Estate Sale Adventure

 I went to my first ever estate sale this past weekend. Truth be told, it wasn't really an "adventure" but My First Estate Sale just didn't sound as catchy a title. Every time I hear the phrase estate sale, my brain instantly brings up images of a huge, mansion like home. Maybe it's Batman 66's fault for using "stately Wayne manor" all he time. But no, this was a two story house just down the street from me.

 

 Along with the mansion, I always pictured it being some kind of high falutin event. What it actually is, is random people walking through and scouring the house for items. Imagine one day, something unexpected happens to you then people walk into your house. That's it. No pomp, no circumstance, just strangers looking at your stuff. Now, I don't know what happened to the owner(s) of the house but they were obviously older folk(s) based on the contents of the house.

Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary

Earlier this year, Mrs Dex and I were trying to think up something fun to do that wouldn't require being around a lot of people. Not that we're anti-social but you know...Covid. She came up with the idea of visiting wildlife sanctuaries and that's become an occasional thing to do when the weather is nice.

Recently we went to Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary and I figured I'd share some pics and maybe inspire others to check out their local wildlife places. It's one of those things people either don't know about or forget about, like libraries.

This particular place has 12 miles of trails. I would guess we might have barely covered 1/6 of that. There were plenty of critters to be seen and really, that's the main reason I want to explore these areas. It's funny when you think about it. These sanctuaries aren't far from your home but you'll never see some of these animals in your neighborhood.

Hauilday Excerpts

I usually try to do the after Christmas post before the New Year. At least I think I do, I'm not going to go back and check. Here's a few highlights from my gift haul 2020.

Starting off with a couple of really cool shirts. I love the art style on the Strange one, plus is kind of a subtle reference that non-Marvel people will miss. We'll get back to Mando & Son, there's a lot more of them coming up!

I got my first Funko Soda ever. I've always held off on getting any of these because I usually want the 'regular' version and don't want to take the chance on getting a variant. I like the kinda chunky, solid figure design.

The other thing is a Disney's Haunted Mansion diorama set. I've seen pictures of these from the parks and was definitely going to pick one up on my next trip (Which would have been September 2020, thanks Covid.) It's part of the attic scene and there's lots of little bits and pieces to it. This will likely get its own blog post whenever I get around to putting it together. Looks very cool! I also got the Hallmark Hitchhiking Ghost ornament.

 

 

In recent years, the Disney Store has been selling these collector keys. They come in all sorts of themes and characters. This is a pretty cool set that covers a few different aspects of Disney. The Marvel one has Avengers symbols and the Star Wars one has Vader and Luke on it.
 

There's just something really fun about having a "Star Wars Christmas" again and this year was definitely one of those! On the Pop front, we have Moff Gideon with Darksaber and Mando & Son in the desert. Top right is a pair of Mando and IG-11 Cosbaby bobblehead figures. Not pictured, a Mandalorian 2020 wall calendar.

For when you need to shoot and capture your bounty alive: the Mandalorian Polaroid camera! It's the odd perfect combination of modern day Star Wars with 1970s technology. It might be the 21st century but the photos still look like how you remember Polaroids from back in the day.

 

 

The camera itself looks like it would fit right in with Mando's armor and even has a Mudhorn skull on the back. Do you remember the last time you had to look through a viewfinder to take a photo? Me either! My one minor complaint with the setup is the position of the shutter button below the flash. You have to pay attention to your hand position when snapping those pics otherwise you're going to get finger shadows on your subject. The original cameras didn't have a flash, or if they did it was on an additional part of the camera that flipped up.

The film has Mandalorian themed borders and graphics on it. What's really cool is that when you prep a new film cartridge, there is a film protector that gets ejected (bottom right). This one of the Armorer is numbered 5/8 so I'm guessing there's 8 different cards to collect as well.

So that's some of the stuff I got over the holidays. 

What kind of cool stuff did you get? 

Let me know in the comments!

Vacation Pt 1 - Seattle

Hey folks, here is the first of a few vacation posts. It's probably going to be a bit long so grab a drink and some snacks. The vacation started in Seattle, WA. I was only there a couple days but was able to see a few things after getting some suggestions.

This is my favorite shot of the city taken from the cruise ship just before leaving Seattle. The Space Needle lets you know where you are and I really like the different colors of the buildings in the foreground. We may as well start there, you don't travel across the country and not go to the Space Needle!

The Needle is right next to the Museum of Pop Culture which will be its own post because I have SO many pictures. The top of the Needle has a great view of the city and we were lucky enough to get there just before sunset.

The observation area is pretty cool. Instead of a fence to keep you away from the 520' drop, there are large sheets of plate glass that are angled outward. Not only can you walk up to the glass but you can lean forward to look below. There are also a few glass benches where you can sit and lean back to rest on the glass, if you're brave enough. The lower level used to house a rotating restaurant but is now another observation deck.

This area does still rotate and has a glass floor so you can look down 500 feet. What's really interesting about this is that all the mechanical bits that make it rotate are also visible through the floor as well. It's not like a merry-go-round, it rotates very slowly.

With the Needle being built in the early 60s, there's a lot of retro-future stuff in the gift shop. Even if going to the top doesn't interest you, definitely check out the gift shop.

The Needle was built for the 1962 World's Fair and this wax mold machine still works. They do keep some pre-made ones behind the counter in case the machine breaks down.

Some retro-future style art.

From here, we'll travel to the waterfront and hit Pike Place Market.

The original Starbucks is in the neighborhood and had a line going out the door of all the caffeine faithful. For some reason, I didn't take any photos of it! In the Market area, the are plenty of vendors offering flowers, fruit, and enough seafood to choke a whale. There are also a few levels below the market with various shops, including a comic store and a magic shop.

The Pike Place Fish Market (above) is famous for its flying fish. Not actual flying fish but because the staff are known for throwing fish over the counter instead of just passing them by hand. I'm talking 3' long salmon here!

If you wander the market area, you may find yourself at the infamous Market Theater Gum Wall. Now, when someone told me to visit the "gum wall" I had pictured maybe a 5'x5' section of brick wall with gum stuck to it. I was so very wrong.

It's not just a single wall...

Every bit of color you see on these walls is someone's chewed up gum.
Every. Bit.

I definitely had an odd feeling walking through here.
Not like spooky or gross out odd, I dunno.

The gum wall started around 1993. In 2015 the area got a scrub down to try and preserve the walls. What you're seeing is just 4 years of gum! If you look at the ceiling in the first pic, you will see some pipes. You can see those same pipes in the above pic to give you an idea of the area. It goes beyond what you can see here too! As you walk further away, the walls are covered less and less.

I invite you to click on these photos to get an up close view of the masticated masterpieces.

The final stop for this post is Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, founded in 1899.

As the name suggests, this is a shop but it's also part dime museum. There is all sorts of tourist kitsch for sale and then there's the slightly more oddball stuff.

Like this wall of mounted insects. There is a display case below this with spiders and scorpions encased in glass. There are all kinds of taxidermy animals around the place both real and imagined. Check the top row for a rabbit-headed bird and a Jackalope head.

Among a Fiji mermaid and real shrunken heads is the star attraction, Sylvester.

Sylvester is a mummy from the late 1800s.
Here's more info on him.

What a crazy dentist, huh?

That will about wrap up the touring around Seattle part. There are a few more pics I didn't post/link here on Flickr if you still want to do some sightseeing.

I'll leave you with this fun fact about Seattle.
They have dedicated bicycle lanes and traffic lights.
You can't walk more than a block in any direction downtown without seeing bicycles for rent.

Easy-Macro and the Alien Spider

Just a heads-up, if you're not a fan of spiders, even in photographic form, you should probably not continue.

I picked up this neat little thing called Easy-Macro which is a macro lens attachment for your phone's camera. Okay, it's not so much an "attachment" as a rubbery band with a lens that stretches over your phone. For $10 it seemed like a fun impulse buy so I gave it a shot.

When not in use you can wrap it on to the card which then slips into a little credit card sized envelope so you can put it in your wallet. I've been playing with it around the house getting up close with all sorts of things including my fingerprints.

I bought it from Photojojo which has all sorts of neat stuff for photography. They always send a little plastic dinosaur with your order so I figured he'd be a good test subject.

A couple days later, I was putting out the trash and noticed a spider had built a web between the trash bin and the fence. It wasn't any kind of spider I'd seen before, it was very colorful. It also had more of a horizontal thing going with its web as opposed to what you might normally think when you picture a spider web.

Thanks to InsectIdendtification.org, I was able to find out this is a Venusta Orchard Spider. This site has a great set of drop down menus you can use to narrow down your mystery creepy crawly. This spider belongs to the family Tetragnathidae which are long-jawed orb weavers. From what I've read, the females are the web spinners in this species.

Fun Fact: This is the only spider to get its Genus name from Charles Darwin.

Macro photography requires a steady hand and an equally steady subject. In addition to having to get within about an inch, I was trying to not damage the web (which was intricate and hard to see) plus there was a bit of a breeze bouncing our little arachnid around. They also like to hang upside down in the web and while it is a few feet off the ground, it was challenging to maneuver the phone up under it without disturbing anything.

I could tell it was colorful when looking at it but didn't really appreciate it until seeing the macro photos. I thought it looked very alien, not only because it's green, but also because of how it almost looks like it's made of crystal. This of course reminded me of the crystal spider from the movie Krull. If you click on the photo, you can get even closer and be able to see some of the eyes as well as tiny hairs on the legs that help detect vibrations in the web.

I tried, without the macro lens, to get pics of the web because it is very interesting to look at. It's horizontal with many layers which I could almost picture as being floors in a house. Using a phone camera to try and capture a spider web in daylight is not an easy thing.

I went back and took this one yesterday as there was a bit more sun shining there than the first couple I took. To my surprise, she had constructed a more traditional web but horizontally instead of vertically. Now I'm thinking the multi-level "house" web I saw was probably the remnants of few previous webs in the same general area.

You can read all you'd ever want to know about the Orchard Spider here.