This is not the otter, whose name was Wildcat, but the peacock took better pictures. This is the closest he’s ever let me get.
Tag: zoo
In which these are not the giraffes you’re looking for
I have sung the praises of Potawatomi Zoo more than once in this space; our local zoo is genuinely a highlight of northern Indiana and we’ve been members for quite some time. They’ve recently acquired four new giraffes and have spent a lot of money extensively renovating a large swath of the zoo to construct a proper habitat for them. The zoo is typically closed during the winter, but once a month or so they have Zoo Days anyway, where they open for a few hours, rain or shine, and well, you see whatever you might be able to see. However, today was the first day that seeing the giraffes was possible, and the high today was a rather unseasonable 68 degrees.
We were going to the zoo.
Unfortunately, so was everyone else in South Bend. When we got to the zoo the line to get in was a block long, and the parking lot is a mess under the absolute best of circumstances, and “perfect Spring day featuring the public’s first real chance to see four hotly-anticipated new animals” is, uh, not the best of circumstances. So we did not go to the zoo today. And as soon as we decided we weren’t waiting in the line, much less whatever horror we might have encountered inside the zoo (they were limiting access to the animals, letting in a limited number of people for 10-minute blocks, so who knows how many a “limited number” is) we immediately drove past two perfect parking spaces.
We came home, opened all the windows, and I put shorts on.
There is a 60% chance of snow on Monday. Because Indiana.
If you want to feel like a celebrity for a little while, post the words “looking for an artist” on Twitter. Because holy shit are there a lot of people out there who very clearly have programmed a bot to reply instantly to any use of that sequence of words. And the funny thing is that I can tell from referrals how many people clicked back to the article, where I clearly describe what I’m looking for, and the vast majority of the 43 people who responded to that tweet or however many more who immediately DMed me did not (possibly because they were not human) click through the link on the Tweet to see what I was looking for.
Hilariously, however, I got a recommendation in comments almost immediately, and while I haven’t contacted the artist yet her style is exactly what I had in mind, so I think I’ve got somebody. I’ll take some time tomorrow or later today to go through all the comments I got and then delete the original Tweet just to do my diligence, but … man, asking the Internet for something worked this time.
Today was a nightmare from hell
… but then we went to the zoo and looked at the pretty lights, and that was nice. Have a family zoo train selfie.
Masamba!
You may already know this about me: I am a Zoo Person. If you put me in a new city on limited time and ask me what I want to do while I’m there, chances are I’m going to pick the zoo, if they have one, over any other available activities– and I am a big fan of Potawatomi Zoo, which is our local zoo and is genuinely one of the highlights of the area.
We have a white rhino. His name is Masamba. And I got to pet him today. This was my birthday present from my wife– they only let six people do this a week, and it’s scheduled in advance– and we got to spend about half an hour up close with him. I was expecting to have to provide some sort of food or something to get him to come over to us, but apparently he really likes interacting with people, and despite being way in the back of his enclosure when we came down he came lolloping over right away as soon as his keeper called out to him. Behaviorally, he may as well be a giant puppy; eventually he actually laid down against the fence and just hung out with us.
I was joking about bringing a saddle to ride him all week long, and my wife made it very clear that were I to engage in any shenanigans with the zookeepers or were I to ask any Dad Questions of them, divorce would swiftly follow– but y’all, this big boi would totally have let me ride him. Next time we go to the zoo, I’m coming prepared.
Zoooooooo
So the Louisville Zoo is pretty cool. A couple of these pictures will obviously have stories, which I’ll share later. Time to spend 8 hours in the car and drive to Kansas City.
Guest post this evening sometime, with actual words n’ stuff.
Have a peacock
I have nothing today, but the zoo was fun.
Friday grab bag (ALSO: 1500th post!)
This is my 1500th post. The blog came into existence in June of 2013, so that’s a rather ridiculous number. Clearly the place was appropriately named. I’m closing in on my 200,000th pageview, so I probably ought to start thanking people every day for bothering to pay attention to me at all.- Speaking of thanking people for paying attention, how about a free book? It’s #SilerSaturday again tomorrow, and Skylights is the book of the week. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it does, since this is the first time it’s ever been free other than a handful of little contests and giveaways. It’ll probably go free sometime late tonight and will be free until the wee hours of Sunday morning.
- It hit me today that I don’t really have any funny or interesting stories from school yet. The dynamics of my classes haven’t really changed all that much, although I’m starting to get the afternoon dialed in a bit better (don’t tell them.) I just don’t have anything memorable to say yet. That’s really surprising.
- That said, our district has in its infinite wisdom decided that on Monday and Tuesday of next week every math, language arts and special ed teacher in seventh and eight grade in the entire district is going to be at a training, and that furthermore all teachers new to the district should also be at a training on Tuesday. These two things overlap, of course. How people are expected to attend both is an open question, and the fact that we appear to have no subs at all even on a normal day means that they may as well cancel school. We have 22 people scheduled to be out on Tuesday, plus one of the administrators, and that only because they rioted and insisted that one of them be allowed to stay behind. Yeah. They thought they were pulling 22 teachers and both of the administrators. From every middle school in town, plus the high schools. You understand why I don’t want to work for these people any longer.
- We played a fun game at lunch, called “Try to come up with a way for this plan to be more stupid than it is.” No one won.
- Our zoo acquired four new tigers this week. Four! Omg zoo zoo zoo zoo NOW. I’m going this weekend tigers tigers TIGERS!!!
- I was all psyched about starting to watch Dr. Who this season. Apparently Dr. Who was not all psyched about me starting to watch it. Doing it anyway, show! Screw you!
- That’s all I can think of. Watch Sourcerer tomorrow for another Fear the Walking Dead post, though. And remember: Skylights is free on #SilerSaturday for the first time! It’s a great book! Check it out!
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