Spiders 'n a Basement

Don't we all have a spider or two in the basement?

Here's one I photographed when I was visiting Chung Quig, China.
Each leg on this guy was about 6 inches long!

If you want to see large spiders like that in a basement, please go to the BSPM at CSU!

That is, the basement insect zoo at the Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management Building on the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins! Go ahead! Do it today! Tell 'em Bugman sent ya!

Snow Day?

Our first Colorado snow sculpture!

Here's Jeanne doing some initial carving.

On Friday, I piled up some snow in the back yard. What could we make? Could it be a statue of a corgi? The snow was light and it didn't pack very well. I made a 4 by 6 foot block about 5 feet tall. Due to the warm weather, the corgi idea wasn't going to fly. Maybe we would make a turtle...

but the idea regressed to a non-vertebrate !

By Saturday, the snow was melting quickly so we had to work fast getting the shell together.

While placing the antennae, the head fell off!

We quickly slapped together a new head, got the antennae back in place and took a last shot of our creation.

Sure, it's smiling now, but it will be gone by tomorrow!

Some snow that was. Maybe 6 inches total in Fort Collins. All the streets were dry by the end of the following day due to the warm sun that seems to shine every day around here. What fun is that?

SNOW!

We have some snow today!!! Everything's closed!

The ducks at Chick-Fest!

Looks like it's gonna snow all day! Finally some moisture! Will we build a snow sculpture? No man knows!

The Northern Gateway to Colorado

It's Wellington, so they say...

Where you can see a rather well preserved photograph of the infamous "Maggie Murphy" potato.

... and this foot from a Civil War soldier.

There were some other things we saw in town but were too mystified to photograph.  We shall return in the near future! 

Bryan visits Fort Collins and gets shot... Twice!

This is cool; Watch this:

Don't worry... He's OK!

Everyone's Irish Today

Another reason for a parade!

There were bikers

And pipers

And a bunch of other stuff. I really don't know! I came too late to actually see the parade!

Oh, here are some archive pictures from Ireland:

John Cleer in Kilkenny

O'Flaherties in Dingle

Jamming with the locals after the pub closed.

The banjo in the above pictures no longer exists! It was made out of a baseball bat blank and a cooking pot in 1974. I played it for years until one day the strap broke and it fell onto some sharp rocks cracking the neck in half. 

Pipers in Old Town

The College of Matt and Science

Oh, sure, the sign says "Play with the Toys!"; Why Not?

It's a funny little store in Old Town.

Did I say little store? The floor space is only 6 by 12 feet!

You could spend a lot of time here if you're not claustrophobic !

"I can has some toys, No? Pleeeze, Jeanne; Lemme buy just one more toy! I be good. Promise!"

The guy who owns it is named Matt Hannifin

He can explain in easy to understand words how each toy works! Here he's explaining the physics behind a gyroscope to an 11 year old.

No, this is not another one of those infamous 'Bong' pictures!

Matt has spent some time in Australia and learned how to play a didgeridoo just like the Aborigines do the didgeridoo too!  

And boomerangs! He loves boomerangs.  Illustrates Bernoulli's principle it does!

Also Operator of the following: Hot air & Helium balloons, laser shows and fireworks displays.  Speaks six languages, has degrees in laser electro-optics, taught college prep physics and chemistry and, least but not last, can ride a unicycle.  Knows about Edmond Scientific and American Science and Surplus! Anyone who knows about these fine American institutions must be legit!

I couldn't resist putting in this sound track!

The Celestial Cafe

Take Tea and See...





All paintings at a tea company near Boulder.

NO CO Feeders

Last year whilst riding the Poudre Trail I came upon this:

It's a Feed Store and Mill!

At the time I was unfamiliar with Fort Collins; I was riding a rented bike and I was not sure how far I was (I started out far South of town). When I saw this place, I thought I was in another town (or another time).

In the other direction was this large container of pre-mixed Poudre!

Fort Collins Can Has Chickens!

More than just a feed store, the No. Colorado Feeders supply's got real character! I had some time to check it out this morning. Might even drop in on the 21st and learn about chicken myths and legends.

It is a feed mill after all and it does get hot, dry and dusty, don't 'ch know!

Ya got yer Rabit chow, and yer Pig feed...

And they can custom order super large quantities of Whatever You Have Chow!

Plus nice clean wood shavings!

Bags of dog, cat, and hamster food!

I forgot to ask why they have a dark room.

The hounds are out back... They know where the food is!

You can buy chicks here too!

And lastly here is Louie, the mouser! He seems well fed!

The Soup

Someone left their can at the UCA:

It's a BIG CAN!

It's a SIGNED CAN!

Apparently Andy Warhol signed a can in Fort Collins

There could be a Universal Product Code (UPC) Bar Code on the back!

Not So! The Code 128 for the eight digits might look like this.

The UPC bar code system started in the US around 1973. The code at the time contained 12 digits, not 8. The actual UPC bar code number for Campbells tomato soup is 051000000118, so some artistic license could be expected, especially since bar codes were still considered new even in 1981.
Could the bar code on the can actually MEAN SOMETHING? Maybe. Just to be sure, I printed a copy of the back of the can and went to the local King Soopers grocery store to find out. I found a stock-person in the back of the store with a portable bar code scanner. He tried several times to scan the bar code (using auto discriminate mode) to no avail. So, the bar code on the can is either simply an artist's random pattern of lines or specific instructions for space aliens on how and when to attack. I may have to investigate further!

Sono un Paparazzi !

Caught this group with my camera:

Lisa, Kaleigh, Wyatt and Cynthia

The Amani String Quartet is the graduate string quartet in residence at Colorado State University. They were having their pictures taken for their website, so I joined in with my camera!

Raptors we have seen on high!

A nice day today. I looked up and saw a raptor!

On the silver screen, Jurassic Park flavor!

At the Chicago Air and Water show, the man-made F-22 flavor!

And at the raptor hospital in town!

There's an area near Vine Drive where the raptors look for food. They don't fly at all like an F-22 !

I tried to get some close-ups of the raptor and his friends:


The RMRP is a great organization. Check 'em out sometime!

Another anniversary and a mystery solved

One year ago today we started out on our journey; it was the reason for this blog, don't 'cha know? Now we have settled in and are ready to experience this and that; A mission to explore new worlds, To seek out new life and new civilization, To boldly go where most people have gone before! Hey! That's what blogs are for!

When we came to our last town on our list, it happened to be Fort Collins. We contacted a real estate agent and had him come up with some possible homes in the area. But what would we consider the "area". We thought that perhaps Fort Collins was not enough, and that maybe the towns nearby would also be worth the time to check out. Like maybe Timnath? Or Bellvue? Laporte? Whatever! You get the idea.
The problem was, we never had a good map of Colorado. But while we were looking around, we saw a sign someplace that said Greeley. I don't know exactly what it was, but it seemed like we were not that far from Fort Collins, and something caught our eye that gave us the impression that we were in the City of Greeley.
We knew that Greeley was "near" Fort Collins, but we were not actually sure how close it was, but because we never bothered to check, like on a map or something, we just "assumed" that Greeley was as close to Fort Collins as Bellvue was to Laporte. So we told our agent to look for homes in Greeley too!
When we drove back to Chicago, we looked at a map and were shocked to see that Greeley was 32 miles from Fort Collins! Ha! How stupid is that?

Of course after more analysis, we knew that Fort Collins, and ONLY Fort Collins would be the place! I never gave the Greeley mistake much thought until I found this today:
I was in the North-East part of the city limits of Fort Collins! So what's this? Was I in the "City of Greeley" twilight zone, or do the residents of Fort Collins have access to a device that can open or close any and all air that goes to the City of Greeley?
A good idea, but not so, unfortunately. Apparently there is a big underground pipe that supplies water to the City of Greeley and I happened to come across the valve that is used to let off residual air pressure. I'm sure we must have seen something like that back in March last year and we just gots confused is all. Shucks!

Lobby Hero

The Bas Bleu Theatre Company (BBTC) presents: Lobby Hero

Hey, it's fellow RAGBRAI rider Lenny as the evil cop!

with Tomas Herrera and Amadeus Waters as the security guards.

Here's Tomas with the 'other cop' played by Julia Uthe.

This is a great show! We especially liked Tomas Herrera's funny exchanges. Check it out before it's gone. Also, contribute some extra cash to the Bas Bleu! (Before IT IS GONE!)