I've never been so proud.

We got them some drosophila from one of the labs at UH. This is their first real meal.





Rock on!
Keith.

Frogs!

Our tadpoles have been busy. Growing legs, then arms, then losing their tail and all. Here's what they looked like a couple weeks ago.


Some of them were starting to grow their back legs.


Their transition to froghood seems to happen by shrinking away the extra stuff, rather than growing legs and arms. Here's one that is in the awkward phase between poledom and frogdom.


When they reach this stage, with nicely shaped arms and legs, there tail gets absorbed and they become little frogs. It takes less than a day from this point. They're also very awkward looking at this stage. Especially when they try to swim. Their arms and legs are flailing around and their shrinking tail is getting less and less effective.


At some point, they all seem to come to the conclusion that it would be easier if they just get out of the water.


They seem to rest for a day and do nothing but recover. Then they are able to swim around like frogs, kicking their powerful backlegs like a frog is supposed to. And they hop of course.


Apparently, they also realize that not only can they walk and hop, but they can climb the glass wall of the aquarium. We had to seperate them into a tadpole tank and a frog tank that is covered on the top. They're getting to the point where we are trying to figure out where to leave them. Conventional wisdom says to bring them back to the pond they came from, but the tire-track puddle doesn't seem to be a very good option, especially because somebody else drove through it again the other day.

Anyways, Rock on.
Keith.

Last weekend.

Last weekend, Claudia and I decided to tie the bikes on to the back of the car and head down to G-town for a nice little tour of the seawall. We really intended to work out that day, I swear. Instead, we left the bikes tied to the car and headed to Schlitterbahn instead. The weather was beautiful and cooler than it's supposed to be in July so it seemed pretty fortuitous to be on the way to Galveston already.

After 3:00PM it's only 23$ and there's plenty of time to get completely tired of the waterslides so it's not a bad deal. They have many types of slides of all possible speeds. These are two of the slower ones, where you go down in a bigger boat-thing that fits four people.



Instead of walking around all day from slide to slide, they have a bayou system that floats you around everywhere so there's very little walking to tire you out.



They have something called boogiebahn, where you get on a boogieboard and try to stay in the half-pipe thing where they have tons of water streaming by. It's tough to try to stay on and to try to stay in the wave without getting shot back over the back end. It's fun though. I stayed on a little while and then got a little too close to the side and then I have no idea what happened but I was off the side and the boogie board was back up on the starting ramp. (That picture's just some random kid.)



Lots of fun. Here's some more pics.




It was a fun day and and the bicycles took a nice hundred mile drive for no reason.

Keith.

Tadpoles!

There's a puddle of water, made by somebody driving off the sidewalk on the university campus, and there's a frog that thinks that's a good place for her eggs. We saw a thousand or so tadpoles there a couple months ago and decided to raise them - surely we could provide a better home than a dirty slimey puddle. So we collected about 5 or 6 and brought them home. If you ever try this, make sure you get your tap water and let it sit for a couple days first, so that all the dissolved chlorine comes out because our first crack at tadpole raising was a complete failure and they all died by the next morning.

We were right about one thing though, the roadside puddle isn't much better. A couple days later it rained and the puddle overflowed and most of the other tadpoles got stuck out on the sidewalk when the water level dropped. A few days after that, the rest of them were dead for no obvious reason.

But then with the rains a couple weeks ago, there came more tadpoles to the same roadside puddle, so we decided to try again, being much better read about tadpoles and how to keep them alive. Here's a reference, if you're ever inclined to try it.

Here's some pics. They're horribly cute, and horribly entertaining. I can watch them for hours. There is some anxiety of course, since the first batch all died, and sometimes they do stupid things like get themselves trapped in the rocks, and when I spend twenty minutes trying to gently-gently move rocks to get him out and he goes right back in there 30 seconds after he's freed. Otherwise they're adorable.



I know!



Some of them are starting to get their back legs. There's one that's more advanced than the others, but not by much. His name is Leggie because he has legs.



If you stick your finger in the water they will cling to you and start nibbling.



And since their tank is just a wee bit cramped, they're about to get introduced to their brand new pimped out crib. I know! Just as soon as the chlorine dissipates and the plants bump up the oxygen level.



Rock on my chickieweemonkies!
Keith.

There's a movie called Once playing at the Landmark in River Oaks. It's very good. The music is great.

busy busy busy

Hey Bloggers,

I know I haven't posted too much recently, but I have been quite busy. Here's a photo-recap of some of the things I've been up to. First of all, I got a nice digital camera, which makes uploading photos easy, so there should be more pictures in the future.

My Mom came to town, and Claudia and I hung out with her for a few days. Here we are by that thing on Memorial. The dog belonged to the guy who took the picture.
We saw the bats emerge from the Waugh street bridge, and we also went to the downtown aquarium.
This is some kind of a crazy salamander. It has gills and legs at the same time.
There were little shrimp that will swim up to your hand and clean your fingers if you don't freak out like I did.
A couple weeks later, Claudia and I went to the zoo on free-day. It wasn't that crowded because it was pouring rain most of the time. This is a lion.
I forget what this was but somebody shaved it.
We also took some time to play a round of golf with some comically large golf clubs.

Armand Bayou Nature Center has tons of animals, 95% of which are gigantic spiders.
I dog-sat for my boss. A delightful little whippet and a sizeable greyhound. They look so much like my beloved five-dog and their mannerisms are identical. It was nice.
I had a birthday. I'm 31 years old now. I celebrated at Churrascos. I had the salmon, Claudi had the churrasco. Then cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory.
I made some flautas that I'm kindof proud of. It was Emeril's recipe and it took quite a lot of work. But they were very good. Lunch today will be the last of the leftovers. It's a little sad to see them go.

But that's not everything. There are 45-50 new additions to the family. Stay tuned for some pics.

Rock on.
Keith.

Happy Birthday Freedom and Democracy.

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago, our forefathers along with Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, Henry Ford, and George Washington had an idea. It was a simple idea, that people should be able to decide who their leaders are and they should also be able to be different if they wanted to be different.

Today we can celebrate the birth of freedom. the birth of democracy. and the birth of the modern world.

Run an extra mile if you love freedom!

Rock on America!
Keith.