Life Through A Filter

In my last post, I said the lack of updates is about to come to an end. I've decided to link my Instagram account to the blog in order to create more regular (and shorter) postings. For those not in the know, Instagram is a social media app with the main purpose of sharing photos and short videos with those who follow you, and viewing the photos and videos of those users who you choose to follow. The fun feature which makes Instagram so popular is the ability to edit your photos prior to posting by applying colour filters, contrast, frames, and a other well-designed effects. I started an account on Instagram a few months ago and have since started posting photos a bit more regularly, depicting things from the places I visit, wildlife (mostly insects) I encounter, and experiments I'm working on, to the mundane parts of day-to-day life in Baton Rouge. By linking the two accounts, I'll be more regularly updating the blog with (hopefully) aesthetically pleasing, informative, and interesting photos, and maybe even some videos. Below is a sample of some of the photos I've shared since I signed up for an account to give you an idea of what to expect from future posts. I still intend to write lengthier posts on topics of particular interest, but this new approach will lead to more regular brief updates also.

An experiment recently set up to examine interactions between Phragmites and its soil microbes

A field trip in Jim's boat in a bayou near Lake Pontchartrain 

Hyalopterus pruni aphids on Phragmites

A leaf footed bug (Acanthocephala declivis) in Homochitto State Park, Mississippi

Io moth (Automeris io) caterpillars...

...and the resulting female (top) and male

A banded water snake (Nerodia fasciata) spotted while teaching invasive species ecology at Bluebonnet Swamp

Your daily dose of cuteness from the stray neighbourhood kittens

LSU campus with azaleas in full bloom

Teaching the ecology lab on seed dispersal from four stories up

Scottish band Mogwai came to Baton Rouge and put on a mean show

View down the Hooker Valley from my last trip home - I miss NZ every day

Pavlova I made for my friend's BBQ, another great NZ treat

Sport

Sport is one of the greatest passions in my life.

I love to play sport. I love to watch sport. I love to talk about sport. I think this stems from my competitive nature and the unpredictability and excitement live sport brings to the table. For instance, you can watch a movie and often know exactly how it's going to end. With sport, the unpredictable and unthinkable can (and do) regularly happen, and you can always see the best players surpassing records and achieving feats that have never been done before.

My favourite sport to play is hockey. For the last three years I've played for the mighty High School Old Boys Burnside (HSOB) club in Christchurch. It is a great club to play for. We have a great social vibe, with a clubrooms we regularly attend, and also play some decent hockey from time to time. Hopefully we can play good hockey more consistently and make an attempt at winning the Canterbury Premier League this year.

I've also played basketball, cricket, dodgeball, touch and volleyball over the years. While I'm in Baton Rogue I won't be able to play hockey as it's not very popular in the United States, especially in the southern states. I'm a bit gutted about that, as I'm enjoying it more than ever before and also playing to quite a high level (I represented Canterbury last year in the National Hockey League). I will most likely take up basketball again instead, although I will probably get totally dominated over there.



Me (with the ball) playing hockey for the Lincoln University Lions against Canterbury University in the Christchurch Earthquake charity game.

My favourite sport to watch is cricket. A lot of people (particularly girls, for some reason) think that cricket is the most boring sport in the world. This may be because you can play a test match for five entire days and still have a draw at the end of it. In reality, cricket is one of the most exciting sports. Once the rules and nuances of the game have been learned it is easy to appreciate how a match can have so many twists, turns, plots and subplots. My favourite form of cricket is the test match game. I do also enjoy ODIs and T20s, but the epic ebb and flow of a test match makes it just that much better.

Teams I support:

The Black Caps

The All Blacks

The Crusaders

The Black Sticks
The Kiwis

The Tall Blacks
The Warriors

Rhythm, melody and tone

So, anyone who knows me will know that I like music, especially when it's played LOUD.

I'd like to think that my music tastes have broadened in the last couple of years. From what was once a mainly narrow-minded heavy metal focus, I now enjoy numerous genres including post-rock, ambient, dub, electronica, indie, and various types of metal. However, my favourite type of music is one which can't be pigeonholed by a genre - New Zealand music. NZ music has a distinctive and unique feel about it, where you just know it has been crafted on the shaky isles.

I've played the drums for about eight years now, but never really put the time in to become really good at it, mainly due to my other interests. I played in three bands; Mammoth, Varraghor and Innard Splatter, playing gigs all over the country and making various recordings. The times I had with my friends in these bands were some of the best of my life so far. While I'm in the United States I plan to learn how to play the guitar so I can record some tunes of my own in the future.

Below I've decided to list some of my very favourite bands, including my favourite album by each band (click on their name to link to a myspace/bandcamp page to listen to their music).

Favourite NZ bands:
Jakob  - Solace

HDU - Fire Works

Akaname - Akaname

Little Bushman - Pendulum

Ender - Ender
















 Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All

 Salmonella Dub - Inside the Dub Plates

Favourite international bands:
Isis - Panopticon

Dredg - The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion

Lights out Asia - Eyes Like Brontide

Rosetta - A Determinism of Morality

Cult of Luna - Somewhere Along the Highway

Sigur Ros - ( )

Braveyoung - We are Lonely Animals

So...this is my blog

Well, I've finally done it.

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while, but have never got around to it. Tonight I suddenly found the motivation, summoned my inner Nike, and just did it. Basically, this blog is going to be useful to me for a couple of main reasons:

1. It will provide a place for me to organise my thoughts, keep track of interesting things I find, and provide a place for some incoherent ramblings on various subjects. I'm always stumbling across great articles, videos, music and other such things on the internet, but I'm also prone to never being able to find these things again when I want to. This blog should allow me to catalogue these tidbits for future reference and for others to discover also.
2. In August this year I will be moving to Baton Rogue, Louisiana, to live for the next five years at least. I'm going to be studying for my PhD in evolutionary ecology at Louisiana State University (LSU), and this blog will be a great way to keep my family and friends updated with what I'm up to.  More on this in a later post.

I know that reading can get a bit boring sometimes and attention spans are often short, so I'll try keep my ramblings to a minimum, and post lots of pictures, videos and links to keep things interesting.

Anyway, for the first few blog entries I'm going to write about things which interest me and that I consider important in my life. This will allow people who don't know me so well to get an idea of what things I like doing, and what sort of person I am. The topics of these future blogs (in no particular order...):

• Sport
• Music
• Nature
• Family
• Friends