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ONElist Office

October 5, 2012 By Mark Fletcher 5 Comments

Sam Rushing recently came across some old photos he took, including this one, which is a panorama of the old ONElist building in Redwood City. It was taken in February, 2000, which was after we merged with eGroups and before we were acquired by Yahoo (and became Yahoo Groups). The office was a converted warehouse and had about 50 people in it. This photo doesn’t show all the cubicles behind the photographer, nor does it show the offices underneath. During the whirlwind that was ONElist, to my lasting regret, I never took any photos, so I especially appreciate Sam’s rediscovery.

The cardboard cutout, btw, is Sarah Michelle Geller, during her Buffy The Vampire Days. I never knew the story behind why that cutout was in the office.

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Filed Under: ONElist, Startups, Yahoo Groups

Shuttle Endeavor Flyover

September 21, 2012 By Mark Fletcher 1 Comment

The Space Shuttle Endeavor did a flyover of the bay area this morning. I headed out to KPAO, the Palo Alto Airport, to see if I could get a good view. It was impressive as it passed overhead at 1500′.
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Filed Under: Uncategorized

Tanzania Safari Report – Final Day

August 3, 2012 By Mark Fletcher Leave a Comment

Lee suggested that we’d have time for a brief drive before our flight this morning. We jumped at the opportunity to do so, calling it our bonus drive, and we were immediately rewarded. Lee mentioned that he had heard some lion calls near our lodge in the night, so we went looking for them, and 10 minutes later came across a pair of lions mating. Out of respect for the delicate readers of this blog, this first photo is post-coitus. The male lion is walking away to find something to read while the female lion rolls on her back, pawing the air and says “Wait, can’t we talk about feelings now?”

The mating process takes around 3 days, during which they will have sex approximately every 20 minutes. I got tired just typing that sentence. Each, umm, event, only takes about 10 seconds. Feel free to insert your own jokes here. At the point of climax, both lions roar. It’s quite impressive. Especially when you’re just 20 feet away.

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At the end of our bonus drive we came across a pair of jackals. They’re small, canine scavengers. These guys were definitely less shy than the other jackals we saw on the trip.

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Thus ends our safari adventure. I hope that both of you reading this enjoyed it!

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Filed Under: Jackal, Lion, Panasonic GH2, Safari, Safari Report, Serengeti

Tanzania Safari Report – Day 8 / Serengeti

August 2, 2012 By Mark Fletcher Leave a Comment

As mentioned previously, we set out this morning to see hippos and crocs. The section of the Grumeti river where the hippos and crocs were located is a two hour drive from our camp, so we left the lodge early. On the way there, we came across three cheetah, a mother and her two one year old sons. We found them in a tree, and followed them for half an hour as they stalked some Thomson’s Gazelle. The gazelle caught wind of them (literally, the cheetah were upwind of them), and so the hunt was soon over, and we continued on our drive.

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The rest of the drive was uneventful and we eventually came upon the crocs and hippos. This next photo is of a large pod of hippo that we watched for awhile. Hippo apparently taste pretty good (my go to question to our driver Lee when seeing any particular species of animal was “So, how do they taste?”), and so I have decided that hippos should be referred to from now on as ‘river pigs’. That’s a lot of bacon! Fun fact: apparently one cup of Hippo fat can feed 8 people.

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We thought tonight’s drive was to be our final drive before our flight to Dar es Salaam tomorrow morning. It was fairly uneventful with the exception of seeing a large herd of elephant by another section of the Grumeti. We were hoping that we’d get some pictures of elephants frolicking in the river, but they did not cooperate.

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Filed Under: Cheetah, Hippo, Safari, Safari Report, Serengeti

Tanzania Safari Report – Day 7 / Serengeti

August 1, 2012 By Mark Fletcher Leave a Comment

Things really kicked into gear today. Our wakeup call was at 5:15am for our 6am drive to the balloon. The balloon flight was outstanding, lasting a little more than an hour. We then had an extended game drive until around 12:30pm, and another game drive in the evening. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s a view from the balloon of some of the wildebeest. They look almost like ant trails when viewed from a few hundred feet AGL.

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After the balloon ride, we spent most of the morning with the wildebeest. These next two photos are of a few of them stampeding, as they are prone to do on a regular basis. It is rather impressive when you’re in the middle of it.

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Everybody just wants their picture taken.

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We ended the morning with 4 lions, sleeping under trees. The afternoon drive started with a cheetah. She had eaten recently and was just lounging the day away. Kind of like us, really. This was the first time in our safaris that we had been close to a cheetah. Pretty neat.

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The rest of the afternoon game drive, in handy bullet point form:

  1. Elephants
  2. Elephants fighting under a tree with a lioness hanging out in the tree
  3. Storm clouds approaching, trying to outrun the storm
  4. A pride of 12 lions feasting on a recent wildebeest kill
  5. Making it back to the lodge without getting drenched
  6. Leveraging synergies and shifting paradigms

As referenced by bullet point #2, here’s a lion in a tree, trying to stay away from an angry Elephant. The photo’s not great, but by the time we got into position, the lion had moved further into the tree and you couldn’t see her at all.

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Once again we had to outrun the evening rain showers. It did make for some great light, however.

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Tomorrow: crocodiles and hippos!

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Filed Under: Cheetah, Panasonic GH2, Safari, Safari Report, Serengeti, Tanzania, Wildebeest

Tanzania Safari Report – Day 6 / Serengeti

July 31, 2012 By Mark Fletcher Leave a Comment

This morning we took an hour flight north to the lodge we’re at now. Our lodge overlooks the Serengeti from a hill. The first pic is the view from the lodge itself. Those dots down there? Each is most likely a wildebeest, although they could also be zebras, antelope of various species, lions, leopards, hyena, and, well, you get the picture. The Great Migration started 3 days ago, and should last about 8 days. It’s 1.2M wildebeest, and markedly less of the other species. We really lucked out being here when it happened, as predicting its start is an inexact science.

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The weather didn’t look great, but we decided to do a game drive in the afternoon anyways. As you can see from this picture, the sky looked threatening. About 20 minutes into the drive, it started to pour. Torrential downpour, thunder and lightning, hail, dogs & cats living together, the whole works. We hightailed it back to the lodge, but got soaked in the process. Things cleared up 30 minutes later, and being gamers, we went out again. You’ll never guess what happened 20 minutes after that. So, we didn’t really do much animal sighting today.

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Filed Under: Panasonic GH2, Safari, Safari Report, Serengeti, Wildebeest

Tanzania Safari Report – Day 5 / Ngorongoro Crater

July 30, 2012 By Mark Fletcher Leave a Comment

Welcome to Ngorongoro Crater. Today’s trip into the crater was our best game drive yet on this trip. The crater forms a natural enclosure, roughly the size of San Francisco. There’s little shelter in the crater and abundant wildlife, leading to many sightings.

Between the massive tectonic plate shifts that created the great Rift Valley and the volcanoes that created the crater (one of many in the area, actually), this place has certainly seen its share of geologic adventure.

The crater is near where Mary and Louis Leakey did their pioneering archeology work. At our lodge, we talked with an older couple from the mid-west who were scheduled to drive through there today, including stopping at the main site of the Leakey’s research. The couple seemed most excited about using that opportunity for a bathroom break. Evidence, maybe, that belief in evolution is still evolving in parts of the U.S.A.

Let’s get to the photos. We started the day early and the sky was overcast. Descending into the crater:

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You can see the walls of the crater in the background.

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This is a female Ostrich. The males are black.

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We saw a lot of Zebra. They mostly prefer large groups, but this guy was all alone.

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Lion with lioness sleeping:

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As the day progressed, the overcast burned off, until the sky was clear in the crater and we were left with fog hovering at the rim.

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This Hyena was a bit messy from recently feeding.

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Here’s a Serval, which is a small cat (roughly 30 pounds). People have been known to keep servals as pets and they can be bred with domestic house cats, leading to a breed called a Savannah. Think of a normal kitty that’s about 30 pounds, and that’s what they’re apparently like.

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Tomorrow is a travel day; we’re off to the Serengeti.

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Filed Under: Hyena, Ngorongoro Crater, Ostrich, Panasonic GH2, Safari, Safari Report, Serval, Tanzania, Zebra

Tanzania Safari Report – Day 4 / Tarangi

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