I had the 600mm Sigma lens attached to my camera, so I was hoping to see some birds. I was not disappointed.

Almost as soon as I got out of the car, this little female Vermilion Flycatcher was sitting in a tree almost right in front of me, in pretty nice light. Off to a good start.

I then happened to look up behind the pond and there was a Red-tailed Hawk soaring above the hills. I’m not sure I’d say I ever got a really good shot, but it did eventually get a bit closer.

There was also a Turkey Vulture circling overheard.

I walked around the pond a little bit, then found a good spot to watch and see what showed up …

About the most interesting bird that showed up during the 20 minutes or so I was at the pond, was of course the one that I didn’t really get a great shot of.

If I was a real birder I would actually plan some trips to find birds that aren’t yet on my list. Apparently at Miller Canyon which is only like 10 miles from me, someone saw a Black-vented Oriole (normally only in Mexico). Maybe I’ll head over that way one morning this coming weekend.

But in the meantime, I still enjoy that I can make a short detour on my way home from work and get decent pictures of almost a dozen birds in 20 minutes.

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I was lucky during my time in the military. Although I was in several combat zones, I never had to fire live ammunition from my weapon … and more importantly, I never had live rounds shot at me.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t get to have some fun in training though.

Over the course of 24 years I attended many exercises and training events.

One of my favorites was BWMQT (Basic Weather Military Qualification Training) at Camp Blanding, Florida. In a nutshell, they sent a bunch of Air Force Weather guys who were assigned to Army units (the Army doesn’t have weather people) to be trained by Army Infantry guys, under the theory that if we came under attack downrange we might not get in their way (and/or need rescuing) if we had a bit more idea about what we were doing.

We got to do a lot of cool stuff like blow up C4 and live hand grenades, and shoot 50 cal rifles.

But the best time was when we were out at the MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) site. Note: it was not as much fun when I was a trainee. But I got to go back a couple of times later as facilitator. It was during these trips that I got to play OP4 (Opposition Force) during the MOUT days.

They Don’t Teach Air Force Guys This Part Anymore

The times I went to Camp Blanding were between 2009 and 2012. I realized at the time that while the training was fun, and we actually learned a lot, it wasn’t terribly useful for its stated purpose of preparing us to deploy; particularly the MOUT site days.

Let me give you an example:

The Infantry guys were basically training us Air Force guys as if we Infantry. They had us walking through the village in formation, and even meeting with village elders. One of our “platoon” was assigned to carry an M249 SAW (more about that weapon later). When we were inevitably attacked, we had to take cover and conduct a counter attack against the enemy fighters.

It was totally unrealistic.

If they wanted to prepare a bunch of Air Force weather guys for the real world, they would have driven us in on HMWVV, set off a roadside IED, had us scramble for cover and wait to be rescued. I suppose knowing how to operate the machine gun might have been useful … but only if the Army guy who it was assigned to got shot and killed first.

Anyway, I digress …

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or shot simunition. Well, we had it for M9 pistols, M4 rifles, and even that M249 machine gun. Imagine paint balls, but it hurts like 50 times worse if you’re hit in an unprotected area.

Part of the MOUT training was building clearing.

Well one day one of our trainees decided to cop a very bad attitude while we were out at the MOUT site. We (facilitators) tried at first to just let his leadership handle things. But he persisted, loudly and obviously.

We decided the best way to handle the attitude was a heavy dose of tactical reality. My buddy set up the SAW to cover the ‘fatal funnel’ (the doorway) at thigh level (a classic defensive tactic). Mr. Attitude,was somehow volunteered (or more likely was voluntold) to lead the stack through the door.

Aside: Simuntion doesn’t hurt at all if you get hit in the vest. As a result we (OP4) tended to aim for the trainee’s thighs (they were still supposed to aim center mass at us … train as you fight and all).

The first guy in pretty much always took fire; just not always with the SAW.

Needless to say, it was a painful learning experience.

But I’ll you what …

That guy didn’t give anybody any attitude for the rest of the training exercise.

Before anyone accuses us of cruel and unusual punishment, we all (including OP4) came away with bumps and bruises by the time it was done. In these building clearing exercises, OP4 pretty much always got killed eventually (we were always way outnumbered). Several times, while laying in a concealed prone position, when they finally overran me, I was “killed” by point blank shots to my unprotected buttocks. Ouch.

While I’m glad I got to participate in this kind of training, I am profoundly thankful that I was never in a position while deployed to have to use it.

For all three of my combat zone deployments I was a happy and content FOBBIT (Often pejorative term used by Army and Marines to describe military members who never go outside the wire of the relatively secure Forward or larger Contingency Operating Bases).

I still work with the military. But as a civilian, if I want to play with guns (and for the most part I usually don’t) I have to go buy my own … and I don’t even know if it’s legal to have simunition. So these trips to Blanding were pretty much a once in a lifetime experience.

Do you have fun paintball (or simunition) stories? Do tell …

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In a way I’m lucky. I am one of those people who really could eat the same stuff pretty much every day and not be mad about it.

So why was I not already doing that?

Well …

For one thing, there’s this belief out there that families should all have the same thing for dinner, and it’s “ridiculous” for everybody to just eat what they want.

Also …

If I don’t have a plan for breakfast (or I feel like there are too many people in the kitchen and I can’t use the stove), I am very likely to just grab a Clif Bar, or even worse steal one of the teen’s Pop Tarts.

Then …

If I wait until the morning to decide what I’m going to bring for lunch/snacks, the Popeye’s or Burger King just up the road too often ends up being the easiest temporary solution.

Ugh

I could probably get away with this when I was in my 20s and 30s. But now, at 57, I’m at the point where I really worry about what 75 will look like if I don’t form and stick to some much better habits yesterday … or at least now.

So, What’s my plan? (you can skip this part if you want)

Breakfast: Overnight Oats

• 2/3 cup plain oats

• 3/4 scoop chocolate protein powder

• 5g Creatine

• 2/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

• Small scoop ground flax seeds

• 3-4 sliced strawberries

Lunch: Medium Potato with Black Beans

• One potato, either regular or sweet (microwaved, then cooled overnight in the fridge)

• 1/3 can of black beans

• Dressing of EV Olive Oil, balsamic vinegar, minced garlic and ginger, ground tumeric, and a little bit of maple syrup.

Dinner: Three Eggs Florentine +

• 3 large or extra large eggs

• Big handful of fresh spinach

• Clove or two of finely sliced garlic

• Sliced shallot or red onion

• Olive Oil

• Italian seasoning

• A couple table spoons of garlic/basil tomato sauce

• Sprinkling of Italian blend cheese

• 1 piece of toasted multigrain bread w/ real butter

Snacks: Greek Yogurt, Bananas, Other Soft Fruit (I currently have braces)

I’m not going to be religious about this. I may from time to time still have pizza or a hamburger, or go out to eat with Kelly for dinner.

And when we’re out hiking, I’m probably going to have Clif Bars in my pack.

So …

Are you weird like me?

Could you make a plan to eat the same couple of things (almost) every day?

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When I wrote a post last year about the times I’d been unexpectedly “drafted” to photograph weddings, I mentioned at the end that Kelly’s son Seth was getting married in May, and I was kind of hoping to just be a guest, not a photographer.

It didn’t work out that way …

Seth had a friend who is an aspiring photographer traveling from Colorado (to Iowa) to take the wedding pictures. He was even bringing a more experienced wedding photographer to mentor him.

It was looking more and more likely that I might really just be a guest.

Then the phone call came in that their car broke down and they were stuck in Kearny Nebraska, about 4 hours away. If they made it, they wouldn’t arrive until around 2am on the day of the wedding.

Thankfully Seth’s photographer friends did make it on time.

But since I’d already gotten my camera out and ready …

I made extra sure not to step on the toes of the designated photographers. But I did wander around the grounds and sniped a few shots with my long lens.

I didn’t take any pictures of the wedding itself.

There at the venue (beautiful chapel and barn out in the country), my only “non-stealthy” photography was helping out by taking group photos of extended family who were in attendance.

I did get one picture of the bride still in her veil, after the ceremony and before they went off with the other photographer for posed pictures.

But then I really didn’t get my camera out again until about halfway through the reception. I think of the pictures I took there, the ones most likely to potentially get printed and saved are the ones of Seth and his groom’s people, as well as a few other family shots.

Oh, and this one of Seth just after he signed the marriage license.

In the end, I’m pretty sure there’s no way I was going to avoid getting my camera out of the car and capturing at least a few images. Perhaps one of these days I will actually attend a wedding as just a guest … lol, maybe

I’m not really sorry that I brought my camera and took some pictures.

Seth & Jazmin have some additional memories.

And … If nothing else, I’ll have more stuff to add to my portfolio if my friend Chris is ever successful in his quest to convince me to:

Inside Wedding Photography

The First Steps to Becoming a Second Shooter

[Read Time - 6 Minutes…

Read more

8 months ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Chris Humphrey

Does anybody else regularly tell themselves these kind of lies? Just me?

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I’ll save you some suspense. Kelly says Definitely Not In The House. She’s not scared of spiders or anything. She just doesn’t want any more pets. Fair enough.

Maybe he (or she) could be an office spider?

This idea first popped into my head about 6 months ago when Jamie’s friend Avery moved to Florida and we watched his lizard and hermit crab for about 10 days before mailing them to him.

This left us with a couple of little plastic enclosures that I somehow decided looked like the perfect home for a pet spider.

Obviously the plan was/is to clean it up, then put in the proper kind of bedding and other accoutrements. Basically turn it into a happy spider home.

One problem …

Luckily Notebook LM is pretty helpful in these situations.

I stopped trusting search engines a long time ago. Lately, the top results are either obvious ads, or webpages whose primary purpose is to try to sell me something. I know where to buy a spider, and I already have the enclosure. I just want to know how to care for it and keep it alive.

With Notebook LM I can choose the sources, then not only ask it questions based on just those sources (no hallucinations), but I can also have it produce these neat graphics, and even an audio overview if I want to listen instead of read the relevant information.

Well shoots. I’m glad I did this before I actually went out looking for a spider. It turns out I have the wrong kind of enclosure for a jumping spider. I would also need to get a bright LED light and a misting bottle.

Hmmmm …

When I first had this idea months ago, I was thinking about getting a tarantula.

Here’s the graphic I had Notebook LM make for that:

This actually look more promising. I think I would be able to use the enclosure I already have. Also, check out that “daily care and feeding” up in the top right.

The main thing that kept me from pursuing this months ago was that when I looked in our local PetsMart, the only tarantulas that they regularly have are the Mexican pink toe. I of course would want one of the cool blue or purple ones.

However, from what I’m reading, these make much better pets and are easier for non-experienced first time owners … which is probably why this species is what PetsMart has for sale.

Hmmmm again …

I do want something for my desk at work. I may very well go look at the tarantulas again one of these days.

Or maybe I should get a lizard?

Of course I’d have go create a new “care and feeding” notebook for that first too.

Have you ever successfully kept a spider, lizard, or other small creature?

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When was the last time you went somewhere and just enjoyed yourself?Didn’t take any pictures, not even with your phone.

Over the past couple of years I’ve gotten much better about taking very few pictures on occasions like the 4th of July and New Year’s eve. None-the-less, as evidenced by the image above, I still couldn’t resist pulling out my Pixel phone and grabbing a few shots while we were sitting on the roof last year.

Would I have enjoyed the fireworks any less if I didn’t have pictures of them at the end of the night? More importantly, might I have enjoyed them more?

Sometimes it’s hard to be known (or view yourself) as “the photographer” on special occasions. I was most recently reminded of this at my daughter’s high school graduation.

Don’t get me wrong, I had to take pictures, and they will certainly be treasured, likely even years from now. But on the flip side, I spent the entire time looking through my camera lens. At one point, Jamie’s grandmother actually had to remind me that I should probably be in at least one picture myself.

That was it. That was the one graduation picture with Jaiden and Dad.

I can’t tell anybody else what to do. Heck, I often have a hard time sticking to my own plans. But this year for the 4th of July I really do plan to try my hardest to take absolutely Zero pictures. I’m going to enjoy the time with my family, watch some fireworks, and actually take in the view of the whole horizon, not just what I can see through my camera’s lens.

How about you? What are your plans?

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p.s. okay, I get it, we take pictures, it’s who we are. Some of us can’t help it.

If you instist on getting your camera out tonight, here’s a post I wrote a couple of years back that you might find helpful:

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But I also have literally thousands of previous unedited images sitting in some of my portable hard drives … and when I lived here in Arizona the first time (2014-2017) I was out with my camera 4 or 5 days a week. Just doing the math, it seems possible I’ve got some good stuff hiding not quite in plain sight.

The Red Faced Warbler is one of those birds that I’ve seen pop up in other people’s posts or notes and thought:

“Man, I’d like to see one of those in person someday.”

As it turns out, I already have … in Garden Canyon on Fort Huachuca, in June of 2023. The image I captured was pretty good too. Not sure I why I hadn’t already edited and shared it … let alone remembered I’d taken it.

In that same folder I also found this image of an Hepatic Tanager.

This is a bird that I was at least aware I had seen in the past. But I didn’t realize I already had a pretty good picture of one sitting on my hard drive.

Now I’m wondering what else may be lurking in my unedited files.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still getting out with my camera as often as possible. But lately I’ve only been encountering birds I already have plenty of pictures of.

Hopefully next time I write a new post in this birding category it will be to report getting a picture of a bird I’ve never seen before. But in the meantime I’m happy enough to just get out in nature with my camera as often as possible.

How about you?

Have you seen/photographed anything new or interesting lately?

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Justin was a relatively good baby. But both his mom and I were young first time parents. We did the best we could. He had plenty of clothes and toys. We even had a big pot on the stove where we boiled water to sanitize his bottles and pacifiers. note: by the time our 3rd daughter was born, hers just got rinsed out.

Like most babies, Justin did not sleep through the night for most of his 1st year.

Over three decades later I still remember our typical nightly routine:

2am: Amanda (his mom) would nudge me awake:

“Todd, Justin’s crying. Do you want me to get up with him?”

Now, you experienced dads and moms will probably already see where I’m going with this. But in case any new dads stubble across this, a bit of advice:

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time up with Justin in the middle of the night. This usually involved a diaper change and making him a bottle. Then I would often pop a movie in the VCR and just patiently sit with him until he fell back to sleep.

I’m not sure this is still true today. But back then I was extraordinarily patient and calm. lol, his mom, not so much.

Trying to get a baby to go back to sleep is kind of like watching a pot waiting for the water to boil …

The more you really, really wish for it to happen, the longer it will seem to take.

Even though I got up more often, she had more totally sleepless nights than I did.

I have no idea where I was going with this …

Oh yeah, trying to get kids to sleep.

It only gets more “fun” as they start to age towards their toddler years.

With pretty much all my kids, once they learned to pull their head up and look out of their crib, I got another chance to exercise my ability to have a whole lot of patience.

They were somehow comforted by being able to see me as they nodded off.

So here’s how the 30-45 minute bedtime routine went:

• Last bottle of the night

• Check diaper, change if needed

• Put them in the crib (maybe read a story or sing a lullaby)

• Stand perfectly still next to the crib until they appear to be asleep

• Slowly lower to a sitting position

• Count to 50

• If no movement or sound, lower to the floor flat on my stomach

• Count to 30

• Low crawl a couple of feet.

• Stop

• Count to 30

• Repeat (if no movement or sound) until I reach the bedroom door.

If at any point during the low crawl phase I heard noise or movement, I had to sit up so that they could see my face.

Sometimes this went quickly, sometimes it might take up to an hour.

Just like with the bottles, the girls who came later were more likely to (at least occasionally) be left to cry themselves to sleep … which let’s be real is probably the better parenting technique anyway.

Of course that didn’t mean they were loved any less.

Now, as a middle aged grandpa, I very much value my 7-8 hours a night sleep.

I think I might just be making up for all the times during my earlier years I awoke at 2am to some version of:

“Todd, Todd, Justin (Haley/Jordan/Jaiden/Joey) is crying …”

I’ll tell you what though, I wouldn’t change it if I could. Those middle of the nights with each of my kids are some of my best early fatherhood memories.

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I think it’s a relevant question.

… and why should you (my readers) care?

Well, if you’re thinking about subscribing (or staying subscribed) you should probably know that for me this is more akin to the personal blogs I used to post on 10 or 15 years ago, than any sort of business building project.

In other words, I have no intention of ever trying to “monetize” you.

Subscribe now

Note: I am tempted to turn on paid subscriptions (and make it as cheap as possible) just to see if anybody will do it simply because they want to. But nothing here will ever live behind a pay wall.

Ultimately, my main goal is to make new friends; both online and even potentially in person. I’ve already had some success on that front.

At some point in the not terribly distant future I’m going to retire from my civil service weather job and Kelly and I are going to travel.

If I can open my Substack and write a note or a post saying something like “Hey, we’re going to be in Cool Place, USA or Even Cooler Place, Overseas Country on these dates” and have someone pop on and offer to tell us about (or even better show us) the most interesting non-touristy spots in that area, then this publication will have been a wild success.

BTW, our little corner of southeast Arizona is a pretty cool destination in and of itself, so I’m more than happy to be the guy on the other end of that offer too.

Beyond that, I love to take pictures and tell (hopefully good) stories from my five decades on this earth, living all over the country, and the world.

lol, we humans are all a little ego driven, so literally the only reason I can think of that I might even like to have thousands of subscribers some day is so that more people might enjoy the things that I write about and/or take pictures of.

Then again, if my circle here on Substack stays relatively small forever, I’m not sure that would necessarily be a bad thing. I’ve always said that if you don’t see me around much online for an extended period of time it must mean that “real” life is probably going pretty well for me at that moment.

lol, all that when I could have just typed:

… but that wouldn’t really make for much of a post now would it?

How about you? Why are you on Substack?

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The first one was unambiguous. I loved it even before I edited it.

This second one was a bit more complicated.

I knew I wanted to edit the image in high contrast Black & White. But I couldn’t decide on how much of the scene to include. I really liked all the detail in the clouds on the left, as well as the mountains and a darker part of the base. I wanted to like the smaller white cloud off in the distant far right of the image. But I couldn’t decide whether it was interesting or distracting.

This was maybe a little bit better. It cut out the distracting white cloud, but it still feels like there is an interesting side of the image and a not interesting side.

Then Kelly came along and gave me a helpful assist …

A vertical crop for the win!!!

This one keeps the focus exclusively on the most interesting parts of the storm cloud. I also like how it transitions from light to dark as your eye moves down the image from the top left towards the mountains the base of the clouds.

If I was only going to share one, it would probably be this last vertical crop.

What do you think?

Do you agree with Kelly?

Or would you have gone in different direction?

Please let me know …

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p.s. did you find an animal shape in the clouds?

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I am a weather forecaster and ostensibly a photographer, so of course I love to capture storm pictures. Keep in mind though …

That wasn’t going to be a problem on Wednesday evening (or really for the rest of monsoon season going forward). I knew the storms were coming, and I was already going to be working at the airfield anyway. So of course I brought my camera and a couple of lenses. I even had a tripod in the SUV, but didn’t get that out and set it up this time.

Of the pictures I took, I liked exactly two. One of them will be shared in a few days for Monochrome Monday. But the one at the top of this post is an image that I knew was going to be my “keeper” even as was I was just browsing through them on the small back screen of my Canon 80D.

The only thing that could have made it better is if I’d somehow managed to capture a couple of lightning bolts underneath the approaching storm.

Hmmmm …

I guess I now have a photography goal this monsoon season. 😎

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I only remember this puppy’s name because it was on the Flickr album title where I found the picture. You see, Wendy was one of probably a dozen or more dogs that we had while my daughters were young and their mom and I were still actively trying to be married.

In the beginning, the dogs we had were intentional choices.

She already had Tink when I first met her in Hawaii, she stayed with us for years, even making the move to Texas.

But Texas is where the real fun with multiple dogs thing started.

Not all of the Texas dogs were strays; a few came from the animal shelter.

Anyhow, I soon noticed a trend developing …

Almost none of these dogs lived with us for longer than 6 months.

But before you get your hackles up and accuse us of abandoning these poor dogs, here’s what actually happened almost every time:

• Dog arrives at our house (in one way or another)

• Dog is taken to the vet for vaccinations and spay/neuter

• Dog plays with kids/other dogs and is taken for daily walks

• Dog is given away to a much better home than ours

• Dog (I assume) lives a long happy life

Caveat: I only have anecdotal evidence to support that last point, but it’s what I choose to believe happened most/all of the time.

As for point number four, I had very little (okay almost no) input into those decisions. Actually, now that I think about it, I didn’t have a lot of influence when the dogs first arrived either. It would just be announced on a random afternoon:

It really wasn’t until years later when I left for Arizona the first time that I realize how much what we’d been doing looked like an inadvertent dog rescue.

Ironically (or maybe not), once I left, the dog situation in Texas became much more stable, with just the occasional “found pup”. But this time it was always a given that they would just be temporary guest, since the house already had three long-term residents.

Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Penny (the pitbull) a few years back. I had actually said my goodbyes on a visit to Texas a few months earlier.

She was a part of the family for over a decade. Started out as a rescue herself, but definitely wasn’t going to any other home … better than ours or not.

Have you ever looked back and realized you’ve had far more pets than you ever intended? Leave a comment below and let me know your accidental pet stories!

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p.s. I’m reticent to promise any sort of a schedule or new series. But I am kind of playing with the idea of this as an example of a “Throwback Thursday” theme where once a week I look through my older archives, pick a picture, then write a story about it … if I feel so inspired.

I don’t think I can commit to a daily B&W photo project again. But when I woke up Sunday morning, this scene was practically begging to be shared in contrasty grey tones. Monochrome Monday seems like a good excuse to add to my B&W Photo Project category. Perhaps once a week will be a bit more manageable.

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I think a big part of the problem is that I’m way more “well informed” about what’s going on in the world than I really want (or even need) to be.

Ugh.

The funny thing is, I genuinely enjoy reading fiction. And I absolutely hate how I feel when I’m mindlessly scrolling through ‘news’ and social media

That’s the million-dollar question. And if you’re reading this, you're probably suffering from the exact same glitch.

The Battle is Completely Rigged

It turns out there’s some real science behind this. When you try to choose a paperback over your smartphone, you are fighting a heavily rigged war. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists look at this as a collision between our ancient evolutionary reward systems and hyper-optimized app design.

When we choose infinite scrolling over immersive fiction, our brains are simply opting for the path of least cognitive resistance. Here is exactly how these apps hack our biology:

• The Dopamine Slot Machine: Social media uses what psychologists call a “variable ratio schedule of reinforcement”… the exact same trick that keeps people pulling levers on slot machines. When you pull to refresh a feed, your brain anticipates a reward (a funny video, a striking photo, a notification). Your brain’s dopamine pathway responds most powerfully to unpredictable outcomes.

• The “Uphill Hike” of Reading: Regular interaction with fast-paced digital environments trains our brains to process information rapidly but superficially. Reading a novel, on the other hand, demands active mental heavy lifting. Your brain has to decode text, build an internal mental world, and track a narrative over hours or weeks. When you’re tired after a long day, opening a book feels like climbing a steep mountain trail. Scrolling feels like sliding down one.

• The Post-Scroll Guilt Hangover: We rarely feel good after a scrolling binge. Because scrolling lacks intentional purpose, it immediately triggers an internal goal conflict. You know you should or want to be spending your time on something more meaningful, like that book on your nightstand. This conflict triggers micro-bursts of guilt and a measurable drop in daily well-being.

To see how these psychological variables interact in real-time within your own daily routine, you can use this interactive Attention Choice Simulator. By adjusting your current fatigue, the friction of your book, and the algorithmic temptation of your apps, you can visualize exactly why your brain leans toward the path of least resistance.

https://newgreateryou.github.io/attention-simulator/

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Borrowing Better Strategies

So what am I trying to do about it?

The simple answer would be to just decide to scroll less and read more. Right? Except my brain is just as taxed and tired as anyone else’s. Resolve alone isn’t going to cut it; I need actual tactics.

Because I’m clearly not alone in this reading rut, I went hunting across Substack to see what tricks other writers are using to reclaim their attention spans. Here are five ideas I am actively stealing:

1. Lower the friction (via Jess Oliver): Keep your transition into reading as seamless as possible. If your book is sitting right there, uncovered and easy to grab, you’re exponentially more likely to open it.

2. Train focus like a muscle (via Drishti Pandita): Actively build up your attention span. The goal is to make your focus so deep and steady that the rapid, hyper-fragmented pacing of a social feed actually starts to feel weird and jarring to your brain.

3. Try “Book Scrolling” (via Sam Rinko at Knowledge Lust): This is a wild strategy to fight fire with fire. Bring three completely different books (different genres, different authors) to one sitting. Read the first until your focus starts to dip, then instead of reaching for your phone, “scroll” to the next book. It tricks your brain’s obsession with novelty but keeps you reading. I’ve always been a one-book-at-a-time guy, but this is clever enough to try.

4. Read in fragments (via Chibueze Agu): Always carry a book with you and pick it up every single time you feel the mindless, muscle-memory urge to reach for a scroll. Five minutes waiting in a checkout line adds up fast over a week.

5. Find “unputdownable” recommendations (via Emma at emmareadstoomuch): This sounds obvious, but it’s profound. Hit your friends up specifically for book recommendations that they literally could not put down. A gripping, high-momentum plot makes that cognitive uphill climb a whole lot easier.

The Verdict

The good news is, I now have a wealth of ideas to try.

The bad news? My Kindle has been sitting right next to me the entire time I’ve been working on this article for the last hour. I probably could have made some serious progress on that novel I’m currently three months into. 🙃

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I ended up having a couple of conversations, first with in my notes, then with himself in the comment section of his post, about building my own birding life list.

Although I never really considered myself a high-speed birder, I have none-the-less seen and photographed hundreds of birds over the past 15 years or so.

This sounds like a project I might enjoy …

I decided that I’m going to build my historical list based on photographs I’ve taken over the years. While this might leave a few birds off my list, I’m honestly not good enough at sight/sound ID to be sure of what I’ve seen unless I have a photo for reference.

Note: the one exception I’ll make it for the Montezuma Quail.

I’d still love to get a good sharp picture of one of these guys someday. But even if that never happens, they’re on my list.

As I was thinking about how I might build this list, me being me, I was tempted to make it way more difficult than it has to be. I was going to set up a “birding life list” page, then have a separate post or page for each bird, with pictures and maybe a story about how/where I saw then, etc, etc, etc …

Then it occurred to me that nobody wants to see a whole post about the great shots I got of the House Finch or White-winged Doves that are in my backyard every morning.

Plus, it turns out there’s an easier way:

https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000804866-enter-your-pre-ebird-life-list

Even this method may still take months, as I’ll have to go through my picture archives to build the initial list. But building a whole website with individual pictures could take years … and let’s be real, nobody would be as interested in looking at it afterwards as me.

Going forward I’m going to slowly build the historical list, but also try to get much better about doing checklists in realtime and adding to my list in that way as well.

As for sharing what’s on my list …

It turns out I’ve already seen some unique birds that a lot of other people haven’t, and I’ve already written posts about them:

So, going forward, that’s the plan. The list will be built (mostly silently) on ebird. Then if I see something particularly interesting, I’ll write a post about it here. Or, I don’t know, maybe sometimes I’ll just post about some of the great birding locations in this area, even if I don’t see anything particularly unique that day.

What do you think? Does this sound like a solid plan?

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On the Monday before we left Omaha, we made a family trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. I did a little math the day before, and even with my military discount, buying the yearly membership was only going to cost about $30 more than purchasing 5 individual tickets; so that what I did.

Lol, I obviously don’t live in Omaha and I’m not sure we’ll even go back within a year, but I like zoos, so it seemed like the right thing to do.

The first animal pictures I took weren’t even zoo residents.

At every eating location, the birds were very comfortable around people. That house sparrow above landed just a couple of feet from me, and didn’t seem in any particular hurry to move.

I loved the colors on this Brewer’s Blackbird.

Then we were off to ‘Africa’.

This is just a preference of mine, but if I’m going to photograph animals in a zoo and there’s no way to hide the fact that they’re in an enclosure, then I’ll probably try to include the people observing them into the image in some way or another. (you’ll see this again a few more times throughout this post)

I took several pictures of the lions, but the one above was my favorite, so for the sake of not overloading you with too many pictures, that’s the one I’ll post.

I also managed to somehow get a half decent shot of this Cheetah relaxing in the grass.

We did not see Pumba anywhere. Maybe the lions got him? 😎

The bubble blowing Rhino

I came around the corner, and Timmy had struck up a conversation with one of the docents. He was explaining that he hoped Hilly (the female rhino) would get in the water at some point, since she sometimes blows bubbles.

About 5 minutes later she did just that!

Everybody loves monkeys!

Okay, so this was just a bronze statue of an orangutan, but I liked the scene so took the shot anyway. We did also get to see some live monkeys.

The gorillas were all behind glass enclosures. But in some ways, that almost made interacting with them slightly more possible.

High ISO reptile photos

So this was not the sharpest image that I could have gotten of an alligator ,but you’re just going to have to believe me when I tell you how dark it was in that exhibit. I don’t have the newest camera, but it’s still leaps and bounds above my old 20D when it comes to high ISO. I would have been hesitant to go above ISO 1600 with that camera. I was a little nervous about 12,800 for this shot, but denoise in Lightroom is pretty amazing.

This rattlesnake shot was another good ISO 12,800 example. Between denoise and adaptive color, Lightroom turned the image on the right (that I might not have even attempted to edit in the past) into something almost shareable on the left.

The Aquarium

If there was one exhibit where I probably should have used my phone instead of my Canon 80D a bit more often, it was inside the aquarium. That said, I did capture what was probably my favorite shot of the day in that dark room with a 70-200mm lens attached.

I also had a few other shots in a similar vein that came together almost exactly as I’d planned them …

I did get fish picture that I didn’t hate.

Okay, this feels a little like cheating.

Many of you may be aware that I take a lot of bird pictures when I’m out and about back in Arizona … all in the wild. So I feel a little bit guilty about including shots of captive birds in this post. A bit of a mitigating factor though, is that most of these were taken in large open exhibits, such as the rainforest.

These burrowing owls are seen pretty regularly here in Arizona, but apparently we had to go all the way to Nebraska to see one up close.

Birds weren’t the only thing flying in the rain forest exhibit

Yep, that’s a bat!

Butterflies

There is a dedicated butterfly house that I didn’t discover until near the end of our day. I basically just walked through and snapped a few shots, but I could have easily spent an hour or more in this exhibit.

Centenarian?

I can’t say for certain this was the oldest creature in not only the zoo, but maybe the city. But I if I had to make a bet …

The American Teen

Finally, we arrive at some of the highest maintenance and most expensive to care for “animals” we encountered that day. 😎

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Two adults and three teens in one car for that long …

What could do wrong?

(This post will just have a quick synopsis of each day. More to come later on at least some of the places we stopped.)

Or on Kelly’s Just Over That Next Hill

And we’re off …

Monday May 25th: Trinidad River Walk & Hotel Hot Tub

That first day was a 10 hour drive. But we had a goal or getting to Kelly’s favorite halfway point of Trinidad Colorado, and a Quality Inn that was actually quality. After a quick drive down to the river walk to stretch our legs …

We all enjoyed the hotel hot tub

Tuesday May 26th: Colorado Springs

This was by far the shortest day of driving, at a little under 2 hours, but we planned it that way so that we’d have a break. Since we arrived before check in time for our Airbnb, we visited Helen Hunt Falls, then Garden of the Gods.

After we checked in to the nice basement Airbnb that we booked, we started looking for something else to do. We saw Palmer Park on the map just 10 minutes from the house, so decided to check it out. It turned out to be the highlight of the stop (look for a longer future post about Palmer Park).

Wednesday May 27th: Welcome to Nebraska

This was another 10 hour driving day, much of it on 2-lane road through rural Kansas. I was happy when we finally made it back to the interstate.

After arriving at Kelly’s mom’s house, we decided to stretch our legs at Papillion Creek, where I was rewarded with a nice pastel sunset.

Thursday May 28th: Todd’s 1st Time in Iowa

This was probably the closest thing we had to a “down day”. We drove into Iowa to meet up with some of Kelly’s friends and watch part of a softball game.

I also ended up wandering around the town for a little while. I really loved some of the old houses.

I even got to see one that Kelly used to live in!

Friday May 29th: The Hunting Cabin

One of Kelly’s friends knows a guy who has an empty hunting cabin just outside her hometown in Iowa. He was nice enough to let us stay there (the offer was for as long as we were there, but we only managed one night … this time.

There were acres and acres of land to wander around. The inside of the cabin was pretty impressive too, with a stuffed bear greeting you just as you enter.

As I was walking around, I even discovered a certain plant that apparently grows wild in this area.

Saturday May 30th: Wedding set-up and Rehearsal

Saturday was a long day of wedding set-up, cake decorating, and ceremony rehearsal. But I think everybody had a good time.

Kelly and Becky did a great job decorating the cake (among many other things). She tried to get a few pictures afterwards, but didn’t really like any of them … until she put it in the fridge. Who knew refrigerators produced a natural “soft box” effect?

Sunday May 31st: Seth & Jazmine’s Wedding Day

We may or may not make a post with more pictures from the wedding at later date (to be honest, they may just end up on “friends/family” only Facebook). In any case, the bride and groom are really happy and currently enjoying their honeymoon in Australia and New Zealand.

Monday June 1st: Omaha Zoo & Aquarium

I will almost certainly have a longer posts with more zoo pictures somewhere down the line. It was a very long (and kind of expensive) day. But if you ever have a chance to visit the Henry Doorly Zoo, it’s well worth it.

I wasn’t sure it was a great idea to bring the dslr into the aquarium (even though I had an F2.8 lens). Turns out that I’m glad I had it at least for this shot.

See the longer post here:

Tuesday June 2nd: Missouri River Walk & The Old Market

For our last evening in Omaha we met up with some of Kelly’s friends to walk across the foot bridge over the Missouri River, the check out the shops at the Old World Market.

Wednesday June 3rd: Long Drive through Kansas Back to Trinidad

This was another very long 10+ hour day on the road. The most interesting thing that happened was when we stopped to stretch our legs in a little eastern Colorado plains town called Thatcher.

As we are wont to do, of course a few of us had to explore the apparently abandoned structures. But at one point a guy emerged from a building and warned one of our daughters about the potential dangers of trespassing on private property out there in the middle of nowhere. 🤨

Thursday June 4th: Window Rock Arizona enroute to Flagstaff

This landmark is just a little north of Gallup New Mexico. We had originally planned to continue on to Canyon De Chelly after this stop, but in the end decided that we didn’t want to add 3+ hours to this particular trip. We’ll have to plan another drive up that way soon.

Interestingly, this location is actually the capital of the Navajo Nation.

Flagstaff was just a quick stop. But the location of our Airbnb was great! So close to downtown that the kids could wander around the shops and restaurants for another hour or two after we’d decided to call it a night.

Friday June 5th: Slide Rock State Park

I was amazed that we were able to get a parking space when we rounded the corner on 89A at about 8:40am. It cost us $35 to get in, but I think we made it well worthwhile. Timmy of course had to cliff jump.

And I even suffered the cold water for at least a few minutes to go down the natural rock slides.

We left Slide Rock a little before noon, then drove to Phoenix to pick up the dog, who my son had been nice enough to watch while we were gone.

We got back home a little after 6pm on Friday June 5th.

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We arrived at the Logan IA community center at 9:15 am.

Aunt Ellen who owns the local motel was nominally running the show, but we quickly discovered that the plan was pretty flexible. None-the-less, one of the groomsmen, Jaden and I eagerly jumped in to do whatever we were told.

Despite mild warnings I’d been given, Ellen was easy to work with. She had her ideas, but was also open to suggestions, and even implemented a few of mine.

Then at about 11am Kelly and Aunt Becky took a break from cake decorating to come provide additional help with the venue setup.

For me at least, the atmosphere quickly became noticeably more tense.

I like to think that my time in the military provided me with the attributes of both a good leader and a good follower. But for some reason, when it came to the second task, I found it much easier to take “orders” from Aunt Ellen than even “suggestions” from Kelly.

Why is that?

What is it that makes it easier (for some of us anyway) to interact, work, and comprise with people we’ve just met, than with someone we’ve been in a relationship with for years?

In the end, I apparently held things together pretty well …

However, I’m left searching for strategies I can use to repeat this behavior when we’re back home with only ourselves (and maybe the teens) around.

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We’ve all heard the advice to “dance like no one’s watching”.

I think I need modify that a little bit for my interactions with Kelly to:

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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… and yes, it’s true, I am very much Imperfect Todd

But even as much as I truly believe that I could be doing better at a lot of things, the reality is, relatively speaking (perspective) my life is pretty darn good.

And more importantly …

I fully expect (optimism) that it’s going to keep getting better.

I think perspective and optimism kind of go hand in hand, at least in the respect that it’s a little easier to be optimistic about the future if you possess the ability to put your past and present in perspective.

We humans tend to have a natural bias towards negativity (and sometimes it’s even warranted) but in every situation (especially the “bad” ones) there is a magic rhetorical question we can ask ourselves that helps put thing in perspective:

Seriously.

Sometimes it’s really hard, and it may take quite a while to come up with an acceptable answer, but ultimately there’s always going to be something we can grasp on to.

There’s also a kind of companion question that helps even more when it comes to perspective:

I’ll give you kind of a silly example …

I recently got a raise at work (yes, us federal employees get those every year or two) and after doing the math, I caught myself lamenting that the $200 or so a month (the actual amount of the raise) wouldn’t make a material difference in my lifestyle.

Then I caught myself …

Wait, what the fuck Todd?

If I were working for minimum wage at Walmart or a fast food place, I would be over the moon about earning $200 more a month.

Damn …

Shut up and be thankful already!

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… and that’s perspective in a nutshell.

No matter where we currently sit on the totem pole of life, we all almost certainly have some things to be grateful for.

Which bring me to Optimism …

I’ve actually been scolded that “you’re not really an optimist” because I sometimes get depressed, angry, or un-appreciative about the curveballs that life often throws our way. This totally misunderstands what that word means.

Optimism is not the (irrational) belief that things are “always good”.

Instead, it’s the faith that even when we find ourselves in stormy waters, we will eventually enjoy basking in the sunlight again, because given a long-enough timeline life pretty much always evens out.

At certain points in my life I may have take this slightly to the extreme. This was my literal self talk:

… and that’s always proven to be true!

The good stuff does come.

Which brings me right back to the theme of this New Greater YOU site.

It’s okay to suck.

Just because we’re imperfect now, doesn’t mean that there’s not a better version of ourselves parked somewhere down around the corner of time, just waiting to be discovered and occupied.

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If I lived in the Phoenix area I would probably visit the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch at least 2 or 3 times a week.

But since I live 3 hours away, I just get there when I can.

This past Wednesday I was going to pick my daughter and her mom up from the airport when I found out their flight was delayed. My camera was already in the car, so I popped the water ranch coordinates into my GPS.

When I arrived I quickly discovered that all of my hats were somehow still at home or in one of the other cars. Due to a very real fear of a sunburned head, I only stayed at the park for about an hour. 😎

But even in that short time, and even though the ponds were a little low (or in a few cases totally dry) I still saw so many interesting birds.

With seven recharge ponds and an urban fishing lake, shorebirds are usually the main attraction, and on this day I was not disappointed.

Even the White Pelicans who I thought were just migrating through when I saw them the last time in November, were still here.

And of course the snowy egrets!

In addition to the ponds, this park contains walking paths and lot of trees. So of course I also ran into some other non-water birds.

While these aren’t the greatest images, I’m always happy when I can capture pictures of hummingbirds nowhere near those red plastic feeders.

There was even a turkey vulture circling overhead.

Not sure exactly what he was looking for. Perhaps hoping that one of the pigeon fights might go a little more off the rails next time?

… and I managed to see and photograph all of that in about 60 minutes. 😁

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