February 2, 2010
Change to the Contest!
Due to some important info that has been coming my way it turns out google analytics might not be the gorgeous resource I once thought it was. So there is a change to the contest (yes folks, the contest will go on). Instead of just visiting the site you must leave a comment with the city where you currently reside. So if I were to cast a ballot I would leave a comment that would say, "Stevens Point." I know that this is a bit more of a commitment but I know that the cream will rise to the top. Good luck and thanks for the feedback.
January 29, 2010
The Beauty of Google Analytics
If you ever start a blog or a website be sure to check this out: Google Analytics. Let me tell you what this bad boy does. Analytics will show you how many people are visiting your site, the average time they spend on the site, what day they viewed the site, and where they viewed it from. It is the ultimate form of stalking. I can tell you that on January 21st my blog was viewed 38 times from 8 different states and the average time spent on the site was 2 minutes and 42 seconds. It's pretty great.
I find myself checking it maybe 10 times in the couple of days following a blog post. I like to see where the visits are coming from and try to guess who's been looking at the blog, also pretty great. I clearly need a life, and fast. But until then I will continue to stalk all of you on the internet.
So instead of having this amazing resource kept all to myself I thought that I could get all of you involved as well. Starting today, January 29th, there will be a contest to see which city can amass the most visits by February 5th. The city that wins will get the honor of having me write a blog post praising that city. Also, if you reside in that city during the contest I will buy you a drink of your choice next time I see you. Sounds like something worth playing for? Well too bad, it's all you're going to get. Good luck and Godspeed.
I find myself checking it maybe 10 times in the couple of days following a blog post. I like to see where the visits are coming from and try to guess who's been looking at the blog, also pretty great. I clearly need a life, and fast. But until then I will continue to stalk all of you on the internet.
So instead of having this amazing resource kept all to myself I thought that I could get all of you involved as well. Starting today, January 29th, there will be a contest to see which city can amass the most visits by February 5th. The city that wins will get the honor of having me write a blog post praising that city. Also, if you reside in that city during the contest I will buy you a drink of your choice next time I see you. Sounds like something worth playing for? Well too bad, it's all you're going to get. Good luck and Godspeed.
January 21, 2010
Wild Canid Footprints
Another post? Yes. I wouldn't lie to you guys.
So this past fall it came to my attention that the DNR was looking for volunteer wolf trackers. I thought to myself, "What could be more badass than tracking wolves through the north woods in the middle of winter?" And after only coming up with a short list, including being Pat Andera, and making a full court shot, I decided it was for me. So I signed up for the class with Molly and we went to a short training back in December. We got to learn about RLU's (raised leg urinations), RLU's with estrus (raised leg urinations with blood indicating that a female will likely have pups), and double RLU's (raised leg urinations by a dominant pair in a pack). Aside from all the urine talk we also did learn about the acutal tracks of canids (wolves and dogs), mustelids (fishers, martens, skunks. etc.), and felids (cats, bobcats, lynx). It was all incredibly informative and Molly and I were able to get assigned a block to track near Conserve School so we could stay there (Thanks Rach and Polina).
Now this tracking is not what you think it is and certainly not what I thought it was when I signed up. It turns out you spend almost all of your time driving. Puzzling, I know. It does make sense upon further explanation. Wolves can travel 25 miles in one night pretty easily so a couple of people on skis or snowshoes couldn't possibly cover the necessary distance to get a good sample of the data the DNR needs. Wolves also prefer to travel on roads because they are plowed making easier for them to travel without the deep snow. So tracking consists of us traveling in Molly's rollerskate at a rate of 15 mph on backcountry roads looking for tracks.
So a couple of weekends ago Molly and I got our first chance to go tracking. We really didn't know what to expect or where to look. So we went to a random part of our block and turned down Buckatabon Road. One lesson that we learned not too far into our travels was that you don't need to stop and look at every track you pass. Stopping every 15 yards or so will drive you mad. But something did come from us stopping so often early on. Officially 1.1 miles into our tracking excursion we saw this:
That my friends is a bobcat track. It was a pretty awesome find but it wasn't what we came down Buckatabon looking for so we carried on.
After seeing a plethora of deer tracks, coyote tracks (not terribly interesting when you see it about 10 times in 3 miles or so), and snowmobile tracks making it impossible to see any of the trackable snow on the side of the road, we started to make better time down good ol' Buckataon. We were becoming a little more picky about the tracks that we stopped for and this almost did us in. I was driving for a while and there were some tracks on the side of the road but I just shrugged it off for about a 1/2 mile or so. Then were saw some tracks coming onto the road so we stopped to check those out. It turns out the tracks
that I was foolishly shrugging off were these:
We found wolves! Well, at least one. So we followed these tracks about a mile and a half down the road until we got to a three way intersection when all of a sudden the one track turned into five! This was probably the most amazing part of the day. We learned in our class that wolves will often travel in lines and will place their paws perfectly in the tracks of the wolf in front of them. By looking at this one track not one of you out there would have guessed that five wolves stepped there. Amazing stuff.
Here are the totals from our day of tracking:
1 Bobcat
Countless Deer
14 Coyotes
Too Many Annoying Snowmobiles
1 Marten
8 Wolves
It was a great day. Filled with frustration, joy, RLU's (I peed over a wolf RLU), and lots and lots of tracks.
So this past fall it came to my attention that the DNR was looking for volunteer wolf trackers. I thought to myself, "What could be more badass than tracking wolves through the north woods in the middle of winter?" And after only coming up with a short list, including being Pat Andera, and making a full court shot, I decided it was for me. So I signed up for the class with Molly and we went to a short training back in December. We got to learn about RLU's (raised leg urinations), RLU's with estrus (raised leg urinations with blood indicating that a female will likely have pups), and double RLU's (raised leg urinations by a dominant pair in a pack). Aside from all the urine talk we also did learn about the acutal tracks of canids (wolves and dogs), mustelids (fishers, martens, skunks. etc.), and felids (cats, bobcats, lynx). It was all incredibly informative and Molly and I were able to get assigned a block to track near Conserve School so we could stay there (Thanks Rach and Polina).
Now this tracking is not what you think it is and certainly not what I thought it was when I signed up. It turns out you spend almost all of your time driving. Puzzling, I know. It does make sense upon further explanation. Wolves can travel 25 miles in one night pretty easily so a couple of people on skis or snowshoes couldn't possibly cover the necessary distance to get a good sample of the data the DNR needs. Wolves also prefer to travel on roads because they are plowed making easier for them to travel without the deep snow. So tracking consists of us traveling in Molly's rollerskate at a rate of 15 mph on backcountry roads looking for tracks.
So a couple of weekends ago Molly and I got our first chance to go tracking. We really didn't know what to expect or where to look. So we went to a random part of our block and turned down Buckatabon Road. One lesson that we learned not too far into our travels was that you don't need to stop and look at every track you pass. Stopping every 15 yards or so will drive you mad. But something did come from us stopping so often early on. Officially 1.1 miles into our tracking excursion we saw this:
That my friends is a bobcat track. It was a pretty awesome find but it wasn't what we came down Buckatabon looking for so we carried on.
After seeing a plethora of deer tracks, coyote tracks (not terribly interesting when you see it about 10 times in 3 miles or so), and snowmobile tracks making it impossible to see any of the trackable snow on the side of the road, we started to make better time down good ol' Buckataon. We were becoming a little more picky about the tracks that we stopped for and this almost did us in. I was driving for a while and there were some tracks on the side of the road but I just shrugged it off for about a 1/2 mile or so. Then were saw some tracks coming onto the road so we stopped to check those out. It turns out the tracks
that I was foolishly shrugging off were these:We found wolves! Well, at least one. So we followed these tracks about a mile and a half down the road until we got to a three way intersection when all of a sudden the one track turned into five! This was probably the most amazing part of the day. We learned in our class that wolves will often travel in lines and will place their paws perfectly in the tracks of the wolf in front of them. By looking at this one track not one of you out there would have guessed that five wolves stepped there. Amazing stuff.
Here are the totals from our day of tracking:
1 Bobcat
Countless Deer
14 Coyotes
Too Many Annoying Snowmobiles
1 Marten
8 Wolves
It was a great day. Filled with frustration, joy, RLU's (I peed over a wolf RLU), and lots and lots of tracks.
January 13, 2010
Procrastination Station
Hello and welcome to 'Third Time's a Charm.' You may be wondering where this title came from and I can't blame you. Truth is this is my third attempt at starting a blog. I know what you're thinking, "Tim had two blogs before this?" Yes I have and man oh man did they flop. It got me thinking today, "Why? Why did both 'A Blog. Sort Of.' and 'That Sort of Blog' fail so miserably?" It didn't take me long to realize why both of my previous attempts failed. The combination of laziness and simply forgetting will mess you up pretty good in the world of blogging. And when I say forgetting I don't mean forgetting to post so much as forgetting I even have a blog. If you would've asked me yesterday how many blogs I have tried to start I would've said one. It wasn't until I opened my blogger account today that I realized I had actually tried to start a blog twice. Pretty, pretty, pretty sad.
This led me to start thinking about blogging once again. I started wondering why anyone would want to blog at all? It could be that people want to keep friends informed of what's going on in their life or they need a creative outlet. Or maybe some people just need something to do. These reasons are all appealing but, sadly none of them have kept me blogging in the past. I needed a new reason. Then it hit me: I am a student and I need to procrastinate. It was a stroke of honest genius! What would I rather do on a Tuesday night, study or write loads of bullshit about my life? I'll take the latter any day. So I dove in. I have rededicated myself to blogging. I have full faith that I can keep this up because here I sit unmotivated, lazy, and bored with more important things I should be doing. Sounds like I'm ready to take blogging to new heights.
Come on back once a week or maybe more to enjoy the liquid gold flowing from my finger tips into Third Time's a Charm.
This led me to start thinking about blogging once again. I started wondering why anyone would want to blog at all? It could be that people want to keep friends informed of what's going on in their life or they need a creative outlet. Or maybe some people just need something to do. These reasons are all appealing but, sadly none of them have kept me blogging in the past. I needed a new reason. Then it hit me: I am a student and I need to procrastinate. It was a stroke of honest genius! What would I rather do on a Tuesday night, study or write loads of bullshit about my life? I'll take the latter any day. So I dove in. I have rededicated myself to blogging. I have full faith that I can keep this up because here I sit unmotivated, lazy, and bored with more important things I should be doing. Sounds like I'm ready to take blogging to new heights.
Come on back once a week or maybe more to enjoy the liquid gold flowing from my finger tips into Third Time's a Charm.
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