Bad Cat

Extra bonus points if you can figure out what this mystery photo is (I’ll give you a better clue further down):

We had a great visit with Nick.  He stayed here for a few days on his Western migration to life in Silicon Valley.  He is getting good at this handstand, can do it for 60 seconds without moving:

He can also break into your house if you happen to lock yourself out:

We did a couple of fun hikes:

His thin vibrams ‘shoes’, and his feet, get a workout on our rocky, thorny trails:

The local news station must have sensed the blood from Nick’s foot.   Their news copter zoomed over to us from across the valley and circled us a few times with their camera tracking us:

Then, just as we were turning around 2 hours into our hike, Nick got a call from his Skritter team wondering why he had not joined their video conference:

Apparently there is a 2 hour difference between us and the East Coast.   So we turned around and zoomed down the mountain in a record 30 minutes … that right edge of the photo is about 2/3 of the way home:

Nick was sweaty, but it was a video conference, not a smell-o-vision conference, so it worked out.   They are getting very close to releasing the Apple version of Skritter.    This page has one of the promo videos they just finished:

   http://www.skritter.com/ios

Here is a 2nd mystery photo, same subject:

You might have guessed what part of the subject that is a photo of, but what is the subject?  One last hint.  If you have an unfortunate meeting with this subject, then these carrions eaters might have a feast:

Your statistic for they day:  Utah is 2nd in the nation in per capita water usage at 250 gallons per day (Nevada is 1st at 300).  Not as bad as back in the ‘80s when they were at 500 gallons per day, but I checked our usage for the last year we averaged 300 gallons per day, even with my infrequent shower policy, so I was feeling a little guilty. 

Most of that is for lawn watering (we live in a desert), so I re-engineered the sprinkler system.  I capped off the water to the parking strips (I will zero-scape them later this summer) and replaced all 60 sprinkler heads with new-tech water efficient small rotator heads.   They don’t mist much so they deliver water more accurately.   They create rain-like droplets in continuous streams that look really pretty:

Now feeling water virtuous, I decided to share with the birds and bought a bird bath:

So we are becoming a popular bird hangout.  Lots of bluejays:

and morning doves, which I used to think were owls (they sound just like owls):

and a few unknown guys:

And the local favorite, California Quail.  These guys are in baby season now, so lots of tiny fluff balls on legs scurrying about:

Today I heard what sounded like an army of birds tweeting.  I saw a yard full of those little quail puffballs running every which way and this guy, one of the 3 strays that visit, slinking away with one of the puffballs in his mouth. 

He came back later for seconds, but the daddy quail would rain redemption from the sky whenever he got close, so he eventually left. 

The first mystery photo was a Diamondback Rattlesnake’s tongue and nose.  The 2nd photo was his eye.  I met this guy on an evening hike yesterday:

I read snakes typically only ‘strike with authority’ within about 1/2 of their body length, so my point-and-shoot camera and I gave him an appropriate 3-4 feet, although now that I think about it, I’m not really sure how long he was, as he preferred to stay coiled when I was around:

Helen was glad my camera has a zoom lens.

Bruce

Smiling Abbey

I found a large, slightly non-squirrely squirrel in our yard last week.  He gave me a tour of of sprung spring flowers:

We have several wisteria vines …

Ours is a Japanese version, which twists clockwise as it climbs.   Factoid for the day:  92% of all vines twist counter-clockwise, including the Chinese wisteria, and nobody knows why.  Theories relating to hemisphere (e.g. sun direction, Coriolis force) don’t hold up as that 92% is the same for both hemispheres.

Not satiated with our abundant flowers, this thief stole a few from the hills on one of our hikes:

We have several interesting visitors recently.   These 2 tech guys from CA dropped by on their way back from competing in a Russian trivia contest … anyone know what trick UPS discovered in 2007 that saved them 3% in fuel savings?   Answer below.

This Russian visitor is couch surfing his way around the US in 2 months, blogging photos and experiences,  helping to dispel some of the mis-conceptions that Russians have about the US.

This was a work meeting with the University Magnetoencephalograpyh team (aka, MEG, a big machine that maps brain activity by recording magnetic fields):

The team surgeon, Paul, recently splurged on a slightly used Nissan GT-R sports car … a 4 while drive screamer with massively wide tires … Zach wants one.   Or two: 

Last night we had a graduation party for Abbey.  My challenge was to try to get a picture of her NOT smiling:

I tried really hard, but her latency is about 1/4 second less than my camera latency:

We got to visit lots of Tates, here Tim, Ben, Bryan, Cristi, and Brynn (Erica was chasing the floor cleaning robot):

And and other friends:

Abbey’s Colin, bravely made his debut to the Tate clan, after just barely making it back from a 3 week trip to South Africa where, on the last day, he got picked of his passport and all his money and thus missed his flight.   He was sleep deprived, but held up well:

Lots of merriment, including drumming by Tim and Erica:

And pianoing by Brynn who just started taking lessons:

By midnight, I still did not have a single photo of Abbey not smiling.  In this one she got me twice!  (we had a sequence of Abbey photos playing on the TV):

Tonight we are picking up Nick for a 5 day layover on his way to CA!

Bruce

---

The UPS trick?   No left hand turns.   Even though making only right hand turns will make for more miles,  it takes less time and less gas with no idling while yielding for oncoming traffic.  

I just came up with a new theory on the vine question.   The Japanese, known for the expertise in efficiency,  taught their Wisteria vines to also only make right hand turns, trumping the other 92% of vine makers that all make only left hand turns.  Helps with all that traffic the vines run into <smile>.