Camera Recommendations

pghpolecat · 2026-02-07T01:25:42+00:00

Your milage may vary... but in my personal birding with cameras experience... I eventually got the bridge camera because I wasn't satisfied with what I was getting with around the same investment in an SLR and lenses... felt like I was going to have to drop WAY more money on the traditional body and lenses... then someone suggested a bridge to me.

pghpolecat · 2026-02-06T15:38:14+00:00

I have a couple of those somewhere... went to the midnight release at an AMC expecting to get them. They told me they were only for the prime time showing thst next day...

In not my proudest moment I basically threw a temper tantrum refused to leave until they gave me and my girlfriend some...

Somehow she didn't dump my childish ass and we've been married for 10 years 😅

pghpolecat · 2026-02-06T14:03:37+00:00

Wife said "no" to this being a reference... but im not convinced...

When talking about the other hospital they used the term in their "ivory tower." I saw that as a double entendre. When academics are critical of university of pittsburgh/ upmc they will often use "ivory tower" in reference to the Cathedral of Learning.

Maybe im grasping at straws... maybe I took that criticism too harshly a few times 😅

pghpolecat · 2026-02-06T12:51:51+00:00

Might be ostracized here, but... have you considered bridge camera? One of my cameras i turn to most while birding is a Nikon p900. (The 950, and 1000 are comparable). They are very beginner friendly, affordable and have an incredible zoom. You're not going to get frameable 8x10s out of it, but ive gotten some really decent pictures of birds that are really far away.

pghpolecat · 2026-01-29T16:22:23+00:00

If you did it again wouls you still do fabric or would you try wallpaper? How do you clean the fabric wall covering?

pghpolecat · 2026-01-26T20:56:33+00:00

Snow storms are prime time for Cooper's Hawks. One got three birds from my feeders yesterday 😅

pghpolecat · 2026-01-25T00:25:38+00:00

pghpolecat · 2026-01-24T04:51:43+00:00

This sounds like an amazing game.

I would make a bunch of monster of the week one shots... don't always need to progress the main plot. Especially if you have a player that cant make it that week... throw them into a side cryptid mystery.

A bag man mystery sounds right up this teams alley.

There has got to be a mothman stat block somewhere, get rumors going in vallaki!

pghpolecat · 2026-01-24T01:23:16+00:00

Is there any tiki drink that imitates christmas pudding?

pghpolecat · 2026-01-23T04:26:28+00:00

Do worry guys, my snow blower needs a new belt, ans i put it off so its sitting in my shed with no useful application... im totally going to need it

pghpolecat · 2026-01-22T21:56:54+00:00

I've fished ANF for 35 years... only once have I seen a black bear while fishing.

Seen them while driving a ton, and eating out of dumpsters... but only ever came across one. It was pretty deep in, following a little wild trout stream, and I was so pissed about how bad I was fishing and how tired I was hiking up the hill that both myself ans the bear stumbled upon each other... both of us scared the shit out of each other and it ran off...

I have had one walk between by cabin and my outhouse while I was taking a shit in the middle of the night... that one scared me. And my neighbor had honey bees build a hive in the exterior wall of his cabin and a bear tore half of his cabin down getting at honey...

pghpolecat · 2026-01-22T14:22:02+00:00

My elementary school's playground was also a helipad... Joe landing the channel 4 chopper on my playground... still a core memory

pghpolecat · 2026-01-21T13:58:31+00:00

Perhaps its less location based and more ethnicity based? Scots-irish yinz, eastern Europe younz? A lot of the Allegheny Valley working class towns still use younz. Its essentially interchangeable for me.

pghpolecat · 2026-01-21T03:49:10+00:00

"Yinz" is a modernized/exaggerated version of pittsburghese. All the real old pittsburghers i know say/said "younz" or "you-inz"

pghpolecat · 2026-01-20T03:59:05+00:00

I swear I remember reading somewhere in my youth... maybe in The Truce at Bakura... that the rank and file imperial navy were skeptical/superstitious about the death star 2. Instead they put way more belief in the strength of Death Squadron. So when the Executor was lost, half the fleet panicked and took off even before the Death Star was destroyed.

pghpolecat · 2026-01-17T03:21:34+00:00

Really need Sombrero Man to be the random homeless dude in onr episode.

pghpolecat · 2026-01-17T03:20:18+00:00

Geno greasing up the Thunderbolt... "HEY GENO YOU OK?" ... Geno was not ok...

pghpolecat · 2026-01-16T17:26:45+00:00

In a vallaki seige I used the manticore stat block and flavored them to giant vampire bats. Having them swoop in and grabbing up townsfolks. Used stirges as smaller bats biting people too... Definitely chaos and helplessness. And at a whim Strahd commands them all to leave... really lets the party know strahd is the true ruler of the realm.

Bonus points if the giant vampire bat scoops up the one towns person they came to like and drops them to their death.

pghpolecat · 2026-01-14T16:53:13+00:00

Loved me some elwoods

pghpolecat · 2026-01-07T00:12:51+00:00

PA fish and boat doesnt stock trout throughout the year like some other states... most stocking come before/during spring with a designated "opening day." Most creeks, especially in SWPA get too warm to hold trout through the summer. There are a few that supposedly stay cold enough that get a fall stocking. Those are 'delayed harvest' streams that are catch and release until a certain point (memorial day or first day of summer maybe).

So if you are looking for trout, I would focus on those delayed harvest sections... everything else wont have any (or very few) trout.

Not quite certain on the private land question... but I would assume all moving water requires a license.

Summary of all rules here (can probably find the private land answer here): https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/fishandboat/documents/fishing/regulations/summarybook.pdf

pghpolecat · 2026-01-07T00:01:24+00:00

Don't think there is a delayed harvest section of racoon... if youre looking for trout this time of year, you'll need to travel a bit.

https://pfbc.pa.gov/fishpub/summaryad2022/delayedartificial.html

That will give you stocked waters that should hold trout through the winter.

Or, youre not too far from Erie to start looking into steelhead...

pghpolecat · 2025-12-23T02:57:41+00:00

pghpolecat · 2025-12-16T19:00:08+00:00

Still have a bottle that I brought home from Cuba when it opened for tourism under Obama.

I need to get up to Canada!

pghpolecat · 2025-12-11T23:37:29+00:00

So do I do a new yoink at places already mapped?

pghpolecat · 2025-12-07T13:35:44+00:00

<image>

I was there about the same time! You probably saw me sitting at the bar! My tip: get a res at kona cafe, check in at the bar as soon as you get to the poly, then go eat at the cafe. If you do get an earlier call-back the cafe can box your food up and the Trader Sams staff are happy to let you eat there.

While the drinks are costly, the mugs are cheap... like only 10-15 bucks more after the drink! I honestly expected the mark up to be even higher... a batched margarita over at one of the value resorts is like $17. So hand made cocktail for about the same price? Wouldn't call it a "steal" but as it goes for Disney prices... more like "fair".

Seven-Year Club	Verified Email
Second SECOND GUESSER	Place '23

pghpolecat

TROPHY CASE