Adventures of an Eclectic Mind

Several of you have noticed my extended absence here and have been kind enough to remark on it in the comments and in e-mail. I really meant to get here and put up something sooner.... But, read on and you will understand!

We recently returned from the Equine Affaire that was held in Columbus, OH. The lady I work for performed in the show that was being put on there. The travel to, performing at, and finally return home takes up about 10 days of my absence. The clipping of horses, practicing, general grooming and the getting everything together and ready to go (along with all the normal daily care of the horses) makes up for about another 14 days of my not being around.

In addition to all of the getting ready and preparations for travel, I also did a photo shoot for my friend, worked on the pictures she liked, and made up DVD's of the photos and the music we needed to send ahead of us.

Oh.... AND, they finally got our new --o.k., new to us!-- trailer ready for us to move into. They got it hooked up a week before we left. Yep! I moved just enough stuff in for G and Morgan to live in there till I got back, and I've been completing the move since my return. Also, to add insult to injury, I got an order for the cables I make the day before we left. That meant I was already 10 days behind on making them when I returned.

LOL! I have to laugh or I would cry. Add to all of that the fact that the 10 days I was gone I had Internet access for a total of 3 hours... well, you can imagine the number of e-mails and RSS feeds I returned to.

With luck my life is now calming down just a little bit. I am hoping so at any rate. The shot at the bottom of this entry is one from the photo shoot we did prior to leaving. Not bad for my first time, I think. I still need to go through the pics and remove red-eye from some and do some 'cleaning up', hopefully I will have time now.

Believe it or not I didn't take even one picture while we were at the show. I was sooooo busy I only got to go over to the shopping area for about an hour.That was probably a good thing as I only bought 2 t-shirts. There was a lot of cool stuff and I am afraid if I had found more time to shop it would have gotten very expensive! I did walk around and admire the beautiful horses on my way into and out of the barn each day. There were some remarkable horses on display! I wish I had been able to spend a lot more time looking around and exploring, but that is what happens when you are working an event instead of attending!

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Last week there was a really cool event that was to occur on that very night. An eclipse of the moon! I was excited. I would get a couple of really good pics and use them for my Wordless Wednesday entry. TaDa! Great Idea. Very Timely. Awesome subject. Yeah... Right!?!

Ever hear the quote, "The best laid plans of Mice and Men..."?  Here's what actually happened:

• The first problem was that I misread (i.e. didn't pay enough attention) the article about the eclipse. Yes, it did actually occur early in the evening... IF you were on the West Coast! Unfortunately, I am on the East Coast and the beginnings of the Eclipse were around 8:45pm with the actual Totality being between 10pm and and 11pm and ending around Midnight.
• Still thinking, "No Problem! I snap the pics during the early partial eclipse and a couple during the midpoint. I pop them on the laptop. I edit them. And Viola! Entry!"
• Trotting outside at around 8:30pm revealed..... CLOUDS! Lots of 'em.
• Grumbling, but still determined I continued to check the clouds... er I mean Moon... every few minutes still hoping for a decent shot.
• I did actually get a couple of decent shots in between the clouds, but by the time I got them edited it was getting close to Midnight. Soon it would no longer be a Wordless Wednesday Entry.
• I bring up AOL Pics (where I store my static, non moving pictorial blog offerings) and I upload the pictures. And..... no go. AOL informed me that the "upload has failed". I tried a couple more times, each time failing. Finally I decided to throw them on my Flickr account...... But I looked at the time and found that it was 11:54pm. No way was I going to get the pics uploaded AND into entries before Midnight.
• Discouraged, frustrated, and demoralized I decided to just go watch Keeping the Faith on Starz. Yeah, how's that title for irony?
• BUT, I will be returning later on today with a very cute entry for this week's Wordless Wed.... Stay tuned!

Yes, the best laid plans often do not come off as we intend.

For the record though, the actual Eclipse was still a very cool sight, especially the red color during the middle part of the Eclipse. The clouds, while somewhat annoying because I was trying to take pictures, actually added a different look to the eclipse, often giving it a surreal appearance that, unfortunately, did not carry over well into the shots I did get.

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Bet you thought I was going to be talking about Valentine's Day, didn't you?!?So sorry to disappoint, but something more important happens this time of year. New York City goes to the Dogs with the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. It's an annual tradition for us to watch the show and we watched the first half tonight, and will be sitting in front of the TV tomorrow night for the last half and the all important crowning of the champion.

Tonight we watched to see who would win in the Hound, Terrier, Non-Sporting, and (Morgan, our Corgi's favorite) the Herding groups. Tomorrow night we will see who wins in the Sporting, Working and Toy groups. Finally all 7 Champions will be brought together to crown the best of the best. Check it out, you might just see your next doggie there.

Clicking on the link above takes you to the official site for the show with all kinds of pictures and facts about the dogs. Clicking on the poster will take you to the section of the site were you can buy a copy of the poster for yourself, or a maybe a DVD of the show if you want.

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My Wordless Wednesday entry elicited a couple of questions in the comments section asking what kind of bird it was. Ugly is my first answer, but I didn't figure that would satisfy the curiosity expressed! It is a Shoebill, also known in some circles as a Whalehead. If you want to read a little more about them and see a few more pictures, check out the wikipedia entry here, the ARKive entry here has pictures and video, and a kid friendly entry is located here.

Since this is going to be one of those scattered entries, I thought I would take it as an opportunity to point people towards a blog entry that I came across that shows some amazing origami and features links to even more. Origami just fascinates me. I've bought a couple of books about it over the years, but  I have never really sat down and given it the focus and attention it needs and deserves if you want to do it yourself. The Blog is called Blue Tea, and the actual entry is located here.

Lastly I leave you with this picture. Isn't he a cute little guy?

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John Scalzi, our recently departed blog father, is trying to get some work done and not be distracted by the bad old internets..... we can't have that! This picture is actually from John and features their newest acquisition Zeus (the cat formerly known as TempCat©) as a LOLCat and can be found here without the caption and with permission to do with it as we will.... scary, huh? So, I give you my interpretation of LOLCat Zeus!

Go here and check the comments to see what others are doing to distract John. ;p

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