Busted car, new scooter.
Busted up the Lumina. Actually, it wasn't my fault, fortunately. I feel bad for the other guy, who will have to pay really high insurance premiums for the next few years, but it all worked out well for me considering nobody was hurt. We were going to see how driving the scooter went, then decide whether to keep the Lumina, but looks like the scooter is here to stay. Oh yeah, I got a scooter. It was actually Laura's idea for me to drive the scooter. It's a lot of fun, though it tops out at about 45. Haven't driven it long enough to compute the mileage, but the folks we bought it from (it's a 2001 model) said it gets about 60 mpg. 
Squirrels at Big Stacy Park
There is a park near my home called "Big Stacy." There is a pool there called "Big Stacy Pool." I don't know why. There is, adjacent to Big Stacy Park, a park and kids' play area called "Little Stacy Park." Anyway, the park is nice and has squirrels by the bucketload. There are probably almost as many cute squirrel pictures in the world as cute child pictures, but, hey, pixels are free, right?
Green Heron
I took yesterday off after having finished two papers in a week, papers I should have worked harder on during the semester, but you know how that goes. Went to town lake to see if I could get any shots of local wildlife. The birds there let people come closer to them than birds in other places. I think that there are so many people who frequent town lake (even on a mid-day Friday) that the wildlife has taken to mostly ignoring them. The green heron above was fishing just feet from the trail. When I knelt down to take a picture, he flew to a nearby branch, then later took off for some other fishing spot. The second shot would be more impressive if more evenly exposed, but the light filtered through the branches overhead made it difficult. A faster shutter speed would have been nice, too. I was within ten feet of a cardinal's nest at one point, and what I think was an immature yellow-crowned night heron also came within several feet of me while fishing.
