Daily Photo - Happy Birthday

to my cousin.

Happy 4th of July - Daily Photo

Took over 500 pics at one show. I'm debating hitting another show today, since these are from last night.

Of Grackles and Ibis

I got back Tuesday from 5 days in Disney World. The new Everest roller coaster is excellent, and Tower of Terror is still as good as ever. We went to all four parks. I will say again to my entire family no one is getting me to ride Dinosaur again. I hate it. Every picture at the end is of me staring at the floor because I refuse to open my eyes or look up during it. I don't go to haunted houses for the same reason, I don't care that the wait was only 10 minutes. Back from my tangent though. One thing you can count on at Disney is birds. Huge numbers of tourist fed grackles, ibis and sparrows crowd all the parks. There are noticeable numbers of seagulls and ducks as well. They aren't as common though due to wires strung over eating areas that keep them from overflying. I even once saw a good sized heron on a table at Hollywood Studios. Oddly enough if you don't see the rat baiting boxes everywhere you won't guess at a rat problem. There weren't any squirrels or chipmunks on the tables though, just birds. The birds are so used to humans most of them let you get within a foot before the start checking you for food. A seagull at our resort actually dive bombed someone repeatedly trying to get a muffin. Grackles would sit at an empty chair at a table waiting for you to leave your food unattended. Ducks and Ibis wandered between the tables, and in some sections of the parks flew within an inch of heads. Of course this horrible behavior makes them easy to photograph with non telephoto lenses. My favorite lizard, and the first time I saw a wild lizard in Florida that wasn't an anole. I have tons more, though I'm not sure I'll post them. I also feel I should congratulate my cousin, sister and mother who all completed the Princess Half-Marathon in Disney that Sunday we were there. Technically that was the reason we were going to Disney before it snowballed into a family vacation.

Fireworks

This July 4th was the first time I went to a fireworks display and discovered the fireworks auto setting on my camera. Obviously, I've been to fireworks before, though I've never been overly fond of the noise levels. This year it actually occurred to me before they started that my camera has a setting for it. I completely missed out last year, since I don't go out of my way to find fireworks. Here are some pics, with slight editing. I had to remove a lamp from some of them, as my town has very "safe" areas to view fireworks, meaning way too well lit to actually enjoy them. I might be able to take less wavy ones with a tripod, but I'd need to find a different viewing location, as there were way too many people at this year's event. This post actually created on September 07, 2008. Inserted here for continuity.