Friday, August 05, 2011

Red-necked Phalaropes on the Jago River Delta








































Son took this photo in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge putting his iPhone up to a Swarovski spotting scope!

19 comments:

  1. Howard's got First!

    Gorgeous pic, listener ~~ that kid didn't fall far from the tree. . . .

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  2. Bill Thomasson8/05/2011 10:37:00 AM

    It is a nice pic, especially considering the circumstances under which it was taken.

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  3. Polar Bear Kills British Tourist in Norway
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14415592

    This took place in the Arctic, the group had had bear training, and had shotguns along, and had bear flares around their campsite. I'm praying a bit harder for Son today.

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  4. Thanks, puddle. ♡

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  5. http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=renee

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  6. Same thing happened again today. I'm pretty sure it's the phone line and not Earthlink, and not my computer. But it's invisible: I have a dial tone, and can make calls. Just can't get online. Tired of this, I am.

    Plus side, I got a whole lot of work done, lol!

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  7. This is definitely not okey dokey!

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  8. Something else about yesterday's conversation with the acting department chair. I had no idea she was such a freaking ice princess. In an attempt to impress upon her how important these subbing opportunities were to me, I remarked that I was wondering at this point if I needed to seriously consider donating plasma, and she said something along the lines of, "Well, you'll have to decide what's right for your own situation." Nice empathy there.

    And then, I revisited the fact that not only had she promised to include me on the subbing list, but she agreed when I asked to have those messages sent to my Gmail address (rather than my school e-mail account) which comes to my phone, so I could see them right away, she said she hadn't thought that through at the time. But upon further reflection, she realized that the "fair" thing to do was to give the instructors who were teaching the summer sections first dibs on subbing opportunities.

    Yes, of course, the "fair" thing to do is to offer EXTRA hours to the folks who ACTUALLY GOT TEACHING CONTRACTS FOR THE SUMMER. These are the people who, most likely, will also be teaching again in the fall, whereas I most likely won't. And I can only sub if I've taught the previous quarter, so it is pretty much now or never for me. Oh, and she actually said something like "a few subbing hours weren't going to make that much difference for you". How about letting me decide that?

    What has me kicking myself is that, at one point, she actually DID say she was sorry for not letting me know about her change of mind--or even getting back to me when I contacted HER. She said, "Sorry, I did drop the ball on that one." I wish I'd had the presence of mind to press her to make it up to me in some SMALL way by letting me be included in the sub req uest e-mails for the remaining weeks of the quarter. Especially since, the way she explains it NOW, the system is being restructured in such a way that I'm pretty much guaranteed not to get assigned any more classes.

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  9. Yikes, Renee!! *♥*

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  10. How about sending a nice, brief email to all the related instructors letting them know you are available this month?

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  11. Demetrius said something along those lines. Since H said that she had made this decision, that sort of direct contact with the instructors would be perceived as "going over her head".

    I am preparing to sub for K on this coming Tuesday. He is an associate professor and has actually been there since I first started teaching. Right now I am focussed on preparing for that--it's subject matter I haven't covered before. K *used* to supervise adjuncts, and once upon a time was one of the people to do in-class observations and write-ups. When he did write evaluations of my teaching, they were positive.

    Anyway, he's one of the people I sense *could* be helpful to me--maybe even as an ongoing contact outside of that setting once I'm no longer there in any official capacity. So I have to be careful about how I play this.

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  12. In other news, I've taken on the task of taming Dango's former cagemates.

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  13. I have a friend in Ontario who has "Ratleys" ~~ I've loved hearing about hers. . . .

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JqaXA41pvNc/TFTSWX1k0VI/AAAAAAAAGak/QzMxka0AlLE/s1600/Dame+Margo+of+Toronto.jpg

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  14. May all go smoothly and bear much fruit! ♥

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  15. I guessed right--it was on Svalbard.

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  16. Ally's color is really good!

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  17. Hmmm....kinda like our phone line problem a while back--had a dial tone, could call out fine--but not the other way. And computer connections are bidirectional.

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  18. Cute photo! But I don't understand "ratley."

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  19. The color reminds me of Dango, except the one in the picture is "top eared". Which is to say that she's got regular rat ears, as opposed to the Dumbo variety. It amuses me that there's a special word for regular ears now.

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