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Yay! I'm going to have 3 published photographs! Yes, only 3, and I'm not getting paid for them, but I will have a photo credit in the book and I get a free copy of it!
So when it's released you all will have to run to the store to buy a copy!

  City Birds Country Birds

City Birds Country Birds, How Anyone Can Attract Birds to their Feeder, by the Birdchick, Sharon Stiteler.
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The good:
~Went out to Birdchick's "Birds & Beer" tonight.
~Met blog-stalker Fritz
~Sold one of my calendars without even trying
~Spanish class is fun!
~OMG I LOVED TORCHWOOD SO MUCH!!! There will be a squee filled reaction post soon (w/spoiler warning cut, of course.)

The bad:
~The external wireless card on my laptop may have gone kaput. I ran disk warrior, fixed permissions, etc and although the computer sees that the card is plugged in it doesn't do anything when I select "turn airport on." This may necessitate at trip to the Apple Genius Bar tomorrow.

The ugly:
~We switched from DirecTV to cable today. I haven't decided yet if I hate the interface or if I'm just not used to it.
~Because I haven't been online all day my flist is at about skip=100
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This has been a busy couple of days for me!

At the last Birds & Beer gathering I had mentioned to the other Sharon that I was going to the Jonathan Coulton concert, and that I would be working his merchandise table for him. She immediately asked if he needed any more volunteers and I said I'd check. Well, he did recommend that I bring someone else to help out, so I informed him that he would be getting the dangerous combination of TWO Sharons!

Then, last Tuesday, in his blog entry Neil Gaiman said, "...the dog romps and vanishes and reappears and romps again (being the same colour as the snow he vanishes easily) and you simply tromp after him, or ahead of him, or at least somewhere on the same continent as him, singing Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain" to yourself while the snow settles on your hair and your face..."

After seeing that I dropped Neil a line through the questions page of his blog telling him that Jonathan was going to be in Mpls in two days and that the other Sharon was going to be at the concert.

Then on Wednesday Coulton's blog post had this in it: "Wil Wheaton drops a “Brains” reference in his review of Datalore, an old TNG episode.
Not to be outdone, Neil Gaiman claims to actually SING “Skullcrusher Mountain” while walking through the snow.
"

It was about that time that I got an email reply from Neil saying that weather permitting, he'd be there.

Thursday came, I got to the theater to set stuff up. While i was putting it out the other Sharon showed up. She confirmed that Neil was indeed coming to the show. Jonathan showed us the merchandise basics, and then ran off to the back stage to get ready.

The doors opened at 7:00 and people started filtering in. At about this time the other Sharon told me that Mr. Neil had arrived and needed to get tickets. I did have one unused ticket that I hadn't needed to get in so she ran that out to him. I got to meet in person for the first time [livejournal.com profile] johnboze & his wife [livejournal.com profile] madhatter, [livejournal.com profile] wickedgroovy who was in attendance with her brothers, and LJ-less Karin who is a friend of [livejournal.com profile] genevra. There wasn't really a lot of time to talk to any of them though because I had to keep selling people stuff!

Sales slowed down when the opening act, Paul and Storm, went on so I was able to relax and watch them. They do a lot of funny music. Things like Randy Newman's "Theme from The Passion of the Christ" and My Fantastic Plastic Girl.

There was another rush in sales after their set ended, and then Jonathan Coulton took the stage.

I found a spot to sit up near the stage so that I could take pictures during Jonathan's set. I also had my new point & shoot digital so that I could shoot video. There was one song that JoCo had never sung live, but he knew that since he was coming to Minnesota he was going to have to. It was the song Curl which contains the lines:

He wakes before the sun comes
Even though he’d rather stay in bed
He curses the cold in Minnesota
Why’s it always so damn cold


I shot video of this song and put it on YouTube:



That's it for this post, but I've got one full of photos from the show to post coming right up.
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Yesterday I used a couple hours of vacation time to go to the banding of the baby peregrine falcons at the Colonnade building.
How cute is she?:



I saw Birdchick there, and  [profile] lablynneaka Hasty Brook. You can read a description of it at Birdchick's blog here

OK, pic spam to follow, and since I'm updating at work instead of home I'm not sure if I'll have time to figure out the LJ cut...

The parents:




Who?????

Apr. 13th, 2007 12:54 am
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As I mentioned briefly (cuz I've been an LJ slacker lately, yo) I went birding with BirdChick last Friday. Our last stop before heading our separate ways was Wood Lake Nature Center down in Richfield. There were reports of a Great Horned Owl nesting in a squirrel nest.
We thought the wind was nasty. She must have just been hating life up there in the tree!
We only saw the momma: it was probably too cold and windy for the baby to want to poke his head out.
Here's the pic I took of momma:



Today I got to leave work a little early (system was down all day. Had to use vacation time if I wanted to get paid though...) so I headed back to the Nature Center to see if I could get a better picture of her now that it was sunny and not windy. I didn't see momma owl at all, but her cute little fuzzy baby was in the nest:



Looking at owl pictures makes me miss my kitty-cat Cougar. *sigh*
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I had a very fun day today. I got up this morning and headed on down to Carpenter Nature Center in Hastings to join the other Sharon, aka Birdchick, in bird banding.
It was too windy today for them to put up nets so they were just using ground traps. It was just Dark-eyed Juncos hopping into the traps for the most part, but the big excitement was the Sharp-shinned Hawk that came on in! They caught him and banded him and then after me & Sharon got pictures of him I got to hold him and let him go! It was sooooo cool! Here's a picture of the handsome guy:



After Carpenter it was just too damn cold and windy to look at any birds outside so we wandered into Hastings for a yummy lunch at Green Mill and then headed back into the Cities to the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center where we could sit inside in comfort and watch the bird feeders.

While there we saw:
Red-bellied Woodpeckers
Hairy Woodpeckers
Downy Woodpeckers
Cardinals
Red-winged Blackbirds
Grackles
House Finches
American Goldfinches
Black-capped Chickadees
White-breasted Nuthatches
American Tree Sparrows
Song Sparrows
Dark-eyed Juncos
and Wild Turkeys

[livejournal.com profile] genevra, we're gonna have to take the Monkeys there sometime so they can see all the birds.

After a few hours at the visitor's center Sharon & I headed to a park just off 35W & 66th because someone had told Sharon about a Great Horned Owl nest. We found it! Yay!

It was a very full day for me with lots of new birds spotted.
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OK, so I'm flat out stealing this post from www.birdchick.com!  The bold text is what she quoted from the STrib, the regular text at the end is her comments. I just think this is a really cool thing!

Lights Out in Twin Cities to Help Migratory Birds

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Two downtown Minneapolis skyscrapers are the initial participants in a new project that will turn off lights to prevent birds attracted by the nighttime glow from crashing into tall buildings or circling them in a daze until falling.

The 57-story Wells Fargo Building and 33-story Accenture Buildings will turn off unneeded lighting during peak migration hours under the Lights Out Minnesota Project.

Most songbirds migrate at night. Although most manage to navigate around tall buildings and other hazards, millions die each year. Lights Out programs in Toronto, New York and Chicago have saved migratory birds, said Mark Martell, director of bird conservation for Audubon Minnesota.

"The Lights Out program costs building owners or managers little or nothing to implement and will save energy and money at the same time it saves birds," Martell said.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul Building Owners and Managers associations are encouraging members to sign on.

Citizens who want to help the effort can donate money to the Nongame Wildlife Program on their state tax forms, or they can volunteer to collect fallen birds to help experts assess mortality causes. For more information, call the state Audubon Society at 651-739-9332.

You can also watch a video of the segment at WCCO. If you or someone you know works in a tall office building please encourage them to get their building managers to join this effort to help birds on their way to their breeding grounds. Also if you work in either the Wells Fargo Tower, the Accenture Building or any skyscraper participating in the Lights Out campaign, it probably wouldn't hurt to tell them thank you.
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There are two Sharons. I now have proof that I am NOT the evil one!
The other Sharon (at BirdChick.com) was talking about Snakes On A Plane and had this to say:

"Snakes on a Plane" is pure fluff and highly inaccurate but a good time. I could watch Samuel L. Jackson read DVD setup instructions and still be entertained. I think the snake cam was a particularly nice touch. I actually wondered if snake experts enjoyed this movie. I mean, if this had been "Snipes on a Plane" I would have been huffing and puffing at all the blatant inaccuracies, I may not have enjoyed that movie (ie: snipes wouldn't attack people like that). If you want a movie that has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, and you love a little Sam Jack, this is a must see. If you want to take your movie enjoyment to a another level, purchase a pack of rubber snakes and hide them in your bag. When the snakes pop out of the air masks and overhead compartment in the movie--start tossing your rubber snakes out in the audience.


I read that and was very amused. I forwarded it to the guy at work on the other side of the cubicle wall. A few seconds later I heard an evil laugh. That rubber snakes idea is just frickin' brilliant!

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