Photo of the Week - The Birdhouse

Almost forgot to post something today. This is a really crusty birdhouse I found along the edge of an open field at Fort Ouiatenon Park. It's seen better days. Perhaps it's occupied by undead birds?

Also, a happy little butterfly.

Images copyright Mark A. Thomas
Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0

Path of Exile

I first played (and wrote about) Path of Exile (PoE) about a year ago during the early phases of the beta process. Recently I stuck my toe back in to test the waters. One of the nice things about free-to-play games is that it's easy to jump back in after a hiatus. After a big client patch, I was back in and running. My original characters were all there, but wiped back to level one, not surprising given then were created during a beta weekend. I wrote up a long list of info for my friends to see if I could incite some of them to give the game another try, and after rereading it, I realized it was a pretty good summary of the starting experience, so, here it is:

Photo of the Week

I took today's photos at Celery Bog, a wetland preserve in West Lafayette. It's a great little park with a variety of terrain. Most of the time you think of Indiana as flat and open, but there's surprising variety in this little park. Aside from the obvious wetland area, which despite the name is actually a marsh, there's wooded area (Indiana used to be mostly forested believe it or not), and a section that's been allowed to revert to prairie grasses. This is what the bog looks like right now. This is why wilderness exploration is slow!

Celery Bog in August

Most photographers that visit the site focus on waterfowl. I've seen the usual geese and ducks, plus bald eagles, osprey, assorted herons, kingfishers, woodpeckers, and a host of others, but without a long lens most bird photos turn out pretty bad. I tend to go smaller, like this little dude. Found him in a small stand of milkweed just at the edge of the marsh. Sadly he was all alone.

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar

Finally I decided to play around with Gimp and G'MIC again, using the bog image above. This is the result of applying pencil sketch to the image above.

Sketch Mode

Images copyright Mark A. Thomas
Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0

Wilds - Mule, Applied Directly to the Forehead!

So how does one level up a mule?

The party continues their fight against the blood-sucking giant ticks that invaded their camp at nightfall.

Wilds - Tick TOCK!

Last turn, the party was ambushed by some multi-legged creatures that had been lurking in the trees above their camp. Let's see how that works out... Who lives? Who dies?

Photo of the Week

In an effort to A) force myself to take more photos, and B) to post more often, I'll be posting a picture or two each week from recent photo sessions. Most of these will be nature/outdoor stuff, with some macro stuff in the mix. In some cases, like today, I'll be including GIMP-processed versions of the image as well.

Today's image is of a giant horsefly that decided to do some sunbathing on my patio.

Original image

Cropped and sfx'd using G'MIC in Gimp

Images copyright Mark A. Thomas
Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0

Wilds - I Spire

When we left the party, they'd just returned from a round of spire-hopping, a process they continue for a while longer. They also try a few new tests. Raúguey stays behind at the base camp while the others take a trip in the spire to prove that the spire itself doesn't move (it doesn't). They find destinations that are solid walls of ice, bitterly cold ocean water, snowy hills, tundra, and a walled-up chamber completely enclosing the spire.