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Cougars on my Vacation

Carl Setzer
nature animal wilderness head

Ok, my headline here is a bit clickbaity, but stick with me. So, I just got back from a family trip to the delightful town of Manzanita on the Oregon coast. It was a lovely time, which I’ll try to explore more in depth shortly. But there was a recurring element that was…weird: Cougars. Not as in WSU grads, but in the American Mountain Lion kind.

When we got in to town, we started exploring things we wanted to do. One of them was hike Nehalem Bay State Park. When I Googled the park the first thing to come up was this news article:

Cougar sightings on the Oregon Coast prompt trail closure at Nehalem Bay State Park

It was mildly alarming, but the State Parks folks closed off a few trails, and we put off that endeavor for a few days to let our furry friend move on to other locales.

But this wasn’t the end of cougars. Another place we wanted to explore was the famous Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach. While there, Haystack Rock was blocked off by parks folks, the police, and emergency personnel. Turns out, yep, a cougar.

Cougar sighting closes Cannon Beach at Haystack Rock

Ok, cool enough. But it gets better still. Once I got home, I logged into Instagram. A photographer I follow had the following images at the TOP of my feed.

For me, what was particularly wild about Andy Woo’s post, beside the wild timing, was the synchronicity of us being that close, as Mr. Woo is a globally travelled photographer. Lastly, he did get some really cool photos of the cougar while there, though he was after puffins. But we take what we can get.
Fortunately for Mr. Woo, he was able to get some puffin shots after all. You can see why I enjoy his work.

So, that’s it for cougars at this point. Maybe there’s some greater, mystical significance. If so, I’ll need to discover it. Otherwise, it’s just a lot of fun coincidences.

Sidenote: the cougar in the “featured image” is a random photo from Pexels, not related to the Cannon Beach kitty.

Quote of the Day

Carl Setzer

For today’s quote, I opted for this one by Thomas Merton. His writings have had a profound impact on my life. It seems quite fitting to share something from him.

“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands,
to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.“

Today’s Haiku Challenge: Jasmine

Carl Setzer
Today’s haiku 
hints of jasmine 
linger in my memory 
intense yet hazy

This haiku is my contribution to today’s “haiku challenge” on Twitter.

I’ve been contributing to this for years. It’s one of my favorite parts of Twitter. As the Musk saga devolves, it’s what keeps me coming back. There a delightful community surrounding the challenge.

The image was crafted with Adobe Express using the Lara font.

Ghosts Of My Dreams

Carl Setzer1 Comment 
these ghosts of my dreams
wandering amidst echoes
lost in the sunlight

This is my first exploration into Adobe’s Express beta. I think they’ve done a great job with the UI. It’s a smooth and straightforward, to me at least. Express doesn’t go to deep into the Adobe way of doing things, which works fine for your devotees, but is not terribly intuitive for the uninitiated. Anyway, it might well replace my dependence on Canva.

Some Design Work

Carl Setzer

I spent the day editing a video for distribution on social channels. I do love that kind of work. This image is one of the thumbnails I created on Canva. It boggles my mind how quickly I can create something like this. I have many memories of using Photoshop for such things. I love living in the future!