A wild Costa Rican boar, as part of a small herd, mistook me for one of its own and let me take its pictures. Strictly speaking, it’s not exactly a boar—it’s a peccary. Half of my phone is filled with these little grunters.
Category: Nature
Monkey Mayhem: A Day at the National Park | December 28 2025, 00:32
Great photo from today’s trip to the national park. My phone is full of these little monkeys, they were running around by the hundreds underfoot
Costa Rican Parade: Cowboys and Dancing Horses at Tope Nacional | December 26 2025, 21:33
It all started when about 20 genuine cowboys on dancing horses passed us at the intersection. Turns out there are thousands of them here. Tope Nacional parade, San Ramon, Costa Rica
Exploring Open Data: A Deep Dive into Loudoun County’s 1.5 Million Trees | December 15 2025, 15:40
I’m checking out what open data we have in our county to play with data analysis over the weekend, and discovered, for instance, an open database of all 1.5 million trees in the county. The screenshot shows just a tiny part around my house.
Nature’s Deceptive Twists: A Visual Exploration | December 13 2025, 23:33
“How deceptive nature is!” said the hedgehog… Interesting things we encounter when we step off the path
Why Snow Clings Only to One End: A Light Moment on a Heavy Day | December 05 2025, 20:28
Imagine how hard it is for me to live. Walking with the dog and you can’t easily and quickly answer your own question, why is the snow only on one end of the twigs. And yes, they all look in different directions.
Yuka’s Nostalgic Snowy Morning | December 05 2025, 13:43
Wow. Morning. Sleepy Yuka came in, looked out the window at the first snow, looked at me, sighed, and went to lie down in the little circle he loved so much in early childhood, but hadn’t noticed at all for the last few years.
Artistic Ripening: Apples on the Easel | November 10 2025, 04:29
My apples are almost ripe #pictured
Chaos in the Village: Escaped Huskies Trigger Community Alarm | November 09 2025, 22:55
Something crazy is happening in our village. First, the owner of two huskies posts on nextdoor that they ran away from home and asks people to notify him if anyone sees them, warning that they are skittish. Then, about two hours later, the chihuahua owner posts that the escaped huskies killed his dog and also a neighbor’s chicken. The husky owner deleted his first post. Everyone in the village is grabbing their popcorn. It’s sad about the dogs. I’m always afraid that Yuki will run away like that, he’s also a fighter and fiercely hates all dogs in the world except himself.
Revisiting the Sun: A New Invention in Art? | October 19 2025, 18:15
Interestingly, depicting the sun in a painting is a very recent invention. I haven’t seen a single painting in any museum where the sun is depicted above the horizon. Well, maybe with the exception of the Impressionists, Monet’s is very symbolic. In modern works, it appears more often. But in half, it’s a trace from a photograph.
Update: Turns out Aivazovsky has a lot of this. But he produced so many paintings in the studio with his students that it seems you can find any combination of little ships, waves, and sun.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 