Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged zoo
Racing The Rain
Mar 8th 2009
Yesterday was fun. My friends and I, tired of winter, decided to take one of the few nice days to come our way in a long while to head outside and do some walking.
The plan was to head out to the zoo in Syracuse to wander around and look at some animals while we cured our cabin fever. The plan was complicated by the fact it was going to rain sometime in the afternoon so we were in a race against the rain pretty much. Thankfully, it held off until we were done walking around the zoo. There were lots of animals to be seen, and lots of kids too. It was way busier there than we thought it would be, but I guess we weren't the only people to have the idea to get out while the getting out was still good.
The most notable thing at the zoo was the lions. They were right up next to the glass so you could literally stand inches away from one of them and see all the little details. That was very, very neat. The penguins were actually wandering around outside too and even did some swimming around. We also saw a pair of very frisky otters. Well, one of them was frisky. The other seemed totally disinterested. Also, one of the lemurs was moving and they never move. I still think it was a robotic lemur…
After the zoo we went out and did some shopping and then headed to Chili's for dinner. Which was excellent. I've never had ribs but I wanted to try them so I stole one from the plate of one of my friends (well, with permission of course) and mmm…tasty. I think I'll have to have some next time we go out that way.
After the food we went back to their place and hung out for a while. Clerks was on which I hadn't seen in a while. But by the end of the movie I was falling asleep, so I made my way home. All this outdoors stuff really tires you out.
Hopefully real spring doesn't take too long to come. I'm getting very sick of all this winter and snow.
The Weekend Report
Oct 20th 2008
What's that over there on the right? It's a Penguin! Which means that this weekend was the annual Penguin Pilgrimage out to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse. There have been previous penguin pilgrimages but I had always forgotten my good camera. But this time, I remembered and got some neat penguin shots along with some other animals. There's more pictures up on my flickr account.
Plans changed slightly as my friend Jay had slept badly and was feeling kinda blargh, so he decided to stay home and get some sleep while Wassy and I went out to the zoo. We had intended on going when it was cooler out, with the supposition that the penguins would be more active and the zoo would be less crowded.
Well…we had one out of two correct. The zoo was much less crowded since it was around 50F out. But the darn penguins were hanging out indoors mostly! And they weren't really swimming exactly. Boo!
There were a couple of them that were out and about and sunning (like the penguin on the left there), but most of them were hanging out indoors. Jerks! They're supposed to be cold weather animals! You're not supposed to huddle inside…
But as much as that part of the idea turned out to be a flop, it was made up for by the rest of the trip. Fall is definitely the best time to go to the zoo, just because it was much less crowded. A lot of the animals were more active too, which is probably because it was much cooler out.
We saw them feeding the elephants, one of which was a greedy bastard who took all of the food for himself. Pushed it all over into a little pile and wouldn't let the other two elephants get anything but a couple scraps here and there.
The biggest surprise was seeing that the red panda was up and about. (That picture is a lot better if you check the full size). The thing is usually sleeping in a little hole and you can never see it, but it was out and walking around very close to the fence area so i was about to get some good pictures.
It was excellent weather for just wandering around outside. Probably one of the last really good weekends before it starts getting too cold out to wander around comfortably for a while.
After we took in the outdoor sights, we headed inside to check out the various monkeys and birds and things. They added an exhibit of Sand Cats since we last went. They're basically cats that are adapted to living in the desert. They were the first domesticated variety of cats and I can see the resemblance to the modern day house cat. One of them was spazzing out and doing continual figure eight patterns around the exhibit while the other cat was staring at it like it was crazy
After we went to the zoo, we went around shopping as Wassy needed to pick up some art supplies and then headed back to their place to hang out for a bit. Jay was more awake. We ended up hanging around watching TV. She showed me how to do her version of Chicken Scampi which was excellent…adding another dish to my inventory. Then we watched the first Futurama movie which is something I really need to get the DVDs of. I missed the show when it was first on and it's totally awesome.
Sunday was just a very lazy sort of day. I played some Rock Band 2, did my laundry and a little cleaning…but mostly it was just kinda lounging around and relaxing. This week is going to be short and long. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off but this weekend We're planning a get together with my friends. And old school halloween type sleepover deal. Scary movies, visit to a haunted house, interspersed with various games and lots of rock band (I'm bringing my 360 over with me). I can't wait until friday!
I'll leave you with a final zoo picture, of a Meerkat and his lounging buddy.
Who Needs Ducks Anyway?
Apr 21st 2008
Another weekend, another weekend summary post! This weekend was a long time coming after perhaps one of the slowest weeks ever.
Saturday I was a nice, relaxing day of hanging out with my friends. I went out to the local zoo with Wassy (Jay was supposed to come, however events earlier in the day ran long and he wasn't going to be able to make it so we went without him) and had a nice time wandering around, viewing animals and dodging annoying children. Well, viewing some animals…some of them didn't seem to want to have anything to do with me. Like the ducks.
The zoo has a duck pond. Well, more accurately it's an alligator pond that some ducks have moved in on and the zoo put up a sign saying it was a duck pond, with bonus alligators. They have this thing set up where you can feed the ducks. Pretty standard setup, put in your quarter, get some pellets, throw to ducks, they eat the pellets and everyone goes away happy and satisfied. Except for these ducks that is. They weren't having any of this feeding stuff. So it kinda made me look stupid, throwing pellets to ducks who were totally ignoring me. So I just threw the whole handful at them. Take that jerks!
I should also mention we found a free-range peacock just wandering around. I'm pretty sure it shouldn't have been wandering because we saw them get thrown in a cage immediately after. It seems slightly disjointed that I mentioned that fact here, but I wanted to get it out of the way before I mention the human based story.
As we were trying to escape from a gaggle of kids (of the annoying variety) we walked past the place where they sell all the drinks and food and stuff of that nature. There was a family consisting of a boy, probably around 6 or 7 years old and his parents. As they approached the building, his mom said "Ok honey, we're going to have to wait in line…" The kid responded reasonably with a very loud yelling of "F–k!!" that made my head turn. It seems his parents were fine with this as well as they didn't seem totally shocked. I couldn't believe it and it made me want to weep for humanity's future.
After the zoo trip we went back to their apartment to meet up with Jay and begin the general hanging out portion of the day, watching some anime (Full Metal Alchemist) and then Sweeny Todd, a movie which will forever prevent me from going to a barber shop to get a shave. It was good though. Very artfully done and Johnny Depp is incredibly awesome in it.
Sunday was the standard day of work. I had some housework to get done, and some programming type things that needed to be taken care of. Hopefully my weekends where I need to do school work are coming to an end relatively soon here as there's only a couple weeks left in this semester which is hopefully my last.
You're Probably Tired Of Penguins By Now…Well Too Bad!
Sep 30th 2007
Yesterday was definitely action packed. My friend Wassy and I were left alone because my friend Jay went to a LAN party this weekend. I didn't attend because of my desktop computer situation. Namely the total lack of one. Anyway, it wouldn't have been very fun for me to fight with the MacBook all day (and night)
Anyway…the day started early. The plan was to go out to the Syracuse Zoo and pick up my drunken penguin wine holder for my bottle of penguin labeled wine, then wander the Carousel mall for a bit, then head back to her apartment for some music listening, apple crisp baking and general hang-outing. I picked her up at her place and we headed out to Syracuse for a stroll around the zoo.
I had thought that the fact it was a little chilly yesterday morning would prevent as many people from showing up at the zoo with their screaming little kids. Apparently I was wrong. Instead, we ran into an entire tour group of little hooligans and their support staff. Bah! We got some time at the penguin cove alone though, which was nice because it rarely happens.
I know I have like 800 pictures of these penguins up here, so I only posted one additional one. They were all sitting on their rock warming in the Sun. I guess it wasn't warm enough out for them to be swimming all over the place.
After we finished looping around and looking at all the animal type things the zoo had to offer, we hit the gift shop where I was able to purchase my drunken penguin wine holder (pictured to the left) which is absolutely awesome. I need to come up with a better location to put it though now. I'll come up with something.
After that, we went over to the mall to grab lunch and do some shopping. I got to play with the new iPods over at the Apple store for a bit, which was cool, especially the Touch. My friend finally purchased something at William-Sonoma after years of browsing around there. I figured I'd record the occasion here so there's some proof if somebody doesn't believe her when she says she did it.
We were also on the hunt for the Game Cube remake of Resident Evil that my friend thinks that she's going to make me play a lot of. Hah! Anyway, we went two the two Game Craze locations out there and came away empty handed, but hit the jackpot on our way back to her apartment at a local shop Game Nutz (located in the same parking lot as a NASCAR store, it seems. There appeared to be an event happening while we were there).
After swinging by a few local stores to pick up some baking supplies for her (and some apple cider for me…yum) the music listening and baking portion of the day began. She made Apple Crisp with some almond type topping stuff. It was good. We also found some more music type stuff she liked.
All in all, a fun filled, although exhausting day.
Vox Hunt: What The Weekend Holds
Sep 30th 2007
Show us what the weekend has in store for you.
A little too late to show what the weekend holds. How about what it did already:
Yep, I went to the Zoo and picked up my drunken penguins. They're now holding my wine. Woo.
Since I was at the zoo, I snapped a couple of mandatory pictures of animals. So here we go.
I'm too tired to post much more right now though, so a full roundup of today's activities will be forthcoming tomorrow at some point.
PENGUINS!
Aug 5th 2007
I promised penguin pictures from the zoo and, darn it…I'm going to deliver! I forgot my full camera, but I took these using my camera phone. I want a penguin 
But since I can't have that…here's some pics of the Homboldt penguins at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse.
The Weekend Update
Apr 23rd 2007
This weekend started off with some Final Fantasy 7 and a little bit of City of Heroes because I'm starting to feel the desire to play it again and I had a little bit of time.
My friends and I went out to the local (really local) Zoo and wandered around for an hour and a half. We saw all of the exotic animals. The wolf/dog hybrid…the porcupine… Ok, so it's not a world class zoo, but it was a really, really nice day out and it was a nice walk. One of the best parts about a smaller zoo like that is that you don't have to rush everywhere to make sure you see everything. You can hang out and watch for extended periods of time. Although it would have been a lot better had we not just come back from the National Zoo in Washington DC last month.
It was at the zoo I discovered that the LCD screen for my camera is busted. I'm not sure what happened to it..probably got some pressure put on it at one point. I wanted to take a picture of the dog Anyway, the camera still works, just the LCD is busted and I'm not sure how successful trying to get a repair done on it would be. Heck, I'd even be willing to pay for the cost of replacement, but I don't want to buy a new camera. It still works though, so it's not entirely unusable. Sigh. Just another thing on the pile.
After the zoo, Jay had to take off to meet with a project group at his school, so Wassy and myself hung out for a bit. The plan was to meet up later and go to Riggiefest…but I'll get to that later.
We joke a lot that we do "stuff" on the weekends usually. That stuff generally is planned out ahead of time, but someday, we'll get to the mythical place of "stuff", no planning…just…"stuff". And if "Stuff" is attainable, then we certainly got close to it there. We wandered around a bit, attempted to bug my sister at her job while buying some tabs for a binder, browsed through a pet store…
Then we met back up with Jay and off we went. Unfortunately, we missed Riggiefest by a couple hours (who has a festival that last 3 hours anyway??) so instead we went to one of the participating restaurants as the next best thing. Riggies, for those who don't live in upstate new york, are kinda a local favorite. They're basically rigatoni in a marinara sauce with chicken and spices and you get tossed out of the area if you've never had them.
After dinner we rented SSX Blur for the Wii which wasn't quite as fun as anticipated. It's not a real good rental game…it's got a bit of a learning curve. So instead we did other stuff until finally settling Karaoke Revolution Party, which I'd rather not talk too much about…
Sunday was mostly boring chores and homework.
Vox Hunt: Weekend Results
Mar 21st 2007
Show us something you did, made, saw or bought this past weekend.
I went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC and took a picture of some Flamingos
Vox Hunt: My Favorite Animal
Oct 12th 2006
Show us your favorite animal.
Inspired by the Emporer.
Another easy Vox Hunt!
Penguin Feeding Pic
I love penguins. Not sure why, but I’ve always been fond of them. That’s a pic of the Homboldt penguins at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse. These pictures were taken on a trip with some friends to the zoo over the summer. I believe I’ve mentioned that before.
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- Penguin Feeding Pic
QotD: The Best Part of Summer
Sep 19th 2006
What was the highlight of your summer?
Submitted by ladym.vox.com.
The highlight of my summer…well…there wasn’t really one specific highlight this year. Mostly just hanging out with my friends around the area, which is something I wasn’t able to do last year. The absence of something really makes you appreciate it a lot more when you can actually do it again.
Very Unhappy Fish
The zoo trip was one of the highlights. That’d probably be my most fond memory of the time period. But there were other good ones too. The restaurant trip celebrating the end of the school year where the waitress brought us plates and butter and said “Here’s your bread” (I suppose you had to be there for that one). The comic book geek out day which consisted of nothing but comics and the Batman: The Animated Series DVDs…
Another highlight was probably going to the Renaissance Festival again this year with my sister. That’s always a good time.
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