Lobster or Scorpion?

As we were exiting the pool a week or so ago, I saw something dark and mysterious crawling along the base of our house. I slowly approached and saw the weirdest looking bug I have ever seen. I called Steve to get over there pronto, but by the time he did, the "bug" was gone. He said, "well, what did it look like?" And I said, "believe it or not, it looked like a small lobster." It was finally decided by my family that I was seeing things and perhaps it was just a trick of the light. I knew that wasn't true! And then I convinced myself that it was the biggest scorpion I'd ever seen and started wondering what I would do if I saw it again. And I was also hoping it wouldn't come into the house! A few hours later we realized we had not put the pool alarm back in the water so we went down to do so .... about midnight. As Steve was putting the alarm in, I saw something dark in the shallow end, got a flashlight, and there was my "lobster!" Fished it out with a pool net and put it in a bucket where it signaled its anger by clattering its little claws against the side of the bucket. Steve said it was a crawfish or crawdad. Me - yuck - never have seen one before and never want to see one again. After we decided (rather quickly) that it couldn't live in our yard or pool, Steve took it to a small stream and released it to a friendlier environment. I hear people eat those things! Thank you for listening.

Crazy Crawdad

He's in a mop bucket now, but when I found him, this crawdad was swimming around in the bottom of our pool.

Hail

In the pool

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South terminal

South terminal, originally uploaded by biroschik2000.

Level three

Ice Ice Baby

ice, originally uploaded by biroschik2000.

A show of my feet when I was skating with Cecilia.

The Inch Worm

The inch worm. This thing is awesome.

The inch worm to end all inch worms.

When is a Scanner Not a Scanner?

When it is a canoscanner. Goofy made up names like this bug me. I bought a film scanner so I could scan in old family photos. And the Holga negatives.

Full Circle

I bought a Holga camera to experiment with... Even with all the digital equipment I now have, I cannot resist the dreamy look of the Holga prints. Speaking of prints, getting 120 film processed is more of a chore than I expected. I found a local lab that will do the work. Wal*Mart also prints the film for about a third of the cost, but the film is sent out. I shot a quick test roll, and have dropped it off to see how good Wal*Mart does. I'm half convinced that the film won't get processed. I'll know for sure on March 19.

19 Frames of Nostalgia

I made this video at an exhibit at the children's museum we took the kids to... This was the first animation I did in about 20 years. Filmed off a monitor with my cellphone, so the quality is even worse than you would expect.

Jacob's Ladder

Art show, originally uploaded by biroschik2000.

Cecilia’s drawing that was featured in the diocese-wide art show. This mixed media picture depicts Cecilia’s interpretation of Jacob’s Ladder.

Come On

I like riding my bike as much as the next guy, but -

Well, actually I don't like riding my bike as much as the next guy since this dude is hauling a kid stroller behind his bike on a very busy, and very shoulderless, road.

ER

I have a killer, hopefully no pun intended, pain in my side. I am incredibly miserable and very, very tired. As you might guess, I am very bored as well.