falconcam can be found here: http://www.rfalconcam.com

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Wordless Wednesday

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Make your own

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Third Falcon over Rochester?

Dana has posted some beautiful pictures of Mariah, Kaver and a third falcon at the Kodak tower. She's posted lots of pictures from her Sunday watch.

The new Rochester Falconcam can be found here: http://www.rfalconcam.com

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Train Derailment

My mother and two of my sisters heard a huge explosion this morning around 7:00 AM. There was a train derailment a couple of miles from where they live. Twenty-eight of eighty train cars had derailed, some carrying flammable liquids. Five of the cars with flammable liquids went up in flames sending a huge fireball into the sky.

Work was closed for my sister and school was closed for my niece. They were under a state of emergency today because there were other train cars with flammable liquids that could explode causing further damage. Many roads were closed and people were evacuated. People who weren't in the evacuation area were asked to stay in their homes and not go outside unless absolutely necessary.

My valiant sister courageously left the house and played my mother's lotto numbers for her. What a hero.

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Blue Jay

My husband and son went away to visit family this weekend. They took my camera with them. Well, I guess it's ours, but I had plans for the camera. Lucky for me they decided to take some pictures of birds. My husband captured this blue jay on top of a feeder. It's definitely better than any shot I would have taken. It ends up that I am glad they took the camera.

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Birdfeeder Cam

How cool is this? I've actually been thinking about doing this with my own birdfeeder.

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Kodak Falconcam --> Rochester Falconcam 2007

Very good news! The Genesee Valley Audubon Society is hosting the webcam in association with Kodak this year. There is a new URL:

http://www.rfalconcam.com.

The webcam is due to start up mid-March.

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Architecture

Chichen Itza is a wondrous place. The architecture is beautiful too. I guess we'll just have to imagine it with this picture.

Next week's theme: Drink

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My Blogging Secret Revealed

Have you ever stared at your computer screen and wondered what you were going to blog about? Do you suffer from occasional bouts of blogger's block? If you answered yes to either of these questions then do what I do, use Blog-o-Matic! With Blog-o-Matic you can produce wonderful blog posts in the time it takes to cut and paste. Try Blog-o-Matic today! Here's an example:

I thought of Peace

Last night I dreamt we cannot continue to make more enemies. Does the responsibility lie with Peace, you ask. Fair enough. So you want to know the truth? This morning I was totally into music. Whatever. And here's the gist; But something wasn't right. Nothing like fruit flies. Which isn't something I post about usually, but...

Read more...

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Intervalometer

Taking pictures with the intervalometer needs a little more refinement. I tried on Tuesday and out of the 100 photos these are the three that turned out the best. The pictures are a little grainy and the birds hung out tucked away behind the branches. There were no squirrels, so I'm glad about that. There were lots of pictures with only half a bird in them too. The first picture shows a house sparrow, the second shows a house finch and the third shows a chickadee eating a nut. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.

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Seventy six trombones

Show tunes, I love them. It's a good thing because my husband and I bought tickets to both nights of the middle school production of "The Music Man". Our son isn't even in it, he is part of the stage crew though. So far he hasn't attended a single practice nor has he made any of the sets. Opening night is just nine days away. The only thing he knows for sure is that he has to wear black. So we are paying $8 a ticket on back-to-back nights to watch his friends in the show and between sets try to pick out the shadowy figure who is our son. He still gets to go to the cast and crew party, and we still get to go to the parent coffee. I'm glad I love show tunes.

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Wordless Wednesday

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Responses to Reader's Comments: 

Melli said... So... did YOU take this one? Or did the camera do it all by itself?

and

catherine said...All your bird pictures are incredible. Are you taking them all with the timer?????

Response:  No, my timer pics don't come out very well, yet!
 

gem said...Though you are true to your Wordless claim, I would have loved to know what kind of bird that is.

Response:  It's an immature blue jay, it doesn't have it's bright blue coloring yet. They are such handsome birds.   

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Neighboroo

You should take a look at this website, it is pretty interesting. It is called Neighboroo. It tells you all about your neighborhood, listing information in seven different categories:

Populace: Population Density, Population Change, Female/Male, Life Phase, Politics, Religion
Housing: Home Price, Apt Rent. Cost of Living, Collateral Risk, Foreclosures, Property Tax, Rent vs. Own, Years in Residence

Schools: Elem School Performance. High School Performance, Without Diploma, College or More
Safety: Overall Crime, Personal Crime, Property Crime, Tornado, Hurricane, Earthquake

Health: Air Particulate, Water Quality, Physicians Per Capita

Climate: January Low, July High, Rainfall, Snowfall, Cloudy/Sunny

Income/Work: Household Income, Disposable Income, Tax Rates, High Net Worth, Low Earners, Commute Time, White/Blue Collar, Unemployment, Job Growth

Age/Ethnicity: Young Kids, , Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomers, Retirees, White, Hispanic, African American, Asian, American Indian

My neighborhood has worse air quality than I expected, good thing we have more doctors than the average US community. Did you learn anything interesting about your neighborhood?

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Brrrrr!!!

Melli sure is lucky she got out of town. There are travel advisories now and some neighboring counties are in a state of emergency from the snow storms. The temperature has dropped and it is really cold out there.

I was reading the manual to my camera last night. It has an intervalometer, which is a setting which allows you to automatically take a picture at set intervals, up to 100 pictures. Yahoo! I'm going to get 100 pictures a day of the birds at my feeder, automatically! I figure I can set it up on a tripod and aim it at my favorite tree, the same one the tufted titmouse in this picture is sitting in. The only problem is that I can't use the intervalometer with auto-focus. I'm going to have to actually set some settings on the camera before I leave for work, I've never used anything but auto focus before. I bet the pictures of the darn squirrels come out the best.

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Responses to Reader's Comments: 

mon@rch said...Very cool! I only wish my camera could do this! What kind of camear are you using again? Response: Mon@rch - It's a Canon PowerShot G6 .

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A goldfinch hit my window

My son ran into the office to tell me that a goldfinch hit the window and wasn't moving. I saw it laying on the snow with it's wings splayed. I quickly found a shoebox to put it in. When I went to retrieve it it was able to weakly fly away. It found a spot behind my garden wheelbarrow which was propped against the house.

I googled bird collisions and found this article, and thought I should make another attempt to capture it. It is only 29 degrees F. outside, and the poor little bird is vulnerable to predation.

This time I went out with a paper bag and put it over the bird. It flew up and I closed the bag. I brought it inside the house and put it in the guest room which is probably the quietest room in the house. The other goldfinches are looking for it, concerned about their fallen comrade. I'm supposed to check it every half hour to see if it's better, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do that. I cut a couple of little holes in the bag so it can breathe. I hope it lives.

Update: About an hour after I captured it I went to retrieve the bag from the guest room. When I picked the bag up there was no movement inside. That didn't seem like a good sign. I went outside with the bag and I started to hear it fluttering it's wings. I opened the bag several feet from a tree. The bird appeared to be on it's back in the bag, but it may just be that I had flipped it over when I put the bag on it's side. A few seconds after I opened the bag the bird flew across the yard to the tops of the evergreens, which are probably at least a hundred feet tall. I hope this bird didn't sustain a permanent injury. Poor little guy.

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Responses to Reader's Comments: 

Jake Silver said... My wife is trying to convert me into a bird lover. It's slow going. What is it about them people love...? I dunno... am I just a sour puss?  Response: Jake - Take a look at this link at Birdwatching.com, scroll halfway down to where it says "What's in it for me if I start birding?"

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Spring is singing from the trees

Spring is here. It was a lovely day at the birdfeeder today. The golfinches were the most plentiful. There is a cluster of very large pine trees in the back of my yard, it sounded like there were hundreds of birds singing in those trees. So even though the ground is still snow covered, the birds are singing about spring being here.
Here's a housefinch, they are so cute with the splash of red on them.


My backyard is teeming with goldfinches.


Here's another goldfinch, aren't they beautiful? They are skittish and hard to get a photo of.


Here's a beautiful cardinal.



Chickadees aren't very afraid of people, I can usually get some nice pictures of them. The chickadee in the picture below has a safflower seed in his beak.

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Evening with Melli

Melli called me on my cell phone sometime after 5:00. I was at work waiting to make my way south to meet her and her daughter for dinner. I sent them directions to a restaurant south of the city to cut 20 minutes off their drive.

Melli: I just arrived in Rochester!

Me: You did, where are you?

Melli: East Ave and Main St.

Me: You're three blocks from my office building!

So I changed our dinner plans to go to the Dinosaur BBQ, which is right downtown. Melli had her camera with her, and it gets a lot of use. Since the Photo Hunt theme this week is salty, when the waitress asked us for our drink order Melli asked for something really pretty with salt. She ended up with a margarita that she took at least 20 photos of before she got the exact right one.

Melli's daughter is really pretty and seemed a bit older than a high school senior. When we went outside the snow brought out a playful side to her, she started making snowballs with her bare hands. You could tell she was from a warmer climate and wasn't sick and tired of snow like us locals.

Melli thought I might know of something interesting to do downtown, but she was wrong. I could show her all the places where the Kodak falcons hang out, but that appeals to a very small niche of people. I did drive them around a little and showed them some of the different sections of town. I took them to the artsy-fartsy section of town and that's where I took the picture above. Melli had me pull over so she could take pictures of these little statues of the symbols that stand for man and woman. For some odd reason there were two man symbols right next to each other, and a little farther on there were two woman symbols right next to each other. These symbols were right outside a bar called The Bachelor Forum. While Melli was knee deep in snow getting the exact right angle on the pictures, her daughter commented on a couple guys hanging around outside the door. She said, "Oh look at those two guys hugging, they must be really drunk."

So basically we went to dinner and then I took them to a gay bar. I am a barrel of fun, let me tell you.

Melli's daughter wanted to make an early night of it so they could get up early and make it to her college interview in the morning. I had a really nice time with them and I'm glad we had a chance to meet.

Melli called me while I was on my way home. She didn't bring some cable to connect her camera to her daughter's computer and they were having some connection problems anyway. So she won't be able to blog till she gets back home. I don't know what she's going to do with her twenty margarita pictures now.

You can read Melli's blog at: http://prevailinginsanity.blogspot.com/

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Can You See This Without Squinting?

The results are in! Playing video games is good for your eyesight. So let junior play until he has 20/20 vision. It's good for him! It's good for her too.

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