Spider! She is our heroine!*

I decided I needed to change the banner (I used to change it every month, but that notion seems to have passed on), so I finally worked up the nerve late this evening to look through some of the pics I took last Sunday at the USNWC trails, and some of them turned out far better than I expected or deserved (the last time I took the camera out, several months ago, my wrist was still so gimpy I couldn't shoot for shit and I wasn't happy with what I was getting settings-wise with the D300S).

The young lady pictured above, presumably out on the prowl for some nice, tasty bug (or perhaps merely fleeing from one shelter to another, though she certainly acted like a huntress), came out rather nicely, I think. Most of the credit, I fear, is due the camera, but hey--on the plus side, my wrist obviously wasn't shaking as badly!

(Which, as an aside, was also distressing last time I was out, since the wreck had been a year ago at that point, my surgeries over-and-done-with, my physical therapy finished--and as soon as I have a camera in my hand, my wrist is spazzing like a white boy on a Brooklyn dancefloor ca. 1978.)

As for the new banner, I know it's sort of, eh, girly, but there was something about the rich earth tones in the color scheme, so, y'know, it is what it is.

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*The title, of course, is a reference to a TMBG earworm--"Spider," natch--that goes, "Spider! He is our hero!" But surely a couple of geeks like the Johns know that male spiders are generally just dainty spermbags on tiny legs while the spider matrons are the builders and hunters of Arachnidae, as befits their Greek namesake, that archetypical mistress of the loom. I suppose we should give them poetic license, though, since "Spider! She is our heroine" has too many syllables and the meter's all wrong, and "Spider! He is her meal!" is just the wrong sort of vibe for a goofy little song, somehow.

Regardless, the lady I caught in the pic is a beaut, no?