Summer Photos

To start off the end of my break from posting, here are some photos that I find very intriguing to the sense of sight, enjoy. :) Click to enlarge any picture, their quality is better when enlargened.

A Normal Day Blended With Texas Heat

This little life event, I like to call it, took place when my computer crashed for awhile and when I have nothing to do I spend most of my time outdoors and I like to describe everything when I think and write but, if this story is somehow boring, I'd actually like to know, it's just an average day for me and I like to share life, anyhow here's the story.

The last day of June, on this day was both scary and interesting on this short travel with my bicycle. First off at the beginning of this trip, my bicycle didn't want to agree with me as the gears kept on shifting as I kept on riding because the chain wasn't on the right gear axle and every time I fix it it just kept on screwing up, troublesome I thought. Second, Texas heat and humidity is terrible, just getting to Central Market which is only about 2 miles away from my house severely dehydrated me. So I stopped by to get a drink, I pulled out a chair in the outside lounge area but before I sat down I needed a drink so I started to head to the vending machine. Before I arrived, a lady who worked for Central Market in her late 50's or early 60's with her hair that looked like it had the length of about three feet was bound in a hair net, however she came before me. She asked, " You can go before me?" I said politely, " No, no that's okay you can go ahead of me." So she slipped in her 50 cents in the machine and pushed the Diet Coke button but as she was doing this she asked, "Do you need any change?" I said, "No thanks ma'am." After she received her Diet Coke she said, "I don't want to open it just yet because it will explode from falling out the vending machine so fast." I laughed a little and said, "Yeah, you've got to watch out for that, I usually tap on the top of the can to help and prevent it from exploding out." She said with a laugh, "Yeah I do the same thing." Then she walked away.

After that I went ahead and put in my two quarters then pushed for a Dr. Pepper. I sat down as I opened my drink, which didn't explode, then I pulled out my Ipod and my cigarettes. I put on my earphones, scrolled down the menu to The Jayhawks, pushed the OK button then selected the song entitled Angelyne, lit my cigarette, took a sip of my Dr. Pepper then a gulp and relaxed while listening to good music. Once The Jayhawks quit singing my cigarette was only halfway down so I switched the artist to Hem, a wonderful female country singer, I selected the song All That I'm Good For. I chugged more of my Dr. Pepper, took another drag, and rested some more with her singing through my head. Once my Dr. Pepper and cigarette was finished with, I happened to decide that I wasn't fully replenished with energy yet. But it doesn't help to be smoking and drinking a soda when you're doing any kind of exercise but strangely it never bothers me though. So I sat some more, I was all alone no one was near, I was just by myself, thinking, lost in thought. I casually pulled out another cigarette, lit it, puffed it, and... well relaxed while still listening to Hem sing. After she quit singing I only finished a quarter of my KOOL 100 cigarette. So I switched the artist to Israel Kamakawiwo 'Ole and that sweet song Somewhere Over The Rainbow. During the song I stared at a huge, old Live Oak Tree that is at least 500 years old in age. While looking at the tree Sparrows were flying around, playing, fighting, and even resting in the Live Oak. I gracefully thought just how incredible it is just to view nature in it's own habitat, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Anyhow not long during that both the song and my cigarette were finished with.

I put up everything and packed it in my backpack but before I went to get my bike off of the bike rail, I decided to get two more Dr. Peppers for the road, and of course, they didn't have any waters in the vending machine the waters were sold out or I would have bought water. After which I rode off and turned left to go down the driveway ramp, while heading down I noticed a 2004, tan, Toyota Camry right behind me following me. As I was going down, I obeyed the stop sign ahead as another car a 2005, dark grey, Honda Accord pulled up to the stop sign perpendicularly left to mine. So I slowed down with my foot grazing the asphalt while I applied the brakes, the Toyota slowed down and when I stopped I waved at the Honda to pass by. Then I went on riding along Patterson Road and rode off to the Nature Trails while listening to Hem's All That I'm Good For song once more, I just couldn't get enough of that song.

As I was riding along I noticed that I was becoming very sweaty and hot but you know I thought that it was just from the heat. But as soon as I arrived at the sidewalk that travels along with the road called Olmos Basin Dam Drive I realized that I wasn't sweating anymore. So I quickly rushed down the sidewalk to where there is 13 step, concrete stair case that goes down into the Nature Trails. I stopped immediately at the top of the stairs underneath plentiful shade of the trees. As soon as I stopped blood came rushing out of nose and I became light headed. I knew automatically that I was having a heat stroke. So I quickly sat down and rested my head on my backpack while I tore a sheet of paper from my notebook to absorb the blood. Then I turned my head towards the sky keeping the blood in my head and not on my body and clothing. My head felt so light, like it was balloon, and I almost passed out, my whole entire body was shaking tremendously. I feared that I was going to die, my body felt so strange and weak. Luckily after a while of resting, my body started to calm down and I slowly rose onto my feet and pulled out one of my two Dr. Peppers while immediately chugging it down my throat. The sweat, after a few moments, came back and I started to feel more relieved as my body was rehydrating itself. I walked over to the sidewalk railing that looks out towards the Nature Trails. I stared at the trees and out of the green background a green female cicada landed on a branch not to far from me. I stared and stared and stared at her just thinking about how close I came to never seeing a cicada again. The thing about all this is how after my body calmed down I didn't even rush to a person's house to call 911 or even asked for help from the few people that occasionally jogged by, they just thought that nothing was wrong and everything was fine with me. I didn't rush for help because I knew I was going to be okay. But they didn't know that just ten minutes ago I was starving for rehydration and had a very bad accident with the heat, I just left that thought as that.

I sat back down and pulled out my last Dr. Pepper I had left in my backpack and smoked a very soothing and calming cigarette for my hands and body were still shaking from the mishap. Although the vending machine didn't have any waters I was glad that I bought those Dr. Peppers and had something to drink for if I didn't I believe I would've been in a worse troubled mess. However, after the entire incident I realized how close I came to seriously hurting or even killing myself. So to soothe myself from this I listened to more Hem and many other bands on my 60gb Ipod until I fully felt ready to head home where I rested and fell asleep in an air conditioned room.



But seriously be watchful of yourselves out there in the heat anywhere in the world because it's a silent killer. So like always drink plentiful fluids while outside in the summer heat. Please take care of yourselves out there, that sun can be brutal, at least it is here in Texas.

Backyard Life

I took my camera outside and photographed what I found.

What do you see in this picture?

Young But Older

I feel so old being 20 but yet I'm still so very young and I have a whole life ahead of me still waiting to be discovered and explored. Some days I'll feel like not doing a thing while on other days I feel like I can do anything. Maybe it's because I just realize everyday that is slowly going by without a trace but yet it's going by so fast. A contradiction that never seeks to stall itself. Time is a strange thing, yet if you think about it time doesn't truly exist. Without a 24 hour day period, without night or day, and without the turning of our planet, it doesn't exist but, neither would a lot of other things of course, but however, time does exist. This manifestation of the human mind grows longer and longer but yet again it's so shortly lived once it has passed us by. It's just weird to think that in 30 years I'll be 50 and when I was young time seemed much longer and slower but now that I realize the true workings of a year it seems to be going by even faster now that I grew up. Maybe it was just youth that made me perceive this slowing down of time and as I gradually grew time just slipped away because I didn't pay attention. The thing that is most strange to me is how the first twenty years took so long to obtain but now I realize how quickly these years are flying by for me anymore. I truly can't believe I'll be 21 in less than six months. These years, they don't feel like full years to me anymore like they used to for some strange reason but, it's just what it is and I accept it.

You can learn a lot from time when you look back upon history and see how everything has changed over the years, even in 3 years a lot changes. Even in six months the way you live today will change.....

Conspicuous Signs

Ladybird

Convergent Ladybird
I just had to write about these little critters. I love going outside and finding them all over the place, up high in the trees or in the bushes. Also I just read some valuable information on these insects. Supposedly there are 350 different species of ladybugs just in America alone and all species are beneficial, throughout the world the amount of species hits the mark of 3,500 and only grow to a size of 1/16 of an inch big but sometimes a little bigger depending on location. ladybugs live and can be found almost anywhere in the world, they are very widespread there's no general place that they live in and they can come in a varity of colors.

Ladybugs scientific order name is Coleoptera and family name Coccinellidae. The name ladybird originates from the time of the Middle-Ages when these insects were bestowed upon a virgin girl which henced the name Ladybird or Ladybug.

Both Ladybirds and even their young are very beneficial insects for gardens or growing vegetables. Feeding on aphids, spider mites, small flies, and scale insects that can do serious harm to plant and tree life. In Califronia back in the 1980's where these pest roamed the land, were causing serious damage to the citrus trees. The Cottony-Cushion Scale bug from Australia began to spread throughout California's orange groves. When the orange industry became threatened they looked for a solution, an Australian ladybird which feeds only on these scale insects was imported to California and within a few years the scales were completely eaten and under control. I read in my new entomology book, to release 1,500 ladybugs per every 1000 square feet of garden. Do the math, half is 750 beetles per 500 square feet, a quarter is 375 beetles per 250 square feet, and since 375 is an odd number I have to round for an eighth which is 188 beetles per 125 square feet, you can get more intricate than that if you'd like but that's the basics for smaller gardens that I could think of at the moment.

A female will lay 200 to 1,000 eggs over a three-month period. Females will lays their eggs on plants that are infested with aphids or scales. The eggs are round, tiny, and yellow and in clusters of 10 to 30. Once hatched, the larvae will travel as far as 40 feet in search for prey over a twenty-day period. A ladybird larvae looks like a tiny six legged alligator with short spines on each segment, but the skin is rippled and saturated in colors of black and orange. When ready to turn from a larva to beetle a ladybird larva will find a place to metamorph into a cacoon like pupa which is a week long process or shorter. For ladybugs to thrive and reproduce they need beneficial nectar and pollen from flowers as a food source.

Eggs

Larva

The life cycle of a ladybug is very similar to a butterfly's life cycle.

The eggs hatch into a caterpillar( larva), then metamorphsis takes place in a cacoon( pupa), then turns into a butterfly, just in this case a ladybug.

Pupa










Once an adult, a ladybug can live from several weeks to a few months old. If adults are late bloomers or happen to survive longer than expected, they will hibernate over the winter with hundreds to thousands of ladybugs in tree trunks. A ladybugs habitat consists of hegdes, trees, gardens, flowers, tall grass, fields, and anywhere else containing vegetation and a food source.

Though the common ladybird species are generally similar in appearance they differ in the number of spots and in color. Ladybirds have been known to have as many spots ranging from 2 to 22 spots on the backs of their wings. Though the way you can tell if a ladybird is a ladybird is not only by their appearance but also by their shortness of their legs. Every ladybug has the same short legged bodies while other garden beetles will vary in leg length.

When a ladybug becomes threatened from a predator it will release a yellow liquid, that liquid is a defense mechanism, whenever a bird or lizard eats a ladybird, the ladybug will release the liquid while being eaten inside the mouth, thus delivering a nasty taste forcing the predator to not eat them.

I have a trick if you want to catch one, hold the palm of your hand underneath one and take your other hand and touch it, grab it, or whatever just make them fall. The ladybug should play dead and fall right into your hand and then you get to enjoy spectating them until it flys away, if you let it fly away.If you want to attract ladybirds, artificial food can made by diluting a little honey with a small amount of water and mixing in a tiny bit of brewer's yeast or bee pollen. After making the solution smear small amounts onto pieces of waxpaper and fasten them to plants in your garden. Replace the food every 5 to 6 days or whenever moldy. Keep any extra food refrigerated between feeds. Discontinue use when your ladybug population becomes established.

Here's a few species I took some photos of and if you happen to notice they're all on the same tree, ladybugs love Huisache trees.

Asian Harmonia Ladybird

Twice Stabbed Ladybird

Ashgrey Ladybird

Non-native

No this sunflower is not native to Texas instead this flower came from the seeds we eat. My David's sunflower bag happened to spill some seeds and this was the result from it. The rest were eaten by the birds but this one seed happened to survive and sprout this beautifully gorgeous sunflower. Sadly, this picture was taken two weeks ago and now the sunflower is decaying of age but is dropping new seedlings for a garden of sunflowers soon to come.....

NBA Finals: Spurs vs. Cavaliers

So here we are once again in the NBA Finals going up against Cleveland. This is going to be an interesting series since the Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown worked under our head coach Gregg Popovich as an assistant coach with the Spurs. On top of that the Cavs are a fantastic team but let's see what the finals have to offer. I believe the Spurs are going to pull a fourth championship for San Antonio. I can't wait for the finals to start, the Spurs have a long journey with many difficult obstacles ahead of them, time to begin the show.





If you'd like to read some information about what has been going on in the 2007 playoffs, finals, or about the two teams, click on the link below.




Bill Russell's Blog




Finals Schedule

Game 1: Thursday, June 7, Spurs 85, Cavaliers 76

Game 2: Sunday, June 10, Spurs 103, Cavaliers 92

Game 3: Tuesday, June 12, Spurs 75, Cavaliers 72

Game 4: Thursday, June 14, Spurs 83, Cavaliers 82

SPURS WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YYYYYYAAAYYYYY!!!!!

Wildflowers

I'm back from the lake and full of photos, click on any to enlarge.

Mealy Sage Salvia

Wild Oleander

Long-headed Coneflower


Wild Onion

Prairie Verbena


Texas Thistle

Texas Lantana