Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Eyeball Central's 1000th Post: Yeti Captured on Film!!!



Yep, this is my 1000th post. Dude, that's a lot of photos I've posted, especially since I often post more than one photo per post. The only two posts without photos are the first two posts, when I hadn't yet found my blog mojo.

I started taking photos six years ago almost to the day, and what a blessing it's been for me.

I say "blessing." You say "issue." Or "problem." Or "insane obsession." Or "the slow disintegration of my family."

The story of Yeti. As you know, Andy possesses an incredibly keen Yeti-radar, a Yeti-sense. He confidently stated that Yeti was lurking in these snowy woods lovely, dark and deep. I didn't doubt him because I, too, sensed he might be out there. Believe me, all my senses were were on alert for Yeti when I was out in these woods. I was also on alert for dead maidens in the water, especially since I was spending most of my time in the creek itself, with water pouring into my boots. And after I accidentally fell through some ice and unintentionally baptized myself with freezing Michigan winter creek water, I was also on alert for frostbite and, later, gangrene.

As you surely can guess about me by now, I'm the kind of guy who frankly is always at code orange--when I'm not at code red--for the ever-present threat of gangrene. Anxiety of my flesh rotting off my bones even as I live is, of course, just one of the many many concerns I deal with in the course of a day. My motto: moderation in the vigilance against gangrene is no virtue; extremism in the pursuit of a putrid-free body is no vice.

Poor Juli. Poor, poor Juli.

Anyway, while I was tromping around the woods, I noted some blood in the snow. I assumed it was human blood. I also assumed it was my own blood.

I'm not making that up.

I did assume that. I assumed that I was too cold (and too far gone from gangrene) to notice that I was bleeding out. Not that I cared much at that point, frozen as I was. I was pretty sure at this point that my frozen pinky toe on my right foot had chipped off and was rattling around in my boot. Still, I was intrigued by the bloold so I used my frozen boots to push some of the snow away to see what lay beneath but all I found more blood. Naturally I took a photo.

Now the truth, reader, is I had no intention whatsoever of posting this photo on the blog. I was going to keep it for my own satisfaction. Sweet heaven above, that souns far more repulsive and disturbing than I intended. All I meant is that not every photo I take needs show up on the blog.

Count your blessings.

Let's get back to the story, shall we? Reader, enough with the interruptions, please. It wasn't until this evening when I was exploring my photos that I noticed Yeti's face--his eyeball, a nostril, and part of his mouth protruding from the snow. I cropped the photo from this photo below. Both are enhanced.



And here's the photo as I took it, unenhanced. Even unenhanced, there's no doubt what we got in Michigan is a big ol' family of Yeti. They're nearly as numerous as Michigan militia members, though undoubtedly far less dangerous.


Andy was right. Yeti be in them woods. What a find. What a way to celebrate my 1000th post.

Now I'm going to look through my photos for dead maidens.

10 comments:

timekeeper said...

So your thousandth photo is bloody snow.

(a slow shaking of my head)

Mike Bailey said...

You aren't suggesting that it's a dead rabbit, are you?

You better not be. Oh, it Yeti, baby.

Elisheba said...

This makes me so very happy. The one thing that would be better would be a dead maiden.

Mike Bailey said...

S-S: Agreed. They may be there yet. I'll have to reinspect my creek photos.

Andy D. said...

Yo, check it --

"Vindication -- thy name is YETI!"

Believers all, ye shall now be!!

And to think, MB -- you have RELATIVES living in that house, in those woods, for what, ten years now? A #$!@ decade?? And yet -- no notes, no calls, no stories home, not even one whimper about the Yeti who lives in the woods and thumps the walls at night while looking in and yearning for that warm fire and some apple pie -- until I root out the truth, and you photograph it??

Come on people. The truth shall set you free. I'm ready to go public with this. If we had a carcass, like they found with that el chupacabra thing, then I'd do it for sure. In fact, I'd probably moonwalk into the press conference, unveil a large blow up of the photo, do a few choruses of "whoop, there it is!!," and moonwalk my way right back out.

I for one vote this is the best 1000th photo, ever! And no, that ain't no rabbit.

Now, about the darker side of the photo, a/k/a, the blood in the snow. A/k/a, WHOSE blood in the snow.

We know it wasn't yours. We can rule that out straight away. Sorry, but we just can. You were perhaps numb from frostbite, from fumbling around in the river for an hour, drenched. But frostbite does not a gunshot in the gut make. Even if you'd hurt your knee -- ok, hurt your knee, severely and horribly, AGAIN (I'm throwing you that bone since you photoged a dang Yeti!!) -- sorry but even then, still not your blood in the snow. This is something more... I don't know. What's the concept I'm trying to express...

Anyone see the end of "Fargo"?

A.

Mike Bailey said...

andy--

it feels good to be vindicated, don't it? i wouldn't know. i've never been vindicated for nuthin, but i have a vivid imagination. i suspect it feels wonderful.

but here you are, and it's a beautiful day, and you go about ruining it with reference to a wood chipper.

Andy D. said...

Look, that wood chipper is Hollywood magic at its best, my man.

And what do you mean you've never been vindicated for nothin??? Of all the sadsack statements!! I can count any number of things you've been vindicated for!! OK I'll take credit for the Yeti, but you were certainly part of the vindication team. I may be giving the thank you address to the Oscar audience, but you're there on stage wiht me, my friend. And not in the back row -- right there next to me. Just, you know, not talking or being allowed to give part of the speech into the microphone, or anything. Ok so what besides the Yeti...

Let's see here. Ok, here's one. You were right -- the title of that Rolling Stones song was in fact, "Hot Sugar"... Errr, no, hold on a minute. It's Brown Sugar. Dang it.

Ok, here we go. You were right, popular sentiment agreed, it would be closer to a millennium than a week, to knock a stadium to the ground with a sledgehammer.... All right now, hold on. Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry, nope, not that one either. Way wrong... Ok there has to be SOMETHING... Think, think, think....

Oh!! I know!!! You were right, Ricky Martin is straight!!

Oh. No... no, I had not heard that... Just this week, eh?

Ummm. Ok here it is.

Ok, here it is.

......

......

Ok just gimme a minute. I know there's one. One crummy thing.

shoooooooooo......

Andy D. said...

I got it!! You HAVE been vindicated!

Just in my post from yesterday!! I agreed that you horribly mutilated your knee a few years ago, against what the rest of the blog world (including me, at the time) had previously called a mocked up, overdone, sham of a babyish faked injury!!

So -- you been vindicated.

This should be a new TV show -- like "Punked," but instead of royally embarrassing the person, the show vindicates them in front of their friends. And parents.

Hold on. Let me refine that. Maybe it could vindicate them AND royally embarrass them, simultaneously.

I'd watch it.

A.

Technoprairie said...

I vote for squirrel blood. Mavis, our awesome cat, keeps the rabbit population down to such a level that we never have trouble with rabbits in the garden.

Claudia said...

"extremism in the pursuit of a putrid-free body is no vice" might just be the best sentence i've ever read on a blog.....or on the internet....or maybe anywhere....with the exception of a few lines from mr. hemingway...it is quite a sentence.