Just my home away from home

I've been in the "on call" pool all of November for jury duty and the closer I got to the end of the month the more hopeful I was that I'd manage to miss it. But today at lunch I had the summons in the mail to report on November 30 :-(. Now I just have to hope when I call the night before it will turn out they settled out of court or took a plea-deal or something so I don't have to actually walk to the courthouse and sit all day

Today starts the week-long Humans vs. Zombies competition on campus and already on my walk back from lunch I’ve seen two “encounters”. I suspect the campus will be much more active later in the evenings (supposedly the game is 24/7).

It really is fun to see them lurking behind bushes or zipping between buildings. I’m not sure which are which, but one wears their neon pink bandana tied to their leg and the other (I suspect the zombie) wears it on their head. Since the game runs until next Thursday I plan to keep my camera handy whenever I’m on campus and maybe I can catch something ;-)

I'm way behind the curve on posting things on Dragon*Con and really by this point a lot of the really interesting, cool, bizarre, or just plain fun things have been mentioned by others who went. However, since I was there I want to leave a bit of a trace more than the quick post I did the other day. It was great hanging with people, finally meeting some for the first time (hi Cleo!) and connecting with folks I met at previous cons (Pepper, Michelle & Paul, that's you).

As always, there is more to do at Dragon*Con than time to do it. You find you have to make hard choices (although by the end of the con you do tend to get a bit lax on how much something was "must see".) I know, for example, I opted to do my blood donation early, and so I missed the first "Torchwood" panel with Marsters and Lloyd. I also was so weary by the last day that I decided I'd skip a fan panel on "Being Human" (and I'm hoping if BBC does another series of it there will be another opportunity). Also no parade this year and still no Robot Battles. But I did manage to catch one of the blocks of "Dr. Horrible"/Buffy "Once more with feeling", both of which were great in a packed ballroom with everyone singing and shouting things. And a bit of the drum circle with a belly dancer doing her thing. I did some Stargate, some Farscape, my primary Trek was the Shatner/Nimoy panel the first day, and as always, a lot of people watching and costumes.

In that vein I also dipped a toe into a flavor of Steampunk and donned a costume on Saturday night. Then I also made a point of attending a Costume track session on women's Steampunk costuming to try to get a firmer vision for next year. And there will be a Next Year since a made a point of purchasing my D*C membership before leaving.

Anyway, since I only posted a scant handful of photos, here are more, including my costume and a few more of the guests.

( Photos lurking below! )
All in all, another great year!

I've been lazy and busy and just not in the room much, so I've fallen behind in any comments or photos while here in Atlanta for Dragon*Con. This won't exactly make up for it, but in lieu of more time to do a proper job, here is a bit of a photo dump of a few of my good shots. No particular order and no captions. You probably don't need me to tell you who they are anyway ;-)
( Random photos below the cut )

Sometimes I get so bogged down in the daily processing routine and reference drudgery that I forget how much I enjoy actually researching background for manuscripts that are sketchy. Today I started working with a small account/log book that didn’t have a lot of information and I googled and googled and came up with all sorts of connections and information about the ship, the captain, and other places that had similar material. It was just plain fun, and now there will actually be more context to the cataloging ;-)

We sort of knew it was coming but today the university finally announced that we will have to take furlough days during the coming year (essentially leave without pay). And by "we" I mean administrative staff--not the faculty and not classified employees--they aren't included.

I'm trying to decide whether to just get it over with (and have one really bad paycheck) by taking all three of the days I'm required to give them as the balance of the week after Dragon*Con. Another option is using some of the days at Christmas and having the bite come in my January check. I don't know why I just want to get them out of the way rather than spreading them out, but since it is inevitable I just want to get it over with :-(

The weather couldn't have been better for a day (or half-day really) at the Wood County Fair this morning. I do have to remember next year, though, to pick another day of the week, because the Thursday events are things I've seen each time and something different would be nice. That said, I did do some different things, including catching some of the equestrian competition and eating more junk than I should (and documenting it), so without further ado,
( A few photos from the Fair this year )
The next big event in town is the Black Swamp Arts Festival--also with food ;-)

This past weekend my niece was in town (up in Toledo) to perform at the first of this season's summer concerts in the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater "Music under the Stars" series. It was an especially nice opportunity because the keyboardist (and arranger) for the Toledo Concert Band was her 3rd grade music teacher, who started her on this path. It has led her all the way to the Yellow Brick Road and the national tour of "Wizard of Oz" (which she will continue in its second year starting in the fall). At the performance I tried out the video feature of my new camera.

( Rather than embed them I just decided to tuck them below the cut. )

It was a lovely evening and a great chance for her to connect with family and friends

As always I took photos of the fireworks last night (hard to avoid, since they shoot them off at the university stadium just a block away). Even with my new camera I still had the same issues, but now I'm better at dealing with the inconvenience of the slow shutter and the time-lag while the file saves. I took a ton of shots, but naturally some were duds (too early, too late, or just "ugly" bursts). But of the good shots, here is a selection for those of you who missed them locally or (like me) just can't get enough of fireworks

( Fireworks below the cut )
Hope you enjoyed the show, drive carefully on your way home ;-)

Another place I went to this past weekend was the Butterfly House near Whitehouse, Ohio. Although they had an identification card available, I don't remember the names of most of them (most of the butterflies were from South or Central America), but they all were pretty

( All the butterflies below the cut )
It is fun to be a tourist in your own home area sometimes ;-)

This past weekend I was up in Toledo to visit with two of my sisters (one was up from Columbus). Since it was great weather and we had no major agenda we did a lot of tourist stuff. One of the days we went out to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, which is a major wetland area along Lake Erie. Here are some of the birds we saw
( Birds below the cut )
If anyone finds themselves along the shores of Lake Erie I definitely recommend a stop at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge--your tax dollars at work in a *good* way

The last time I saw any of the ducks was last Wednesday, so I suspect they have finally gotten big enough to move on (besides, without much rain there really isn't much water for them in the ditch right now. I thought I'd post a few photos I hadn't used before as a "farewell" to the Ducky Family

( Retrospective views below the cut )

I'm sure I'll check things out occasionally, but I think things are done for this year. But I *will* check again next spring!

Having gone several days without spotting the ducklings I was beginning to think that Duck Season was over, but today I did finally see the group

( Photo below the cut )

At least I know they are still around.

We had some steady rain come through this morning, but it had cleared up nicely by the time I left work, so I went looking for the ducklings. No luck, but clearly they are still around since both Momma and Poppa were there, as well as Mr. Muskrat
( Photos below the cut )

It was so nice out this morning I headed out to see if the ducks or muskrats were around, even though the drainage ditch is right next to the (full) parking lot for the Methodist Church. I don't know if it was the activity or the bell tower chiming, but I didn't see any activity at all.

Since that only took a few minutes I decided to head back behind my apartment complex where there is a city park and see if there were any wabbits...er, rabbits. Nope, just disk-golf players. So, I took photos of an old farm building with a windmill instead. And I went far enough to discover they had a lovely old wreck of a stone-barn behind the house.

( Photos below the cut )

I just got back from seeing "Up". I didn't see my ducks (or the muskrats) either on my outbound or homeward trip.

However, I did thoroughly enjoy the film--being a big fan of Pixar. One of my favorite things about their productions is that they open with an animated short.

( A few more comments--no real spoilers--below the cut )

I may still wander over to the "duck ditch" tomorrow to see if they are around

Since it turned out to be such a lovely day I did detour on my way home to see if I could get a better count of the duck family than I saw the other day when they were huddled

( Photographs and tally below the cut )

The rain today let up in the afternoon so I went on my usual "safari" to check out the drainage ditch. Since I hadn't seen the baby ducks since last Saturday I was anxious for a sighting. As it turned out I saw them almost immediately, but once again they were huddled on the bank, making me wonder if they had another visit from Unpleasant Neighbors.
( Wildlife under the cut )
I'm not sure if I'll go by there tomorrow, since I have an early afternoon Bloodmobile appointment, but I'm sure I will visit again

Today was rainy most of the day, but I thought I'd swing by the ditch to see how the ducks were doing. When I got there I didn't see any of the babies (they were probably further upstream) but I did finally see the Ducky Daddy.
( Duck Couple below the cut )

I gave my Duck Reports a break over the long weekend, but I did check up on my Ditch Ducks and I can say that as of Saturday there were still nine of them. I also talked to a lady who lives in one of the apartments by the drainage ditch and she said the missing baby was taken by a hawk.

On the same excursion that I checked on the duck family I also walked to the far side of town to one of our city parks that has a seasonal wetland area. There was a duck family there, too, but these ducks actually had enough water to *swim* and *dive*. It was interesting to see how active those babies were (and larger, although they were probably just older).

( Duck spam below the cut )
We have rainy weather for the next few days, but if I do get a chance I'll check on my Ditch Ducks again. Or not.