a robot, i am not » photos

that’s a big catfish

jritch — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:00:14 +0000

This nearly 8ft. long catfish 211 lb. was caught in Spain’s River Ebro.

Wow.

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Post tags: animals, anomalies, photos

Vancouver fog

jritch — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:00:29 +0000

the anaconda

jritch — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:00:02 +0000

A really great interview with Paul Rosalie about the Amazon. And in the Amazon is the anaconda.

She was so large it would have taken eight people to restrain her on land; on the floating forest there was no chance. When she saw us she started moving away. We both wrapped our arms around her and did our best to restrain her for measurements and documentation, but it was like trying to stop a bus, she was way too strong

making use of additional space

jritch — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:00:59 +0000

This spider has found an interesting solution to remaining undisturbed. I wonder how many flies he can catch on this impala?

calm down, at least we still have civilization

jritch — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:21:28 +0000

Calm down, we’ve got it under control… for now at least…

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Post tags: collapse, economic crisis, photos

Vancouver Before and After

jritch — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:40:43 +0000

Learning what its like to live in Vancouver now has me wondering what it was like to live in Vancouver even 10 or 20 years ago, especially since so much of the city’s growth has taken place since 1980. These photos from the Miss 604 Blog really demonstrate that growth,

Downtown Vancouver in 1919

Downtown Vancouver in 1966

Downtown Vancouver 2009

driving through Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota

jritch — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:06:34 +0000

We left Chicago early in the morning, around 7:30am to allow plenty of time from driving through the rough traffic. Ensuring that Erby was behind us was the tough part. If he got lost in the sea of cars, it might have taken a long time before we could meet up again. Breaking through the traffic and through the toll roads of the Chicago metro finally revealed the Wisconsin border with beautiful green rolling hills and picturesque skies, like in the photo above. We were truly in the American Midwest now.

Our first stop was in Janesville, WI for a look at the giant cow.

Then we hit the road again towards Wisconsin Dells after a quick stop off at the Mouse House Cheese House.

Wisconsin Dells was an interesting place. I don’t know much of the history so I’m going to blindly speculate that the happy motoring culture of the 50s created this place. Much like Cave City, KY. The tackiest water slides and themed buildings I’ve ever seen, the whole place was kitch city. Probably because the nearby river couldn’t meet capacity, the nearby hotels built water parks to encourage people to continue to vacation in the area. Among the odd sights of the Dells was this Amish family going to Burger King.

We then drove through many more miles of rolling farmland until we crossed the Mississippi River and into the craggy mountain edge on the border of Minnesota. We were quite hungry at this point and stopped off in the small town of St. Charles where a local said, “North Carolina! That’s a long way from here…” The diner was full of Amish and locals, the menu had a “pop” section. This was a different world.

The only thing in south Minnesota other than farmland was a massive 60′ statue of the Jolly Green Giant.

We soon started to see our first indications that Wall Drug awaited us in West South Dakota. The road signs passed us by on I-90 every so often. Eventually we made it across the border into SD, found the cute little midwestern town of Sioux Falls and grabbed a bite to eat with our awesome CouchSurfing host who had biked from Seattle to Banff one summer! Wow! Our dinner was at a local restaurant that had a jazz band inside. My buffalo burger was delicious. Our host had to go to work at 5am the next morning for the local Sherrif’s department so he left us the keys and we went to sleep after talking a little more about Sioux Falls. I imagined that few ever passed through Sioux Falls but he said that he was going to be triple booked the upcoming weekend with travelers from Germany, California and Canada. Apparently Sioux Falls was a popular stop for people coming to and from the Badlands!

View Larger Map

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Post tags: photos, summer 2009 roadtrip, travel, united states

welcome to the Midwest

jritch — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:49:06 +0000

Editors Note: The original intention was to post a description of my Summer 2009 roadtrip closer to the time that it occurred, but now 2010 is approaching and since I’m not even half-way through I need to get on this!

When we drove through Gary, IN fighting through the traffic and then seeing Chicago’s skyline in the distance, my breath was nearly taken away. A gorgeous cluster of brilliant lights, penetrating the night sky. I could see why Batman was filmed here. We drove through the multi-lane highways and towards the place of our couchsurfing host for the next few days: Patrick. Emerging off the Interstate and onto the road, I was shocked at the number of cars parked along the streets. There was no space for additional cars! We eventually got lucky and found a spot though. Walking up to Patrick’s place we realized we were starving. It was late, just before 10pm and a Chinese place let us order from them as they were closing. Such nice people!

We went up to Patrick’s apartment, introduced ourselves and ate the Chinese food. Patrick was a great guy that really loved Couchsurfing. He had just hosted a girl for several weeks! That’s dedication. We were exhausted and couldn’t join him on his night out with friends from the Pitchfork Music Festival so we re-arranged the living space and hit the mattresses with exhaustion.

I vaguely remember what happened, but Jane and Erby definitely did. Patrick’s roommates walked in and called friends complaining that more couchsurfers were there and that they were tired of having people sleeping on their floor. The next morning, we awoke, went out to get some Cuban breakfast and discussed this turn of events. How unfortunate, Patrick was such a great guy but it was uncomfortable to stay where we weren’t wanted. After getting some trip planning done at a coffee shop, we returned and found the roommates there. When we explained that we’d only be there for a few nights, they were relieved… they thought we would be there for another month! Apparently the last guest had exhausted her welcome.

We set out and about the city, to see the Miraculous Mile. The Threadless store, The Hancock Center, the deep dish pizza, the walking around lost, the concert at Millenium park. It was all fantastic. Free classical music at millenium park was the best moment of the trip so far, and maybe even one of the highlights of the entire trip, now that I’m looking back. Amazing acoustics with the backdrop of a city. Brilliant. The rail line that would take us back to our lodging was out so we waited for a bus that was absolutely packed and we found another way home. It took us about two hours to get back and we just ended up taking a taxi anyways.

The next day we went downtown to catch the art museum before it closed, but it closed early because it was a Sunday. So we went to the International Museum of Surgical Sciences for a super gross-out experience. We closed out the stay in the Capitol of the Midwest by partaking in a movie with Patrick. We saw Food Inc., the film adaptation of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. He enjoyed it and it gave us a great talking point for burgers and beers at The Counter afterward. We had some belgian waffles with a fun street vendor and said our goodbyes and passed on our many thanks.

The next morning we set out around 7:30am for Sioux Falls, SD to beat the worst of th Monday morning rush hour traffic but to also ensure that we left around the same time Patrick did for his grocery clerk job. We had a long day ahead of large roadside objects and nothing was going to keep us from seizing that day.

Chicago was a fantastic experience, and a frustrating one. The largest US city I’ve ever visited while driving… it was full of cars! Even taking the bus a few kilometers took an hour or more on these grizzled and gridlocked streets. A fun place to visit but because of the big business mindest, the prevalence of chain stores and the high cost of living I knew that this was one place I’d never want to even accidentally end up living in.

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Post tags: photos, summer 2009 roadtrip, travel

what a power plant generator stator looks like

jritch — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:58:37 +0000

This is a picture of a generator stator that’s was delivered to a coal power plant in the North Carolina/South Carolina region. It took 20 days for the stator to travel from the port in Charleston to its destination. Two trucks moved it form the port to its future home. The trucks, end to end, combined to total 304 feet. Realizing that this portion of the generator is 304 feet, you get an idea of the overall generator’s size. Huge! And this is just for one unit. Most coal power plants have two, three or four units.

Something to consider when you flip that light switch.

What is a stator you ask? According to Wikipedia,

The stator is the stationary part of a rotor system, such as in an electric generator or electric motor
Depending on the configuration of a spinning electromotive device the stator may act as the field magnet, interacting with the armature to create motion, or it may act as the armature, receiving its influence from moving field coils on the rotor.

HDR images from Long Beach and Louisiana

jritch — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:01:34 +0000

Here are some of my favorite HDR images of recent days from trips to Louisiana and Long Beach. I’ll have some more soon but these are some of the best so far!

You can view all these and more at my Flickr account