hookem2010

Prehistoric planet season 2 is great, as expected. I'd have a hard time not liking something David Attenborough was attached to. Sometimes it's easier to watch a nature documentary about things that have been dead for millions of years, rather than creatures we are actively driving to extinction.

I'm not positive if ranchers or drillers are the bigger issue in this particular case. Pretty much all the grouse-like species of the central and western grasslands are completely boned if conservation measures aren't substantially stepped up.

A yellow-green vireo showed up near Lake Somerville. These turn up in the valley perhaps annually in very small numbers, but are scarce elsewhere in the United States. The baby and I successfully chased it this morning. It was the best kind of chase, with another person already there and on the bird so I didn't have to do any of the hard work. Didn't even try for a photo this time, but this is what it looks like. Quite similar to our locally breeding red-eyed vireo In shitty bird news, congress is working to delist the lesser prairie chicken from the ESA just 6 months after it was added. It's ONLY lost 97% of its population in the last 60 years, so obviously this decision is based on firmly established science 😠

Mango a giant fucking pain in my ass, and we have to be careful because of her sheer size and hyperactivity, but this dobie at least is great with the little one.

My photo setup is pretty legit, so that's how I get all these sweet shots. Tie a large dog around my waist, push a generally impatient and uninterested baby in a stroller, then attempt to hold my phone up to my bins, producing a photo suggestive of something that could be a bird.

We just bought a house in WilCo and have a one year-old. Wife loves her job and signed a retention bonus. If things keep heading this way though (lol, as if there is an alternative in this state), I'd love to start looking to move elsewhere by the time he gets school-aged. As mentioned above, where the fuck do you go?

Gotta laugh, otherwise I'd cry

Appreciate the advixe. If we decided to wallpaper that wall, could I get away with just sanding and spackling as best I can, or would I still need to do the full repair do you think.

Barred owls are awesome. I thought I'd take one last stroll through my neighborhood park to look for lingering migrants. There was some decent activity, but nothing special. Decided on one last mini-loop through some trees and found my multi-year spring migrant nemesis black-billed cuckoo. These little bastards are rare to begin with this far west, but they're also secretive AF, so they only get reported once every year or two in WilCo. My awful attempt at a pic versus what they actually look like...

Really started coming off in chunks toward the bottom. Should I just cut out an area a bit outside of the peeling edges? Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll just peel the entire wall off

Bought a house recently and removed some shelving that had been present for who knows how long. The paint, and I'm guessing some drywall, came off in large chunks in some places, especially where it looked like some water had leaked down. I am not a handyman, but have the time to knock out what I hope are manageable projects for a novice. How do I smooth this shit out and get it looking presentable?

I believe the standard 5 years ago was 6 months of sobriety.

They are. My wife worked a few years in the surgical and liver ICU at Houston Methodist, which I believe is one of the top places in the country/world for them. Unfortunately, she mostly had horror stories about the patients who rolled through those doors. It's an incredibly long and dangerous road for those lucky enough to receive one, but he seems to have surprised people since this most recent tragedy began, so maybe his fortune can continue. **I don't recall if Methodist is where he is at, but that would be my guess

Damn, reading basically this entire thread in a week was a trip. Thanks to the stalwarts who seem to respond to basically every new person who comes in with a problem of their own or a loved one. Sad to learn about El Diablo, and worried about several other posters who seemed to disappear over time. I've tentatively reached the conclusion that I'm probably a problem drinker rather than an alcoholic. But, I've got to prove to myself that I can stop entirely for a period of time and down the road I can see if I even want to reintroduce alcohol at some point. Reading yalls stories all across the alcohol abuse spectrum was incredibly helpful,and typing out my concerns rather than just perfunctorily telling my wife I think I should probably cut back has oddly seemed like a significantly greater commitment. Immensely grateful to have finally ventured in here.

Oh, I got a picture! It's just through my bins with a phone and a fidgety baby hanging from my chest. Wanna see it!!! Got some crisp audio at least. 2023-05-19 07_56.wav

I made the trek down the Hill of Life to (successfully!) chase the Swainson's warbler turned up a few days ago by Austin's teenage birding wunderkind. Not the flashiest of birds, but only Travis County's 3rd recors. It was singing its little heart out and I could hear it 5 minutes before I got to him. The hike back up with 20 lbs of baby strapped to my chest was fun. Nice little bow to wrap up spring migration.

Yea, it's not to the point where drinking is affecting my relationships or ability to perform my responsibilities. Doesn't mean it's not a problem, so I'm going to try and stop altogether for an unspecified amount of time and see how that goes. In the past, I've tried to set limits, which hasn't been particularly effective for me.

The compulsion to continue drinking after the first one or two hits home for me. I can go out and have a drink or two with friends, but that alone is rarely satisfying to me, so I typically get something on the way home so as not to allow those first couple drinks to "go to waste" or feel pointless to me.

As a shy person who struggles to understand my own feelings, I definitely use it to be more open emotionally and interactive socially. And while I don't experience the depression I once did, I think I've settled into a bit of dysthymia, and alcohol provides that brief bit of euphoria I rarely feel otherwise.

I appreciate the response. I couldn't go back to sleep last night so I read the first 15 pages of the thread. I've known that I've had a problem limiting my alcohol for years, but repeatedly telling myself that I will cut back has not resulted in any significant or long-lasting changes, so clearly I need to do something differently. Going to check out the Big Book

I've avoided this thread for a long time, mostly because I felt like I might belong in it. I've only looked at this page, but it seems shit hits home around 35 for a lot of people, and I just hit that age. Currently laying in the guest bedroom after a silly drunkish fight with the wife and experiencing my standard 3 am wakeup feeling sick to my stomach, depressed and regretful. I don't drink every day, but I usually do maybe twice a week, and even though I'm not getting completely lit, it always seems like I need "one more" than I intend to have. I think part of the problem is I'm now aware enough to not take it way too far, like I occasionally would in the past, so I'm not blacking out or puking or anything like that. Obviously, one does not need to get to that point to still be drinking too much, too often. I'm not sure if I could put a finger on when my alcohol issues began, because I feel like my drinking didn't slow down much after college, it just kind of morphed from going out with friends to drink to drinking more by myself. And while I've moderated it some since that time, I've wanted to decrease my drinking for probably a decade with only slight improvement. Recently, the struggle I feel like stems from having a new kid. I've been staying at home with our 1 year-old, and when I'm alone with him, I don't really have any desire to drink. But when my wife is off work, I think we both get a little stir-crazy doing baby stuff constantly, so the easy thing to do to pass time as the day is winding down is to go grab a beer and bring some home for when the kid goes to sleep. I don't know if complete abstinence is the answer for me or not, but I'm tired of having 1 or 2 nights every week where I sleep like shit and wake up feeling exhausted and ashamed. I'm not a religious person and I'm not ready to commit to anything else quite yet, but I know from past depression that talking to people who don't know me personally was one of the most helpful things I did. Hopefully putting this out there makes me more ready to come to grips with the fact that I have a problem, rather than telling myself for the 1000th time that this time it's different and I won't be here again next weekend.

There's a brown pelican hanging out at Town Lake where Waller Creek dumps into it. I haven't seen it yet, but they hardly ever range inland and there are only a couple of records from the county, so a very cool find.

This was not a serious post. I think something desperately needs to be done to respond to our country's obsession with guns, but have zero expectations that anything will change.

Cost of freedom. If you don't like it, you can get out!!!

Not much more than a week of legit spring migration remaining here in TX. It's been pretty slow for me this year, although my 11 month-old not allowing me to stand still for more than 5 seconds may be contributing to my troubles. I did hit 100 species at the local park since moving 3 months ago, just not the density of migrants compared to the hotspots in Austin that I'm used to. Hoping for another flurry of activity before things start to wind down.