African Lionesses at the Houston Zoo
Happy Holidays, from KRO-Media!
My sweet Stella Girl, wearing her finest holiday bow!
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One of the new calves at the REO Ranch
My father and stepmother own a ranch near Navasota, and just got their first herd of cattle this season (well, at the moment they’re only calves, really, but they’re bigger than me, so let’s just call them cattle and be done with it.) I had the opportunity to go feed them Thanksgiving dinner with my dad over the holiday, and took some photos of them pigging out at the feed trough. We also brought the new puppy with us — pictured below with my sister on the Mule — and I have never seena group of animal so large respond with such curiosity to another animal. They were very uneasy around humans, but a 15-lbs. puppy was apparently something they’d never experienced before. Needless to say, the puppy had enough good sense to stay away from them.
Regardless, I got a few great pictures of the calves, the neighbors’ full-grown cows, the new puppy, my sister, my husband, and since Grimes County lifted the fire ban for a week, we got to have a wonderfully cozy fire in the pit on the back patio after the sun went down. Enjoy!
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A barge pushes south on the Mississippi river beneath the St. Louis Gateway Arch at sunrise - taken from the Hyatt Regency on Walnut St.
Not many people can say this, but I have a pretty fantastic job, and it affords me the opportunity to travel to some places I might not otherwise have the opportunity to visit; one of the most recent examples is a trip I just took to St. Louis, Missouri for the Soy & Grain Trade Summit. In addition to live-blogging the event, I had the opportunity to visit some of the nearby attractions in downtown St. Louis with my new 5D-MKii.
I also had to leave the hotel at 4 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight, which should have had me back in the office by 9 a.m. — instead, thanks to an unknown issue with my plane, my estimated 3 hour flight ended up being an 8 hour flight. Travel is so glamorous!
The totally unrelated point I’d like to make is that St. Louis is beautiful in the fall, and I’d like to prove it to you with this series of photos from the Gateway Arch, Old Courthouse, Kiener Plaza, Citygarden. and a couple of shots of the Occupy movement protesters for good measure:
Every fall, golden poplar leaves drift down on gusts of wind from the branches above to decorate the landscape in Spring Bank, a suburb of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
I did a bit of traveling last week, primarily for work, though I stayed a little longer to spend some time with my husband, family, and friends in his motherland. We hadn’t been back to Canada since we got engaged, and I hadn’t been there in the fall in several years, so we had a wonderful time in probably the best weather I’ve ever experienced there. For those who have not been to Alberta in late September, it’s so lovely — the leaves on the poplars are a rich, beautiful yellow and they drop from the trees to drape the dark green fir trees and lawns in a blanket of saffron. I’m sure it makes yard work hell, but it’s actually quite lovely:
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Snow Leopard at the Calgary Zoo, September 2011
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Pile of Debt by Mikko Saari
A friend on Facebook posted an equally troubling and surprising article from canada.com about the countries with the highest debt-to-GDP ratios, based on some research done on an ongoing basis by the World Bank.
I was unsurprised to see that the U.S. made the top 20 worst offenders list, given the almost laughably (the kind of laughing that makes you cry) large price tag on our national debt; however, I was shocked at how far down the list the U.S. landed when you compare national debt to GDP.
1. Ireland – 1,382% ($172.3 billion, >10x GDP)
2. United Kingdom – 413.3% ($8.98 trillion)
3. Switzerland – 401.9% ($1.3 trillion)
4. Netherlands – 376.3% ($2.6 trillion)
5. Belgium – 335.9% ($1.3 trillion)
6. Denmark – 310.4% ($626 billion)
7. Sweden – 282.2% ($1 trillion)
8. Finland – 271.5% ($505 billion)
9. Austria – 261.1% ($867 billion)
10. Norway – 251% ($641 billion)
11. Hong Kong – 250.4% ($816 billion)
12. France – 250% ($5.4 trillion)
13. Portugal – 223.6% ($552 billion)
14. Germany – 185.1% ($5.4 trillion)
15. Greece – 182.2% ($580 billion)
16. Spain – 179.4% ($2.46 trillion)
17. Italy – 146.6% ($2.6 trillion)
18. Australia – 138.9% ($1.2 trillion)
19. Hungary – 120.1% ($225 billion)
20. United States – 101.1% ($14.8 trillion)
By comparison, my student loan debt suddenly feels much, much more manageable.
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Sundays are usually a pretty relaxed affair around these parts, and today was no exception. I managed to avoid getting sucked into the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 depression vortex, and instead spent the bulk of the day fiddling around with the site. After enough of that, I decided to step out into the backyard to check on our sad little garden, where everything but the cucumbers have wilted and/or died in the hottest and driest summer on record for this area.
I found a ladybug, some cucumber blossoms, and two of my pets ready to ham it up for the camera. Enjoy:
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I would love to say that I don’t normally get excited about technological advances and new-fangled gadgets that are about to put a serious dent in my paycheck, but the sad truth is that I am impressed by the new and shiny, and for the last several years, almost everything Wacom releases finds its way onto my I-will-afford-this-if-I-have-to-eat-peanut-butter-crackers-for-the-next-six-months list.
The new Wacom Inkling is no different. It’s a two-part device that will track whatever you’re sketching, and transfer it to your computer so that you can then manipulate it digitally. Totally brilliant!
It consists of a small device that you can clip to any notebook/sketch pad/cocktail napkin, and then use the pressure sensitive ballpoint pen to start sketching. Totally brilliant.
I am not the world’s greatest artist, but sometimes (especially when I’m wireframing,) something like this would come in handy.
Anyway, here’s the Wacom video for the device. Pretty amazing:
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I went to San Francisco for Dreamforce, and flew in on Saturday to get ready for a jam-packed week of straight up crazy. I spent a day wandering around the northern section of the city. I walked straight through Chinatown without taking a single picture, which I regret, but I only had so much time. I’ll just have to go back.
One of the things I really wanted to see was the Golden Gate Bridge, but as the instructor for my Salesforce Admin course said, “I think the bridge is a myth. I have yet to see it.” I managed to see the shape of the base of it… barely. Regardless, San Francisco is a beautiful city full of great food, fun people, medical marijuana users, culture and… well… fog. Lots and lots of fog. I was very glad I brought my scarves.
I’ve shared a few of my photos from the trip below:
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