Jobs suck. That’s not news, everyone has known that for a very long time. Sure, some jobs suck less than others, and some people genuinely enjoy their job, but generally jobs just suck. That’s why they have to pay you to do them. But it takes more than a paycheck to make a job worth it. There was a time in America where the average person could work a job (albeit, often a sucky one) making a decent wage working only 40 hours a week, take a vacation every year, own a home, have a family and a community, all the things that make working a sucky job worth it. Over the last fifty years or so, many or all of the things that make working a sucky job worth it have slowly become less and less accessible to many people.

I am one of those people. I worked full time. It sucked, as many jobs do, but after putting in a full day’s work I didn’t go home to a wife and kids or a life that made me feel happy and fulfilled. I would drive my hour commute, which I hated, pick up take out or fast food, come home and watch TV, play video games, smoke pot, and drink. I’d go to sleep, wake up the next day and do exactly the same thing. I did that for years. I was absolutely miserable. People can’t live like that.

Lovely picture! I’m so jealous!

Well, you made this super easy by giving me a location. Spotted Owls are West Coast owls from Canada through Mexico, so you’ve got a fine Barred Owl there.

But let’s say we didn’t have a location. How would we figure this out? Let’s take a look at our 2 suspects side by side:

Now our friend the Barred Owl is given his name for that beautiful vertical barring on its belly. You can’t see that at all though in your pic, and even in the first example it’s kinda scrunched up and not super identifiable. Second pic it’s very obvious though. But that wouldn’t help you here, so what else do we see?

Look at those sweet faces. Both are adorable, but one owl has a pale face and one has a dark face. Spotted Owls have a darker base coloring, so they’ll have a dark facial disc compared to the Barred. Now of course we have coloration in various degrees, but even when I try to find a darker faced Barred and a lighter faced Spotted, it takes a little longer glance, but I think you’d still have a good shot at getting it right if you gave it a solid look. Even here the Barred “eyebrows” do t stand out as much because the face is still much closer in base color to the white brows.

Now let’s look at the back plumage , which your photo also nicely shows. We’ll zoom in to our previous photo for a better look.

Again, whitish base for Barred lets those white stripes shine. Brown base for Spotted makes them more off white, and the back is, much like the front, more spotted than striped.

So all signs point to your guest being a Barred Owl!

Full flow chart

The 2 get mistaken frequently, and with the hybrids it blurs the lines even more. That is one of the main concerns about the project to shoot the Barred Owls and hybrids to protect the Spotted. With Spotted Owls being so reduced in number already, killing just one by accident can be a huge loss.

So you did not get a visit from a rare owl, but it’s still superb! I’m so glad you shared it and we got to learn a lot!

Last time I was in FL for work I absolutely destroyed the Shoneys breakfast buffet. Just give me a huge plate of scrambled eggs ans a second huge plate of bacon and I'm a happy man.

The Tour was quite a bit less… sporty in its early years. There are plenty of stories about riders basically stealing wine, champagne and beers from local cafe’s or whatever when the Tour passed through.

Third Age: Total War for Medieval 2 Kingdoms

There’s a fantastic LotR total conversion mode for TW: Rome. It was also ported to RW: Rome Remastered, so very easy to play even on modern hardware.

It really comes down to the specific collection. Some TPB and omnibuses are more complete than others. Google is your friend in this instance. If there’s a collection that catches your eye, Google around to see if there’s any supplementary reading that goes with it.

Alternatively, of your have an android device and you don’t mind reading your comics digitally, you can do what I do and use Mihon (mihon.app) to find most comics for free and then just Google the reading order of whatever it is you’re trying to to read. For example if you want to read all of Clairmont’s X-Men run you’d just Google “Chris Clairmont X-Men reading order” it’s that simple.