Stalin Sculpture - Richmond BC

Driving to Jeremy's wedding, we saw this sculpture, so i stopped to take photos on the way back.
Forgive my vanity, some of the shots are composed to include my reflection.

Its in answer to an old question from an art teacher from my youth: "where are you in your artwork?"

There, in the center, just to the right of his ear.

Tip o' the hat to Alfred Hitchcock!

Writing Field Trip

I kind of chickened out.  I didn't really write anything.  Lets face it, i'm NOT a writer.
Today, I didn't feel like a photographer either.
There are just some days, you can't get firing on all cylinders.  Today was one.
I did get a very few adequate (barely) shots.  These will look ok on the web, just don't look too closely.

Later we went and saw Iron Man 2.  Good movie.  Better than "Adequate" -JC Hutchins!

Taj 3rd Bday (3rd photoset)

A few more photos from Taj's third birthday.
A slide show this time.
If you view these pics on a mobile device / prefer that I not use a slide show, please leave a comment.

20100502 Almos 3rd Bday - Taj pics

Although it was Almos birthday, Taj put in his appearance.
He checked out all of the festivities and gifts
located his portion of the ribs,
and was quite content to finish them off.

If viewers can please let me know which you prefer, Pictures or Slide show, I would greatly appreciate it!


Grand Entrance:

From 20100502 Almos 3rd Bday - Taj pics

Mmm enrichment.. mmm



Wall appetizer


Let me eat cake!



NOM!

20100502 Almos 3rd Bday (1)

This is post 1 of at least 3 sets.
I have to many to post all at one time.
I will cross post to the Cougar Mountain Zoo facebook page.

Published!!!

UPDATE: Yep.. URL when its online!

Just heard back from a local paper and I may have a picture published!

How kewl is that?

From Taj 3rd Final

Date: 2010:04:11 13:37:16Camera: Canon EOS 20D

Exposure: 1/2000

Aperture: f5.0

ISO: 400

Focal length: 135

Happy 3rd Birthday Taj

Apologies to my CMZ friends. I was waiting to hear back from someone before I posted these. Sorry for the delay.

Taj was in rare form (as was Almos), great fun was had, many presents were destroyed, and 2 slabs of ribs were consumed.

It was great messy fun, and many thanks to Robyn Barfoot for affording me a great spot to take these photos.

"Johnny Depp" or It's the camera I had with me.

Saw this great mural in Tacoma today and grabbed these pics with my
iPhone.

I'll try and get back later this week with my Canon and grab a few better pics.

The Littles

The smaller guys were playful today as well



Tip of the hat to the photographers I met today!

Big guys

The "bigs" were out in all their glory.

Baby Joey (Wallaby) @ CMZ

His coming out day was today.

Kinda shy little guy, and sticks close to mom.

My own google superbowl commercial

Bebo pic

For my wife and friends who like Bebo

From Sculptures

Tulips 2010

This was a fun 1 day vacation. Much good food was consumed. Fine wines were enjoyed

with great friends. The weather was spot on. Cloudy for good pictures, sunny for shopping.

I scored a great year of the tiger shirt. =^.,.^=

Thanks RB and JK for an awesome time.

The trip was based on advice by a great philosopher:

'Life moves pretty fast; and you don't stop and look around once in a while, you're gonna miss it.'"

Tiger Soze

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he
is harmless. -Tiger Soze

Killed it

NOM!
It's so great to have friends with great taste in wine… and friends.

One day escapes are great.

Thank you RB & JK!

Next: off to see tulips

Spring Sakura

The first signs of spring for me are the sakura (cherry blossoms or flowering cherry). I can remember my aunt performing the Japanese song "Sakura" and associate it with spring to this day.

It's spring here

Spring is here if the cherry blossums
are out.

Kitteh: hope and change

that you are going to give me more of that nom milk!

my litterbox!

Playing with a new app and could juuust not resist.

Props to Raine; Hope was her idea.

Symantec = Suck ???

Thought is was funny. In tech. one constantly has a love/hate relationship with software (espec. security) vendors. Sometimes an IT person tips over the edge:

Attention Symantec, makers of the Norton products - you suck. Your website sucks. Your product interface sucks. Your subscription renewal 'process' sucks. The fact that you've decided to hide the Norton Internet Security Add-on pack as a secret download, yet still advertise it as an included feature on the webpage and product box sucks. Your technical support sucks. Your embedded help sucks. Your on-line knowledge base sucks. The fact that you have over-priced your piece of crap product by roughly 300% above what it's actually worth sucks. You are up to your corporate necks in massive suck. If you sucked any more, it is entirely possible that the suck factor in your immediate neighborhood would surpass the Hawking threshold, resulting in an implosion and catastrophic collapse of the local Swartzchild Radius and the formation of a new black hole. I.e. You SUCK! The only reason you are still in business is because you've got a fat, juicy government contract to supply suck to the US Military and other Government Agencies - that and the fact that your chief competitor sucks even worse than you do.

Tigertiger vid

Little cat playing again.

Stalking

I'm not always sure if he is playing or sizing me up for lunch.

I hope its being friendly.

Jan 23. Almos and Bahgira

Almos and Bahgira were being cooperative today. Almos was being friendly and came over to chuff.

Bahgira is getting to be a BIG boy and is somewhere north of 72kg.

TigerTiger Video test

Just to see if i can do it.

The guys are getting bigger

Vitez was busy playing in the mud before I got to the zoo.
Baghira was just tired from playing.

Both are getting bigger, B is 160 lbs. He's gonna be a BIG tiger.

Kitty cast

Little Sanpei/TigerTiger hurt his foot. Here he is with his little
kitty cast on. You wouldn't know it thought. He runs around and
pesters the big cats like nothings wrong.

Little tiger

Ok, I'm a little bored, have a camera handy and am living with a new kitten.
Little Sanpei (tiger tiger) is quite active and entertaining.

The little orange helmet was just too cute to pass up. Sorry Sanpei

SanPei

Run, Sleep, Play... A kitteh's day is never done!

Contact info

Contact info:

Being watched??

From 1206CMZ-Blog

Taj was not feeling particularly energetic today, i think he was being pensive.

From 1206CMZ-Blog

Almos seemed to be watching me..

From 1206CMZ-Blog

I'm not sure if thats a good thing

From 1206CMZ-Blog

Even Vitez seemed to be keeping an eye on me.

I can has tiger

OMG.. My buddy is famous! The tiger, not the baby.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I wonder if I can get an autograph.

November 11

Yes.. More tigers :-D

Cold and wet day, wet tigers.

Baghira was playing with a small rock, and his brother Vitez was in a very playful mood.

Taj was very camera shy today.

Little faces

Look at these little faces.

Well maybe not so little any more..

Bhagira and Vitez are getting closer to 100 lbs.

Happy Halloween!

Tigers and pumpkins!!!

[ CONTENT OVERRIDE: KILROY2.0 IS HERE!!! ]

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human cloning isn't NEAR. it's already HERE. discover the truth at http://JCHutchins.net
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3 Sumatrans, 2 Bengals, 2 Bengal cubs, 170 miles = 1300 pictures.

The first tiger in this set is the new male at Pt. Defiance Zoo. His name is yet to be chosen, I'm voting for Bali. He got some "enrichment items" for his introduction to the public. They included a "Popsicle" and a pumpkin with some hamburger inside. Sadly when he went to investigate the pumpkin, he knocked it into his pool. He seemed to really enjoy the Popsicle, as he drug it up the hill and hid in the shadows with it. The keepers were saying that they will try and get him and Jaya to eventually breed hopefully.

Jaya is in this set as well. She was being photogenic as usual, if not a little shy, hiding in the back of the 2nd enclosure.

Java was mostly hiding in the shade of a third enclosure. I got only a few pictures of him and only one worth posting.

I won't post the rest of this set just yet, per request.

More fall color

And sometimes the fall color is just everywhere.

I should keep my camera on me at all times. Of course, if I did that it would take me hours to get to my next client appointment every day.

Well, today it was just easier to take pictures in the backyard.

Click on the pictures to see the full size versions.

October 17th.

Todays visit was pretty wet. Storm cleared long enough to allow a few pictures.
Almos was in the Phase I enclosure and was cooperative.

The cubs Bhagira and Vitez were brought into the glass enclosed area and were playing and talking to Almos and the Cougar Nashi. Bhagira was running back and forth and Nashi was following him.

October 11th.

I didn't realize any of these would come out. I was lucky enough to get a few pictures of Nashi the Cougar.
It seems that it was a very snoozy day for the tigers Taj and Almos. Nashi was so alert because he had just been given his enrichment treats. You can see some hamburger hidden in the enclosure.

Windoze 7 for my work laptop.

Well, work just gave me a new drive with win7. YAAAWN.
Friends are having win7 rollout parties to get free copies.

Its pretty vista, new significant new gadgets. Seems every so slightly faster.
On the flip side, IE seems ever so less stable. Perhaps it was the AJAX page i was pulling up.

Color me unimpressed.

CMZ 3-Oct-09

The big guys are still being tempted into their new enclosure. Their big tiger ball was moved down the connecting tunnel, which Almos retrieved and brought back to the phase 1 area.

Since Almos and Taj are still happy in their current area, their little friends get to play in the larger phase 2 enclosure.

Tail of 2 Tigers and 2 Cubs

September 26th, Tale of 2 Tigers event at Cougar Mountain Zoo.

Taj and Almos were to be introduced to their new enclosure. Unfortunately, they didn't cooperate. I think there was a little stage fright goin' on. The ever-creative curator Robyn, had a plan B. The cubs Vitez and Bhagira got to go play in the new enclosure, as did all of us visitors. There are some pictures in the sequence.

Rough Play

These big boys play rough.
When their paw connect, you can hear the thwap.
They are connecting, but without claw extended.
I could only imagine if they were serious what would happen.
At the end of combat, they groom each other.

CMZ 12-Sep-09

To get good at photography, take pictures of the same type of subject.

Java from Point Defiance Zoo (Tacoma)

I have not been to PDZA very often. I will be going more this year as my sweet wife got me a membership.

Sunday, Java was out, so pictures of him:

Vitez and Baghira Tiger cubs

Yes, more pictures of the tiger cubs.
Vitez is the little royal white, and Baghira is the standard orange cub.

Too cute to not post.

Tiger cubs attempt zoo-break

Tigers are crafty little creatures. On a recent trip to Cougar Mountain Zoo I captured photographic evidence to prove this hypothesis.

Watch as these two 11 week old cubs plan and execute an escape attempt.

Ever wary zoo general curator Robyn Barfoot, foiled said attempt.

UPDATE: 8-Sep-2k9 Enlarged to 600x400 slide show

Encounter with a Bengal Tiger

Once in a lifetime...
Hardly! I will do this again if I am able.

His "nickname" is Titan, he does not yet have a formal name. There is a contest the zoo is putting on to give him an official name. Tigers deserve names that befit them.

Very playful little guy (18kg) at 11 weeks. The fur isn't soft like a kitten, but slightly wiry. Under the fur, its all muscle. Sasha said he was doing the "tigger" thing today, bounding around. At just under 3 months old he is definitely a tiger. The experience was very much like playing with a 10-12 month old German Shepard puppy. You KNOW he is powerful, and must respect him (he deserves that).

Robyn's friendly reminder "18 claws and 30 teeth" rings in my ears. He did charge me a few times and brushed me with his paw, his claws retracted. He knows that he is just playing with me, the stuffted toy will not fare so well.

Tiger Cubs - August 8, 2009

These little guys are too photogenic.

All 20 lbs, 18 claws and 30 teeth. (Thanks Robyn)

On Tuesday I get to play with the orange one. They don't have names yet.

Cubs

The new cubs at Cougar Mtn Zoo are just too adorable to not photograph.

Baby Tiger Cubs.. The cute.. it burns!

 

gogo dancer

Yes. That's the name on the side of the plane.

What would Stephen Colbert say?