Category: Personal Reflections

Lessons learned about life; pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned through pain, failure and honest reflection

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.“

Raindrops on petals

Carl Setzer
Raindrops on petals 
morning calmness 
the rain gently falling
life's graceful moments

Summer heat has been running strong this week. Today was a respite. 20 degrees cooler than yesterday with a gentle rain. A nice bit of relief.

I took this photo just outside of my office this morning. It seemed perfect. I enjoyed the moment, at least.

I hope your day went well. I know life’s pretty miserable for this of you on the East Coast. May the smoke clear quickly for you all.

Do search algorithms have a sense of humor?

Carl Setzer2 Comments
close up photo of cat with its eyes closed

Yesterday I set up a YouTube livestream and, as part of that, needed to whip out a thumbnail. Canva is my go-to tool of choice for such work. As this is for a preschool choir, I searched templates for “youtube children choir”, and THIS shows up in the results:

I found this…fascinating…and absolutely hysterical. Maybe the global AI is just trying to brighten my day.