being not doing

Last month we started the process of switching our DSL from Verizon to Speakeasy, with the intention of trying Speakeasy’s VOIP service. After a year of being harassed via evening calls by Verizon trying to sell us FIOS — each time being told by their customer service people that ‘it takes a while to […]

I’ve updated my lifelist to reflect the sightings of the past month or so. I still need to find usable photos (e.g. those in the public domain or licensed for non-commercial use) and enter a bunch of latin names, but the list of birds itself is now complete.
Through doing this update I’ve realized that […]

I spent most of this past week visiting family in the hospital on Western’s campus in London (Ontario). While there, I took the opportunity to walk along the Thames and check out the breeding birds. Many were familiar — Yellow Warblers, House Wrens, Grackles, Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Catbirds, and a Great Blue Heron […]

This week I splurged and took the Zipcar to the shore to see the wintering waterfowl before they head back to my homeland for the summer (don’t get me started on the Flexcar buyout and how the new carlords are Teh Suck). This year I’ve decided to take the Go Where The Birds Are […]

I wake up, look around, and it’s November. October got away from me, I confess. I made absolutely no headway with regard to book reviews, and posts about walks to the pond and adventures in cooking are hanging around the back-end of the site only half-conceived.
Unfortunately, they are likely to linger in that […]

As I roll into the last quarter of the year, I’m pausing to take stock of how well I’m doing on my own personal book-related challenges.
As expected, I have had no trouble actually reading, but a bit less success powering through some of the denser works that have been sitting by the side of my […]

We’re leaving this week for a trip to see our families, and won’t be back for a couple of weeks. Time and energy has been taken up preparing for the trip, and writing has taken a back seat. I have a log of half-written posts piling up, most of them book reviews, and […]

This morning delivered the first peony bloom of the summer. The bloom is on the plant that came with the house, and there are a dozen or so more buds to look forward to. While the transplanted peonies seem to have survived, they are unlikely to bloom this year. My grandmother claims […]

This past week has been a full one: I’ve added a half dozen new birds to my lifelist, sighted in or near my town! Over the past few days I’ve spotted a Lousiana Waterthrush, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, and Yellow-rumped Warbler, in Wells Run, the creek that runs through University Park. A few weeks […]

One of my favorite parts of any trip to a new region is seeing birds I’ve never seen before. My trip to Portland last month was no exception, and I was happy to catch sight of even the common regional birds. I’ve updated my lifelist to include the birds I saw out there, […]