Saturday, January 30, 2016

A stealthy critter glimpsed

    This is one of the crappiest photos I've ever taken, but I was hurrying and shooting through a second floor window. As I was getting up today, and walking downstairs to eat breakfast, I paused on the second floor landing as some movement in the driveway outside caught my eye.







    It was a large wildcat, casually strolling across the driveway. I'd never before seen one of these beasts in the wild, and I wish I'd had a better camera at hand and more time to use it. I only managed to get this one shot, the blurriness of which unfortunately obscures many details. But you can get a sense of the size of the animal as it is passing in front of the plow on my white truck.

    Here's a cropped version of the photo showing the wildcat. -- PL




5 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great opportunity to see such an amazing animal - let alone in your front yard!
Michael Yuhasz TKD Master

Unknown said...

I'm 30 years old and live in Canada. Like every other child of the 80's, I was a huge fan of the Ninja Turtles.

In 2012 I finished medical school and began my neurology residency. In 2014 my brother came over to watch "Turtle Power: the Definitive History of the Ninja Turtles", and loved it. My brother and I had been toying around for a long time with the idea of writing a neurology textbook for medical students, but in a totally different way then standard medical school books. Rather than a dry texts with few figures, we almost wanted to do it like a cartoon, with huge, exaggerated drawings. We pitched it to a bunch of publishers, but they just laughed at us. Graduating from medical school, I am over $300k in debt, and I was trying to think of anything to I could do to try to help me out of that (as medical residents get paid less than waiters, both here and in the USA), and my brother was between jobs, and just trying to get by.

We watched that documentary and were so inspired by your and Mr. Laird's story of the early days of ninja turtles, and the struggles you had. Boy did it resonate with us. We decided to retool, and go knock on a few doors. Finally, a few publishers said they'd submit our samples to a few test audiences. What returned were some of the most positive reviews the publisher's said they had seen in a long time. Soon, publishers were outbidding each other to win our contract. What a turn around!

We're just working on it now with the plan to launch in Sept of 2016. I just wanted to say thanks - both for the Turtles and my childhood, but also for inspiring us (like you probably have so many people), with your story of tenacity. You made us believe that two little guys can take on the giants and win.

We actually met about 10 years ago at comic con in Toronto. I remember, you drew me Shredder, Donnie, and Raphael. It's one of my greatest regrets that my parents threw out a box of my stuff when I moved out, and I lost them. Turtles have had such a huge impact on me and now on my book....I was hoping you would consider redrawing them for me? I'd pay you anything you thought reasonable.

If you'd be willing, I'd be thrilled to hear from you. Please contact me at warren.berger85@gmail.com. Thanks again. I really hope this reaches you!

Jimmy P said...

It seems as if sightings are getting more and more common in populated areas. Gotta keep an eye on your pets!

Jimmy P said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric Carros said...

I know this post has nothing to do with TMNT, but this is the only way I can find to contact you. I'm curious if you will be doing any autograph sessions this year and if so where? When I was 11, back in 1991, I was lucky enough to meet Kevin Eastman and have him sign my TMNT 1 for me. I'd love to have you sign it one day as well. Thanks for all you have done and I hope to hear from you. Oh and watch out for those wildcats!

Eric Carros carrosene@gmail.com