OMG the photos #1
Jul. 30th, 2008 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reymonkeyWe're home! There's good and bad, and I know I'm feeling a little bit of the day after vacation blues. Didn't get a whole lot of drawing done, of course. I'm not sure why I expected otherwise, but I do have a couple small pieces inspired by landscape.
I have to start calling in for possible Jury duty starting August 15th, which messes with the job hunt because I have to be careful scheduling interviews and then if I have to serve just after getting hired... I dunno. I also have a phone call interview with unemployment because I might not be eligible after all, and I'm still honestly not sure what I did wrong. It was an informal, friendly environment and I guess my being informal and friendly rubbed some people the wrong way, but I don't know who, or what I said or did that did it. I also don't know if I'm supposed to go on filing claims until the hearing just in case, or not.
My eml normally gets a little spam, but the filter works pretty well and I probably get about 2 or 3 pieces in my inbox a week. Someone seems to have hijacked my addy to send spam while I was gone, and it's full of delivery failure notices again, which of course meant then legitimate emls couldn't get through. If you sent me something and it bounced, you can try again now. Also my web hosting kept telling me to update my charge information because I was coming up for renewal. I checked, everything was up to date and the current card, and I went off on vacation with lots of money sitting in my account. I actually managed to spend very little of it on vacation. I came home to a notice that it couldn't renew it, and I still had to go in and manually save my domain from vanishing. What the hell did I put my up to date information on there for if they keep trying to charge the older expired card anyway? WTF? Thanks GoDaddy.
The cats and millipede are fine. Squeaks sulked for about ten minutes when we got home and then decided she loved me again. This morning she was out for an hour and left a blood trail on the porch to a dead vole on the front walk. I'm sure the neighbors appreciate her gifts even more than we do...
A picture's worth a thousand words, but I just might get that many words in here anyway. If there's anybody out there besides us on Dialup, beware.
Ridiculously, the first picture on the camera is this.
Okay, it did have a place name under that, but it took us a second drive past to see it, and we thought maybe it was just a really swinging insurance agency.
The first full day in Bangor we just kind of deliberately got lost. We took off driving and wound up in Bucksport, which claims to be the center of the known universe. Whatever. But it did have these cool suspension bridges, an old one and a new one side by side. We followed signs and went through a little manned station to 'observation point' and a civil war fort I had spotted from across the river. We followed the signs, parked, and here's Bridgie while we're standing under the bridges going 'hunh. Where the hell is the observation point?'
We finally saw a doorway and a guide down at the base of the bridge and realized observation point was not a rocky lookout, it was up there.
From forty-some stories up, we did some observing, partly of fog. It was beautiful though.
We went on to the civil war fortification, Fort Knox. They warned you might need flashlights, assuming you don't have amazing night vision, and Bridgie bought one, which was good. We got inside and I started exploring and then I kind of, er, took off down a side tunnel in the dark with the camera. I know I'm a freak. I'm a freak with good night vision, fortunately, since Bridgie and the flashlight were behind me. The tunnels got narrower and looked out on a courtyard we never did find our way into, and we were just running along this far wall in the dark with no other tourists. It was amazing to imagine soldiers living here and manning the shooting slits. The photos all came out terrible but this is actually the lightest one.
Perfect place for ghosts really. Sometimes you'd hear that wonderful ghostly noise you get from wind running through corridors and open windows.
I would've been willing to stay there another hour, but some people were too worn out to even climb the spiral stairs and get the look from the top wall. You can see how close this is to the bridges.
We ate in Bucksport, and in the evening there was a family cookout thingy, I have to admit I didn't take any photos of the family reunion stuff so I won't bore you guys with descriptions of it. The next day we went to someplace called Field's Pond with a nature center, and also on a bog walk. I'm not sure anymore where along the way we took the photo of this little guy, but according to Morri it's potentially some kind of Dragonfly or Stonefly nymph.
Field's Pond was pretty cool, lots of bugs, including a fly that really liked taking turns circling heads. Ergh. I startled some kind of bird in the swamp water, but I never got to actually see it, even though I waited quietly for it to come back. We've got lots of bug photos from these walks. Field's Pond:
Bogwalk:
This is more impressive if you realize we were on a wooden boardwalk on stilts, and all of what you're seeing is pretty much in standing water, with the trees on little hillocks. Again and again on this trip I was struck with how much Maine looks like WA, right down to most of the native plants. I've been places like this in WA before, and this just felt weirdly familiar.
The official family reunion was at a lake, with swimming for those who wanted to. This is a view off toward the wider end of the lake.
Found a couple frogs beside the lake, who sat patiently still while I snapped lots of photos, almost all of which turned out blurry anyway. Only got one good shot.
The highlight of the family reunion was the lobster dinner. I've never had a whole lobster before, just crab legs and those already opened lobster tails you get at fancy restaurants. I was given a lesson in dealing with the lobster, in which I managed to slice open my finger on part of the tail. Yay. I am scarred by my lobster experience. ;) It really wasn't a very big cut, but it tried to get infected by the next day, so that was obnoxious. It's fine now.
We left Bangor for Bar Harbor and two nights in an incredibly expensive seaside hotel, but there's so many pictures from the day and a half there, I'll put them in a separate post. More to come!
I have to start calling in for possible Jury duty starting August 15th, which messes with the job hunt because I have to be careful scheduling interviews and then if I have to serve just after getting hired... I dunno. I also have a phone call interview with unemployment because I might not be eligible after all, and I'm still honestly not sure what I did wrong. It was an informal, friendly environment and I guess my being informal and friendly rubbed some people the wrong way, but I don't know who, or what I said or did that did it. I also don't know if I'm supposed to go on filing claims until the hearing just in case, or not.
My eml normally gets a little spam, but the filter works pretty well and I probably get about 2 or 3 pieces in my inbox a week. Someone seems to have hijacked my addy to send spam while I was gone, and it's full of delivery failure notices again, which of course meant then legitimate emls couldn't get through. If you sent me something and it bounced, you can try again now. Also my web hosting kept telling me to update my charge information because I was coming up for renewal. I checked, everything was up to date and the current card, and I went off on vacation with lots of money sitting in my account. I actually managed to spend very little of it on vacation. I came home to a notice that it couldn't renew it, and I still had to go in and manually save my domain from vanishing. What the hell did I put my up to date information on there for if they keep trying to charge the older expired card anyway? WTF? Thanks GoDaddy.
The cats and millipede are fine. Squeaks sulked for about ten minutes when we got home and then decided she loved me again. This morning she was out for an hour and left a blood trail on the porch to a dead vole on the front walk. I'm sure the neighbors appreciate her gifts even more than we do...
A picture's worth a thousand words, but I just might get that many words in here anyway. If there's anybody out there besides us on Dialup, beware.
Ridiculously, the first picture on the camera is this.
Okay, it did have a place name under that, but it took us a second drive past to see it, and we thought maybe it was just a really swinging insurance agency.
The first full day in Bangor we just kind of deliberately got lost. We took off driving and wound up in Bucksport, which claims to be the center of the known universe. Whatever. But it did have these cool suspension bridges, an old one and a new one side by side. We followed signs and went through a little manned station to 'observation point' and a civil war fort I had spotted from across the river. We followed the signs, parked, and here's Bridgie while we're standing under the bridges going 'hunh. Where the hell is the observation point?'
We finally saw a doorway and a guide down at the base of the bridge and realized observation point was not a rocky lookout, it was up there.
From forty-some stories up, we did some observing, partly of fog. It was beautiful though.
We went on to the civil war fortification, Fort Knox. They warned you might need flashlights, assuming you don't have amazing night vision, and Bridgie bought one, which was good. We got inside and I started exploring and then I kind of, er, took off down a side tunnel in the dark with the camera. I know I'm a freak. I'm a freak with good night vision, fortunately, since Bridgie and the flashlight were behind me. The tunnels got narrower and looked out on a courtyard we never did find our way into, and we were just running along this far wall in the dark with no other tourists. It was amazing to imagine soldiers living here and manning the shooting slits. The photos all came out terrible but this is actually the lightest one.
Perfect place for ghosts really. Sometimes you'd hear that wonderful ghostly noise you get from wind running through corridors and open windows.
I would've been willing to stay there another hour, but some people were too worn out to even climb the spiral stairs and get the look from the top wall. You can see how close this is to the bridges.
We ate in Bucksport, and in the evening there was a family cookout thingy, I have to admit I didn't take any photos of the family reunion stuff so I won't bore you guys with descriptions of it. The next day we went to someplace called Field's Pond with a nature center, and also on a bog walk. I'm not sure anymore where along the way we took the photo of this little guy, but according to Morri it's potentially some kind of Dragonfly or Stonefly nymph.
Field's Pond was pretty cool, lots of bugs, including a fly that really liked taking turns circling heads. Ergh. I startled some kind of bird in the swamp water, but I never got to actually see it, even though I waited quietly for it to come back. We've got lots of bug photos from these walks. Field's Pond:
Bogwalk:
This is more impressive if you realize we were on a wooden boardwalk on stilts, and all of what you're seeing is pretty much in standing water, with the trees on little hillocks. Again and again on this trip I was struck with how much Maine looks like WA, right down to most of the native plants. I've been places like this in WA before, and this just felt weirdly familiar.
The official family reunion was at a lake, with swimming for those who wanted to. This is a view off toward the wider end of the lake.
Found a couple frogs beside the lake, who sat patiently still while I snapped lots of photos, almost all of which turned out blurry anyway. Only got one good shot.
The highlight of the family reunion was the lobster dinner. I've never had a whole lobster before, just crab legs and those already opened lobster tails you get at fancy restaurants. I was given a lesson in dealing with the lobster, in which I managed to slice open my finger on part of the tail. Yay. I am scarred by my lobster experience. ;) It really wasn't a very big cut, but it tried to get infected by the next day, so that was obnoxious. It's fine now.
We left Bangor for Bar Harbor and two nights in an incredibly expensive seaside hotel, but there's so many pictures from the day and a half there, I'll put them in a separate post. More to come!
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Date: Jul. 30th, 2008 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2008 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2008 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 12:41 am (UTC)You fight for that unemployment as hard as you can! If they let you go, then you totally deserve it! Don't let your former employer try to weasel out of it.
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Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 05:55 pm (UTC)Maine was very cool, temperautre-wise too. Go in the summer!
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Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Aug. 1st, 2008 07:44 pm (UTC)Click-flash-whirrrrrr.
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Date: Aug. 1st, 2008 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2008 05:56 pm (UTC)