How a Bad Idea Led to my Wildlife Photos

Hello all, I am Katie and I am a nerd. I am not ashamed of it, and I love my nerdy pass times. These include (but aren’t limited to): Magic the Gathering, video games, books books and more books, being a harry potter fangirl (along with other fandoms), and within the last few years, I have gotten into comics. Currently I am reading a number of comic books but am interested and fascinated by a new comic book company called Bad Idea.

Bad Idea is a new comic book company that is doing things a little different. They have rules, like only one copy of the comic per customer and stores cannot sell the comic for over the sticker price for the first thirty days. This one is a big deal, because of the limited nature of their printing the comics are going crazy on eBay right now. Bad Idea comics can’t be found at every comic store either, there are only so many vendors that carry their comics. This was by design, Bad Idea chose to make their comics available to only a certain number of stores, I believe the number of stores is between two and three hundred. Meaning that these comics/ anything related to them are limited. They sent out this great promotional material with information about the comics to come. Furthermore, with every comic release there is a pin for the very first customer of issue one. A shiny limited pin, each comic store gets only one pin. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE (ha). I didn’t have to cut off anyone’s head to get the pin, fortunately. This pin was for their newest release:

Isn’t it glorious? The nerd in me is singing right now, Lalalala, in absolute joy. Yes, I got my limited pin!! I wonder what Bad Idea is going to do with those pins. I have heard a rumor that you may be able to trade them in at comic con… I’ve never been though. I’d love to of course, but money doesn’t grow on trees. Anyway, there are rumors that Bad Idea has a plan for these pins. Either way, I’m not selling mine… it’s too cool and too awesome. But this blog is not only about the pin, and I’ve said a lot about it, It is about how I ended up getting some cool pictures while on the quest for the pin.

When I got up early and walked to the comic bookstore, I brought my camera. There are some lovely bike paths near my house with a creek running along it. I was hoping to see an egret or something cool to take pictures of. I have seen some great wildlife in the area I was traversing, but to my dismay there was little to see. I mean the creek was pretty and burbling quietly, but there was not a bird or squirrel anywhere. I would have taken ducks even, I have this weird taking pictures of ducks fetish, but there weren’t even ducks. Here I was with my camera trying to get some kind of wildlife shot and I’ve got nothing. Total goose egg.

On the bright side I was hoping that I would be coming home with that lovely and extremely rare pin. Nerd quest hooray! I wasn’t all that put out by the lack of wildlife, though I was grumbling to myself a little as I made to the comic bookstore. I was there early, and no one was there. Let’s be realistic here, Comic Book Clubhouse (my local gateway to glorious comics) is a small store and Merced itself isn’t all that large. There were no lines to contend with, and I didn’t have to get up at the butt crack of dawn and pitch a tent or whatever… but I wanted to be sure I got it. So, there I was outside the shop (that didn’t open until 11) almost two hours early. I made myself a sign even, sometimes you just need to have a little fun with life.

To pass the time, I decided to snap a few shots of the flowers in the parking lot. I figured there might be bees or something. Instead, I found these interesting beetle creatures, and the beautiful butterfly.

People probably thought I was a lunatic standing in the middle of a parking lot snapping pictures of the flowers and saying things like, “aren’t you pretty," and "work it girl,” to a butterfly. That’s just how I roll.

The coolest thing though, were those interesting beetles crawling all over the flowers. After a short internet search, I realized there are a bazillion different beetles, and I gave up trying to identify what these particular critters were. Did you know that beetles, like butterflies and bees, are pollinators? Well now you know (and knowing is half the battle after all). I guess I should have known that already, since beetles often eat pollen and flowers and stuff and as they move from flower to flower presto- pollination.

You never know what you will see and where beauty will hide. Here I was looking for egrets or ducks and I ended up with great pictures from a parking lot.