Surprise! More Garden Pictures.

Here are some of the first Japanese Iris blooms appearing beside the pond:


And one of the oddities in the yard, a stand of purple Iris:

Now purple Iris aren't unusual. But what is usual is the fact that last year, there were many different colors available in this stand, including white, yellow, and maroon. This year, nothing but purple exists. One might claim that the purple variant choked out the other Iris, but I'm highly doubtful this is the case. What's more, the soil conditions are good with this bed being completely made from Cedar Grove compost. I have no idea why only purple blooms are present. Next year, I'll try splitting the bed to provide more growing room for the existing Iris. Hopefully, some of the colors will return if it's a competition or stress thing going on.

Here's the only Iris that isn't a blueish purple:


It's in the front yard away from all the other Iris and is isolated all by itself.

Poppies in Bloom

Some of the poppies are now blooming. Here's several pictures of first few poppies blooming along with some other garden pics.

A poppy with an orange colored blossom:


A poppy with a light pink colored blossom:


A nice shot of the poppies with the large boulder in the back ground:


Some of the rhododendron blooms:

Unlucky Clovers

If a four leaf clover is lucky, and a three leaf clover is just typical, then it seems the number of leaves has an impact on how much luck the green clover imparts. It stands to reason that a two leaf clover must be unlucky. Found me a two leaf clover this morning. Oh oh! I don't like the sounds of where this is going. Hahahaha!

Flowers Blooming in the Yard

Here are just a couple of pictures of some of the flowers that are blooming in the yard.

The rhododendron is now blooming and has a very nice red color to it this year:


Here's a close of of the rhododendron flowers:


And a picture of a gloxinia:


Next is a photo of my very first poppy blooming this year. It's a beautiful deep red and is quite a large blossom:

Yard Walk Through Video

Here's an attempt at a quick walk through of my back yard. I panned around far too much because I wasn't thinking about the video quality. So don't expect anything other than a general overview of what the yard looks like. Unfortunately, the sound is off by about two seconds. Seems Windows Movie Maker caused the shift when I split the video into two parts. And if you get dizzy watching, sorry about that! :) The video is split into two parts.

Part 1 of 2:


Part 2 of 2:

A Weekend of Coleco Collecting

I haven't blogged about gaming related stuff for a while so here's an update for a small change of pace.

Over the weekend, one of my friends went to a number of yard sales and flea markets. One of the more interesting items he found would have been interesting to acquire for tinkering with. The item was a "Mr. Backup" unit for the old Nintendo N64. The seller was asking for around fifty dollars for the unit. As for me, still being unemployed, I just couldn't justify spending that kind of money on a development tool for an older technology. It would have been cool to tinker with though.

The next device my friend came up with was an old Coleco Adam memory console. It's missing the keyboard and printer so I don't really know whether it works or not. But considering it has an old Zilog Z80 processor, I couldn't turn it down. Especially since he offered it to me for free. If I can find anyone who has a free Coleco Adam keyboard they want to give away, I certainly won't turn it down. :)

Still not finished yet, he pulled out a couple more goodies he found at the flea market. There were a few ColecoVision game cartridges, including the following:

Time Pilot
Venture
Miner 2049er
Mouse Trap
Lady Bug
Turbo
SuperAction Baseball
Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle
(and possibly) Nova Blast

The above carts were one dollar a piece so I'll have to find some money later on to
pay my tab with. :)

And last of all, he found a ColecoVision expansion module #1 which allows playing Atari 2600 game carts in the ColecoVision. Considering I gave away my Atari 2600 console but kept the game cartridges, this will come in handy. The following picture is for the expansion module #1:


Overall, a few recycled items turned up in the house but I can make space for these without too much trouble.