another one

The fly and the web
_____________________________
There was a web up in the sky
and in it was a fly
it was wound up tight
about to recieve a spider's bite

all he had to do was wait
for death had him on it's slate

Then out of the blue!
it come not too soon!
From up in the sky!
Freedom came to the fly!

up up up! went the fly
up it went into the sky
it still soars in the sky
Since it did not die

Soon time went by
then came along another fly
but the fly didn't stay away!

for he went in the web's path
and the spider showed his wrath
nothing came to save him
and his life went dim
Never again to take flight
Eyes never to shine bright

and this fly passed away
Never again to see the day
leaving one fly to ponder why
he was the one not to die.

The meal
____________________________
I've been told what I'll eat
but am I to take the seat?
I'm still quite unsure
when this is supposed to occur

I know I'd eat it whole
down into my soul
If I do take a place
I won't be ready for it's taste

But I think I know what it might be
if it's as big as I foresee
and the taste of that I may foresee
which will very like the sea

at first it'll be hard to chew
then it'll be nice and true
then sourness will then come without ease
burning without cease

Then I quickly move it down inside
so that taste will subside
and a new taste soon comes to be
one with sweetness you cannot see

far greater then any dream
unreal as it may seem
this may come to be
but that I cannot foresee

what is it?

Some are given many
rarely you don't get any
some get only a few
what you do with them is up to you

There are too many to see
they stretch farther then the sea
and though they may sought
they cannot be bought

some are bland
while others are quite grand
some last way too long
but other's so short it's wrong

no two are the same
otherwise it'd be a shame

What is it?
What could it be?
though hidden in a tree.
The answer you may see.
that lies within me.

have fun searching the sea

(which is your mind of course :) )

Sprout

Two images of sprout from Thursday, when he molted (yes another male mantis; I wonder if my tendencies to call Sprout "he/him" influenced that :P)
This might be only the third time that I've seen a mantis shortly after they molted (final molt), while the wings were still drying. Sprout's abdomen problem seems to have corrected itself.


pictures of Sprout from yesterday.



Thursday night mom called the doctor's back and a different doctor, once he learned that I was getting sicker (twice as bad on Thursday, then when I went to the doctor on Wednesday) prescribed a Z-pack (I forget what that is, except it's a medication that starts with the letter Z). The previous doctor said it was a virus. It's gotten rapidly better overnight, my runnynose seems to have vanished, and unlike Thursday I actually have energy (probably twice as much yesterday compared with Thursday). If you would've seen how I act when I say Thursday you would've known something was off (I tend to not be sarcastic when I get sick like that, and less energetic. stuff like that).

Don't forget all those people in NC right now, as Hurrican Irene made landfall a few hours ago, my prayers go out to them, and for the people around the DC, and NYC areas. (especially the ones the decided to wait it out).

apparently Aunt Linda and Uncle Jim are sending a caterpillar they saw make a chrysalis (note: didn't come close to spelling that right, until Spell checker helped out :P). It was a pretty big caterpillar too. Two triops still living. (heh, same as last time).

Jauzi

Jauzi, who molted making him a stage 8 mantis, an adult. So now I know that after being born a mantis will molt seven times. Jauzi has wings, which appear to be in perfect condition. Oh did I mention Jauzi is a he? I haven't seen him attempt to fly yet. Sore throat, and drippage greatttt.... (reason why I didn't attend soccer practice today). Either it's a cold, or it's my allergies... What a wonderful sight to see in the morning, a mantis who successfully molted into an adult. I know I gasped, and I definetely jumped out of bed, quite fast. Faster then if there the fire alarm went off probably :P

A pretty loud gasp as well

Well the triop life cycle has begun again, 1-2 days ago for 3 triops and >1 day ago for two others. and possibly I might have 7 more triops, as I put all the remaining bottle caps (that potentially contained eggs) into three small clear plastic dixie cups. I saw 7 floating eggs, which I'm not sure how many, or if any will hatch. I also bought a bag of adult brine shrimp, a 2.5 gallon tank, and measuring cup (all the others we have would most likely have soap which is toxic to aquatic life), a small breeding trap (small for fish, but bigger then the tank I use for triops (which I plan to use to either raise triops or have them lay eggs in (not sure yet). The eggs will contrast pretty well against the black sand (pale eggs on white sand are hard to see hehe). I also got some tubing (for the air pumps), and two airstones. That was all I got from Aquarium Adventure. I also basically finished cleaning my room other then the closest (which sooner or later will need to be cleaned out; soon in all likelihood). Also a few drawers will need to be cleaned out (some small stuff like pencils, and coins, and various small items got put in there today). Ideal ate a Cricket.

Oh and yesterday (Soccer wise) we went to something called Lancaster Preview (hosted by Lancaster) where we played two twenty minute games (normally games are 80 minutes, divided in 40 minutes halves). We played against Lancaster (1-0 win for us), and then against Bloom-Carrol (2-0 win for us) In both games we had complete control, and could have scored a couple more times in each one. I just got to watch (other then warming up)

I don't see any triops so I'm guessing it wasn't long enough or the fact I used water from an opened bottle (aged water that has bacteria and such things weighs more, and triops won't hatch with them) may have caused them not to hatch, or even possibly I didn't get any eggs which might be possible since the eggs weigh more then sand. so in the future I may just scoop with the bottle cap, instead of using a pipette. fed the baby gups some brine shrimp. I really don't need to worry about the salt because gups can stand quite a bit of it, actually the fact it would decrease the salt to water ratio for the brine would be more worry some. According to the wiki gups can stand 150% salt in water of that of regular sea water. I did know they can live in brackish water (those are the bodies of water where freshwater and saltwater meet). While cleaning my room (mostly putting stuff in the closest, which I plan to go through after I put the stuff that's already boxes elsewhere (downstairs probably)). I learned some time ago it's not wise to do it all at once for someone who has adhd as I do, You'll more likely then not give up (to those who don't have it, it all just starts overwhelming you, putting it out of sight for the moment (like in a closest) helps reduce that quite a bit). This way I don't get that overwhelming feeling, which is quite nice. in the last eight days I've watched TV < 2 hours. Those two hours coming in the last two days. Though during a vacation that's kinda common. Also yesterday I kept thinking it was Tuesday, though it was actually Thursday, heh, lost track of days on vacation. A pretty good sign I had a good time :).

I can't put anything else in the closest without it starting to cramp the hanging shirts (keep them from hanging all the way down (some already can't), I wonder if I can borrow a closet. eh, probably not the best idea since it's probably a good sign I should start taking more stuff elsewhere, whether it be the basement or the convenient trashcan that gets emptied every week.

Also the time I've been watching TV is the early morning, when I ate breakfast, and it was the news. I've noticed also in doing this I tend to go to bed around 10:30, which is around a hour to 2 hours sooner then I was otherwise.

Jauzi arrived and looking like Hatchet

Jauzi, the green mantis from Maryland, arrived today at around 11:53.
seemed a little shocked at first, I mean Jauzi was scared of a cricket -_-
which I took out. let the fly and he ate it later after I left. It's quite easy to get him to look where I want, just move a finger, and he'll turn and look at it.
This is probably due to the fact he's a bit wary of me, don't blame him though.

First I ruffle where he lived, then I chased him, put him in a box, though did feed him, took him out of the box, then put him back, then when we set off a flea bomb in the house, I left him in there for around a minute, "oopies" (best way I can describe how silly it was to forget him in there), then I leave him to these crazy people who stuff him in a box, in which he gets bumped around, and when it's opened, who else is the one he sees.

I think the first time I had him look directly at me, I could just feel what he was saying, "you left me with those Crazy people!!! How could you!" I also think he was giving me an "-_-" as well

Jauzi means jump in another language. If I had not already named him, I probably would've named him Axe or something along those lines (hatchet was already used). He has the "Hatchet Condition"
as I'm calling it. This means his right antennea is noticably shorter then his left, just like Hatchet's was. I think it's harder to get a shot of a green mantis then a brown one. Not sure how I'm going to go forward, with that in mind. we lost the scrimmage we had today.

flight back home, home, and the creature

I didn't realize how big Columbus is, I mean there were so many houses! I couldn't believe how many there were. There was a lot. I couldn't believe how big Columbus was, and if Columbus is that big, what would a city like New York look like from the air?

It was amazing just looking out the window, It was great, all except the takeoff and before that.
Having dreams that revolved around flying almost all of the night didn't help at all... It really peaked when the wheels lifted off, around 15-30 seconds later I dared to look outside, turned away, and a few seconds later looked again, and pretty much enjoyed the rest.

I was actually disappointed when it ended... hehe




uh I wasn't supposed to take these pictures of downtown Columbus, but I did. (not supposed to have any electronics on so close to landing or something, but when else was I going to get another chance to take a picture like that?)



around Baltimore


clouds when we were around cruising altitude


You know what's causing the smoke of the two smokestacks (look at the one below full size)... Two nuclear powerplants! a Nuclear powerplant's cooling tower! those things are pretty big, and up there they looked really, really small.


if you look very closely you might be able to see the wind power plants on top of that hill... if you've ever seen on of the blades on those things you know they're huge.


the baby gups (18 of them too) I think they came from sunset, which is surising since I thought it would've been silvette.




that's an eel, we believe it was an american eel. This one was almost 2 feet long I think, I was taking a picture on a rock, I look down on a lower part of the rock, and "what in the world?" well... there it was. I got banned from putting it under anyone's pillow... well... except one pillow, which was mine, but I wasn't about to do that.



I came home and one algae eater was dead, the last triop was dead, or dying (probably dying, it was still twitching), I had 18 gups to catch, a hungry molted Ideal to feed, and a miffed Patch to deal deal with.

I took some of the triop eggs and I'm going to see if they've dryed out I put them in water), if they weren't fully dried then they won't hatch until they do, I also put some brine shrimp hatch mix in a bucket, so I can feed it to the gups later. another interesting day

What it looked the sky looked like from using a normal shot from the camera

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Unnamed mantis eating his second cricket

the evening sky using a setting designed for taking shots of a sunset/sunrise


a video of the mantis, narrated btw, though parts at the end weren't intended...


my cousin Jon got his driving license today. So today I'm basically stuck here since Aunt Linda, and mom took the other car to a girls night out, and Jon has the other one. Uncle Jim was explaining Sonar and the problem of fing oput when a sonar went critical from failure (apparently some of the "microphones" can fail and it will still function). Apparently he was the one who figured out a way to well tell you when it was failing... There were over 400 unknown variables many people had tried it, but it wouldn't work, because none of them took into consideration where these parts were when they failed. He explained this over a big length of time, so I'll be brief, he apparently was the one who found the right way to figure out whether it was failing, as his was done by simulation, not sure quite how, but he made a program that would figure it out, and this program did take into account where these parts were when they failed, and location of the microphones, (and the location of which ones) fail is important since if it's in the center of the array it's more important then one next to it, and so on.

It's a bird!

It's a bird! and I wonder if you can tell what it is? I know of course :P the first one was later after we were going to a different site, and I took this from the stopped car, after I rolled down the window, and it was raining at that time. The bottom two were taken from across a river, a pretty wide one, and actually I was using a telescope that someone was kind enough to let me look through, way too far for my zoom to A. get that small and B. get that good of a picture Another person got a way better picture of a blue heron catching a fish, though he had one of those 400 some dollar cameras. This is a bird I had never actually seen before, and still not from too close.




I just hope I don't come back home and find like 20-30 little baby fishies swimming around, especially not non-guppies, since that would mean, I have more then the guppies to worry about breeding -_-

that means you, albino bronze cories... (that happened before when I came back from a vacation years ago)...
I already had a dream about that, which I believe was last night, though in reality I would be like :DDDDDDDD (attention: please help me find my jaw which fell off my face) <- only if that did happen (cories breeding)

at first it'd be a drat, then a few seconds later it'd be :D x a google (a 1 with a hundred zeros following it) AKA 1x(10^100)

I'm somewhat prepared for that, I have the food I had last time which was for guppies before I had, had any babies before (that food isn't necessary for them, I can crush flakes small enough for them, so I didn't use it). And I had that 2.5 gallon available

Oh dang... I left the goldfish in there... whoopsies... ehe hee (if you take it out, please be careful in looking for the net you don't accidently kick the container which I put the bottle caps where I put sand that I thought had the triop eggs in them, The net's not over there anyways, I think it's under the 55 gallon. don't step on the wet sock btw. I'm don't remember where I put that... Note: when water gets on the aquarium, in this case it was when I filled the 2.5 by putting the 2.5 gal on the 55 gallon's water surface and letting water run in it, I usually wipe it off with the first old shirt or sock that's old I see, usually from the day previous, now if there isn't one I'll just change socks/or just use the ones I had been wearing.)

The sun's set by now here(8:08)
PTYAL (post to you all later) :)

Trip up to Maryland

Dad reminded me that I didn't need my cable, as long as Uncle Jim had a way to upload from the SD flash card, which he did. You know what that means? I can upload the pictures after all :D

so here are some of the trip up.

When we were almost here I looked back and was like "what in the world? The sun's setting already?" I was reminded that the sun sets/rises around a hour earlier here then back in Ohio, the differance between the two places is noticable obviously.

at our second stop, this one for food at the cracker barrel


the chinese torture chamber :P
you see that square? If you pull that out you get a seat, one of two, one of which I was using.

A time when I was able to get a shot like this, but the view of miles of forest was pretty constant throughout the trip, and close to the end, after the sun was set, we came across some deer, Uncle Jim counted around 15 or something.

Very interesting picture of the earth.


two pictures of the sun setting the first at around 7:55:33 and the second at 7:56:12 (clock is set to my watch which appears to be around 3-2 minutes slow. or did I set it later? *shrugs

The differance is the fact in the second one I zoomed in on the sun, and in the first one I didn't other then that it's unaltered. The zooming appears to have made quite a differance in the look of the picture though, it was my best of the day I'd say that. Might beat all the ones from today, but only in looks.



So far so fun :D

Great ride to Maryland first of all. I got some nice pictures too, but I didn't bring the cord to upload photos for my camera, so no pictures can get posted until I get back. I also got some nice photographs today too.

Clear skies for the whole trip there as well. I sat in the seat that Unlce Jim dubbed, a form of chinese torture. He thought one of us would be strangling him sooner or later... guess not, it wasn't that bad, though around the end of the trip I was getting a bit sore. I'm withholding some details until I'm able to upload the pictures. Also I'm sleeping in the room with the computer, though so far it's not the computer that's keeping me up, no instead it's the books in the room, which have to do with warfare in the 1900's, quite interesting to read about all the different ships.

We saw some birds today. Also the window which is right behind where I would put my head when I sleep is open, allowing me to hear all the insects, and I'll tell you there's quite a bit at night, but I love that. I kinda wish we were driving back just because it was such a nice trip down that way. Though the fact I don't like planes that much does play into that as well :P

fish went well, swimming with the fishes if you know what I mean. I didn't think it would live personally. One of the triops died, and I saw one eating the other, which I didn't interfere with, mostly done anyways.

during a scrimmage I scored a goal :D x50

that was one of the things I wanted to do was score a goal (since I'm on defence that's not too common) but coach put me at striker after I was goalie for ten minutes (our goalie was late). later in the final 1/4 of the game I played defence again.

I was striker for a little more then half the game, got an assist too.

I scored on a header, when a cross was played in on a corner kick. It looked absolutely perfect, I think I heard heavenly music playing in my head as well :P

the fish, which I took from the puddle. Not in a good state what so ever. I put some chemicals in to reduce stress, which is very important. Fortunately the puddle's PH was very high, and when mixed with bottled water (2/3 bottled 1/3 puddle water) yield the same PH as my 55 gallon fish tank, so I took the water from that tank and put in into the 2.5 gallon one I just bought. The other two goldfish that were put into the puddle were dead. I'm guessing the puddle's PH was around 8. The goldfish were probably raised around 7 PH water, too much shock probably.

poor fish...

this one (unnamed)'s tail fin is in pretty bad shape. poor thing




on another note I've come to the conclusion Ideal is trying to kill himself...
by eating so much food :P

he ate another cricket just when I thought "surely he can't eat another one". He proved me wrong... oh, silly mantid...

Ideal, Sprout, and the fish

someone on our soccer team put a few feeder comets (goldfish) into a puddle of water. I debating what I'm going to do... taking them is the first option, but in what, plus he seems a little protective of them, when I touched one. plus what would I do with it? they could grow bigger enough to cause the other fish problems as well. I think they bought the fish just so they could do that too. It really bothers me... (did I mention really?)

Now for Ideal

I think this picture looks better full size, as do most of the ones of the mantises.

Well, I let you imagine what I think about the next one. (actually next three)




the picture pretty much explains itself (I couldn't resist :P)


Sprout didn't give me as much as Ideal. He seems to be more cautious around me then Ideal is, probably due to the fact for Ideal, I've always been around. The first thing I did was feed him, while the first thing I did to Sprout (besides watching him) was catching him.

Ideal: day 75

Phoenix. Swift. Snips. Shorte. Mystery. Stiki. Four unnamed mantids.
Hatchet. Munch. Ideal.

All of these I kept, which makes a total of 12 I tried to raise from little nymph to adulthood. Sprout isn't, but with him that makes 13.
6 from the first, and 6 from the second. (Sprout doesn't count exactly)

Pheonix, Mystery, Stiki, and the four unnamed mantids were all from the first eggsack, of which none survived.

Hatchet, Munch, Ideal, Swift, Snips, and Shorte were from the second container. Hatchet, Ideal, and Munch were ones that didn't fall out when I shook it. the other three were ones that caught my interest by their looks.

As for Sprout the eggsack that he comes from is unknown, but if I had to guess it'd be the first one. I think I spread most of the second one deeper in the ravine, while the first one closer to the house, in particular the spot where I found Sprout, so it's very likely Sprout's from the first one.

Ideal looking around

Ideal sitting tight.

I hate to burst your bubble Ideal, but those fish are not food for you -_-

Ideal climbing up the arm of the chair


Mantis terrarium #2 complete, Ideal moved in at around 12:30 PM. :D

strange I was planning on adding Ideal's age in days, and I was surprised when I saw learned it turned out that Sprout was exactly 75 days old today.

Sprout is either 78 or 75 depending which eggsack he's from, but most likely he's 78.

Hatchet: Final shots.

Hatchet a few hours before I attempted the preservative measure, a few hours before death. Probably 3-4 hours before death. I wasn't particularly interested in a look good shot, for obvious reasons. I took them as a log of his size, for when he died. The first one is the best, and the second one is the last, and best on showing size in Metric units.




a picture of Sprout eating his first fly today. (yes, first. I was took a chunk of time to feed/ care for the mantises today. A result of the obvious... Yesterday it was geared towards finding another one, to no avail...).



Sprout's last molt did something, I'm not sure what happened but I know what you see above isn't what it's supposed to look like. His abdomen sags, brought down with gravity. The point where it does this is right behind the part where the wings will grow out of when the final molt is completed. And I think Sprout only has one more left. I'm not sure what will happen when he does molt. It is worrisome. Unlike the other two years where I've been unsuccessful in getting an adult mantis I have more then one, not only that I have a possible source for adult mantises. We went to Jack's aquarium (we were going to go to a different one, but I remembered that mom had said one of the people at Jack's aquarium had said something about tons of praying mantises on the back door). If he finds one I'll know. It'd be an adult since it's quite obvious after seeing where he found them, that to get there they'd have to fly there. Probably drawn by the light, and the other bugs around it. I just don't feel good about my odds of getting a pair out of two mantises, plus the fact I don't know if I'll even get an adult none the less two adults.

Now there's something you don't see every day. It appears to be a mating pair of parasitic wasps.

pictures of Ideal, who I let climb on a chair, since I wanted to get a good picture of him, which is difficult since he just keeps moving whenever he's in my hand. It did the trick, he stopped at the top of it and I got to take some better pictures of him. He sure lives up to his name... love the contrast he has, especially between his head, and his eyes. My favorite, now at least... (I raised him from the beginning, Sprout I didn't otherwise it may be different). I think I liked Hatchet more though, but obviously the situation has changed...




As a side note, at Jack's aquarium I got two dozen crickets (for the mantises, as flys are getting harder to find), a ten gallon glass aquarium (the intention is to make in into a second Mantis terrarium, for Ideal), a reptile lid for that ten gallon aquarium (works for mantises too), and a 2.5 gallon aquarium (for triops possibly, if not then probably for any potential guppy babies in the future).