While sitting staring at the wall and the mass amount of Lego in need of sorting last night, this concept came to me. My creative design skills have pretty much left me, so as I think of these things, I try to complete them to stretch that part of the brain back out. Its chuckle ha ha, not ROFL, but hey it was fun to execute. Enjoy.

Nest building.
Carrying a willow branch back to the nest

This morning I was able to get out to Newmarket and snap a few photos of a rare bird for these parts. Amanda and I had gone out Saturday afternoon hoping to see the Mississippi Kites that have nested in Newmarket. When we got there, there seemed to be nothing there, though now I suspect one must have been in the nest. The regular people were not there logging what they were doing, so we never could find the nest. Today, I was able to get Amanda out the door with promise of Dunkin Donuts after we saw the Kites. It always works to get her moving in the morning when shes still sleeping. ;-) When we got there, there were some very nice people who pointed out where it was, and showed us where you could stand, and using our scope, look at one of the Kites incubating it’s eggs.

Saturday we were able to identify one hunting over the middle school parking lot. It was fairly high up, so none of the photos really came out. It was still fascinating to watch this bird hunt though. The size of a falcon, and a build similar, this bird was amazing. As it zipped through the sky at great speed, all it took was a flick of the tail and it was going in any direction often 90 degrees or more to the direction it had been traveling in. As we learned this morning talking to people in the know, it was apparently hunting dragonflys.

Beyond getting to see such amazing birds as this, it also reminds me that there are some really nice people out there. Most of the time, when you find a group of birders, it doesn’t matter if you know them, you’re immediately welcome, and everyone is helping you spot the birds, and those with spotting scopes are always sharing views with hose that don’t have them.

If you want to see the Mississippi Kites, head West on 152 out of downtown Newmarket. Park at the high school and head own the rd just a bit more. The nest is in a maple between Maple Crest and Pond St on the right hand side of the rd facing away from the school. Its a residential community, so please be respectful that these houses are seeing a lot of people in their quiet neighborhood right now. Most are very friendly. They say hi, and ask if you know where the nest is, etc. There is one house though, where the man is pretty ornery. Apparently he’ll yell at you if you step off the sidewalk onto his lawn, but he’ll walk his little yappy mutt to take a crap on everyone’s lawn but his own… Its pretty easy to pick this one out, white fence to keep the cars and balls and junk & trash contained in his yard. Its on the opposite side of the rd as the nest.

I recently had the pleasure of buying the Lego set 7048, Troll Warship. What immediately caught my attention to the set was just how much you get for your money. The set contains 6 troll warriors that I’ve come to think of as Orcs. It also contains a very cool armored dragon, knight, troll, and dwarve. Add in a ship hull made out of 5 segments, and you’ve got a pretty good set for parts and minifigs.

When I got the set home, I couldn’t help but build it before integrating the pieces into my greater collection. This is something I rarely do, as at this point, I buy lego for the parts or minifigs usually. It has to be a pretty interesting set for me to sit down and build it. I found the build pretty fun. The masts of the ship sit on clicking turn tables, so you adjust them during game play. When your done, the ship also has one of Lego’s newer style flick canons. It uses the springy piece that you put little Lego soccer players on to be able to kick the ball. I do wonder about the over use of this flick canon though. Back when the pirate sets were around, I acrued a rather good amount of canons, that looked like canons. Now I know, you historians will say that knights didn’t have canons until near the very end. Well, the jury is out still about them riding armored dragons too… But what I’m getting at though, is that the ship could have had a more realistic balista or something. Maybe this is what they were going for, and too many years of writing code has destroyed my imagination? Anyway, I still had a lot of fun building it, and it went together quickly.

If your looking for a long build, this might upset you. But where I was looking at the set as a quick pick up for all my armies and an extra ship, I was ok with it. Of course, I also had a little help building, so that might have had something to do with it…

(more after the photos)

As I’ve mentioned, it was a quick build. Almost anyone used to putt ing together sets would find it an easy build… I did however, notice that the colors were off in the manual from the colors of the bricks. Normally not a big deal, but at times they were way off. This is one of the reasons I dislike mega blocks. If your buying it for the set, the colors have been so off it’s hard to tell which one you are supposed to use, especially if your building something predominantly black and grays. The only other draw back, which is much of one, is that the ship hull is a new brown. Not the same as the Viking ship hull, which was not the same as the old Pirate ship hulls. So mixing and matching may look a little weird. Where I plan to make a much larger version of a trol l warrior transport, it may work. Since we wouldn’t expect the trolls to have shiny fancy looking ships. In fact, I would have expected this ship to look a little more hodge podge, a little like, Reavers maybe?

None of this though would deter me from buying this set. Its a great addition to the collection. Its a quick pick up in so many ways of army building you can’t skip it. The play looks like it would be great as well. With firing missiles, spinning  masts, so many minifigs, and details to the ship, its a well rounded set.

A few grips came out early on, most with built in battery, but no shutter release. Following these first entries were a few that utilized IR, much like the remote. Which meant that while you could technically use the vertical shutter release, you had to have the camera in IR mode. A few tests with the IR remote however, show me that if I depress the shutter release, I don’t get half press focus, full press fire. The other thing that lacks is any control over aperture and focus and exposure lock.

I’ve been watching this market since I got the D40, since I knew eventually it was an upgrade ‘d be interested in. When I spotted a grip from Targus, I got excited for two reasons… First it was at least a company making the grip I had heard of before. The second was the fact that the photo (on walmart.com above) clearly showed the grip had controls, and control pins that would act to directly control the camera!

WRONG!

I excitedly ordered the grip from Adorama, who had the same photo as above on their site. As I anxiously awaited it’s arrival I also found it on Walmart.com (as shown above). When it arrived however, it was clearly a different product then pictured.

This is what arrived. I quickly took a photo and put it on flickr in order to show the folks at Adorama they had sent me the wrong thing. I then ordered it from Walmart.com while planning to return the one from Adorama.

The next morning, I awoke to find a note from a person calling themselves an Adorama Customer Support Ambassador had contacted me through flickr. With some back and forth, she put me in direct contact with a sales person at Adorama who tried to help me out the best they could.

Admittedly, with a little more back-and-forth then should have been necessary, I received a return label to send the grip back. Today, I received my order from Walmart… SAME DARN THING! Now from what the Ambasedor told me, it seems Targus is issuing the wrong photo for online retailers!

So this, not to be mistaken for complaining, though I am aggravated, but rather a plea to Nikon to buck up and give us a grip. There are contacts clearly available in the battery compartment, and the battery cover easily comes off. So what’s up Nikon?!

Of course its also is a bit of a WTH? at Targus. If your selling something for visually oriented people, I’d suggest getting the photo right.

Taking the challenge left you feeling heroic? Want to mainline that heroism like some kind of drug? Well then, my friend, click the link below to help spread the challenge around the world.

You’ll be getting your fix and helping a puppet get on prime-time — it’s win-win!

http://puppetchallenge.hoggworks.com/

You can see his other great stuff here http://www.youtube.com/user/MindsfireProductions

SOmething like this scares the hell out of me… My wife is wrapping up a masters in education, and I have friends that are teachers. I mean really, who would have thought that 3RD GRADERS would actually plot to kill their teacher. A 9 year old ring leader? Read that again, out loud if it didin’t hit you…

A 9 year old ring leader.

Got it? K. Here’s the story. God help us.

From: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4576676&page=1

What drives children to dream up especially violent acts? A disturbing case from Georgia involves third graders who allegedly plotted to harm or even kill their schoolteacher. The case raises questions about school violence and what to do when students make threats or plot an attack.
Disturbing case from Georgia raises new questions about school violence.

What drives children to plot murder? How should they be punished? What are the warning signs of a child plotting a violent crime?

I have a talented friend… Yes, yes peanut gallery, settle down. This means you too PSU peeps…

I have a talented friend who is working at getting published. She currently teaches English in a town in Maine I’m familiar with, and I’m guessing is a daily challenge. She has always had a far better command of the English Language then anyone I ever knew, and yet was always friendly and down to Earth. I remember, before time and distance took it’s toll, how we would all sit and listen as she would tell a story about anything one of use would make sound mundane. We would anxiously await the conclusion, and when it came, often an uproar of laughter ensued.

Recently, with some apprehension, she joined the blogsphere. Taking a tip from a now retired literary advisor she knows , ‘Country Mouse’ forged forward with her own blog. You eagle eyed visitors will note I added a link to the blogroll yesterday, but I wanted to bring more attention to her blog, http://magrendel.blogspot.com/.

And for those of you suspect of this post, given that it is April 1st, no foolsies, this is legit, and I’m trying to give a friend that ole’ Brickblog bump. So this goes out to my one visitor out there, click through and check out her writing!