http://www.veshi.com/blog/ An attempt at a daily photoblog. en Copyright 2010 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:22:16 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

One of our rose bushes is absolutely covered in aphids right now. Oddly enough, the ones next to it aren't. To eat, aphids pierce the vessels in a plant where sap is transmitted; in doing this they can transmit viruses. While listening to 'This Week In Virology' last week I listened to an interesting story that has to do with aphids. Researchers from Penn State have been able to show that the cucumber mosaic virus can effectively lure aphids to infected plants by altering how the plants smell to make them more attractive to the aphids. When the aphids taste the plant, however, they quickly discover the ruse and leave for healthier plants... carrying the disease with them. If you look closely at the picture, you can see 'honeydew.' This is the sticky substance that aphids secrete. All of the new growth on this particular rose bush is covered in colonies of aphids. Tomorrow I'll try spraying them with a soap and water solution.

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All the rain we've had recently has turned our backyard into a mushroom farm.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2010/02/mushrooms.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2010/02/mushrooms.html Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:55:06 -0800

Christine baked cupcakes and an awesome polkadot cake for her niece's first birthday. It was delicious.


Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2010/01/cake.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2010/01/cake.html Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:00:41 -0800

Taken along the side of a Colorado road in September. I desperately wanted a shot of the aspens but was plagued by rain storms all day. Finally a few minutes of sun presented itself. This was shot with a relatively wide angle and I'm not quite sure if I like the effect or not.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/12/colorado_aspens.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/12/colorado_aspens.html Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:52:22 -0800

While vacationing in Los Angeles, we spent some time walking along Santa Monica Beach... where it was actually quite cold and windy. These birds were heading out to the ocean.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/12/seagulls_over_santa_monica_bea.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/12/seagulls_over_santa_monica_bea.html Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:40:15 -0800

Another shot taken while exploring Pescadero State Beach back in February. I stood in the water with my tripod and took around a hundred pictures of this rock. Sadly, I was unhappy with most of them. I definitely need to come back here at sunset; light hitting that hole would look really cool, I think. Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/11/hole_in_the_rock.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/11/hole_in_the_rock.html Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:12:16 -0800

There are few places in Las Vegas were you feel alone. During the day, the Red Rock Lanes seems to be one of them. When we bowled there, we shared 72 lanes with one other group. Amazing.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/11/lets_go_bowling.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/11/lets_go_bowling.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:34:58 -0800

Farmer Mike carves a dragon into one of his giant pumpkins at the 2009 Half Moon Bay Pumpkin festival yesterday. I learned that these pumpkins grow to their enormous size in a single growing season (6 months) -- amazing.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/10/farmer_mike.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/10/farmer_mike.html Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:47:26 -0800

Probably the last rose of the year...

]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/rose_stamen.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/rose_stamen.html Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:50:59 -0800

I love the dichotomy between this guy's burly mane and beard and the fact that he's wearing a tutu; all while riding a bike.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/lion_in_a_tutu.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/lion_in_a_tutu.html Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:45:16 -0800

During the off-season, Santa likes to get in a few bike races. His favorite, of course, is the Single-speed World Championships.

Can you imagine how hot it must have been to ride in that thing?

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/singlespeed_santa.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/singlespeed_santa.html Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:28:09 -0800

Last weekend I was in Durango, CO to watch the SingleSpeed World Championships. It was an awesome weekend of bikes and beer; really, who could ask for anything more? I took quite a few pictures so the next few posts will likely be of this event.

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]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/sswc_09.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/sswc_09.html Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:29:06 -0800

The other day I noticed three spider webs underneath the tree near my front door; each one had a sizable spider sitting in the middle. Here is one of them.
Comments?]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/spider.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/spider.html Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:14:40 -0800

For me, there are few things as revolting as snails and slugs (well, unless you include rats and pigeons). My disgust of snails and slugs was recently brought to a new level while watching a television show highlighting meningitis caused by a parasite commonly known as "rat lungworm." When an adult, this roundworm lays its eggs in the respiratory tract of a rat. The rat coughs up the larvae, swallowing and eventually excreting it. After a snail or slug eats the excrement of the rat, the rat lungworm finds itself in its second host where the larvae mature into adults. Rats then eat the snails and slugs and the cycle repeats. Apparently in humans (don't worry, it's quite rare) the roundworms can cause meningitis after accidental digestion.
While I'm certainly in awe of these sorts of complex parasitical relationships (I mean, imagine what must of transpired for this sort of choreography to have evolved), I still find it very disgusting.

Comments?]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/snails.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/09/snails.html Sun, 06 Sep 2009 08:52:42 -0800

A moth drinks from an umbel of a lantana plant living in my in-laws' back yard.

Comments? ]]> http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/08/drinking_from_the_lantana.html http://www.veshi.com/blog/2009/08/drinking_from_the_lantana.html Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:17:47 -0800