Tanked

I wanted to remember what it was like to build a (non Gundam) model kit, so recently bought myself this:

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Here’s what was inside:

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Given I had built only Gundams for the last 2 decades, my first thought was “Do I still need glue?”. The answer was yes!

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There’s the chassis with wheels attached. I’d done a poor job, since the glue I’d bought was crap and the instructions left a lot to be desired. For instance, should the wheels turn?

It wasn’t until I got to the next section that things became much more difficult…

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Those ladder rungs, glued on so obviously poorly in the above shot, were typical of many pieces that required pinpoint precision to attach accurately. Again, the instructions could have been clearer. Again, my glue could have actually worked!

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Case in point above: see how the wheel is separating even though the glue had been drying for two hours!! (This was exacerbated by the too-much tension in the tread.)

Anyway after considerable frustration, the near-finished product:

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And the actually finished version, after the exercise in frustration that was decal application (turned into a comedy of errors since I had a phone chat with SFL after putting the decal sheet in water!):

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Actually looks decent, doesn’t it?

So where is this fierce scale model tank right now? Moments after the above shot was made… I broke it and tossed the pieces in the garbage 🙂

The Grand Return Of The Wildlife Camera!

So it’s been a while since I last posted pictures taken in our yard by our stealth camera. The reason is… well the camera died 🙂

Fear not, dear readers, for a replacement has been received. I present: The Primos Truth Cam 35!

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This beauty is all digital, noiseless, and features infra red LED’s for pitch-dark photography! Furthermore, the battery life is astounding. Last week I set it up outside. Let’s see what we got…

Here’s the first shot:

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As you can see, I aimed it at our squirrel buffet. Now given that the old camera used to die in a day or so, I assumed as much from this one and did not set either the time or date. So everything will be relative to the timestamp on the above. Notice also it records the temperature!

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Two days later, this began. Why two days? Well the day I put it out a blizzard blew into town, and the camera was covered in snow for about 36 hours! There are a few photos before the one shown above, but they are blurry from the dregs of snow on the lens.

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I hope you like squirrel photos, because there were (ahem) over 850 photos of squirrels on the device when I retrieved it yesterday, after only about 6 days in the yard. The vast majority were more or less the same as the two above, with only the occasional curiosity like this one:

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Look at the bulge of his eyeball! What a shot 🙂

Happily, it’s not all squirrels… check out this:

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Deer! Give the distance from the camera, I’m extremely pleased with the quality of these night shots. Remember there is no flash, this is infra red only. We were amused to see the deer checking out the squirrel feeder.

It only took two days for the squirrels to completely empty their feedbox (and eat the corn), but the camera revealed that they kept returning to check even long after it was empty:

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This makes me want to more regularly feed them!

This last shot was our big surprise. Over the years we have seen (and occasionally photographed) many animal denizens in our yard, but when we looked at the photos yesterday we got quite a surprise (click the photos to make them bigger):

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A raccoon! Look at that stripey tail! I’ve never seen a raccoon in our yard, but I’m happy they are there. As you can see, it seems they like the squirrel feeder as well 🙂