Ever see a rattler? In the wild?

Twice in recent years, we’ve come close enough to rattlesnakes to take photos of them.  In both instances, they’ve done what snakes generally do – slither away.

There are 32 known rattlesnake species and between 65 to 70 subspecies. All are native to the Americas, though each species and subspecies have regionally limited ranges.  Some regions have more than others.  For instance, out of twelve types of snakes found in Baja California, six are rattlers.

Our first encounter with a rattler was at South Dakota’s Badlands National Park in 2007.  We were on a trail that was mixture of asphalt and boardwalk.  It was a readily accessible trail on the main park road, with a lot of signs warning about rattlesnakes.  What stood out for us on this trail was a child, not closely monitored by his parents, venturing off the trail.  I wrote about it later that day.

There had been quite a few signs all over the park to watch out for rattlesnakes.

But — really — you never — ever — see any, so why should anyone be concerned.

The chances of a kid coming across a snake on a trail are pretty small, especially a rattler.

Unless — of course — unless he steps off the trail, where he shouldn’t be, when Mommy isn’t watching.

It’s not a great photo, but that is the rattler we had seen just a few minutes earlier.

I think that we did tell the mother that we had seen a rattler in the area earlier.

The other time we saw a rattler was two years later at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado on the Knife’s Edge Trail near the campground. Most of the trail was fairly wide, following an old roadbed, but has started to narrow.  The rattler was in the brush on the right side of the trail when we heard its characteristic sound, the rattle, that sound we’ve all heard many times in the movies and on TV.

The rattlesnake really blends in well in the brush in the image below.

Of course, the rattlesnake blended in very well with the vegetation along the side of the trail. In the closeup crop on the right, I’ve outlined the head and tongue and added an arrow pointing to the rattle.

We didn’t turn around and go back down the trail. There was still a ways to go yet, so, from a safe distance, I started scuffing gravel and rocks toward the snake with my foot. After a little bit of that, it uncoiled and slithered into the brush, still rattling until it was a good ways off the trail.

Rattlesnakes are predators, but people have little to fear from them under most circumstances.  Their prey is small animals that they can swallow.  Rattlers are a potential hazard in that they may strike out defensively if surprised or provoked.  Given the opportunity, like most snakes, they will avoid humans.

I’m still working on the new Haw Creek site.  My primary effort  is to make sure that all the old content points to the appropriate page or post on the new site.  This includes merging two old blogs into one.

This morning, I noticed something odd.  The ad links unit at the top of the page was in French! (See image at the top of this post)

It took me a moment to figure out why.

It turns out the title of the post from 2010 I was working on was from a Kansas place that has a French name, Marais des Cygnes, which means “Marsh of the Swans”¹.

  Funny!

¹ Marais des Cygnes River – Wikipedia

A cold war project that never quite made it off the ground.

Question:

What is the contraption in the picture at the top of the page?

Answer:

Revealed March 23, 2014:

Don Eggleston got it right when he wrote, “Looks like one of the one reactor powered jet engines.”  Don and I served in M Division together on the USS Casimir Pulaski, SSBN633, blue crew.

see more at Atomic powered bomber

Do you think next winter might be another cold one?

Weather Bell’s Joe Bastardi, in his Saturday Summary for March 15, 2014, says that’s what they are telling their commercial clients.  Along with the Farmer’s Almanac, Weather Bell did a much better job at predicting this bad winter of 13/14 than did the National Weather Service.

I don’t know what the winter will bring next year.  No one really does, of course.  I think there is a good probability of another cooler winter than what we’ve had most of the last many years, though.

In the picture at the top of the page, I’m clearing up some of the storm damage from the December ice storm.  The trees are actually quite a ways from the house, so there wasn’t a high priority in getting the debris cleaned up.  I’ll probably end up cutting down one large tree.  That will give us enough firewood for next winter, even if it’s as bad as this one.  We use the fireplace, which has an insert, to augment our heat pump on the coldest days – and we used it a lot more this year than we normally do.  The firewood in the image below is just from tree branches and one small tree a bit bigger than a sapling.

Spring this year is far behind normal.  The early daffodils are blooming as are our few crocuses, but tree buds are not nearly as far along as I would expect.  The following video is from March 15th, 2012.

Right now, the wind is howling, temperatures are dropping, and we’re supposed to get snow/sleet this afternoon, with a chance for snow over night – but, then Tuesday’s high is supposed to be near 70.

Continuing to work on my Haw Creek site, I’m trying to make sure that all old material from the old site is updated, where needed, and copied over to the new site.

I was able to copy a significant amount over using the Backup Creator plugin.

The material that is being incorporated comes from old static web pages, WordPress pages, and the old Haw Creek blog.  I’m also incorporating most of the old material from the blog (Haw Creek) Out ‘n About.

To preserve existing links, all  of the old material will be left in place, with “redirects” to send visitors to the new location.  There are apparently a number of ways of doing the redirects.  The cleanest, from what I can tell is what is called a 301 redirect, which basically sends the visitor straight to the new location, which most people won’t even notice unless they look at the address bar.  The 301 redirect apparently also tells search bots that the path to follow is to the new place, which should be helpful in getting the new site’s placement in search engines.

I noticed this morning that the old page for Off Road RVs is #1 on Bing for search terms off road motorhomes and off road RVs. With the 301 redirect for that page in effect, clicking on the old link will take the visitor to the correct page on the new Haw Creek.

I’m sure that I’m going to miss something so I’m keeping track of what I’ve done so far with a site map.  Once I’m done with the incorporation of everything, the status information will be removed, but the site map will be retained in some form.

A volcano’s paroxysms – sudden, violent outbursts – in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu were caught by a camera flown on a Dji Phantom drone, at times flying in the airborne debris. The images of Yasur volcano on Tanna island are from Shaun O’Callaghan, with video posted on YouTube.

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While I posted here every day but one during 2013 – the continuous stretch actually ran from December 2nd, 2012 through December 28th, 2013, – posting so far this year has been much more sporadic.  I have been concentrating elsewhere, mostly on my RV and travel pages at Haw Creek.

I am moving Haw Creek from its old domain – hawcreekoutdoors.com – to a new one – haw-creek.com.

Quite a bit of time has been spent working on the blog theme – all the stuff that makes it look and work the way it does.  After a lot of fiddling and tweaking on it, I’m pretty happy with the way that it looks.  Eventually, I’ll be bring a lot of what I’ve figured out there back here to Exit78.

I’m also doing a lot of content development. A lot of folks out there online just copy and paste things that other folks have written without any regard for copyright or plagiarism issues.  I am using information from others, on occasion even phrases, sentences and whole paragraphs, but I’m trying to ensure that I include the appropriate attribution for that, including links to the original sites.  However, I’m primarily trying to write original content, using the facts and information that I’ve found during my research.

The site is not just the blog.  There will also be a good number of content pages.  Some examples include: Class A Motorhomes; Class C Motorhomes; Fifth Wheel Trailers

I’ve still got a lot to do with the site.  There’s menu work to be done.  The site’s front page needs better development and I need work on the about page, as well. I’ll also be merging the content from the old Haw Creek as well as Haw Creek Out ‘n About into this new site.

The new Haw Creek will be going live to the public this week or next.

[continue reading…]

These days, most people seem to carry a cell phone wherever they go.  Many are smartphones that are, in essence, handheld computers.

Users are constantly checking email, playing games, updating Facebook, tweeting, reading news, texting – heads down, oblivious to surroundings, absorbed in whatever is on that little screen, distracted from the world.

“As of September 2013, 91% of American adults have a cell phone. 55% have a smartphone.”¹ The numbers shift across demographics, but not so much as one might think.  For those making over $75,000, 96% have cell phones with 76% being smartphones while the numbers for those under $30,000 are 85% and 41%, for example.

The first cell phone call took place on April 3, 1973, with  a two-pound device with a maximum talk time of thirty minutes.  Accompanied by reporters on a Manhattan walk, according to Motorola engineer Martin Cooper, a call was placed to Joel Engel, a longtime rival at Bell Labs.²

Cooper began: “Guess who this is, you sorry sonofabitch?” Cooper says he could hear Engel whisper to a colleague, “It’s him again” and the Bell official then hung up. Cooper continued to roam around mid-town Manhattan with reporters in tow, dialing in to Engel’s office every once in a while and asking, “Can you hear me now?”³

In the 40 years since that first call, mobile phones have brought societal changes, some readily recognized, others not.  Sexting and bullying via cell phone, driving while texting, and cell phone addiction are all extensively discussed in online articles.

Yesterday, though, I came across something that I would never have thought of being abusive – cell phone photography.

There was a time the entire world didn’t have a camera in their pocket—the first thing that cell phones did was to kill the autograph business. Nobody cares about your autograph. There are cameras everywhere, and there are media outlets for them to “file their story.” They take your picture in line for coffee. They’re trying to get a picture of your baby. Everyone’s got a camera. When they’re done, they tweet it. It’s … unnatural. (Alec Baldwin)⁴

Now, I’m not particularly a  fan of Alec Baldwin or most any other celebrity.  However, I do see overt actions of much of the paparazzi as offensive and odious.  It’s a shame that people intrude on the lives of others in that same way with their cell phone cameras.

All I can say is Put….down…. the…. PHONE!

Put it in your pocket. Stow it in your purse.

Be nice.

_____________

Do you have a cell phone?  Smart phone? What about mobile phones annoys you?

¹ Pew Research Internet Project – Cell Phone and Smartphone Ownership Demographics
² Pew Research Internet Project – The First Cell Phone Call: Excerpt from “Networked: The New Social Operating System”
³ Networked: The New Social Operating System by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman © 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
⁴ Vulture (a New York Magazine blog) – Alec Baldwin: Good-bye, Public Life