Photo time.. Part three!

By , May 25, 2010 4:52 pm

It’s that time of the week again! Or well, it’s just a random tuesday and I got some photos that I’m willing to share, so here goes! Get ready for another 13 photos from Florida, America!

Sitting at home at night is no fun sometime, so I went out to take some photos of thunder in the sky, but as that was mostly gone before I got to this place, I took some shots of cars passing by and ended up with this shot. Gotta be creative with your camera! πŸ™‚

When we went out to set out my project, not only did we see dolphins, but I saw 2 otters and 2 manatees as well! But the dolphins where the only animals I got a ‘couple’ of pictures from. About 114 in 5 minutes, hehe..

Yet another photo of dolphins, this one showing them coming up besides the boat we were on to get to the sites we’d have to check out.

You’ve seen one already, but I just wanted to show another one that I made that same evening.

This is a Smooth-billed Ani, a bird that a lot of birdwatchers come to the Everglades for, but never really get to see. I was standing besides a small group of people getting some explanations from a Park Ranger when suddenly this Ani sat down right besides us and bathed in the sun for a while. Nice.

Can you spot the owl? It’s one of those evenings where the light is beautiful and you get to see one of those animals you just don’t see very often. An owl this time.

Yep! That’s me in the sea at Fort Lauderdale’s beach! I spent a weekend up at friends in Fort Lauderdale and we went to the beach.

Didn’t believe me in that last picture? Well, see here! The proof that it was actually the beach of Fort Lauderdale! It’s on the sign, so it must be true, right? And you can see the sea behind me! πŸ˜€

While the weather wasn’t super that day, or at least, the clouds were blocking the sun at times, it was still really nice and warm outside. It constantly stayed around 28 degrees, which is ‘quite’ warm. That’s downtown Fort Lauderdale right there! With a lot of people at the beach, enjoying the weather and the water.

I traded in my truck for something a little quicker.. See? Or rather, no, that’s just one of the cars that you see driving around at the beach of Fort Lauderdale. One hell of a nice car if you ask me! Gotta love them American sportscars.

Hey dad! Look! Everything’s bigger in America! Even the milk-trucks!

One of the many colorful critters you can see flying through the park. We spotted this little fellow in the park when we were out mountainbiking.

You’ve seen this kind of dragonfly before, but I just had to take yet another picture of them, since they’re so nice looking. πŸ™‚ And this one was really photo-genetic, sitting still in front of a broken treebranch, just begging to have a photo taken.

And that’s it again for this session of ‘Photo time’. I hope you’ve enjoyed this batch of photos. Feel free to comment, as feedback’s always good to hear! πŸ™‚

Catch me again next time, same website, different timezone, same level of enthusiasm!

This week..

By , May 21, 2010 10:02 pm

Okay, the last week I didn’t really had much time to put anything here, I had long days and didn’t got around to posting stuff here. Right now I haven’t got photos to show, but I’ll make a small collection of a bunch of photos again next week. So that’s something to look forward to at least.

Anyway, what have I been doing this week? Or to be fair, since the last post I made was on friday last week, I’ll include what I did that weekend as well.

so, that weekend, what did I do? I went to Fort Lauderdale! I spent the weekend with friends in Fort Lauderdale, not really doing much on saturday, other than hang out and swim in the pool in their backyard, but on sunday we drove around through Fort Lauderdale, stopping at the beach, where we walked around a little, walked with my feet in the ocean and made a lot of photos of all the cool cars driving around there. Afterwards we went to eat at a nice little restaurant and had some icecream at a really nice ice cream stand.

As the weekend ended and the monday started, I had to help a member of the USGS with maintenance on some boats, checking out if the boats were completely stocked and we painted a few other boats.

Tuesday was the day that I helped with killing some non-native plantspecies in an area of the park that’s not open to the public anymore, but that is still maintained. By killing the non-native plants, you give the native plants a better chance to keep on growing. And we just don’t want the non-native plants around in those places.

Wednesday I got the chance to fly along with the helicopter again. A group of students from the University of Florida visited the park that day as part of a two week course. In this course a trip around the park with helicopter was included and my boss managed to get me on one of the flights around the park as well. Which was really cool to see the park from the sky again.

On thursday I got to help on the maintenance yard again, finishing the painting on one of the boat that I started monday. We also had to splice some new ropes to be used on a few of the boats here, which was something I had to learn, but picked up pretty quickly.

Today I helped someone pick up a boat from Flamingo and was planning to join them bringing it to another place in the park, but timewise that didn’t work out, so I spent the rest of the day in the office, doing some office work that was needed.

As you can see, I did a whole lot of different things than the weeks before, but you’ve got to see all the sides of the company during a internship, right? And that’s just what I did. πŸ™‚

This weekend I’ll probably do some more mountainbiking through the park. Perhaps even a little canoeing on the water, but I’ll see about that later this weekend.

You all have a good weekend now! And remember, next week there will be some more pictures again! πŸ™‚

Okay, so what is it that you do?

By , May 14, 2010 9:18 pm

Alright, let me tell you something about my project that I started last week. I couldn’t tell you anytime sooner, cause monday until thursday I was out into the field and didn’t have enough time to sit down and write up a new post for you guys. But right now I can! So here goes!

The project that I’m working on is about sediment movement.Β  With the use of tiles, laid out in a grid, I can follow the movement of sediment.

On the picture above you can see me setting out one of the grids in the Everglades. The PVC-square that is laying on the ground in front of me is a construction that I made. With the use of steel threaded rods I divided the space in the square up in 25 different sections. With the PVC-square, comically called ‘The Dutch checkerboard’ by me and some colleagues, I can lay out the white tiles in a square of 5 by 5 tiles, each about an inch apart.

Here I’m using the ‘dutch checkerboard’ to lay out the tiles in a grid.

Laying out tiles, but this time from another perspective. Giving you a good view on how I use the square to place the tiles in the soil.

The plan is that I will be checking the grids that I have laid out. Checking them out every other week. Taking pictures, checking if there is soil built up on top of the tiles and if that’s the case, how much soil.. And I’ll bring some of the soil back with me to do some more research on the soil in the lab. Drying it, weighing it. Then after a couple of times of checking, I’ll have to write all my findings down into a report. Working out all the results of my project.

So, that is, in a nutshell, a bit about the project that I’ll be working on a little more from now on.

Helicopter picking up a slingload

By , May 14, 2010 8:23 pm

The video behind the link in the video below is one of the things I get to see here in the park. A helicopter picking up a slingload that I helped prepare. It contains materials to set up a new research-point within the Everglades National Park.

Helicopter picking up a slingload (website)

Video: Helicopter picking up a slingload (youtube)

You can click on the link, but give it a while to load. It’s just under 30 megabytes, so it might take a while before it shows.

Thunder!

By , May 11, 2010 10:13 pm

Alright, I will be telling more about the placing of my project later this week, since right now, I just don’t really have the time for it, but I got enough time to show you all a quick picture of the ‘light’ thunder we had at the house earlier this week.

Borrowing a tripod from a housemate, I managed to get some great shots from the thunder that passed our house a couple of days ago. πŸ™‚

So, a bigger update will follow later this week. Probably on friday. I got fieldwork days all week, which means I’m pretty busy with those. Though that means I’m out into the Everglades by boat every day, which is really nice. Except for the deerflies, those are annoying though. And the musquitos haven’t even come out yet!

Photo time… Again!

By , May 4, 2010 4:03 pm

Jep! Another bunch of photos that you all like so much. πŸ™‚ And that’s a good thing, cause I like showing them to you, so it’s a win-win situation!

They got some weird trees here in the park. Or well, not weird trees, but the trees grow in some mysterious ways at times!

We’ve got a lot of different animals in the park, as this bird for instance, looks a lot like a crow, but I’m not sure if it is. This one was a great poser though.

They might look bigger, but these alligators are just about 40 centimeters long, perhaps 50 centimeters at most. πŸ™‚ Just chilling at the side of the road in some water at a culvert.

They got some crazy looking dragonflies and butterflies here in the park. I managed to get this shot from one of them while I was mountainbiking through the park with a housemate of mine.

That’s the side mirror of the car and me taking a picture of it and me taking a picture of the sideview mirror of the car. πŸ™‚

Downtown Miami in clear view, on the US-1 going south. Me and Gordon had to do some shopping and I brought my camera, so I took a few shots of the roads, including this one.

Me and a housemate of mine went mountainbiking through the park last sunday. Which was pretty cool. Besides it being hot though. πŸ™‚

Jep, the little blue truck takes me around. This was in the park, having walked for a little while, I came back to find the truck basking in the last sun of the day, so I had to take a picture of that, of course!

Well well, a downgoing sun makes for great silhouettes and a remote for my camera (which my brother gave to me! Thanks bro!) makes for great opportunities to take pictures of said sun and myself as the silhouette.

And that about wraps it up for this week’s phototime. Do tell what you think of the photos, as that’d be much appreciated! πŸ™‚

Gotta get back to work again and prepare to set up my project in the field tomorrow. So expect an update about that as well, somewhere at the end of the week or beginning of next week. πŸ™‚

Getting a suntan out on the open water

By , April 30, 2010 10:02 pm

I already told something about thursday evening, the whole Corporate Run thing. But I did not do nothing for the rest of the week. On the contrary.. I’ve been real busy the first part of the week.

Monday, tuesday and wednesday I was busy helping a group of people from the USGS from Biscayne National Park. They’re doing research on the kind of life that’s going on on the sea-bottom of areas in the Everglades and Biscayne National Park. So during these three days I helped them, I stayed on the boat together with another person from the group, while 3 divers went into the water and got samples from the sea-bottom, handing them up to us on the boat, where we bagged them and stored them for further analysis in the lab.

I gotta tell you, those three days were some hardcore days. Every day I had to get up at 5:45am to be ready at 6:15am when the group would pick me up. And on monday-morning we went out into the open water, just onto the Gulf of Mexico, but we got hit by this massive storm, which kinda surprised us. One diver was still in the water as the hard wind dragged the boat and the anker away from her. But with some quick actions we got her back on the boat safely. We got back safely too, but couldn’t do much that day.

On tuesday and wednesday the weather was absolutely fabulous, so we got a lot of ‘sweeps’ bagged and stored for the laboratory. I left the house at around 6:15am on both days, only to come back again at around 8:00pm, so that’s about a 14 hour workday! I can tell you, nothing sounds nicer after that than a hot shower and to rest your head on the pillow, falling asleep quickly. And that’s exactly what I did.

Today I’ve been working on some equipment that I had to make for my own project. the project that I’m here for. It’s getting more and more clear as to what I have to do, but I’ll explain that next week after we get the real project started into the field, cause then I’ll be able to provide you with pictures as well as an explanation. And that’s what you’re checking this site for, isn’t it?

Alright, it’s weekend now and I’m about to go home, so I’ll see you all again after the weekend. Byebye! πŸ™‚

2010 Mercedes-Benz Miami Corporate Run

By , April 30, 2010 10:00 pm

That’s the whole group of people from the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) that participated in the 2010 Mercedes-Benz Miami Corporate Run. A run for companies to encourage fitness with their employees and friends/families of the employees. I was also signed in for this by Gordon, my supervisor at the USGS.

It’s a 5 kilometer run through the downtown of Miami and in total 20000 people participated. Yeah, really. 20000 people. And that’s a whole lot! So from 6.45pm to until around 9pm, 5 kilometer of street was closed off for cars to have all of the people, including me run those 5 kilometers. Of course, not everyone ran, some walked and others jogged. I did a little bit of both, a little jogging, a little walking, since I’m not that much of an athlete and all. My time was about 50 minutes and 58 seconds. And I jogged the first 2,5 kilometers without stopping, so I’m pretty happy about that.

Afterwards, some people from the DIO department went out to a small bar called Tobacco Road for a beer and something to eat, before all of us went home again. But that was a fun evening! And I got two t-shirts out of it! The official Corporate Run t-shirt, and the red t-shirt from the team. πŸ™‚

The truck, a rearview mirror and deodorant..

By , April 29, 2010 7:18 pm

Sometimes you got to get creative with the things that you got. You have all seen that I’m driving an old truck here, hmm? And sometimes things break on old trucks.

A couple of days ago, the rear view mirror fell from the window. The glue that attached it stopped working. So, I bought some adhesive specially made for rearview mirrors from the automotive department in Wallmart (you really can buy anything in that store..). Following the instructions, I had to take the old glue off the window and rearview mirror. Scraping it off as best as I could, but not able to get everything off, the instructions said that I needed to clean the parts that would be sticking against eachother with alcohol. Of course, I got beer and beer has alcohol, but that’s the sticky kind of alcohol. I needed something else, something cleaner with alcohol. Which got me thinking until I found what I needed.

Deodorant! Deodorant has (some kind of) alcohol in it, I remembered. So I grabbed my can of deodorant and sprayed the window and tried to clean it. Which worked! πŸ˜€ So I didn’t only got my rearview mirror back on the window, but it’s also a lot cleaner now.. AND it smelled great for a while!

So, here’s my advice, if you ever want your windows cleaned, but don’t have any alcohol or whatever to clean it with? Use deodorant. Worked for me..

Birthday away from home

By , April 24, 2010 12:14 am

First of, I would like to thank everyone that reached me, either by phone, email, comments or whatever to congratulate me with my 24th birthday!

I really really really appreciate it! πŸ™‚

I didn’t do much about my birthday today, other than placed a cake in the lunchroom here in the office. I was out all day with my supervisor, shopping for supplies for the project that I’ll be doing here for the USGS (I’ll tell more about it once I actually get to work on it some more) and we ate lunch at a place called Shorty’s, a small bbq place up in Miami.

This weekend I’ll be driving around through the park a little more, walk around, see some of the visitor centers and take some more pictures.

So, all of you a good weekend as well and I’ll get back to you next week! Though probably just around friday, as I’ll be doing a lot of fieldwork from monday till thursday. Anyway, see ya when I see ya!

And thanks again for all the birthday wishes! Makes the big distance seem a little less big for a little while. And it put a big smile on my face. Here in Florida.

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