Red Tail Encounter

I awoke this morning bristling with excitement from the anticipation of driving my new M Coupe today. That was until I looked out the window at the thick 4" blanket of snow that covered Boulder last night. Alas, my drive up Boulder Canyon would have to wait. Instead I spent the day using the breaks between my M Coupe fantasy's organizing and digging through old photos.

I've been wanting to get a zoom lens for the summer and this photo set of a Red Tail Hawk I stumbled on from last year shows the limitations of my 17-85mm lens. I spent a good 30 minutes stalking this hawk on Marshall Mesa. It was early morning and I saw him on the way back to my house. He was aware of my presence the whole time and let me get pretty close, especially once he had the security of being 18 feet above me on a telephone pole. With 85mm I just can't get close enough for real wildlife detail. I had to crop these pretty small to get a good composition which you can tell by how grainy they are.

Roadtrip

Last week I drove the M Coupe back from the East Coast, although not unscathed. I got tapped on the rear bumper at a light in Charleston, WV. The lady that hit me didn't have insurance and her van looked as if she lived in it "down by the river." The damage is not too bad and I'll fix it myself when I can afford to. Doug met me the second day and literally drove from St. Louis to Denver. He didn't want to give the keys back when we got to Denver. Here are a few pics from the drive.

Western, MD




Rickety Bridge in VW






Downtown St. Louis





The Arch





Fat Truck, yuck!






Wide Open Kansas

Expressing myself through Family Guy

"Stop acting like the first dog in your pictures. Where are some more pictures or posts?"

Posted by "Anonymous"

Sorry Anonymous for my recent dirth of posts. Blogger.com forced me to open a Google account to be able to use it, which angered me to no end. I rebelled against Google by not posting any new Blog entries, but realized that this only hurts you and I. So I let it go, and I'm back to posting again.

I've spent the past couple weeks allowing my knee to heal from surgery and counting the days until I drive my new car back from Maryland. I would write more, but I thought these Family Guy clips would better express the past 2 weeks!

Knee Pain

New Car



Sadly, my new car even looks like Peter's...

Sleeping Dogs (and Cats)

Dogs and Cats will sleep anywhere:

Outside



Inside



On a Couch



(the other end)



With Bones

Upsidedown

Spooning

In a Tube

and while grabbing Molly's ass!

Perspective

This week has been my first real week back at work. Tomorrow will be my sixth day in a row and my knee HURTS!! I walk a lot at work and every step is a medley of pain. It's always a mission to make it to my destination. Once I get there I sit for long periods and while my muscles get stiff and swell, the pulses from nerves deep behind my knee cap send sporadic lighting bolts to remind me pain is never far away. It dosen't seem to be responding to physical therapy, ice and massage are my only relief.

I would be lying if I said my spirits weren't down. Jo, Doug, and I went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival on Wednesday which had some incredible films featuring many activities I enjoy. My favorites were a short film about ducklings leaping out the nest for the first time and a French couple's 8000km journey through Mongolia, Tibet, China, Nepal, and India. The films about freedom, life, awakening, and adventure were made bittersweet by my own doubts that I won't be able to partake in the same level of adventure anymore.

That said, life is short and there is no benefit to spend this portion of mine worrying about my knee healing. Acceptance is the key to my situation and the only way to be at peace with it. Happiness is all about perspective. If I'm not happy about my situation, I need change only my perspective. Things could be much worse and if this is the worst thing that ever happens to me in life, I think I will have made out just fine.

I took this shot on a Moab trip last year and thought it would fit with this post. It's hard to get a good perspective on the size of things without a horizonal reference. Can you guess how tall this Mesa really is?