Howdy everyone! Guessing you were expecting a race recap from my recent ultra-marathon efforts. Based on the mere fact this post made it out (barring any devious pre-scheduling ha), you know I at least survived the ordeal. The results of that race are a bit of a mixed bag, so I’ll need to wait a bit before updating everyone on how that went as a whole. Unfortunately, my procrastination this year – which I completely blame on retirement – has caught up with me. I always recap my races in chronological order and depending on how much you follow the mothership side of Intrigued, you may have noticed my annual trek up to Davenport, Iowa to run the Bix 7 has been missing.
Well, that race did happen and along with the recent ultra was one of only two formal races I’ve participated in so far. There is another one scheduled for the end of the month, but that will be the last for ’22. Little bit lighter load this year due to traveling and other commitments.
Hit the jump for a recap of the first race of the year.
Greetings everyone! By the time you are reading this post I will be passing from the severe discomfort phase and transitioning to the path paved by torture. Self-inflicted, of course, so I have no one to blame but myself for my addiction to long distance trail running – hell, I even paid good money to punish myself ha. I have always felt it is good to know one’s limits – let’s hope over the next 15+ hours, mine is somewhere past a 100K! With the focus on the pre-race fretting, the race itself and an unknown length of time required for recovery, Brad has once again thrown me a lifeline with another guest feature. He is also working on additional posts so I might have to promote him from “guest” status to Intrigued Corporate Staff Writer – this position pays the same, but it sounds far more prestigious. Hope it doesn’t cause problems with his lovely wife as our staff writers are constantly being chased down by sexy hordes of groupies. With that, I’ll let Brad take you through another island wildlife adventure.
Take it away Brad…
Have you ever seen the photo of Earth hanging in the blackness of space? I know some people think that photo is a fake, and that there are rocks holding the flat, Photoshopped, earth in place. There are many stories about the creation of the earth, most involved animals (elephants, turtles, birds, water, etc.). One variation of the many involves turtles and was first referenced in an ancient Hindu text.
Fast forward to modern times. Two people are discussing a variation of the creation story (heavily paraphrased here).
Person One says, “Earth was created by putting soil on a turtle’s back, growing the Earth and then holding it up.”
“If that’s the case, what is the turtle standing on?” asks Person Two.
Person One replies, “another turtle of course.”
“Then what is THAT turtle standing on?” asks Person Two.
Person One says, “Oh no you don’t, you are not going to trick me. It’s turtles all the way down”.
At this point you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about turtles. After all, isn’t this a birding blog? True. However, if you’ve ever seen a sea turtle glide through water, the motion their flippers make in the water is very similar the motions birds use to fly through the air. See, I could tie this story back to birds (sort of), you just had to stick with me. Plus, turtles are really cool.
Hit the jump to read more about these intriguing creatures!
Welcome to the Halloween Season — well, technically we here at Intrigued are haunt focused 364 days a year (we take the day after our annual Halloween Haunted Trail event to rest up before starting on next year’s new additions. Speaking of the trail, this year’s extravaganza was held last weekend and based on the feedback we are getting – another complete success! As usual, we learned a few things, have a few things to tweak and more importantly, a bunch of new ideas to make next year even better. Taking a break from putting everything back in storage to give you a behind the scenes look at one of our signature props we added for our guest’s enjoyment this year. Definitely one of our larger projects and will likely take several posts to get you all the pertinent details. Let’s get to it shall we?!
I have always wanted an elaborate entrance to the trail. A defining start vs just pointing them into the woods and telling them to have fun. Depending on the moon, it can also get rather dark in the woods making it even harder to locate the right path to the trail. Unable to remember the exact video, but one of the haunt centric YouTubers I follow – GrimmLifeCollective – (link here) showcased a place that had a stacked pumpkin arch in one of their scenes. That got the juices flowing and started investigating ways to produce one of our own. I do not have the budgets of some of these large production scare factories, so cost was a key element – that and the ability to store it. A big shout out to Allen at Stiltbeast Studios (link here). for getting the ball rolling. His video on making a foam pumpkin (link here) was the basis for what became our signature piece.
Clearly I would need BIGGER pumpkins to use in our entry arch and I wanted to be able to carve and light them up like real pumpkins. Allen’s approach did have a hollow core, but also required you to essentially have a beach ball buried inside each pumpkin. When I saw the cost of beach balls that were the size I wanted to use, that approach had to be improved. Noodled on it for a couple of weeks and then it hit me – I don’t have to create the entire pumpkin at once. With a working plan, materials were ordered and set to work.
The first ingredient was the beach ball. The initial vision was to have three different sized pumpkins that got smaller as they were stacked up – smallest being the size of the standard ball you see kids playing with or bouncing around concert venues. From there, found two more offerings each significantly bigger than that. A bit shocked at the prices – the largest (42″) was $30, the medium (36″) was $23 and a pack of 3 standard (20″) were $13. Per comment above, needing one for each pumpkin was cost prohibitive. Note, a quick look at Amazon revealed that they are heavily discounted now that the swim season is coming to a close. Now with the pumpkin forms procured, there needed to be a method to help hold the foam and still be able to reuse the ball.
Hit the jump to see how these everyday beach accessories evolved into our latest Haunted Trail of Tears signature addition.
I’m back, well, kinda. As the saying goes, rumors of my demise are [somewhat] exaggerated. The good news is I am past the first of the two events that have been consuming every available second night and day. We held our annual Halloween Haunted Trail event over the weekend. I am rating it as a complete success based on some of the feedback we have been receiving on various social media outlets. Some of my readers made it to the event, so I’ll let them chime in on the comments on how they think it went. Ron and his son even came down a day early to help me out as some of my usual volunteers were unable to help this year – that was a huge assist along with Brad providing guest posts so I could focus on the trail. Finally got the haunted trail torn down and in our outbuilding late this afternoon – will move to packing phase after the second of the two stressful events is over. Focus now shifts to the 100K ultra that launches at 5am this coming Saturday. Need to heal some tweaks, get some rest and see what I can do about the 5 pounds I lost putting the trail together. I don’t mind being a little lighter to carry the large hills, but that is a bit more than I am comfortable with. I’ll cover these two endeavors in future posts, right now I just wanted to get something out so you don’t forget about me ha! The good news is Brad has been gracious to give me a few more features to use as I get closer to race time. Enough gabbing, time to get on with your regularly scheduled programming.
Well, the good news is we made it back from Witchita..I mean Wichita yesterday after 10 long hours passing through corn field after cornfield. Pulled into the driveway, bolted into the house, changed and managed to get another training run in. Perfect conditions for the latter half of the actual race – dead tired, legs and back sore from sitting so long and temps dropping as fast as the sun. Now it’s Halloween trail 7×28 (need to find a way to squeeze a few more hours out of each day). Clearly going to be a struggle to get my required posts up with the current pace of things, so pressed the bat signal once again. Brad once again came to my aid – actually, more than came to my aid, brought me not one, but TWO features to help fill the gaps (and I think he is working on another one for you). Cannot thank him enough for the assist and I know you will enjoy this second adventure. I’m going to head back into the woods now and try to get a nasty clown infestation under control – happens every year right before the big party, sigh. Time to step aside and let Brad take the helm once again. Take care and see you down the road.
……Take it away Brad
We were fortunate enough to recently enjoy a lengthy vacation on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Our daughter and her boyfriend were able to join us for the first week. We spent time on the beaches, snorkeled, took coffee & chocolate plantation tours, and went to a luau. We drove to the mountains and stayed overnight on the volcano. We hiked many miles over hardened lava and through the rainforest and near the coast to see 500-year-old petroglyphs. We watched every sunset possible and caught a few sunrises as well.
We probably went through a gallon of reef-safe sunscreen (OK, I probably did by myself). We maximized the “unlimited mileage” on our rental car (a little over 2,000 miles total) even though the island is not much more than 90 miles across. You would think the Hawai’i state bird would be as obvious as the Northern Cardinal is in our home state of Illinois. You would be wrong. We couldn’t see more than two up close until our last five hours on the island.
Coming to you tonight from Wichita, Kansas. Had to pause my Haunted Trail efforts in order to run out here for a family wedding. Could not have come at a more inconvenient time, but I have been working night and day to hopefully get far enough ahead on the trail work to compensate for the loss of 4 crucial days. I have to admit, it has given me a bit of a rest – was starting to get drained, especially with trying to finish off the rest of the pre-taper training runs. Quite fitting we ended up here as Wichita is a Choctaw Native American Indian word that means “Land of Tall Witches”. Just guessing that they were good witches or this place would have more likely been called Wicheville. Before this mountain gets any bigger, how about we turn our attention to another kind of mountain.
Hit the jump to see more shots of this tiny mountain of a bird – oh, and I should probably clear up some liberties as well.
Hello everyone! I am back for a likely brief period of time while I’m waiting for some props to finish drying. First off, I wanted to thank you for the warm welcome you gave Brad on his first guest post. Definitely helping me out while I try to get things under control at the home base. There will be more coming from him in the future – in fact he already has some ready to go. Will try to spread out the sugar, don’t want anyone to get over-sweetened and tire of the standard fare ha!
Really good news on the running front as well. Finished my 50K simulation run last week on the approximate course the 100K will be held. Not sure what happened over there, but the CoE site looked like a tornado hit it – downed trees everywhere. Some still over the trails turning it into a wilderness obstacle course. Other areas had been cleaned of the down timber, but so many branches and wood chips were left behind I had hunt/guess to find the path at times. Will be impressed if they get all that scrub taken care prior to the race (in a shockingly short 3 weeks). The simulation did successfully remind me the actual race is not going to be “pleasant” until the moment I cross the finish line – was definitely feeling the last couple of miles of the simulation and that only gets me HALF way there – will thankfully be cooler then.
Enough of that, let’s get to the part you come here to see – the featured feathered friend of the day.
Brian here, I promised you something special if you behaved and I am delighted to bring you our first “Guest Feature”. Some of you may recognize Brad Marks from the many comments to my posts over the years. He has been a long-time friend of mine that started when we both had Information Technology careers at a local Fortune 50 corporation. We actually retired on the exact same day. I have always wanted to bring my readers new adventures while giving my fellow birder friends a chance to share their experiences with a broader community. A toe-tip in the blogging waters so to speak and who knows, maybe a catalyst to embark on their own blog journey – or minimally more future guest spots here. I know you will enjoy Brad’s post and will now hand over the reins and head back into the nightmare lab. Be sure and let him know how much you appreciated his effort in the comments!
……Take it away Brad.
While many of avid birders may be trying for a Big Year (700+ bird species spotted), or Medium Year (350-ish?), I’ve tried to focus (no pun intended) on going for an Extra Extra Small Year (only 45 species YTD, +6 for the Life List). I know Brian’s loyal readers are used to a certain visual and textual representation standard so I hope this posting does not disappoint.
We (Jan and I) like to take photographic vacations, or at least vacations in very photographic places. And while we do like to catch the local wildlife and scenery, we sometimes make focused efforts for specific subject matter. For example, on our recent Hawaiian vacation (to celebrate a milestone anniversary) we hiked 45+ minutes, round trip, in the dark (with only mobile phone lights) to see an active lava lake. Who wouldn’t?
We also took a day trip from the Kona Coast (desert west side) on the Big Island of Hawai’i to the Kipuka Puaulu (pronounced “kee-‘poo-kah” and “poo-‘ah-oo-loo”) Trail and nature preserve on the slopes of Mauna Loa (rainy southeast-ish side) just outside the boundary of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Our goal was to photograph some of the Big Island’s feathered friends. The circular trail is a little over a mile long and is a very easy hike if you have the time. However, by the time we drove the 93 miles (2+ hours including 15 miles of switchbacks) to the preserve, the birds had all gone off for Kona coffee breaks. All except for this one and a couple of friends.
Hit the jump to read more about Jan and Brad’s recent adventure!
I am beginning to wonder if CJ (link here) is right on a previous post comment wondering if the epoxy fumes in the Nightmare Lab are starting to affect me. The last post I threw out the standard “holistic” approach to birding posts and simply zeroed in on one feature – the Night-Heron’s chicken foot galoshes. Now today, I am featuring this!
Granted this particular specimen looks kinda cute and for the record that is why I bothered to even take a picture of it. The issue is, I rarely bother to feature domesticated and likely hybrid birds here at Intrigued. Sure, like this one I’ll spend some digital capital and tin a few shots for my personal collection. Those images will never go to print and up until today would not be placed on the post queue – I know some of you just chuckled “he has a three year plus backlog of images and that’s with taking shots off the table – good lord, get that man an intern!?!”. Not to go too far off track, but one of my favorite authors is AJ Jacobs. One of his works, My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself, covers his attempt to outsource his daily life to India. Every time I bring this “opportunity” up to Linda she smirks and sarcastically declares “I’m already your personal secretary you dufus”..sooo is that a yes?
Hit the jump to read a bit more about this rarity here at Intrigued.
Welcome to September everyone! This is the critical month around here with the big Halloween Haunted Trail event looming at the end. The Nightmare Lab has been in full production from sunup to well past sundown trying to get this year’s batch of new scares finished. Sooooo glad I no longer have to worry about getting the IT architecture work deliverables done in the midst of the fabrication and assembly – not exactly sure how I managed to hold this event prior to retirement. The main thing getting in the way now is the ultra-training. Unfortunately, the 100K torture, I mean race, is the week immediately after the party so I do not have a lot of room to spare on that front either. Wake up, do my Wordle, head to the lab, emerge in early afternoon to go for a veeeeerrrryyy long run, shower and head back into the lab until my eyes are bloodshot, crawl up the stairs to bed (did I mention the long run ha) and reset the for-loop counter. A huge thanks to Linda who manages to keep me nourished in the midst of this hectic routine. Not a lot of time for posts, but luckily I have a few sets of images ready to go already – just need to add text and press the submit button. Usually use these contingency features to get me out of trouble when I’m short at the end of the month – not when I need to cover an entire month – sigh! Great news though, if everyone promises to “behave”, we might have a special topic to send your way – “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!”
Time’s a ticking, let’s get to today’s contingency feature. In honor of my nightly bloodshot peepers, thought our fancy footed friend would be an excellent choice for today’s focus.
Hit the jump to read more about this bionic shorebird.
Life Intrigued 