Jar Spider

My cousin Peter caught these spiders and is keeping them in a jar. The one's pretty big - not huge, but pretty big. Peter aspires to be the next Crocodile Hunter. Maybe I can get some pictures of him with a snake or something.

Yelloh

I stopped at Target to print some photos. There was an old lady taking her sweet time on the kodak kiosk - there's always an old lady taking her sweet old time at the kodak kiosk. At least she was not scanning. They need to have a separate machine for scanning. One for digital media and one for scanning.

When I was waiting for the old lady (and subsequently the young lady who snuck in line ahead of me), I heard a kid saying something to his mom about something being "cheaper in the States". So I figured they were Canadian, though I didn't notice a very strong accent. So I asked him.

"Are you from Canada?"
"yeah"
"cool. You're not driving a yellow truck are you?"
"yeah"
"Oh. I parked behind you. I saw the Ontario plates"
"Yeah. When you come up to Canada, your dollar is worth less than ours now. It's only worth 99 cents"

That's cool. Hooray for the great American Economy!

Turns out the kid was wrong though. Technically the USD is still a bit higher than the CAD. But with what the money changers take for themselves, they'd have received less USD than CAD when they exchanged.



PS. I took the pics in on my mp3er which doubles as a flash drive. instead of a built-in usb plug, it has a dongle. I had it on the neck strap and was listning to music as I entered the store (unfortunately, you can't listen and access the drive by usb at the same time). While I was waiting for the old lady, I was checking out the radios they had on display - as they are just around the corner from the photo center (and this is how the young lady got in line ahead of me). Some of the radios have a usb port for playing mp3s from flash drives and such. And seeing as I had a flash drive with me, I tried them out. I just pulled the dongle's usb end out of my pocket - the other end was already connected to the mp3er which was in my shirt (with the dongle hanging out the bottom front of my shirt). Then I inserted the usb plug and played some Postal Service on the display stereos. One of them was quite nice and also had some auxilary inputs that would be good for hooking up to a pc (much better than those crappy pc speakers). If I had a home to keep it in, I might get one like that.

Bikin Bum

I saw this guy while I was driving through Montana. I decided to stop and give him some money. He gave me a flier (a photocopied page of the Livingston [Montana] Enterprise with an article about him), and signed it "Bikin Bum" in all caps. It looks like there should be another I to make it "bikini bum".

But he was cool. He told me about his troubles getting a new chain for his bike in Montana. The bike shop guy gave him a chain that was too small, insisting that it was not too small, and apparently over charged him for it. He was making do with the too-small chain, but said it wasn't working right. I figure the bike shop guy was probably a conservative and intentionally making things hard for the guy - that's just not cool.

Maggie and Jonas

So I got to hang out with my sister's family when we were all together in Wyoming. Her kids are pretty cool. Maggie is 4 and Jonas is 1.5.

Shell Falls

My family got together at my parents' place near Shell, WY. It's the first time in at least 4 years that both my parents and all 5 siblings have been together. (I'll post some pictures of Marie's kids and the rest of the family later)

So I headed up to Shell Falls one evening with my camera (whoops, no tripod).

Shell Creek is pretty high with the spring snow melt running down the mountains. I got a few good shot.


A Sharp Shot (1/30s)


A Soft Shot (1.8s)

go to my flickr page to see more, including a panorama I stitched from 8 individual photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/qpmarl/sets/72157600306528560/

Arizona

I spent a little over a week working in Arizona. It was hot. We tried to work nights. It sucked.