Okay… nobody freak out or anything… but… I guess I’m back. For a bit. You know, just until JFargo gets his computer back on its feet or something….
We spent Easter weekend down at my parents’ place in Moab, Utah, and I confess I didn’t spend much time photographing bugs. But as I was heading out the gate one morning I noticed this spider literally fluttering in the breeze. Well, if by “fluttering in the breeze” you understand me to mean “hanging from a single loop of silk and flapping terrified in the wind.” I was so surprised to see her there that I ran back in the house and grabbed the camera.
When I got back, she was still flapping all over the place and making this terrified high-pitched EEEEeeeooooEEEEEooooEEEEooo noise. It was very sad, except that I was too busy laughing. Then she crawled up her silk line, grabbed the gate railing and held on with all eight legs, and then barfed.
Have you ever seen spider yack before? It’s completely fictional!
I think this is Araneus diadematus, the gemmed garden spider, but she was only about 5mm long or so, so either she’s still a baby or not really A. diadematus. Only time (or a real entomologist) will tell.
In other news, it’s good to be posting on the site again. I would not say that I have enjoyed my hiatus, but I have certainly put the time to good use. I have been publishing open source software every day over at http://github.com/dbrady (don’t bother if you’re not into programming), and I have been working on building some software that will let us all collaborate together on InsectPOD, much the same way that people can contribute directly to http://www.icanhascheezburger.com or http://www.ihasahotdog.com.
I won’t be returning to anything like a 7-day-a-week schedule, but I’ll try to keep the site “lively enough” for a while. InsectPOD was a project I set out to do, and I set some goals for the site. I never told people what they were, because I didn’t want people “gaming the system”, but the end result is that the site went in a completely different direction than I had originally intended. I failed to reach a single one of my goals with the site, but the discoveries I made along the way were wonderful. Thank you all for the discoveries about blogging, photography, and especially myself, that I made along the way.
Posted by JFargo on
April 15, 2009 at 8:47 am
· Filed under News
Hey folks,
Some of you know this because you read my blog, and some of you know this because you read The Pooch Page, but I had some really serious computer problems this weekend, resulting in a loss of almost every picture I’ve taken.
My backup also didn’t work, mostly because you have to HAVE a backup in order for it to work.
Yes, I realize that not backing up the pictures makes me dumb, and what-not, but it happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. Once I get the restore disk, I might be able to just reinstall the OS, and still have all my information, but we’ll see.
Right now, I have to take a break. I don’t have the pictures on this computer, and am working too much to take more. As soon as that computer is fixed (which should be shortly) I’ll be on it and have this up and running again, but until then please be patient?
This is another reason to go to the Washington DC Zoo. It’s free, and they have a huge insect exhibit.
Now, behind glass, I find this thing to be awesome. If I were to see a Giant Centipede crawling around on the floor I’d probably scream like a little girl.
Sometimes I forget that not everybody is as into bug photography as I am.
We were out for a walk, me, my wife, and her parents, touring the local garage sales. They love to go garage saling, and since they were visiting us for the week (yes, the whole week*) we decided we’d go along with whatever they wanted to do on the weekend. Generally, even though my wife and I aren’t into garage sales, it was nice. Got us out of the house, at least.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I turned and grabbed my camera, then saw this gorgeous spider in her web. My wife’s parents turned, “ooh, what do you see? A bird?”
Um, no. I pointed out the spider and it’s cool web.
“Oh.” The word fell like a brick at my feet. The following words were like mortar falling into a deep well. “A spider. Why are you wasting your camera space on that?”
I tried to explain, but they didn’t get it. It’s okay though; they still love me like a son-in-law. They just think I’m a little strange.
I think Andrew Lin is going for the prestigious “Most Bugs Submitted to Insect POD” award that may or may not actually exist*, and I think that’s awesome. Of course, if some other people wanted to get in on that action, all they’d have to do is snap pictures of really cool bugs, like this brightly colored Stink Bug here. You know, I’ve never seen them in any color other than brown?
The internet is weird. Or maybe I’m just getting old at 29. It seems to me a strange concept that not only can I talk to somebody who lives on the opposite side of the world, I can share photos with that person too, and that I can then put that picture on a website to share with the world. Literally, the world.*
It just blows my mind that not only am I sharing this site with a few good friends who have a penchant for cool bugs, but with hundreds if not thousands of others. That’s so cool! It’s a good thing I don’t get stage..fright..
Um. This picture is a bug. It hops. It’s green. It’s also from a far away land. New Zealand. Earl did it. Thanks. Bye!
*Unless we’re being blocked by the great Chinese Firewall, or whatever, but you get my point.
They move fast, just a blur at the very end of your peripheral vision. You look, too late to know what horror is now lurking under a book you haphazardly placed on the floor. It must have been your imagination; you don’t see anything.
But it’s there. Lurking. Waiting. And it wants to EAT YOUR FLESH!
Well, okay, to be fair it wants to eat your already dead flesh that’s just kind of sitting around in the form of dust, and maybe it’d prefer already dead bugs to the taste of human skin, but that doesn’t make these things any less creepy!
Thanks again, Andrew Lin, for a really good photo. Creepy, but good.
I decided that I wasn’t going to go for a really good sight gag, mostly because I didn’t have one. Instead, I thought “What better day than to meld together my site with this one, especially with such an absolutely awesome picture submitted by Sindi Samis of her Jack Russell Terrier, and this honey bee? Yeah!”
This is a boy Luna Moth, you can tell because of the beard.
Okay, that’s not scientific fact, but I feel as though should be. If something has a beard, it’s a boy, right?
I’m on vacation this week, so I’m going to keep this short: I love Luna Moths! Thanks go to my buddy Brett for sending in a bunch of photos he took of this one. You have seen this Luna Moth before, but not from this angle, which reveals more of its underbelly. Thanks Brett!
This little guy is just poking his head* out of his hiding place to wish David a Happy Birthday! Everyone, show the man a little love. Without him, this site wouldn’t exist, and the world would be slightly worse off.
I chose a fuzzy little caterpillar because I love the quote David always pulls out for them and makes me think that he has a special place in his heart for them: “There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly” - Buckminster Fuller.
Moved InsectPOD to a new server last week due to some performance problems; new server much worse. Apologies. Will fix. Stay tuned. Follow insectpod on Twitter!
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Moved InsectPOD to a new server last week due to some performance problems; new server much worse. Apologies. Will fix. Stay tuned.