October 13, 2013: Introduction

I work at a community health center as an optometrist. I enjoy treating patients' eye problems and my patients appear to really appreciate my efforts. I like my job and retirement is not on the immediate horizon. But, I am 62 years old and have a very high patient load, I come home every night very tired. One day I am going to retire. Even if I work into my 70's as I hope it is less than 10 years away. What then?

I have other interests. Besides being an optometrist, I have a PhD in the biological sciences. I was a college professor at one time and were it not for the fact that when my son came along we started dipping into our savings I might still be. I have always been a science nerd. Oftentimes when musing about retirement I have thought to myself that what I would like to do is chronicle the biological diversity in my suburban neighborhood. I thought it would be a good way for me to get out of the house, get exercise, keep my mind active, and do something useful.

I thought I could publish my data in a blog on the internet. That way anybody who is interested could use it in any way they saw fit. I could leave a tiny legacy of knowledge behind.

The other day my wife and I were talking about what to do during retirement. She is 10 years younger than I am, and is not only working a full-time job as a research lab supervisor, she is also taking night classes at a local college with the intent of getting an upper level degree in Cultural Anthropology. She wants to teach at a community college when she gets up to retirement age.

I told her of my plans and she gave me some great advice. Start my blog now.

I had been thinking that I did not have the time now. I was thinking that I would wait until I retire and then go for it. But my wife pointed out that there are going to be problems. If I start now I can work through them on my spare time and when retirement does come I can go into it on a daily basis. I think that is brilliant.

So I have spent much of the weekend going through our storage closets and finding all the stuff I used to use as an amateur naturalist. I found some old plant presses. I also found my laminator. I plan to press some leaves and flowers and then laminate them to make a collection.

I found my old dissecting microscope and set it up. There is a burnt out light in it that I had no idea where to find a replacement bulb. I have since found the bulb on the internet and have ordered one.

If I am going to publish data on the internet then I am going to need to take some pictures through the microscope. I thought naively that I could do it through the camera on my cell-phone. I couldn't ever get a picture worth a crap. I tried my Nikon camera. I thought my 105mm macro lens would work. Not so good. It wouldn't focus close enough to the camera lens. I have an old 60mm macro lens and that did work better. But the pictures are not good.

I have found some camera attachments that can fit into the eyepiece holder of the microscope that would probably work better. There is one that takes 5 megapixel pictures priced for about $300. If anybody knows anything about how good it is please let me know.

There are still a multitude of problems to work out. I have begun a simple Excel file to put my bird observations on. How do I get that into my blog? Is there something better that I can use? I suck at capturing insects. I just spent $25 on ordering an insect net. I will need a ton of help identifying those suckers. I haven't pinned an insect in 30 years. What other observations do I need to do? There are so many things that I can work on. Let's see how it works.

My first observations:

The weather for today according to Google:
High 88
Low 68
Rainy all day

Birds seen today:

Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura): 18; 15 on our feeder 3 others eating figs on our fig tree

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris): 1; seemed to like our firebush more than the hummingbird feeder

Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoenicus) 1; a female on the feeder

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) 10; all on the feeder

Not much but it is a start.