OK, Connie’s off to her South Southwest District Ladies of Elks meeting…she’s the senior delegate so she runs the meeting. They’re at Rotunda Lodge this time and her friends picked her up as it was their turn to drive. They had a nice date night last night at Tamiami Tavern…Tuna Tacos for her and a Beef on Weck for him…that’s thinly sliced beef on a Weck roll (it’s a midwest thing) with horseradish and fries.. He had leftovers for lunch and since she’s having lunch probably won’t be too hungry tonight…so we’ll have pasta of some sort as that’s easy to scale for her post lunch appetite.

His old Z9 got delivered to the trade in place today…they’ll evaluate and verify it’s in the condition he said it was…and the proceeds will mostly pay for the second Z8 body he ordered to replace it. The Z8 is about a pound lighter, and has all the same optical and electronic guts as the Z9 so it’s basically a Z9 without the vertical grip (that’s what adds the weight) and a smaller battery. The disadvantages are the lower battery life but that’s never been an issue for him and he’s gonna carry an extra battery in the field with him as well. The lack of a vertical grip means he has to rotate his hand as well as the camera to take vertical framed shots (portrait style) as opposed to horizontal (landscape)…but he rarely shoots portrait anyway as it doesn’t look as nice on the blog. It is also not as good for long videos…heat buildup is an issue…but as he rarely shoots video and only short when he does that’s not a problem either.

They’re looking forward to his birthday next week and also to their trip to Costa Rica later on…Connie will go fishing and lay by the pool while he’s out in the jungle…so they’ll both be happy. 

Let’s see…what else.

Oh yeah…the former President’s trial is ongoing up in NYC…and while we have no dog in the hunt as it were…Neil does keep reading a bit of the news about the trial and he’s still waiting on the underlying crime that the AG there used to elevate the charges of business fraud from misdemeanors to felonies. As far as we know…paying off your mistress isn’t a crime and we’re having a hard time understanding how repaying your lawyer for paying her off isn’t justified as being legal fees…but perhaps the business record specifics make it so. Nonetheless…since the Feds investigated him already for election interference and found no basis for charges and since the state can’t (we think) use an un-indicted and uncharged or convicted federal crime as their justification anyway and since the NYC AG didn’t charge him with election interference but has just claimed in court that he’s violated the NY state law on election interference…we won’t be surprised if the judge tosses the felony charges before it goes to the jury. I’m sure that the defense will bring this up…and the salacious nature of some of Mr. Cohen’s testimony already gives them one avenue for appeal and if the felony charges stand that’s another appeal. We think he probably did do it to influence the election…but just like OJ it hasn’t been proved beyond a reasonable doubt at least based on the evidence as quoted in the paper. He will also appeal based on jury bias…and considering he’s being tried in a jurisdiction that voted something like 92% for President Biden its a pretty blue district and we think if the AG was really interested in a fair trial he would have supported moving the venue to a county that voted about 50% for each candidate in 2020. However…it’s been pretty clear all along that Mr. Bragg just wants to be the guy that convicts the man and really isn’t interested much in actual justice. Reading the articles and opinions…from both sides…makes me wonder if they’re talking about the same courtroom. And then one reads the articles about the classified documents proceeding down in FL…and both sides of the political spectrum completely do a 180 regarding their opinion of the court and its decisions. To be fair…and as I’ve said before neither of them deserves to win in November…it looks like the prosecution in both of these cases as well as the one in Georgia has been a little bit of an over reach. I personally don’t think any of them will have a thing to do with the outcome in November.

Nuttin…so let’s dive into the photos.

The first stop in the morning was out at the lion pride with the cubs…and the one little guy is still wrestling with things…although it’s a stick in this case instead of mom’s tail.

Then one of his siblings wandered by and over to stretch and claw on the same tree trunk mom likes.

Mom decided he needed a little grooming.

Before she headed off.

And he finally caught an action shot of all 4 cubs at the same time.

Unfortunately…the tail wrestler caught up to her…again.

Then they all laid down for a rest.

Heading off from there…the next find was a female cheetah with a couple of teenagers with her…this juvenile showed how close they are willing to come. It was curious and kept looking over to mom with an expression that suggested “hey mom, look what I found”. This was actually the other truck and Steve who was in it took this with his iPhone from about 3-4 feet. As you can see from this one…cheetahs, unlike lions…do not have retractable claws.

Here’s mom looking on.

And then the whole family decided to use the vehicles for a high spot to search for prey along with a nearby termite mound.

Female Kori Bustard.

This solitary elephant wandered by while they were watching the cheetah family.

And Neil got a nice pano across the savannah where the cheetahs were looking for lunch.

Moving on from there they spotted a couple of juvenile Thompson’s Gazelles (that’s the smaller of the two species here) practicing their fighting skills in preparation for the mating season later on.

These were seen on the way back to camp for lunch…so it was just a quick stop for them. I’ll save the afternoon drive for the next post.

Interesting things found on the net.

This is the Glenfinnan viaduct in Scotland with the Jacobite steam train passing over it…although we’ve never seen them (or read the books either for the matter)…this is apparently used a lot in the Harry Potter movies. Built in 1897-98, it’s the longest concrete railway bridge in the country and crosses the River Finnan via a series of 21 50 foot arches.

And here’s a live look at the IT security at AT&T according to the tweet this came with.

That’s about it…there’s been slim pickins’ the past few weeks.

Cyas.