utenzi

More pictures from the NC Zoo. These are the first ones I took that day. These giraffes were the first animals we saw. We arrived just after the park opened at 9am. The giraffes shared their enclosure with... ...a small herd of zebras who were hiding over a hill when we first got there. We spent about 15 minutes at this section and gradually the zebras came closer to us--that's a termite mound that the zebra is behind The third group of animals to appear were several ostriches. They looked kinda silly but very big! And below is a photo of them all grouped somewhat together. We left right after I took this picture and went off to see a warthog next that wasn't very cooperative and then the lions.

I mentioned a few days ago that I'd purchased off of Craig's List an exercise machine. A Nitroflex, to be more specific, for the grand sum of $75. The boxes you see to the left were bought by the seller as discontinued merchandise over a year ago and stored in his back yard storage shed. You might be able to see some of the bugs and such that had made their homes on these boxes. I left them out on my deck for a few days before opening them to allow the insects to leave gracefully or die in the sun. The picture to the left is the pieces from the box, unboxed, and up in one of my upstairs bedrooms. For the most part it wasn't difficult to move it around though two pieces were heavy and a number of them were kinda long and bulky to be wandering about the house with. Surprisingly, this kit didn't require any extra tools. There were two allen keys and one combo wrench included in the boxes and that was all it took to put it together. The whole thing only took about half an h...

Last week I read most of Lisa Scottoline's book Devil's Corner . I took nearly 5 days to bother with the last 3 chapters but finally did finish the book last night. I've read 3 other books by Scottoline and have found her to be a decent writer. This book doesn't merit that designation though. I was quite disappointed with it and don't recommend it. Most of the reviews I've seen of the book on the web are positive, so if you like her as an author--feel free to give it a shot but don't say I didn't warn you! Okay. This is a stand alone book by Scottoline though it still takes place in Philidelphia like her other books. The protagonist is Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA as it's referred to constantly in the book) Vicki Allegretti and she's an overly earnest and emotional caricature. Seriously, this struck me many times as a book written by a man since the depiction of Vicki Allegretti was so often just sketchy and 2-Dimensional. Here's t...

I didn't do all that much this weekend. On Saturday I picked up a piece of exercise equipment that I saw advertised on Craig's List. It was only $75 and I thought that was a good deal--we'll just have to see if I actually use it! Anyway, the person I bought it from lived fairly close to Umstead Park so I went there afterwards with my girlfriend. Neither of us has hiked at Umstead Park in over a year which is a shame since there's some nice trails there. Here's a map of the place . We did the Company Mill Trail but half way through my girlfriend was getting a bit overheated--it was in the low to mid 80s by the time we got there--so we cut off the last bit of the loop and came back across the trail using the Reedy Creek Trail. So instead of doing a 5.8 mile hike it was more like 4.8 miles. The only bad part was I twisted my ankle a bit. It's swollen and tender but not sprained. I've hurt my ankles so many times that they're both kinda loose so they turn ov...

Saturday Siesta at Utenzi's

This post is for Oreo . His mom is kinda hurt. Her knee is having problems and I thought a few pictures of kitties from the zoo might cheer him up--and maybe his mommie too. I'm sure Oreo's mommy would appreciate it if you'd stop by and say hi. I don't think she's moving around very well right now. This picture is of a shy lioness. Or maybe she's sad and wiping tears...maybe she's sad 'cause of the hurt knee too, Oreo. The next picture down is of a cat that just wouldn't wake up to have his picture taken. Go figure. He was in one of the caged sections so he probably wasn't all that happy anyway. Does that happen to you, Oreo, when you're sad? Do you just sleep? The third picture is of a mountain lion (aka cougar). They had a pretty big outside enclosure and there were two of them but both were hiding. The other cat was way up on a cliff like rock and you could only see the rump and tail, this one was hiding behind some bushes. I kinda suspec...

I'm in a rut here. More pictures from the NC Zoo, I'm afraid. Here's two pictures of a gorilla. There were 4 gorillas, I think, in the enclosure but this is the biggest one. Here's a shot from a distance so you can get a feel for what the place looked like. It was pretty big--big enough that I couldn't be sure if I had seen all the gorillas in there--and looked well designed. Not that I wanted to move in there or anything, but they did have a "jungle gym" thingy that looked like a lot of fun. This picture is a little closer in and you can get a grasp that this fellow could tear one of us apart, limb by limb. That is one sturdy fellow. I watched a few more new shows tonight after doing some mowing. I liked Studio 60 quite a bit and think it has a lot of potential to continue a high quality level across the entire season. Smith was pretty good but the characters weren't very cuddly and lovable--to say the least--so I'm more likely to drop that one...