Bryan's Little Corner

Yahoo Messanger, is it Safe?

2009-07-13T11:25:00.002-04:00

I just had a mini scare with Yahoo IM yesterday. It may all be in my head but I still panicked and made some hasty adjustments. I am wondering if I really needed to worry about it.

A person I really do not know asked for my screen name for Yahoo IM. We had briefly chatted on facebook so I thought it could not hurt. He jumped into Yahoo and away we went. After making a couple of statements I was a little concerned. Then he said in affect be right back and was gone for some time.

During that time I decided to look at Yahoo a little. I discovered I had two phone numbers, a work email and a old wireless carrier account number which has been deactivated since I switched to another carrier. It still unnerved me that I had all that information just sitting in my Contact Information area. I ended up blanking all that out but here is my concern...

What happens with that contact information. Does it EVER get sent out to anyone unless I specifically send it to them? If not than I am probably safe. If it does get sent out when someone is added to your list for Yahoo than there is the possibility that this person (or anyone that is added) could see that and I am not happy.

Anyway I hope this is all in my head but what can I say my mind was on overdrive. It does not help that the person was from Nigeria I suppose...

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. It sure was wet on Saturday in Ohio. Yikes.

Friends information

2009-07-07T23:53:00.002-04:00

1. What time did you get up this morning?
Normally I get up at 6:00 am during the week but I was up half the night so ... 8:15 am. I was a bum.

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Transformers.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
All of my favorites are gone. I guess 24 would be my fave now.

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
Either some sort of egg sandwich or bagel. Trying to just eat an egg or two now.

6. What is your middle name?
Alger

7. What food do you dislike?
Liver & Knockwurst & canned spinach

8. What is your favorite CD at moment?
Chicago/Earth, Wind, and Fire - Live at the Greek Theater. I have loved Chicago since the 60s. Thanks to TopCat he introduced me to this CD and am I glad he did. I found out I really love Earth, Wind and Fire as well. Other than that it would be my latest music crush... Celtic folk.

9. What type of car do you drive?
Dodge Grand Caravan although I think I would I would like to be driving a Prius Hybrid

10. Favorite sandwich?
BLT, extra B & T (sounds good to me too...)

11. What characteristic do you despise?
I really do not like the way everyone seems to be so me, me, me oriented.

12. Favorite item of clothing?
A white pair of jeans. When I can fit into them I don't look to bad at all.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
That is a hard one. Alaska, The Rockies, Yellowstone, the east coast of the US, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand. I am sure there are a lot more places too.

14. Favorite brand of clothing?
I am not a slave to fashion so this just does not apply for me.

15. Where would you retire to?
I think Kentucky or Tennessee might be nice although I do love Michigan.

16. What was your most memorable birthday?
My 50th was a lot of fun.

17. Favorite sport to watch?
College Football or Hockey (NHL)

18. Furthest place you are sending this?
Back to where it came from and then on my blog so just about anywhere.

19. Person you expect to send it back first?
Not expecting to get it back.

20. When is your birthday?
July 1st aka Canada Day

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?
As long as I am at home I can stay up late but I am more of a morning person.

22. What is your shoe size?
11 wide

23. Pets?
Unless you count the ants that keep trying to sneak in or rabbits and squirrels... none.

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
I actually have plans for the next 3 weekends. That is amazing as I never do anything.

25. What did you want to be when you grow up?
Oh so many things but I think I will stick with a scientist. I love science and I am sure I could find something to do.

26. How are you today?
Pretty good but a little tired. Oh and sore. I managed to get a cramp in one of my calves and it will take a few days to work out.

27. What is your favorite candy?
I will narrow it to 3. Reese's Cups, thin mints, payday, three musketeers... OK, I can not count.

28. What is your favorite flower?
Tulips because they are one of the first flowers I see in spring but at the moment I am fascinated with Tiger Lillie's. I am especially fascinated with what on earth happened to the 15 or so bulbs I planted last fall. Now of them came up. I have a brown thumb but I am not that bad.

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Labor Day Weekend or the last week in April.

30. What is your real full name?
Bryan. You already know my middle name. My confirmed name is Peter. I go by Barman or just Bar.

31. What are you listening to right now?
A TV show I have never seen before, Warehouse 13. I do not always watch but use it as background noise.

32. What was the last thing you ate?
A cheap steak.

33. Do you wish on stars?
Sometimes but so far no luck.

34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Ultra-violet

35. How is the weather right now?
Cool mostly clear and going to be real cold with low humidity.

36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today
I do not believe I used the phone today.

37. Favorite soft drink?
I love Mountain Dew but I actually drink more water than anything.

38. Favorite restaurant?
Cheeseburger in Paradise but they all closed by me.

39. Real hair color
Brown

40. What was your favorite toy as a child?
A stuffed beagle dog.

41. Summer or winter
Sorry ... FALL. If I have to pick then summer.

42. Hugs or kisses
I could use practice kissing but ... I guess I would say hugs.

43. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Vanilla

44. Coffee or tea?
Coffee, black, no sugar. Green Tea or the tea they serve at Chinese Restaurants.

45. Do you want your friends to email you back
If they would like.

46. When was the last time you cried?
Probably a sniffle or two at the Transformers movie on Sunday. That or possibly at the grand finally of the Fireworks on the 4th of July.

47. What is under your bed?
Dust bunnies and possibly a stray item or two.

48. What did you do last night?
Play computer games while watching TV. Why couldn't you ask about what I did tonight?

49. What are you afraid of?
More than one thing but I never did well with mice and lately I do not like heights.

50. Salty or sweet?
Payday shows that you can do salty and sweet at the same time. Who am I to question that?

51. How many keys on your ring?
Which key ring? 2 on one, about 10 on the other.

52. How many years at your current job?
20 1/2 years.

53. Favorite day of the week?
Saturday's possibly.

54. How many towns have you lived in?
5

55. Do you make friends easily?
I can but generally no.

56. How many people will you send this to?
One for sure but possibly several.

57. How many will respond?
None expected.

Wow have I been missing forever

2009-07-01T18:25:00.002-04:00

It started out as problems with my computer. It moved on to needing to do work outside to get everything as weed proof as I could. This I am most of the way done with. I just need to do a little clean up. Then there is the care for the lawn. It needs a lot of TLC let me tell you. Move one to posting a little more on my flickr account and then someone dragged me over to facebook and got me addicted on games.

I can not believe how fast time has flown. In the time I have been gone I think I only did a small handful of things worth blogging about. Of course if it would be of interest to anyone else I have not a clue.

I have my flower garden coming up and the nice red mulch is keeping most of the weeds away. I do have one puzzle here however. I planted a whole bunch of different colored tiger Lillie's and I do not think a single one came up. I was waiting to see if this one thing that came up was a tiger Lilly or a weed. I think it must be a weed. So what on earth did I do wrong with my tiger Lillie's? I suppose I could have planted them to deep but I thought I got it right. The way I planted them they were all planted at the same depth pretty much which could explain everything failing or making it. I have not watered tons but I have watered and put down some miracle grow fertilizer too. I did put a couple of inches of mulch over the top of the ground. I suppose that could have been a problem. I do have critters in the area but the Iris's all came up and the tulips did well. It just is a mystery to me but then I am not the gardener.

Anyway the tulips are long gone and the iris's are also bloomed out and now I have nothing to look at but green.

The shrubs I planted last fall seem to be doing OK but it will be forever before they look big enough to belong.

My managed to get my garden in order. I planted lots of different peppers and a tomato plant but once again a mystery. The tomato plant wants to lay down on the ground. I am not sure if something got to it or if I should have staked it up sooner. I am not be seeing tomatoes this year. Bummer I like tomatoes. Oh I did try a few things different with the garden. It LOVES to grow weeds, weeds, and MORE WEEDS. This year I put down a weed barrier and placed recycled rubber mulch on top of the barrier. It cost a small fortune but it is not supposed to float away, attract bugs, or fade for a long, long time. We will see how that works. Of course maybe that is what is bugging the tomato plants. I still need to get a small fence around the garden as I have a lot of rabbits in the area. Somehow I do not think I can guard against the few deer I have seen but I do not think they are bothering anything.

That brings me on to other fun projects. I have a window sill under a large picture window that is totally disintegrated. The squirrels did not help and now I have no sill. This mean the wall is exposed to the weather. I guess that will be my next project. I would also like to put in a nice little paver patio. My deck is to hot in the evening plus it is a tiny 10 x 12. I would like a nice area below I can place my grill on and come patio furniture and just relax enjoying the evening. Speaking of my deck, I need to tare about all but the infrastructure and replace it probably with planks that are part wood, part plastic that are suppose to wear for at least 10 years. That will be a bit of work and the bird living under the deck may still be using it for the baby bird and the nest. Oh well I have stuff to do. Speaking of which I also have two pieces of siding to replace. One is about 20 foot off the ground and I do not do well with height. That should be fun.

Since I have been gone I had a mini vacation to Kentucky to visit and do a little bit of Derby. I also have been spending a bit of time with the folks and family because face it, our folks... if they are alive, are not getting any younger. I will be celebrating the 4th with family and hope to take in a parade, a concert, and fireworks. We will see.

OK, about a concert. I had tickets to do the Chicago / Earth, Wind, and Fire concert that came to the Detroit area last month. I had to work and would have missed at least 2/3rds of the concert. I chose not to go. I am bummed. I love Chicago and what I heard of EWF I think I would love them too. The combined bands are simply incredible. I sure regret missing that.

Work has been threatening for possible cuts or furlow days. So far I have had to take 2. We will see what else is in store but I am certainly worried. I do not think I will lose my job but that is always a possibility. What can I say, the world economy is bad but in Michigan it down right stinks.

Well I should end this with two things. First, I will see if I can get some firework pictures and post them for the 4th or 5th. Second, today is not only Canada Day or otherwise known as Canada's birthday but I too share it's birthday. I have heard from several of you and I really want to say thank you. I especially want to say thank you to Mona who I suspect was the birdy letting people know it was my birthday. Mona you are the best. I would love to be half as considerate of other people as you are. Thank you and I love you for that and for being the super person that you are.

Well I will see if I can check in but I may not be near a computer for several days. Then again I have not posted for months so no one will ever read this anyway.

To those in the states have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend. Happy birthday to Canada and all her citizens especially all those we consider our friends here in blog land. And for everyone else... just have a wonderful weekend, OK?

Conficker

2009-04-03T00:23:00.003-04:00

Looks like I got hit. ZoneAlarm is a piece of SHIT and their support is non existant. I have been waiting for going on two hours for a CHAT which is the way they support you. Here is what happened so you do not make the same mistake if you are using ZoneAlarm.

First, dump ZoneAlarm and get something else that REALY WORKS. Anyway here we go.

I have ZoneAlarm Security Suite 1 PC - 1 Year that I updated on March 31. I ran a scan and everything came back fine except it found about 8 malware items, nothing unusual.

Today I received a message box that said there is an update to ZoneAlarm that is important to apply. After I downloaded zaSuiteSetup_80_298_035_en.exe and ran it my machine no longer seems to work proper.

I can not seem to get to some places on the Internet. The ZoneAlarm product icon says protection is up but the UI is initializing and that was for a long time (at least 7 minutes) so I finally restarted. It did not seem better. Then I restarted in Safe Mode and things seem better more or less.

The file I downloaded is 61,024,648 bytes long and says that it is 8.0.298.035.
It says it was signed April 1st at 12:04:12 AM

It did not seem better. Then I restarted in Safe Mode and things seem better more or less but that means ZoneAlarm is not running. I still can not access Windows Update.
The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view. The options provided below might help you solve the problem.
I also can not get the google updater to get Norton Security Scan and had a problem downloading that.

So it looks like I am infected. It also looks like ZoneAlarm has horribly failed me and they do not even have a message on their front page saying what is going on. I wish I could get this out to the press so they could warn everyone about ZoneAlarm. I guess I will just have to try this instead.

2009-03-27T08:35:00.000-04:00

They call me Farmer Barman

Yesterday I was out working my land
The vegetable garden with be big and strong
There were be a decent variety planted
when the time is appropriate

I can not wait for harvest time.

Of course in my mind my garden is huge
In reality it’s only 72 square feet.

I had to continue the green theme...

Since the weather has been mostly decent lately I have been trying to do what I can to get the flower and vegetable gardens ready for the year. The weather did not cooperate over the weekend and since it will be a good size job I decided to move on to the vegetable garden.

Over the last several years I have not done anything with the garden, not even pick the weeds. One year I had a weed that was 6 foot tall. I could not bear to cut it down, I wanted to see how big it could get to be. I did at one point toss a bunch of grass clippings on the garden to choke out the weeds.

Well yesterday was the day to clean that mess up. The chicken wire I use to try and keep the critters out came down and will be replaced with new chicken wire. Next clean all the mess up. I have almost 70 percent cleaned up. The rest I have to move some retainer wall bricks, a couple of tree rings, a couple of down spout splash thingies, and some sand. Then I get to use the tiller. I can not wait. This year I think I will add some onions and cut back on the tomatoes.

I have another small project I may try this year. I have a couple of small planting beds by my front door. The bed on one side has small single layer retaining wall as a border. The other side has a plastic border. I think it may be time to put down the retaining wall on the other side. I will lose a fair amount of space in the bed but it has Hosta plants and I do not need that room if I do not plant any annuals in there. It will not be a ton of work and it will look much nicer.

Yep you can tell spring is hear. My head is thinking outside, outside, outside.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2009-03-20T08:41:00.003-04:00

I peek
I poke
I find my way to the top

I yawn
I stretch
I reach for the sky

I have been asleep
for a very long time
but now I am awake
and raring to go

Soon I will be
strong and tall

Spring has sprung
and the flowers
are on their way

Today at 7:44 am EDT spring has arrived. Happy spring everyone. This particular 55 was inspired by my flower beds. I noticed last Friday I had several things poking out of the earth. By Sunday I actually had a few things sticking out almost a full inch. It would appear my tulips are raring to get out and say high. I can not wait. I just hope the weather does not get to them. I mean this morning it has been 17 F which is well below freezing. Poor flowers.

If you would like to participate in 55Flash Fiction Friday just put together a short story in 55 words. Then go over to G-Mans place and let him know you played so he can bring everyone over to come see. Then go visit some of your fellow 55 writers. It is all fun. Do give it a try.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2009-02-27T08:15:00.003-05:00

It was a dark and stormy night
The sky was filled with
mother natures fireworks.

Suddenly a clap of thunder was heard
and the large maple tree
comes crashing through the ceiling.

You were pinned, life threatened
but it was your best day of your life
for today your met your future mate,
the paramedic.

The above is a Flash Fiction. It contains 55 word as they all do. Why don't you give it a go. It actually can be fun. Just write a little mini story in 55 words. Include a plot and a character and there you have it. Once you are done and posted go visit G-Man and tell him you posted a 55 flash fiction. He will be sure to stop by as will others. Go visit their 55s and enjoy all the wonderfully talented people we have out there. I hope you join us.

I had the strangest thing happen this morning. I think I lost an entire week, or was that I gained a weekend?

Works continues to be challenging and kind of draining. When I get home I tend to do very little and time just seems to be flying by as a result. When my alarm went off this morning I thought it was Monday morning. I quickly thought I could not even remember what I did over the weekend and thought there went another wasted weekend. Then the guy doing the news said it was Friday and I thought I can not believe he made a mistake like that. It was then that it dawned on me that it actually was Friday and a weekend was almost here.

Looks like a whole lot of thinking going on in a short period of time with no coffee and a brain that obviously was still asleep. I sure hope the day goes uphill from here. Either was it is almost the WEEKEND and ... AND March is just around the corner. You know what that means? Only about 3 weeks from spring and lately the weather has started to feel like spring. I am sure we will get a ton of snow yet but somehow I can make it knowing there is an end in sight.

So have a wonderful weekend, I know I will. I get a bonus weekend... YEA.

Enough of This Crap Already

2009-02-26T00:05:00.001-05:00

The other day I saw a headline that caught my attention so I decided to click and see what it was all about. The article was talking about the fleet of helicopters for the President that were way over budget. I think the 28 helicopters that were ordered 7 years ago were suppose to cost somewhere around 5.4 billion dollars. Now they are coming in at 11.2 billion dollars. After the President talked about going through the budget to remove waist John McCain asked him about the helicopters. I think McCain was being serious about trimming waste in the government but I am sure it was a dig at the new President too.

What really got me however were the comments made by the readers. There were those people blaming Obama. Now Obama has already broken some promises but is that surprising? There was not way he could deliver on what he campaigned on. But to blame him for the helicopters is insane. Now if he allows this to go on then you have something to talk about.

Of course there were those people that were attacking Bush for ordering them to begin with. OK, lets look at that. The fleet of helicopters are at least 30 years old. Even with the most careful maintenance there comes a time when they will no long be safe. That and I am sure they do not have the latest in counter measures to help keep the President safe. So I think the helicopters are probably needed but not at the original 186 million each and certainly not at the current 400 million. And why on earth do we need 28 helicopters. Now I know they need a more than one or two helicopter but couldn’t we make do with maybe 20 or even 14? And why on earth the over-runs? Was it the White House changing the specks? Was it the White House delaying decisions? Was it the fault of the contractors? Regardless of what, common guys.

Was there waste? You bet there was. Was there a need? Again you bet there was and still is. Did Obama have anything to do with this? Well no unless he does not do something about it now that it is out in the open. By the way, when McCain asked him about it, Obama said he had already asked someone to check into it and also said he does not see why he needs new helicopters. Is Obama all about getting rid of pork? Common, did you hear about half the stuff that was included in the latest rescue package? I am sure he could have vetoed portions of the bill or pushed Congress to pass a better bill but he needed this victory bad. Heck we needed this victory bad ... if it actually works.

We need to stop this stupid partisanship in Congress and in the entire United States. Obama is trying hard to do the best for the United States. Regardless if you voted for him or not, he is OUR President now. We need to Congress to do what they were voted into office for, to represent the best interest of the people ... not the best interest of their party. And more importantly, we the people need to get over this Republican vs Democrat, Black vs White, even Man vs Woman and just do what we can do to help out... not make things worse. Aren’t things bad enough already. Don’t we need to need to dig out, not keep burring ourselves even deeper?

I can not believe it. My blackberry has been slowly dying since Monday. I have been so busy at work I could not do anything about it. I have been working late and when I get home I am not even able to do much of anything. I have had that phone just short of 2 months and ... I missed my phone so much. It became even more highlighted today when I was trying to get together with a few people. I did not get my email that we were trying to get together. I also discovered that my phone was not really working so I would not be able to make or receive calls from people. Once we got the phone reloaded and everything was working again I still managed to miss a call because the ringer tone I had selected was now missing after the reload. Anyway now everything is working just fine once again. Of course trying to get people together is about impossible so that still is not happening yet. But at least now when I get a phone call, an email, an IM, or Text Message I can get right back with them. I was not this connected a few months ago. Why on earth do I need all this stuff?

I do not watch the award shows anymore. Most of them are just worthless. The golden globes over the weekend were no different. Now don’t get me wrong I really liked Slumdog Millionaire but did it really deserve 8 awards? I have not seen what the awards were but my bet is no they did not. Once a movie gets on the roll it seems like they sweep everything and those other deserving movies go unrecognized. Now after saying that, congratulations to Slumbdog Millionaire on doing so well. I am so glad I read what Susie had to say about the movie. If she had not I probably would not have went to see it.

Tuesday was fat Tuesday and I brought in Paczki into work. I was bad and had 2. I should not have had any. I must say the Ricotta Cheese one I had was awesome. But now it is time to start being good again and get that exercise in too. With today being dirty forehead day (Ash Wednesday) and the start of lent I guess this works out perfect. I did have one thing funny happen today. I had one of the people I work with tell me I had grease on my forehead. Now some people tease me but I think this person was serious as they tend to fix stuff around the facilities and I would not be surprised if they get themselves into greasy situations all the time. I guess you had to be there.

I had my first veggie max burger today at Subways. Not bad at all. If I am going to forgo meat then I still think I enjoy the seafood sub better however. Of course it is time for me to pick another sub as they did away with the my favorite. Did I mention that when ever I have a favorite TV show it goes off the air. Favorite thing to do, it stops. And now favorite food, it goes away too. I am surprised Slumdog did well as I actually liked it. That should have been the kiss of death.

Well enough pointless banter. We are over the hump. Only 2 more days to the weekend.

55 Flash Fiction Friday

2009-02-20T07:47:00.002-05:00

You have admired her
from afar
all your life

It is finally time
you make your move

As you approach
you notice that
Latika and Jimmie
are holding hands

Your whole life is ruined

After a while your
kindergarten teacher,
Miss Kendra,
comes over
and asks you what is wrong

You are in love again

Boy kids are growing up way to early. I found out my niece is on her second, or is that third boyfriend and she is only 13. I know, I need to get with the times.

There was a line above... "Your whole life is ruined". Funny thing about that. Several years back I was listening to a conversation between a child and their parent. Apparently the child had done something wrong and the parent said the child was grounded. It was then that the child said their whole life was ruined. That particular moment stuck in my head. Compared to being worried about a job, paying bills, that child on the way, and oh so many more things happening to people every day this whole grounding seems to be such high melodrama.

I am in such a rut. Every time I do a 55, even when I try and change it up... they all seem to look the same. I would love to be able to write wonderful masterpieces like some of the others I have read but it all seems to escape me. Still it is fun to do and enjoyable to visit everyone's 55's for the week.

I hope you do give this a try. It really is not that hard to do. What I find the most challenging is to develop a little story in 55 words but it can be done. James, Mona, and G-man are three people that come to mind right off that do wonderful things with just 55 words. There are so many more talented people out there too. If you decided to participate just put together a 55 word story with at least one character and a plot. If I can do it I know you can too. Once you post your 55 then go visit G-Man and let him know you have participated so others know to come visit your 55 too. Then take a gander at some of the other wonderful 55ers that participated that week. You won't regret it.

Oh one last thing. I just fell in love with the name Latika when I watched Slumdog Millionaire so I just had to use it here. I guess it just rolls off my tongue so well.

Take care and have a wonderful weekend everyone.

I am Going to be an Uncle

2009-02-18T08:11:00.001-05:00

I just found out over the weekend that my brother and his wife are expecting their first child. They are not due until October 1. Right now they do not know the sex but when the time comes they will not only be finding out the sex but they will be sharing too. I guess no yellow clothing for them.

One of the things I was struck by is how much things are going to change for them. I mean you start out life single where it is all about me. Then when you get married you now have a spouse and now it is about us. But once you have a child as far as I can tell it is all about the child. Before you may not have cared to much about if what happens if something happens to you. Now you have a child that completely depends on you. You need to plan for their future. You want to do good by them. You worry if you are being a good parent as no child comes with an owners manual. You would like to see your child do even better than you.

Well my brother and his wife have been about me for a while. It will be interesting to see how much things change for them. I feel sorry for the poor puppy. Well Dragon is no puppy but still it will be a major change for him. He is a big dog and could easily hurt the child. He is going to go through a major change as he got all the attention. That will all change when the noisy bundle of joy arrives home next fall.

So time to pick a name. Someone I work with keeps pushing for Jebediah. Somehow I can not see that name flying. It seems to me however that no matter how much you think you know what you may name your child it seems like it is often a last minute thing. It was for me at least. My Mom shared her room with Glenna Bryan. That is where my name came from. For me I have had a thing for the name Dawn and more recently Jennifer for a girl. Funny, I have not thought to much about names for boys but I suppose Bruce would be in there and possibly Jacob.

Other than that excitement we did three birthdays over the weekend. I was helping out (at least I think I was helping) my brother in law put together a slide show of my nieces basketball season. He does such a great job with these slide shows. One of my contributions was possibly the final slide of the show. We took a score board and modified it. Of course the home team won but what we did was make the score 20 to 09 or 2009. Probably no one will get it but I will know that it is there.

I missed my niece playing basketball this past weekend but then she did not play much. They are down to their last few games in the regular season and the coaches are playing the first string and once in a great while they toss in the second string when the first string is all but dead. That means my niece will not see much playing time at all but they will probably win like they did on Saturday. What do I know but I think the coaches should have build a strong second string too so they did not have to kill the first string. But of course the three coaches each have a child in the first string so...

Over the weekend I also got some visiting in with a friend and spent some time over my parents. It seems like they both are doing better. My Mom is far from well but she is doing better. Hopefully she can get over this and get past the next couple of months. She does much better when the weather breaks.

Well that was my extended weekend. Hopefully everyone had a great weekend.

My plate is full but I am not sure with what

2009-02-14T09:20:00.003-05:00

Boy, in a weeks time I went from being pretty buried by snow, to all of the snow being melted and at least one day where the temperatures hit 60, to now we have 2 inches or so on the ground again. I just hope it gets it out of its system. I would really love to see a nice warm day for probably March 14. That is probably when this little town near me does a St Patricks Day parade and other things including a Irish Judging contest. If found the Irish Stew last year and might I say yum. You vote on the stew you like the most by giving them a buck. The one with the most money wins. Actually everyone wins because I believe that money goes to charity anyway.

Today is Valentines Day. So lets see, first just a little history from Wikipedia.

(Saint) Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The day was originally a pagan festival that was renamed after two Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

Is everything a PAGAN FESTIVAL? Well at least being Catholic it seems most things that are celebrated by the church are Pagan in nature. Even the mass for the most part seems to have pegan origins to some extent.

Now I just have to know. Where are my Valentines? I checked my mail box and there were none. My and Charlie Brown, that darn mail box never is filled with even one Valentines card. Actually that is not true. I think I have seen a couple a while ago.

Work continues to kill me. Just when I think I have dug myself out, I run into another problem. It seems like I am always in the put out the fire mode and it is not always something I can do anything about. That continues to leave me drained when I do get out of work meaning very few visits and no posts. I does not help that I am trying to take a photo of a picture I recently had framed. The glass really makes it a challenge to do with the reflections of the camera and what ever I use to light the combination. I finally did get an OK picture but I have more to do. Luckily this also gets me set up to try and do portrait photography, something I have always wanted to play with. Of course I am going to do this on a shoe string. The photo lights are daylight compact florescent bulbs. I am using clamp on lights and attaching them to two touche lights I have. The backdrop will be sheets attached to a extension pole. At the moment I do not know how I will hole up the pole.

Once I play with this a little with me as the victim subject and learn what I am doing, I think it might be time to get just a little bit of real live equipment. I think either a backdrop stand or light stands might be nice. Then I will move on from that to family. Soon no one will be safe! Run now while you still can.

I had bad news and good news happen in the last couple of weeks. First bad news, I received a Err 99 from my camera. I believe this is an error caused by the one lens I have. Now the good news, the lens is a year and a half old and I have a 6 year limited warranty on it. For the cost of postage and insurance I can probably get the lens repaired. Yea.

The bad news, my Mom, with her degenerative lung disease she has a hard time with winters. Last week she spent a day in the hospital and a afternoon in the emergency room a few days later. Then she was had problems with the medication and ended up back with the doctor. It might be that she was being over medicated and he took her off one of the medicines. I think she is doing better but we will see. None the less she is not in the hospital so this is good news indeed.

Work has been bad news this week but the weekend is here and I get a little break which is good news.

So I guess I have had a balanced week.

Well I am off to celebrate three birthdays. My brothers wife who had a birthday on December 26, my Brother who had a birthday on January 26, and my Sisters who’s birthday will be February 26. Would you look at that. Maybe I should go play the lottery and pick 26 or 026.

Have a nice weekend and a wonderful Valentines Day.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2009-02-06T08:31:00.002-05:00

Last month
I was the Villain.
This week
I am the Hero.

In a few months
I will certainly be
man of the hour.

People will
continue to
make jokes about
my profession.

All I am doing
is my job.

Maybe next time
there’s a severe storm
I will not
give you
an early warning

That was a 55 word flash fiction about a weather man. If you would like to give it a try just come up with a topic, have at least one character and put together a fun little story. Many people do amazing things with just 55 words. It is incredible. Once you have posted one go visit G-Man and let him know so others may come to visit then take a minute to visit the others. You will be amazed.

Yesterday was interesting. I was eating out, something I should not have done but oh well. Anyway the waitress was doing well. With me that is saying a little. I have a drinking problem. I almost always get water and I drink lots of it. I usually result in several trips to refill my glass. Now I tip decent but probably not as well as I should. But this little blurb is about the table next to me.

There was a table of three guys. They were fooling around a little. I was not really sure what was going on with them but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. But then one of them took charge and said the other two owed him $10 and he was going to pay the bill. That gave the waitress an OK tip but still I could imagine there was better than she might have got. Anyway what I saw happen next was what I found interesting. The one guy stopped her and said you gave us great service. She did not seem to understand so said it again just a little different. Personally I think she was in shock. Does anyone ever thank people like that? I know I rarely do and that is a shame. Anyway his buddies gave him a hard time and he said he, I have done so and so and I know it makes a difference when someone appreciates what you do.

He is so right. Now if he could only work on a little better tip then he would be a hero.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

An Interview

2009-01-26T22:19:00.003-05:00

Last week Lime decided to take the challenge and do an interview from a fellow blogger. She also offered to send out interview questions to any that asked. Well here is my interview.

Thank you Lime.

1. You've won a photography contract with National Geographic, however the economic crunch has hit them and they can only afford to give you a camera phone. where will you go to shoot and how will you manage?

Ah but you look at this as a restriction, I just see an advantage. I will make my first trip to Tokyo Disneyland. Besides all the bright vibrant colors that will be there, the Japanese people also tend to be a little shorter. This will make the camera pictures seem even more spectacular. And if that is not enough, being a big producer of cell phones, no one will even know I am from National Geographic which means I will get some great candid. Then it is off to Mt Fuji to document the latest climb to the summit in search of Godzilla who is rumored to be living in the inactive volcano on top of Fuji. To be safe however we will pick up several Godzilla models and keep them in the backpack just in case the rumor are not true. I will take them out and use my trusty camera phone to simulate Godzilla being there. This should be good for two or three assignments easy. From there we will see where my cell phone guides me.

2. More time or more money and why?

Since time is going by faster and faster it seems rather pointless to have more time. With more money I could purchase an Island and become Lord ruler supreme. At that time I would ban all things that keep track of time thus accomplishing both more time and more money.

3. An evil mastermind is going to destroy the world unless you can stop him. You are armed with a spoon, a rubber chicken, a can of aquanet, and a bucket of peanuts. What is your plan?

It turns out that in one of Dr. Doofenshmirtz past professions we a stand up comic. I found this out about a year ago when, as fate would have it I bumped into Dr D bellied up to the bar. He was about to leave but I thought it would be a shame not to see what his story was so I slipped the waitress a fin to set a bucket of peanuts next to where I was sitting. Dr D could not help himself as he reached in an picked up a few peanuts. That lead to a few more peanuts and I capitalized on the moment and bought him a drink. It was a wild night but I found out enough to know Dr D was an inept evil wana-be.

When I realize the evil mastermind who was plotting to destroy the world was indeed Dr D I just knew I needed to be the one to do something. I planned on appealing to his vanity.

I gathered my McGuiver kit including a rubber chicken, a can of aquanet, and a spoon. It was a long shot but this just had to work.

I proceeded to the Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated lair only to find a locked door. Luckily the handle of the spoon I had was easily fashioned into a pick and I was soon inside the lair. The next part was going to be the tricky part. I planted the rubber chicken on a table in the middle of the dinning room and waited in the shadows for him to take the bait. How could a standup comedian pass this up?

An hour or two went by and I must have nodded off a few times. At long last as the sun was setting, Dr D came into the dinning room and spotted the rubber chicken. He was very curious and could not help himself. He walked over to the rubber chicken and started to do some of his old stand up routines right then and there. He was so mesmerized by that chicken that when I snuck up on him and sprayed his hair with the can of aquanet he had no idea I was doing it, that is no idea until I started to smooth down his cowlick. He quickly put down the chicken and spun to see what was happening. It was at this point that I handed him the spoon so he could see his reflection in the spoon. He was in a trance and my plan had worked. The world was saved for now.

4. What's the best job you had?

Lets see. I once helped put up a carnival tent. Lucky me, I got to hold the stakes while the strong men were swinging away at it. Another time I got to ride a hoist across the a plant cleaning florescent lights. Wait, I know. I once had the job of oiling the contestants at an oil wrestling contest. That counts, doesn’t it?

5. You are in charge of the National Cornhole Championships (that game with tossing the beanbags, not porn you pervs....) Where is it held? will it be round robin or single elimination? What are the prizes? Who are the sponsors?

While I was originally tempted to hold the Championships in Iowa because they are the largest producer of corn, I decided to pass this up for something much more interesting. In a rather strange twist of fate it was determined to hold the NCC in Key West, Florida during Fantasy Fest. It turns out that artists who paint all the lovely ladies in such amazing costumes that they look like they are wearing clothing had an idea. They decided what they were going to do was paint up the cornhole boards to look like the most popular models they have painted in the past few years.

The custom boards are destined to make the NCC more popular than it ever has been. It will also sell of lot of custom boards that, hello, the artists have produced. They would then more than make up for the fees to become the co-sponsor of the event. The other sponsor is Old Milwaukee Beer. For the occasion they have decided to revive their old add campaign the Swedish Bikini Team.

While we started the contest as a round robin tournament and progressed to a flighted round robin tournament it was just to much work to schedule so now it is sudden death, single elimination baby. The first team registered will play the last team and so on. We will then hold round 2 and so on doing the same thing until we have the last 4 remaining teams. Everyone will win a prize. First place will win a keg of Old Milwaukee beer, a custom cornhole set, and an all expense paid trip to Sweden accompanied by the Swedish Bikini team. The second place team will get a case of Old Milwaukee beer and custom cornhole bags. The third place gets a 12 pack of beet. The fourth place team, well there are only three prizes. Better luck next year guys.

Friday, What a Nice Day

2009-01-26T07:38:00.002-05:00

Friday was fun. Every have one of those days where everything goes right? Well Friday was almost that good. The day time was just like any other day. I went to work and was looking forward to the weekend. So far, nothing special.

After work I bolted out to head to the Absolute Art Gallery to talk to them about framing my photo. Now I took this picture a little over two years ago of a cheerleader at an MSU Women’s basketball game. When I looked at the photo it just spoke to me, I knew I had to do something with it. I took the photo to a local printer and they worked with me to print a 12x18. After getting discouraged looking at framing options online I just let it sit for a while.

Well Friday I took that photo in the gallery. I had an idea of what I wanted and they listened and basically liked what I was looking for only with a little twist. Of course one of the things that really did not hurt is they kept telling me how much they loved my photo and how they thought I could sell prints of it, etc. Now I know, you have someone you are going to do some work for so stroke their ego a little but ... well it felt good. I think they were being sincere because to tell you they truth the photo really did stand out in my eye as well.

Anyway they right away headed the conservatory/archival route. I knew that would bump the price up a lot but I had already decided I should go that way. With me planning on hanging the picture in the half underground, half above basement in the family room or the third bedroom I knew the added moisture might be a problem. Going the more expensive route would help out with that problem.

They came back out after being in the back room for a little while and came out with the mating and frame that seemed to make sense to me. Then they sprung the surprise on me. They put down a 8 ply mat for the top mat. Oh my, did that look unbelievable. Now that is at least double what you might normally see. The result, when they cut the mat on a 45 angle you really get a big 3D affect. Not only will this look good but I think it will draw the eye into the photo. The good news, that only added about $10 to the cost so not to bad.

I had decided I was just going to talk to them and then make up my mind and do the job at some point in the future. I also had two price points. The lower one was what I expected was the minimum this would cost. The upper number was the cutoff at which I would not frame this print. They fell in the middle. I wish it was cheaper but I will survive. Now the tough part, I have to wait up to 2 weeks to pick up the framed print.

Oh and by the way, now I am going to hang the print upstairs in my living room. Now I think I might need to check into sheers as there are times when the sun will hit the wall I plan to hang the print on and I want to cut down the affect of the sun some.

I then went out and saw the movie Bedtime Stories and despite some people really cutting it down, I enjoyed it. I knew I was getting involved in an Adam Sandler movie. I knew it would not be some epic movie with deep meanings or anything but ... I really did enjoy it.

When I arrived at the theater I went to get some popcorn and something to drink. I set my money down on the counter and, yuck, the counter was all wet. So I grabbed a few napkins and sopped up at least part of the dampness. In retrospect I should have just asked them if they had a rag or something. Anyway the people behind the counter made the comment I was a regular now. Something about that just kind of hit me right. By the way, the reason I am a regular is I bought a season pass. I can go see one movie a week for just under $1 each.

Anyway afterwards I talked to the owner and mentioned I thought the sound was better from last year and wondered if they had improved it. He said they just had turned the sound up. Then we just got out talking about different things and one thing that really got me smiling... This is a little Mom and Pop operation. I like to give my business to the smaller more unique businesses. Anyway what made me smile is I found out one of the two major movie houses in the area has been helping them out. They needed a new part and since Celebration Cinema had converted to all digital they happened to have some parts available that the could use. They gave it to them for free. They also have helped them out consulting too. Now I know this theater is not real competition to Celebration Cinema but still. Real big smile on my face.

So there you have it, I really enjoyed the end to my Friday. The weekend was not as nice but I still managed to get things done.

I hope you had a great weekend.

Some Randomness

2009-01-22T11:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was out shoveling my street. I guess I miss snow shoveling so much that I just needed to get my fix in.

In honesty we are expecting a minature thaw. It will only get above freezing for a little bit and will only last part of today and part of tomorrow but… If I do not clear the drain which is in front of my house than I will have all the melting water from a four lane road come sit in my driveway. Besides being a good neighbor I figure I will save myself a little grief too as we are expecting real cold temps on Saturday. Of course the upside, I could create an ice arena and maybe rent ice time. I know they used to have a serious shortage on ice time. Then I could probably get to be entertained as I watched all the activites at the foot of my drive…

I think I was better off just clearing the snow and ice so the water can drain.

Tonight I am going to a local gallary to see about getting a picture framed. Now this is a new experience for me. I have placed frames around photos before, you know we have 5x7 photo, get a 5x7 frame and be done with it. I even did 8x10 and, the humanity, 11x14… gasp. But I have never went the way of mats, let alone a double mat nor have I been concerned. Wait, I take that back. I did a nifty little double mat jobby doufer once that I hand cut the mats and boy does it show. It had pictures of my Brother in Law building his home. I know it is something that they enjoyed getting even with all the worts but I digress.

So I have been reading up on the process. It seems like I am being steared toward archival matboards since the photo will in the basement which means more moisture and more problems with acid. Of course that is 4 times more expensive. Ten we have glass rather than accrylic because it will be easier to clean even if you do not care after it all the time. I probably should have something to correct for glare but do not have to worry about UV since it will never be in direct sunlight. And it goes on and on. There is so much to learn and know. I could do this project myself but I suspect I am better off with a professional at least this time. Who knew this was so complicated?

I am excited. In a little while I am off to wash my car. The reason I am excited is it has been below freezing almost every day since mid December. If I washed the car I may or may not have had fun getting back in. Today it will be just above freezing and we are suppose to see sun. Between the two I AM WASHING MY CAR at luch. Whoo Hoo… I live such a boring life that this is a major event.

The Day is Here at Last

2009-01-20T08:00:00.004-05:00

Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th President of the United States at noon today. It’s about time. I am just sick of all this hype. “Obama is going to be our savior.” “This is history in the making.” “This will be our first black President.” “Change, change, change.” Print art, mouse pads, can koozies, coasters, car flags, shirts, sweatshirts, scarfs, bumper stickers, clocks, pins, glasses, coffee cups, stamps, chocolates, yes we can can opener, Dunkin' donut inaugural donut....

I just hate the idea of him being “the first Black President.” Come on, he will be President... isn’t that enough? Out of 220 years he will be only the 44th person to be President. Why do we need to make such a big deal of him being black? I will have the same feelings when the first woman President takes office. I will be glad when we just elect a president and not a black person or a woman, etc.

President Obama will have a hard time living up to all this hype. I mean I think he has a lot of good intentions. He has a lot of energy. He has a lot of support. But the problem is this is such a huge task he is charged with. Change from the Bush administration. Improving the image of the United States. Turning around the countries (and with it the worlds) economy. Bringing the country together from how fractured it is now. Court the conservatives while at the same time keeping the liberals happy. ~~Neuter~~ fix Wall Street. Improve the housing crisis. Help preserve not only the American automotive industry but also a lot of other fixtures in the country. Make us as a country less dependent on foreign oil. Fix the broken health care system. Provide for the aging population. Keeping good jobs here in the United States.

People are going to expect change and they will want change now. They will expect things to happen in a week or a month. They will expect real meaningful change in his first 100 days of office. The problem is the change will not come that fast. I would imagine some change will never come. Even though Congress is now completely Democrat, they still will be a stumbling block for Obama. Some change people think they want but they will not like the price for change. Also it took us a while to get into the mess we are in now. It will take us some time to get back out of it.

You know Obama will be under a microscope. If he so much as sneezes there will be someone there criticizing him for it.

It is time for all of us here in the states to get behind OUR PRESIDENT. I look forward to this day being behind us so President Obama can officially hit the ground running. Best wishes to our new President in all that is before him. I am sure he is up to the challenge if we will all give him a chance.

UPDATE: Thank you so much Lime for pointing out Suldog's post about Obama title American Jesus. He said some things I really felt and had no idea how to express it. If you should read this post might I suggest you follow the link to Suldogs post for today. I think it is some really good reading.

bob marley - no woman no cry

2009-01-18T22:19:00.001-05:00

This weekend I was watching part of a movie, the 2007 version of I am Legend with Will Smith in it. At one part he mentions to someone that he could not believe she had not heard of Bob Marley. He continued that Legend was the best album ever made.

Well guess what, I don't have a clue who Bob Marley is. From what I gather I am one of only 5 or 10 people that do not know him. So I decided to get busy and picked up the album. Here is one of the songs from Legend. Enjoy while I kick back and listen to the album and read up on the man.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2009-01-16T08:01:00.003-05:00

You are just out
from a four year stay
at the big house.

Now if you could only escape
the Detective determined
to send you back...

Everywhere you turn is trouble
people, places, even memories.

You have a gun
been drinking
hanging with the wrong crowd

Only bad things can be headed your way now

Last night I went to a screening of a new movie, an independent movie called Fairview St. Don’t go looking for this movie to appear at your local theater however. It was shot entirely in Lansing Michigan and so far has only shown at Celebration Cinema. Next they hope to show the movie in Grand Rapids Michigan at another Celebration Cinema location. Eventually the director hopes to get the movie to some film festivals.

Luckily for the movie maker a place like Celebration Cinema exists. From the very beginning Celebration Cinema has always said they would make room for the up and coming movies, the independents, the artsy films and they have made good on their word. More recently the entire chain of theaters has went digital meaning no more film ever. This also allowed so many more things to happen including making it easier for an independent film to be displayed there. The digital equipment used allows a film to come alive on the large screen.

Fairview St is about a man who just got out from spending 4 years in prison and his struggles to not go back. From the very beginning the company he kept was pulling him back to prison, the detective that was so sure he still belonged in prison that he was willing to frame him to see justice is served, the strained relationships between him and his Dad and also his most understanding young wife.

At some point I will have to go out to lunch or something with Jon who, among other things, did a lot of the editing of the movie. I have questions about certain things they did in the movie. Some things I am curious what they were trying to do. Some things I wonder if they were done on purpose. Some comments on things that I thought just could have been done slightly different. But mostly about how great a job they did in this film.

It was really fun to see all the different scenes showing off Lansing. I sat and wondered where are they shooting now? Than at another part, especially outside the walls of the prison, I wondered where on earth that was shot. It was obvious this was shot at least a year ago as some of the backdrop of the movie no longer exists. The Verlinden automotive plant was in process being torn down in the movie where as now almost all that is left is an open field.

I thought I was not going to like the movie. It was entirely in black and white and that just did not feel right but in the end I loved that about the movie. The characters were great. I so got into the main character and his choices and unfortunate circumstances. Then there was the dick ... I mean detective who I just hated. Add to that the best friend who was such a bad influence. The sweet wife, the Dad who was never a Dad to him, the owner of a local restaurant who was more his Dad... Yep, I thought it was a wonderful movie. Kudos to the producer, editor, actors and all the business involved in the production and showing of this movie.

UPDATE: I found out a couple of interesting things about the movie. First one came from the editor of the film. Now granted this was showing at a 100-120 seat theater (not sure of exact size) but they actually had a sellout on the last night. The other three nights in the small theater were between 65 and 80 people. The second thing I got from a person that handles advertising for Celebration Cinema where the movie was showing. The film actually was 5th in revenue for several nights. Considering this is a 20 screen threater (not including iMax) with most showing hollywood shows I think this is a pretty good accomplishment.

Diary of a Demented Snow Shoveler

2009-01-15T10:44:00.002-05:00

Lately the snow has settled a little but when I received this in email today, I just had to share...

December 8 6:00 PM

It started to snow . The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9

We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the
best idea I've ever had! Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life!

December 12

The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment! My neighbor tells me not to worry- we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14

Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15

20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

December 16

Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

December 17

Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.

December 20

Electricity is back on, but had another 14 inches of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling! Took all day. The damn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.

December 22

Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold, it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter, but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.

December 23

Only 2 inches of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.

December 24

6 inches - Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snow plow, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the damn snowplow.

December 25

Merry f---ing Christmas! 20 more inches of the damn slop tonight - Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's a fricking idiot. If I have to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.

December 26

Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27

Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze; plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him, he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.

December 28

Warmed up to above -20. Still snowed in. The BITCH is driving me crazy!!!

December 29

10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That 's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?

December 30

Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver, and now he is suing me for a million dollars, not only for the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his ass. The wife went home to her mother. Nine more inches predicted.

December 31

I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.

January 8

Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?

How Soon is Spring

2009-01-12T11:36:00.003-05:00

Looks like a record setting season this year. Were I live we already have almost 47 inches of snow. Last year which was a very snowy year, we only had 25 inches of snow about now. In another 1 to 7 inches we will hit our season average. This should happen before the week is over and here we are only half way through January. The Meteoroligist I talked to said we could hit 100 inches this season which would easily set an all time record snowiest season. Our current record is either 80 or 90 inches.

I just have to ask ... so when will spring be here? I mean I planted all those bulbs and all. I want to see the results of my labor. That's it, I want to see what I did. It has nothing to do with the cold temps and snow almost every single day.

So spring is in another 68 days. I can not wait.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2009-01-09T07:45:00.002-05:00

Here is a brochure for a trip to India
and another for Trinidad
Hong Kong
Bangkok
South Africa
Australia

Cruses to the Bahamas
Alaska
British Virgin Isles
French Riviera
Cayman Islands

So many brochures
So little time
To bad you’re
the travel agent
and won’t be taking
any of these trips
except in you mind

The above was a simple 55 Flash Fiction Friday. Others do much better with their exercise. It really is pretty simple. Just pick a subject, have at least one character and put down 55 words on paper. It may seem hard but once you get started you will find it is actually pretty fun. Once you have participated be sure to visit G-Man to tell him you participated so other may come and see you 55.

Yesterday was a little strange. I had a meeting at 1:00 PM and a install on a computer at 2:00 or 2:30 PM. So what happened? My 2:00 was moved to Noon which (I thought) I was barely able to get that done before my meeting. I flew out to the meeting and ... the door was locked. I knocked and knocked, no answer. Finally it clicked, I had my Blackberry with me and the information I needed so I called the office ... no answer. Then I was in the process of trying to leave an email saying I was here, where were you and I had an incoming call. I did not recognize the phone number so I ignored it so I could finish the email... now I have a new voice mail. So I decide to check the voice mail. Somehow I turn on the speaker phone and is it loud. Then I see this strange green dot on the screen and ... the phone rings AGAIN. I am not so sure I like my Blackberry anymore.

In the end I was able to finally send my email and head back to the office when no one answered the door. I contacted the person and they said that everyone decided to go out and buy the boss a gift... what about sending me an email or calling me to tell me the meeting was canceled? I also got rid of the voice mail and found the person trying to contact me from back at work had a question because my install had not finished all the way.

Yep, I am not so sure about this Blackberry now. Of course if I was better at using it...

SNUGGLE ALERT

It appears that here in Michigan we will be having morning lows below ZERO (that is -18 for anyone on Celsius) at least next week. I wonder if it is to late to go find a girlfriend? I don't know about you but that is just way to cold for me. Perhaps it is time for me to take one of those about trips.

OK, slightly funny story. Last night I had my hair cut. On the return trip two things happened. My heater actually started to work. I am not sure why. I was just about to take the car in to get it looked at and here it is working. The second thing I kept hearing what sounded like rocks hitting my car. I thought I was hitting something on the road and kicking up into my vehicle. But what did not make sense was the sound was coming from the middle of my car. I saw other cars near me and I assumed they were throwing up rocks so I backed off. With no cars around me and nothing in the road I was still hearing all the noise.

When I got home I opened up the back door and found ... I had a bunch of empty pop bottles that I had intended to take back to the store but forgot it was there. I think what was happening was they were very cold and expanding because of all the heat I was FINALLY seeing in my car. Needless to say I will be turning those bottles in after work today.

I hope you had a more interesting day yesterday and wish you all a nice weekend.

Slip Sliding Away

2009-01-08T07:33:00.004-05:00

The other day I had something dawn on me. Now I have noticed this but just never really thought about it. Living in a state like Michigan (and Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, ...) Most of the year the roads are clear. But then in the winter the snow comes. Now this is a challenge.

With snow or ice it is much more like you are in a boat. My limited experiences on a sailboat (sorry GoGo) taught me that you point in the general direction of where you are headed, you can not count on going straight there. Also, to a lesser extent, when you want to get going or stop it is not right now.

In driving on snow you have lots of slippage. You go generally where you want to go but not always exactly where you want. Case in point when you are rounding a corner. Starting can always be a challenge and stopping, well lets just say I love my ABS system that really helps on the slippery stuff.

What is interesting about all this is most people here in Michigan (and see above) take maybe one time on snow to learn all over what driving in snow is like. Then you take people from California, or Florida. Put 1 inch of snow on the ground and things are practically at a stand still. People run into each other like they meant to hit them. Then take Kentucky. They see snow every year, just not much. People do not do real well with the stuff but they manage. Well except for the time withing the last 5 to 10 years they got 18 inches of snow. Almost everything was shut down for 5 days. Of course lower peninsula Michigan would struggle with that too. We are used to seeing 3 inches, maybe more. We can do OK on 6 inches. Much above that and life gets exciting. Then there is our Upper Peninsula who routinely sees 6 inches of snow possibly daily. They would feel the 18 inches but the snow plow teams would have things cleared up quickly.

Anyway it was just something amusing I was thinking about over the last week.

Oh boy, only 2 more days of fun at work (yes it has been a bear since the new year started) and the weekend is here.

I am back but...

2009-01-05T10:24:00.003-05:00

running late. I will catch up with things after work today. The thing that has been consuming a lot of my time over the last few days ... a new cell phone. A Sprint Nextel Blackberry Curve 8350i. It is a brand new phone just released a couple of weeks ago. So far I am in love with what I can do with it.

More later. Happy New Year everyone and here is hoping we all have a better year. That includes the world economy and all that it affects. Oh and... World peace.

Merry Christmas to All

2008-12-24T15:14:00.002-05:00

Sorry I have been so backed up. I am just now taking a shower and packing up to head to the families for the holidays. I should have been on the road almost 4 hours ago. At least I have most of the snow taken care of.

This holiday it is mostly going to be about my niece. Well that and my parents which they are going to kill us for doing them. Oh well. My niece gets some close, a Wii system and DS and Wii games. I am sure there is other stuff to but I am sure it will be more than enough to keep her busy for a while. I got her games because she is super picky about what she wears and there is no way I would get the correct thing for her tastes. My parents come more into the 21st century this year. The will be getting NetFlix for movies which they love to watch and Skype for Voip meaning my Mom can talk to her sisters more than once a year and to my one relative that is near by but long distance. Well that and me and my brother too. So it could be a very good thing. We will see. The other item is coupons to their pizza place they go every Sunday. It does not sounds like much but we know they will use them.

We are celebrating tonight so that is why I have to get my butt in gear.

I hope anyone out there that reads this and celebrates Christmas has a wonderful and safe Christmas time.

Owen 16

2008-12-22T06:55:00.006-05:00

Owen 16
Originally uploaded by abarndweller

I found this photo out on Flickr. It so goes along with what I have to share from yesterday.

Yesterday, after having unburring myself from the over 10 inches of snow and braving the rather nasty weather conditions of yesterday I went to see the Detroit Lions play their 15th game of the NFL season. What did I see at this football game?

First let me say it was interesting. Ford Field where the Lions play is a lovely stadium. Although we were most of the way to the top, the seats were still nice. We sat in a corner and had a decent view of the field. If you wanted to see it closer you either needed to bring binoculars, have closer, much more expensive seats or watch the giant board that had very good coverage of the game.

Anyway what I did see was a fan be ejected from the game. So what did this fan do to get ejected from the game? This terrible person, a felon for sure, probably life of crime with a rap sheet longer than anyone can handle, on the naughty list for sure... brought a grocery bag into the stadium.... GASP, NOT THAT!

It is on the list of prohibited items. They obviously hid the bag on entering the stadium where it should have been discovered and pitched. So what is so wrong about bringing in a grocery bag? Well personally I think a person is making a statement and should be allowed to do this and I do not think there is anything wrong with this. But what this person did was wear a make shift shirt like the one above. Upon first looks the jersey looks normal. But there is a meaning behind it. The Lions who were playing their 15th game of the season have not won a single game yet this season. This game was no different and they lost 42 to 7. Chances are they will lose their last game next week hence the shirt ... OWEN 16 or 0 and 16, their record for this season.

Anyway what this person did was wear the bag over their head. This was suppose to represent the unknown Lions Fan. If you are not familiar with with the Unknown Comic, here is a clip of his act that the unknown Lions Fan is based on.

The Unknown Comic

So this person was expressing their displeasure with the team. I mean if you are a pro sports team how can you possibly lose each and every game of a season? And what happens... immediate ejection from the game. What makes this even worse is you are not allowed to bring a video camera with you nor are you allowed to have a decent camera with you so you could not record this person being ejected from the game so it is as if it never happened. Oh there was one more thing this person had with them. A make shift sign (which is allowed) that read, WHY AM I HERE? Well I figured this needed to be at least mentioned.

So was the person in the wrong? You bet they were. I watched them put on the bag and quickly take it off after a very short time. They where hiding it of course. But to me it just feels like they were being muzzled. What could it possibly hurt to allow even every fan in the stadium to wear a BAG over their head. COME ON, the Lions are terrible. No other team in the NFL has ever went 0 and 15. Next week they will set another record and not win a single game in the season. Their over all record since 1930 has been they lose 54 percent of their games. It has not been since 2000 that the Lions have won more than they lost.

Anyway, I may just need to drop the Lions. The only way they will ever get better is for the fans to abandon them. As long as the franchise continues to make money what incentive is there to ever get better?

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-12-19T00:51:00.004-05:00

The kids were suppose to bring
dishes to school from around the world
Half the dishes you can not pronounce
But they all smell so wonderful.

What did Little Johny
bring in for International day?
Johny had the United States.
He could have brought in so many great foods
He chose to bring French Fries.

What can I say, Lime has had an International flair about things as long as I have been visiting her blog but the past few weeks she has out done herself. I guess this and the comment her daughter made about them having such a global kitchen just planted a seed in my mind. I think I need to try a whole lot more dishes from India. Until then maybe I will have to go look up that Ethiopian restaurant in the next town over. I have only been to such a place once and I think it is time I venture out of my comfort zone once again.

Have a wonderful weekend and send warm thought my way if you can. I just want to make sure I do not get buried in snow from the storm heading this way. I will use any warm thoughts to help melt a little snow… unless you want to help me build a gran snowman. Any takers?

If you decided to do a 55 thsi week than go over to G-Man's blog and let him know so he can come visit.

UPDATE: The big storm came and went and dumped 8 inches of snow on me. An hour and a half later of using my snow blower to do battle with the snow and the snow plow teams that kept burrying my driveway and sidewalks ... I am finally all clear. Of course tomorrow night we have an additionl 3 to 6 inches on the way. So we could have as much as 32 inches of snow already and winter has just begin. Nice.

For the Person that has Everything

2008-12-18T07:52:00.004-05:00

Do you have someone on your Christmas list that is impossible to shop for. Well you may just be in luck. Here we have something I found on the Internet. I am not sure if it is real or not but the people that created it seem to be and you can find this all over the Internet. There is a ton of buzz out there. Of course it is in pre-production so it is only available for pre-order. I guess Christmas this year is out.

So here you have the hood thong. In it's defense, one place someone said that maybe this will be worn over other clothes like they do with exercise outfits. That at least makes some sense to me.

Around my neck of the woods we are getting all ready. We are expecting 6 to 10 inches of snow by tomorrow evening. The worst of it is the snow will be coming down more than an inch an hour during rush hour tomorrow morning. The snow crews can not keep up with that much snow. Then on Sunday I believe we are expecting another 3 to 6 inches. That will be 9 to 16 inches of snow in 3 days. Yikes! That could put us as a little over half our annual snow fall and Winter still has not officially started.

I think I am moving south.

Finally it would seem that Jeff Foxworthy has decided to target Michigan ...

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 18 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Michigan.

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Pellston is the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Michigan.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Michigan.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for five months out of the year, you might live in Michigan.

If someone in a store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you might live in Michigan.

If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in Michigan.

If you have worn shorts and a coat at the same time, you might live in Michigan.

If your town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live in Michigan.

If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Michigan.

The Christmas Meme

2008-12-15T08:19:00.001-05:00

I borrowed this meme from KJ.

The Christmas Meme

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Usually paper

2. Real tree or Artificial? Would like real but... Artificial

3. When do you put up the tree? Ideally Thanksgiving but usually not until the mid December

4. When do you take the tree down? New Years day or soon there after

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Microscope, possibly an erector set???

7. Hardest person to buy for? Most about the same

8. Easiest person to buy for? My niece

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail but I only do that occasionally

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Beats me.

12. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Ham

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? last minute

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? no

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Unfortunately anytime

16. Lights on the tree? Defensively, sometimes white, sometimes multicolor

17. Favorite Christmas song? Winter Wonderland

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel to the folks home

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We time share my sisters family, one year it will be Christmas Eve, the next Christmas. This year, Christmas Eve.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-12-12T02:21:00.002-05:00

Planning what to do,
Preparing the list.

To the store shopping.
Filling the cart.
Paying for the fixings

Measuring, stirring,
mixing, cleaning.
Folding, blending,
chopping, beating,
sprinkling, placing..

Baking, cooking,
refrigerating.

Preparing for the road trip
Hot stays hot,
cold stays cold
nothing spills.

Sure is a lot of work
for an Office Christmas Party.

The above is a flash fiction 55. If you would like to try one of these just put together a little story that contains (about) 55 words. Include some sort of story line and a character and away you go. Once you have posted jump on over to Gman’s blog and let him know (and the others) so they can come and visit.

Today we have an office Christmas party. I am always the fool. One person always brings in pop for his contribution but not me. I usually do two or three items. Most of the time they are in a crock pot to keep warm adding to the fun. Still I want to make sure I do my share.

On the menu today as far as I am concerned is antipasto salad and creamy chicken enchilada’s. While the salad does not sound bad, it actually takes me some time. I top the salad with a layer of coto salami and then a layer of ham lunch meat. This is cut up into small squares, probably about an inch square and then each square is placed on top of the salad one at a time. I have discovered that if I partially freeze the lunch meat before working with it I can separate the squares a little easier. Of course my hands get cold but it is worth the trade off. Still this step alone takes going on about 46 minutes all by itself. Of course it makes a much better presentation doing this.

Tonight should be fun. I have the ingredients and it is now time to make Limes “Don’t Fear the Curry” recipe. I am looking forward to this as the curry powder I purchased actually smells wonderful to me. When did I start liking curry anyway?

Oh and tonight Frosty the Snowman is on. Yes, I still watch those silly little holiday shows.

It should be an interesting day today. No partying but that is just fine with me.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Less than two weeks to Christmas...

No Regrets

2008-12-10T06:43:00.002-05:00

I have nothing but I thought I would post a quick thought.

Yesterday a family in California will never be the same. I do not know all the details but I just heard that the an F-16 fighter crashed on approach to the base. The pilot ejected and is going to be OK. The family however will not. The 18 month old daughter and her just born sister were lost along with the wife and her mother. So here you leave for work (or whatever) and something as unlikely as this happens and everything in your life changes in an instant.

Things like this make you think twice. That hurtful comment you said before leaving for the day, that missed opportunity to tell someone you love them, the opportunities to get in touch with someone who means a lot to you but you have been to busy to call. Just think for a minute how you will feel should something happen like the fighter jet crash, or 9/11 or the jet that crashed on take off near where I lived and all but 1 person on board died, and you did not get a chance to tell them you love them.

Well time to go brave another day. Yea, most of the ice or snow they thought might be heading our way did not happen. I hope you have a nice day.

Natures Game of Chicken

2008-12-08T08:37:00.001-05:00

This is how I spent a half hour Saturday morning...

Saturday morning I woke up early and decided to get on the computer and see what all was going on. After a while I looked out my large window and saw the bird of pray you see in the picture above (about in the center). I was rather fascinated trying to figure out what it was but then the fun happened.

There was a squirrel that was wandering through the trees and it discovered the bird. It then disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared about 5 feet away from the bird. The squirrel then headed off in several different directions but kept returning to check out the bird. Of course the whole time the bird kept it's eyes on the squirrel.

Finally the squirrel disappeared and went up several branches to where you see in this picture (top a little over a third of the way from the left).

I snapped this picture and then went for my good camera only to come back and discover the bird and squirrel were both gone.

It seems to me the squirrel was a little touched in the head because I think that bird could have done some real damage to Mr Squirrel.

Well that was an exciting 30 minutes on Saturday morning.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-12-05T08:08:00.002-05:00

The snow flakes are falling
They were so large
and they were fun to catch
on your tongue
but now it is super fine

You can see your breath
when ever you
breath out

It really is a pretty time of year
except for when
you have fallen on the ice
and can’t get up

The above is a flash fiction 55. It is simple to do. Just put together a small story that has about 55 words. Have a subject and at least a character (which I am missing in this one) and there you have it. Once you get started you will be amazed how fun they can be.

So far this year we have had over 12 inches of snow. To me it seems like we rarely get snow before Christmas but not this year. And it has been so slippery too. I have caught myself many, many times slipping only to manage to stay up. I sure hope things get better soon. Maybe I should be putting on something with a little padding on the back in case I take a tumble.

I hope where you are the weather is treating you a little better.

„La Cucaracha

2008-12-04T02:29:00.002-05:00

Yesterday when I walked into work I had a surprise. I walked in with a cockroach. Now I was going to say that is the first live one I have ever seen but that would be wrong. When I was in my early 20s I visited someone in a dump of a motel room and they had roaches in it. I had no idea what it was.

Downtown's are notorious for having cockroaches. I once was sitting at a bar and saw a cockroach scurry across the corner of the bar. Now it was not like this place was not kept up after. I think that sprayed for bugs twice a month and were fairly careful all the time.

Once when I was visiting my friends in Florida (who now live in Kentucky) I went with them looking at a house. It was at night and it was dark. We walked into the house and turned on the lights. There were like a million cockroaches that all scurried out of sight. In truth there were maybe 10 of them but I was not use to seeing them. Of course they have lots of fun things like this down in Florida.

About a year ago we moved into the building I work in now. We knew at the time this building had a problem with cockroaches. Up until yesterday the only ones I have seen were dead and there have only been two of them at that. At least one thing, the little buddy I came into work with was not real super fast. I feel a little better about that. Of course they sprayed for them the day before so this beastie may have been handicapped. I just hope none of them follow me hope as they are NOT WELCOME!

Let it Snow (cringe)

2008-12-03T07:00:00.002-05:00

Lets see... checking the calendar... it is suppose to be late fall. So why does it look so white out there? I wish I had my camera with me the last couple of days. The trees looked lovely with about 2 inches of snow piled up on each and every branch. Luckily I have only heard of a few branches coming down. We have had just about 12 inches of snow so far this season. We are already 6 inches ahead of normal but I would argue it is even higher as it seems to me that we are usually wishing for a white Christmas and not always getting that. I have a feeling this is going to be a long winter.

Does anyone (in a warmer climate of course) have room for a visitor???

Well time to make the best of it. I know the local zoo has a good sized lights display. For that matter so do some people. Maybe I should go checking that out. That way I can start getting into the holiday mood.

I just heard my all time favorite band is coming to my area. Not sure I can talk anyone to go with me but we will see. Anyway here is one of their songs.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T18:52:00.002-05:00

Happy holidays to anyone here in the states. May your days be safe and filled with turkey, family and friends ... and no I did not call your family a turkey. For anyway else ... have a nice long weekend. I may not be back until Monday.

Chow... how appropriate for Thanksgiving.

Bryan

Follow-up on Calendar post

2008-11-26T04:39:00.006-05:00

Here is the same month of the different services I used to produce a custom calendar.

This is take one at Staples. I did not like the way the photo was cropped so...

This was take two at Staples. There was no cropping on the photo this time.

This one was done with Zazzle.

The last one I did was using SnapFish and Meijer.

So finally results

Easiest to Use to Hardest
Staples
SnapFish
Zazzle

Cost Lest to Most
Staples (9.99+ tax)
SnapFish Walmart (16.99+tax)
SnapFish Meijer (18.99+4.99 shipping+ tax)
Zazzle (20.95+5.99 shipping)

Most Customizable
Zazzle
SnapFish
Staples

Best Looking
Zazzle (if you can live without the previous/next calendar inserts)
SnapFish
Staples

For me I think the best combination is using SnapFish through Walmart. It produces a better calendar but not the best. It is faster to work with than Zazzle. It also costs more but is in the middles of cost. It has the prior/next calendar inserts (which Zazzle does not).

We will see if I change my mind once I receive my calendar from SnapFish that I produced through Meijer.

Calendar's Anyone

2008-11-24T08:02:00.001-05:00

Have you ever done one of those custom calendar’s before? You know where you take one or more photos and build a calendar with them to give away to someone. Well I have seen these before but I had never tried it, that is until this weekend.

I found Staples to be about the cheapest with costs starting at $9.99 so I decided to give it a try. I put together a calendar with a picture on the cover and a picture for every month except one month that had two pictures. It was real easy to do and I had no problems. I inserted some custom dates and submitted the calendar online. Piece of cake.

I received a call that things were ready to pick up the following day at 6:00 but I was busy standing around outside for 2 ½ hours in mid 20s temperature but that is a different story.

When I picked it up I was a little disappointed. Now if I had payed attention I would have noticed that the program cropped my photos for me. With a little bit of work I could have either cropped the photos the way I wanted or adjust things so it would not crop. Well it bothered me enough that I redid things and set it up so the pictures would not be cropped. I pick that up this morning.

Now I decided to look around a little more and I found Zazzle. It was amazing what they allowed me to do. You had a choice of three different sizes of calendars, a single page or a page per month, about 20 different actual calendar layouts, a cover photo and a back page, etc. They did not seem to be a size limit to how big a photo could be. Staples would not allow anything larger than 4 megs which several of my pictures were. They also made it real easy to fit the photo so there would be no cropping. You could also set a background color per page if you wanted. You were able to have more than one photo on a page if you wanted and you could do anything you wanted with those photos. Staples only had three templates to use for placing photos. You could insert 1 or more text messages on the calendar too in tons of colors and fonts.
The down side. First cost, it was double the cost of Staples. You have to do all the work yourself. You can not just drop a photo on a page and it looks good. You have to size it and place it where you want the pictures. When you get use to it that was not to bad. The text was easy to insert so if you wanted to tell people what the photo was, no problem but the bad part you had to decide what size, color, font, and position. So that is flexible but I had to keep setting the font I wanted and the size and it was tricky trying to get things placed to were it was safe from being truncated in the printing process. What made it worst was you were viewing the calendar as this little tiny thing so it was hard to tell if you had thing placed where you wanted without blowing it up. When it was blown up you could only look at it and not customize it. The program was also a little unstable as I managed to crash things twice. It was then that I discovered you can save your work and I did that every time I got a month finished. I also noticed the program was doing an automatic backup for me too. Once I found out how to back up my work the program never failed again, go figure. To put special dates on this calendar you needed to place wording on the calendar yourself. On Staples you just told it what words you wanted on which day and it did it for you... much easier for Staples. One thing that bothered me too no calendar layout had those little prior or next month calendar inserts on the calendar page. I like those little inserts.

Anyway it took me some time to put together a calendar with Zazzle but then I had a little learning to do. But I think the calendar I put together was a much better looking calendar. Was it worth the extra cost... you know since it lets me build it the way I want I think it is worth while.

Anyway I just thought I would share. If you want to create a simple calendar Staples works well as would OfficeMax and probably any office supply place. If you want to do something more there are options for that to such as Zazzle. Just do not forget, if you are doing this for a gift sometime you need some lead time to get the calendar back.

Well off to work. Have a great week.

Strange

2008-11-20T16:01:00.003-05:00

Have you noticed something? They say that consumer spending is way down. I know I have been cautious myself but last weekend when I went shopping at the Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan there were tons of people walking around. Now I am not sure how many were walking around and how many were buying but I thought things looked pretty good. I also made it around the mall right by me just about a week ago and, although it was not crowded, it certainly was busy. Mental note… you need to get back to the local mall to buy something from the vendor in the hallways of the Mall.

Anyway, I also have received way more emails this year from stores that want to sell me something and on sale no less. The one that has been writing me many, many times a week is Circuit City. Some things look like a real bargain but not something I am interested in. Of course Circuit City is in trouble and closing some of their stores so that could explain that. But what I am wondering is if consumers confidence is down then why are so many people still out there buying things? Maybe it is just not big ticket items like cars, homes, etc.

I know I have been taking it easy myself. There are a few things I want to buy but they have been put on the back burner for now. While the cost of gas was way up I was avoiding driving. Now I am relaxed on that a little but I just heard with gas below $2.00 people are starting to look at SUVs again. How short sited is that. This lull in gas is only temporary. We will see high prices once again.

Anyway these are just some observations. We will see what really happens on Black Friday.

Now how about a cute little thing I found... Click here to TECHNOLOGY for country folk.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

2008-11-19T08:39:00.002-05:00

I am afraid this is not upbeat in any way so skip it if you will. Just a warning...

Now the Grinch did not steal Christmas in the classic way. He did not slink down to Whoville and steal the trees, the presents, the food, the Who pudding, even the roast beast. No, that would be entirely to much work. Instead the Grinch circulated a notice to the workers at my Brother in laws plant that they would be closing March 31. Aside from getting things for niece, Christmas is pretty much dead.

So why is the plant closing? A little while ago the company made the decision to build a plant over seas. As that plant came online they started to close more and more divisions in the plant here in Michigan. Now that the other plant has been fully operational for some time, it is time to close the plant here. That and they found an out. Being a plant that works with a lot of chemicals the land is no doubt very contaminated. The cleanup would have been outrageous. Instead they are donating the land to be made into a wild life preserve and they will no long have any responsibility for that land. Similar things happened to property in Lansing where General Motors closed the Verlinden plant and tore it down. They are in the process of tearing down the rest of things and have already planted grass in portions of the property. Soon it will be a turned over to the city as a park.

Now I am not all about presents. I would rather give then receive anyway. I am much more about getting the family together and I am sure we will still do that. But ouch.

My BIL has worked for the plant about 33 years now. When the plant closes he would have only needed another year and a half to be able to retire and draw a pension. As it is now he can kiss that pension goodbye.

Being a master electrician you would think he would be in good shape but being over 50 years old finding another job will be tough. What makes it worse is the country is in recession. What makes it even worse is Michigan has been hurting for over 6 years so we are in much worse shape than just about anywhere else in the country. Foreclosures are extremely high in the Detroit area too. What caps it all off is we depend on the auto industry in Michigan and it is failing miserably now.

Now the good news is he can always do side jobs and I am sure he can expand on that now. They also have my sister working full time and they have benefits from where she works. But there is no way they can make it on what she makes alone. And of course her job is a little shaky too.

Yep, the Grinch stole Christmas and much more this year without lifting a finger other than to send out a notice.

I was working on a listing of Christmas shows that are on TV but did not finish it. I will post what I have later if anyone is interested. So far I have items from ABC Family Channel and The Hallmark Channel.

The Wizard of Oz

2008-11-17T15:58:00.001-05:00

I did many things over the weekend and they were all enjoyable. The one thing that sticks out however was the play I attended, the Wizard of Oz. It was put on by Downriver Youth Performing Arts Center (DYPAC). It is a youth group that caters to kids 5 to 18 that want to get into the performing arts. From the moment we were approaching Flat Rock High School (where the play is being performed) I knew something was up. There were a ton of lights in the parking lot. When we got into the lot I discovered it was big but not as big as I thought.

We got to the high school itself after trekking in from the south 40 and might I say what a nice high school. It is about 12 years old but it does not look that old at all. Upon walking in I noticed something I have never seen before. They had tables set up by the front door with a lot of Wizard the Oz merchandise available to purchase. The picture they had were all of the old familiar gang. Beyond that they had a bunch of double sided racks set up with fill size sheets of paper, one for each cast member. It was all done on a template so it all looked the same other than the persons name and description of what they were doing and what they had done acting wise. It was simple enough but impressive none the less.

We had assigned seats and were 4 rows back from the pit and I do mean pit. They had a 15 piece orchestra sunken down in about 10 foot or so. They were pretty darn good being much better than I expected.

I was looking around and I was already impressed. From what I could see they had a real nice auditorium with sound deadening where it was needed, lot of light flown that for the most part they could easily get to even during a performance, a decent sound system although this play either pushed the sound system or pushed the sound technicians. I will tell you more latter.

They had a big program filled with ads and they were also projecting the ads on the screen. When it was time to start the audience lights went down and the curtains closed. Then we got some instructions booming out over the sound system from none other than the Wizard of Oz himself. The movie screen retracted and someone entered stage right in front of the curtain. It turned out they were one of the co directors and he also mentioned that he play cowardly lion in this same production 10 years ago when DYPAC fist formed.

The play was odd. There were lots of scenes you would be familiar although there may have been slight alterations to things because some things were not that easy to recreate in a play surrounding. But there was also many little zingers tossed in to obviously liven things up a little or help people follow along even with the story changed a little. There were also whole musical numbers added in. Why would they do that? Well the cast must have been between 150 and 200 people. Basically if someone went out for the play they received at least some part. The extra scenes gave them something extra for the large cast. Here is an example. We all remember where the wicked witch of the west sent the flying monkeys after Dorothy and crew… right? Well in this one she sent the flying monkeys too but before the monkeys got there she sent the jitter bug to incapacitate them. So here was a whole dance number about the jitter bug distracting them and eventually causing them to go down. After that the flying monkeys came and did their bidding.

OK, now that I have written a book lets try and bring her down to a nice gentle landing.

What I loved about this play besides watching all the technical things happen, and besides all the tons of wireless microphones… well actually I loved all that stuff. I could have spent the entire play behind the scenes watching all that was going on. I would have thoroughly enjoyed that. But what wowed me was the flying, yes I said flying. They started out by flying Glenda onto stage inside of what looked look a pink hula-hoop. Of course it was much sturdier than that and it even had a nice seat for Glenda to sit upon as she was flown into the scene. Once the follow the yellow brick road was started they flew Glenda back off stage. All in all she was flown 4 times as part of the play and also when they brought the whole case out at the end. The also flew the witch once and again for the ending. They of course had to fly the monkeys. At first just one was flown but then they had three in the air all at once. They also had a monkey fly away with Dorothy. Also during the I do believe in spooks part they flew the Cowardly Lion. They flew the great and powerful oz off stage in his hot air balloon and one last thing happened I did not even realize until after the play was over. They used the same flying equipment to fly a tornado through the farm. I have rarely seen anyone flown in a play before and have never seen it done in an amateur play. They hired a company out of Las Vegas to help them with the flying so everyone would be safe in the play.

They had pyrotechnics in the production to. Many times when the wicked witch showed up they fired off a powerful powder charge. It felt like they lit an M80 off with the sound, light and huge concussion but I am sure it was some sort of flash pot. One went off what looked like inches from the scarecrow that looked like it was inches away. Now here is the truly amazing part. I would say 80 percent of the time Toto was on screen and this was a real dog. For the most part it cooperated so well. One time they pushed him in from stage right onto the set. Other than that it tolerated the explosion and the tons of people. At one point they left Toto go and Toto stayed more or less in the area as was appropriate. Later in the scene where Toto reveals who the Wizard of Oz was they let the dog go about mid stage and it went scrambling off. How did they do that?

Well walking out we say a few words with a couple people we knew in the performance. I wanted to say great job to the Witch and the scarecrow but I could not get over to them. The coroner did a wonderful job to as he hammed it up big time. Dorothy, well for being only about 13 she was incredible. If I hear of DYPAC putting on another play, especially a musical, you can bet I will be there. Who knows, maybe I can get lost behind the scenes?

More to come about the weekend soon.

Finished Planting Beds

2008-11-14T08:45:00.001-05:00

Here are my finished beds. It took me a little while to finish off everything. Now I wait for spring to pack the soil down a little, add the mulch and add some annuals to get some fun color.

First my bed on the left along the house.

Both my beds on the left side of the house.

The front planting bed. I need to find something to add to the bed next year. It needs to tolerate shade.

A different angle of left side of the front planting bed.

And the right side.

A different view of the front planting bed.

The right planting bed.

A different view of the right planting bed.

I know this is boring. It is just a bunch of dirt but it was a lot of work. Also for a change I am finally starting to put in some landscape. I look forward to see how the right planting bed turns out. Well that and once I add the red mulch next year I hope things will be looking sharp.

No flash fiction 55 today as I have been busy getting things ready to go out of town this weekend. Have a great weekend everyone.

Many Phases of Yard Work

2008-11-11T09:40:00.004-05:00

Today is a busy day for me. It started with a nice breakfast at a local Mom and Pop restaurant. Then back to the house for the real work. Note: Photos to be added later after I take another break.

I had been working on the dirt already. Last night I moved all the dirt I had loosened into the wheel burrow. This morning I dumped in a bunch of peat moss in and used the tiller to work that into the top layer of earth. I then augmented the soil with a bulb food similar to bone meal but supposable better for bulbs. A little bit of raking later and the soil was all prepared for the 51 bulbs to be planted. Phase complete.

The next phase was to mark off the bed and actually place the bulbs where they belong. On the left are the existing Iris plants. In the center are clumps of various hybrids of Tiger Lilies. On the right are a border of Purple Passion Tulips. Phase Complete.

While working on the previous phase the 2 yards of topsoil arrived. Phase complete although I did not have anything to do with it other than order and pay for the topsoil.

Now lets take a quick look around at the planting beds. Above was the planting bed from the right side of the house (faces west). This is the two small planting beds from the left side (easterly exposure) of the house. On the left are hostas. In the spring I will be fertilizing and covering this with mulch. On the right is where I typically plant some nice annuals and there will also be 2 inches of mulch here in the spring.

Moving on this is the front planting bed. You will notice the two cute little baby shrubs. It will take them forever to grow. I so wish I had planted them the almost 10 years ago when I bought this house. Oh well, it will be fun to watch them grow. The two outside ones will grow into Christmas Trees (more of less) that are 6 to 8 foot tall. I will be placing a majority of the dirt I took delivery of here. The remainder will go on the first planting area you saw. The center one will be squatty . This spring I will be covering this with a weed barrier and placing 2 inches of mulch on top of that.

I do have two more planting areas up front. First we have the area around the mailbox. This area never grows but I will make a stab at it again. Next year I add mulch here. The is currently some iris planted here. There used to be tulips but they died off. I will probably plant some annuals here next year and in the fall replace them with some perennials. And now my final planting area is around my flag pole. This area is full of iris plants and tulips. Next year I am going to have to split the iris plants are they are out of hand. Anyway the second and third pictures are of the flag pole.

Sorry I did not place up a nice Veteran's Day tribute as at least one of you wonderful bloggers out there have. We will have to just pause a moment and look at my motionless flag. Thank you to all of you who have served especially to all of you who have made the ultimate sacrifice and of course to all of their families as well. Without your sacrifice we would not be the country we are today.

So the next phase will be adding the dirt back into the westerly planting bed that I dug out being careful not to disturb the bulbs. Then I add 2 inches or so of topsoil of the planted bulbs and that bed should be about ready to go to bed for the winter. I also will be adding the 2 inches or so of topsoil to the front beds and they two will be ready for winter once I add the peat moss around the shrubs. This will be a big phase as I am so out of shape. Moving two yards of dirt will be fun but I will just spread it out over a big part of the day if I need too.

[Completed projects front and right side planting areas]

I have other plans of what to do outside but I am betting I will not get to them. If I can get everything list above done I will be most happy indeed.

Update: I started just after 7:00 AM with this project and called it a night just after 6:00 PM. My body was ready to call it a day about 2 hours before that. I got cramps in my right arm that I had to be careful what I did so they did not come back. I know I was dehydrated as, even thought it probably did not even hit 45 today as I sweating and I only drank about a quart of water. I should have had some outside to where I could grab some when I needed it. In the end it was to dark to take the finished photos so hopefully that will be tomorrow. I also did not clean up the cement as I knew my right arm would give me trouble pushing a broom. Finally I decided to put in more dirt than I planed because I never considered the fact the the soil was not compact and it would certainly compress before next year when I add the mulch. When I came down to the wire I was about 4 bags of topsoil short (160 pounds). I might have some bagged topsoil already. If not I will be making a trip to the store so I can finish the project.

I will say one thing, being out of shape I pushed myself harder than I should have. This project kicked my butt. My blood pressure and pulse were really elevated but after taking a 4 minute rest it had come down a fair amount but still was high. In the end I think this saying applies just as well here as anywhere. What does not kill you makes you stronger.

I can not wait for next spring.

Do you Hulu?

2008-11-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

Did you know about the Hulu website? I just found it last Sunday. I saw something that mentioned that YouTube will be adding television shows and movies to the videos soon. It mentioned that was to compete with Hulu.

I have watched that full episode of WKRP in Cincinnati that I mentioned earlier. I watched a Lost in Space episode from back in 1967. I also watched an old show that was not on the air very long. I am not sure if they were even on a full season. The show was called Cleopatra 2525. I even saw they had the movie Xanadu or maybe just clips, on of my favorites. I think I will bounce around a little more checking what they have online but try not to watch to much more. There just are not enough hours in the day.

Now Hulu is not like YouTube, for that type of content you still need to go to YouTube. But for many other things you might be able to find it on Hulu. Click here for an explanation of Hulu. Someday YouTube will add similar content only it probably will be CBS or ABC studios centered content. The interesting thing about the content is it is possibly DVD quality. It looks about as good as anything I have seen on the Internet before. Of course I do have a high-speed Internet connection, you probably can not do use this site with dial-up.

Well other than Hulu I managed to do some more work outside and get all but my garden area cleared for next year. 16 containers to the recycle center later and my beds up front are looking good. I also managed to dig up a portion of my planting beds that have a westerly exposure. Since I have Tuesday off and the weather will be cooperating I am going to try and get about 3 dozen bulbs planted for next year. The bad news, moving 2 yards of topsoil that hopefully I can get delivered on Tuesday. The good news, less work in the spring and also some wonderful new plants to welcome in the spring (Tulips) and greet another summer (a variety of Tiger Lilies). I started seeing Tiger Lilies everywhere and just new I had to make them mine. Well not those exact plants but you know what I mean.

In the spring I need to put down a weed barrier and add 2 yards of mulch to my planting beds. Things should be looking sharp next year. Now all I need to find are some annuals to plant next year to add some color. I can't wait for spring!

Oh and by the way, should you stop by Lime, I found this on THIS WEB SITE. I thought it might give you a smile. Hope you had a great time.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-11-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

Life is good.
You have
everything you want
But you know
your day is coming.

There seems to be
nothing you can do
to change your fate.

You have tried
running away but every time
you have been caught
and brought back.

This is a very bad time
of the year to be a Turkey.

I know Thanksgiving in Canada is long over and here in the states Thanksgiving is still a few weeks out. Still I could not help but think about the many many poor turkeys out there. But than it could be worse. Did you ever see a show called WKRP in Cincinnati?

There was an episode in WKRP called the Turkey Drop. If you want to view it click here. In the clip the radio stations is trying to promote themselves by giving away 20 live turkeys. They do this by flying over a parking lot with a helicopter and drop the 20 live turkeys. Unfortunetely the turkeys can not fly and crash to the ground. What you do not see and I wish I could find was the very ending of the show. The station manager says "As God is my witness. I thought turkeys could fly." What can I say, simple things for simple minds.

Michael Crichton Has Passes On

2008-11-06T01:03:00.001-05:00

Oh no, I just heard one of my favorite authors has pass on, Michael Crichton. I loved The Andromeda Strain than I just kind of lost track of him. It was not until I came across Congo and read it that I truly fell in love with his work. I loved the way he mixed science and medical details in a lot of his books. It held my attention and made me want to look things up and see just how real this was. I have read a little bit more of his work but I have so many more books to find and work my way through. It is sad to see someone as talented is he pass on at the relatively young age of 66. I think he still had a lot of wonderful works inside.

Rest in peace Michael Crichton. Hopefully you and Charles Schulz (my favorite cartoonist) get together and have lunch sometime.

So, do you have a favorite author?

Just a Quicky

2008-11-05T08:04:00.004-05:00

I probably will not post a a real post until tomorrow. I spent almost 12 hours sleeping yesterday after my visit to the doctors. A few weeks ago the doctor made a change to my blood pressure medication. Well the last little bit I have been dealing with low blood pressure. Doing just about anything has not been fun. I would not go for a walk or do any exercise because I was worried I might pass out. Well yesterday the doctor cut my meds in half so hopefully I will be doing better now. The readings this morning were very encouraging but after work I was lower than I have ever seen. I will give it a couple of days to see how things settle out.

I found out 98 percent of all eligible voters are now registered. Wonderful. Turnout for the election in Michigan went from low 60 percent for presidential elections to almost 68 percent according to the unofficial state election results. The last time we saw that many percent of people turn out to vote was back in 1964 and even higher in the 50s. So yes there was more turnout than recent history but it was not as much as I had been lead to believe. I determined this by looking at the total votes for President and also the total votes for two state wide ballot issues and picking the larger of the three numbers. At this point I have not had a chance to pour over the results but the results seem to be overwhelming saying change and fix our economy.

I hope you all are seeing the wonderful weather we have been having the last few days. Have a great day everyone.

My Experience at the Polls

2008-11-04T08:31:00.001-05:00

I showed up at the polls and was in line about 7:07. By the time I was done (50 minutes) I was the 87th voter to vote in my precinct. Doing the math that is a little under 2 people a minute voting. Normally when I go to vote it is closer to 8:00 and I am about the 90th voter. The line was cut by a third so they probably only had a 35 minute wait. So yes there are a few more voters this time but not so bad you should stay away from voting. Of course this evening will probably be real fun.

There were a few more voting stations that usual I think, 14 of them. There probably was about 12 before. They added about 3 more stations to be used for my precinct as the other precinct that was voting at the same place I was had no one in line. The processing of voters before they could go vote was a little backed up as there was almost always 1 to 3 stations not filled.

Everyone was civil. The poll workers tried to make sure that people that were in the correct line for voting so they did not waste their time. I have a few other things I could say but I worry it might influence things so this is where I end. I guess I am saying a 50 minute wait was not bad and after the morning rush it was less. This wait was longer than usual but not bad. Of course your experience will most likely be different. As a general whole be prepared to take a little longer and go do your duty.

Get Out and Vote

2008-11-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

Our day has finally come. Time to vote in the next President of the United States. Oh and don't forget those Judges and while you are at it Congress too.

Regardless how you plan to vote or even if you do not want to vote for any of the candidates to win, just get out and vote.

By the way, I found these yard signs at this site.

Personally I am not sure what I will be doing other than I will be casting my vote early tomorrow. What I really feel like doing is ...

I sure wish I had found the website I mentioned above earlier. If I did I would have purchased and displayed this little gem in my yard. That is really saying something because I will not display political yard signs... well except for my friend who is running for County Commissioner.

Once I have voted I will update this with one more picture.

Despite how disgusted most people are with this darn election I sure hope that you get out and make your voice heard. If you don't than don't whine about the results.

Who turned out the Lights?

2008-11-03T07:32:00.001-05:00

Wow I can not believe what happened when the clocks turned back on early Sunday morning. I guess I have been feeling the affects of less light for a while now but yesterday was something else. I had a hard time staying up much past 6:30 PM. Of course part of that might have been I had a bad nights sleep the night before so that could be part of it. No trouble sleeping last night however. I guess there were a few really loud thunder boomers and I never woke up.

Wow, our sunset is at 5:28 PM and it looks like we a losing a minute of sunshine in the morning and a minute in the evening. I miss the sun already.

The diet, well it is going. I have lost at least 4 pounds in a couple of weeks. The exercise, well that is not going as well but I am trying.

One of the worst things I bought lately was all the episodes of 24. I had only seen part of the last season. Now here is the reason I should not have bought this. There are 144 episodes which are about 42 to 43 minutes each which means over 100 hours of watching. I find watching these episodes is so like when I pick up a book. I just can not put it down. Of course with this it is impossible to do it all at once. None the less it has eat a lot of my time. Maybe that is part of the reason the daylight change over is hitting me harder than normal.

I had something interesting happen over the weekend. After finishing up the dishes I could not figure what happened to all my forks. I think I have less than a half of the forks I normally have. I know for a while I have noticed I was going through the forks kind of fast but it had not hit me I was missing so many forks. Now here is the weird part... I live alone. I have no one to blame but me for the missing forks. Yikes.

Well I see the sun is up and I do not have to be into work for a little bit yet... I think I am going to go outside and clean up some more of my planting beds since the sun is setting so late and I will not be able to do it after work. Have a great day.

17th Annual Halloween Costume Contest for Dogs

2008-10-28T07:31:00.003-04:00

On Friday October 24, 2008 they held the 17th annual Halloween Costume Contest for Dogs. It was my first one I ever attended. I really enjoyed it. The dogs were all well behaved. I only heard a couple of possible scuffles that were killed right away. As a general hole the dogs all got along well, tolerated the costumes, and loved their owners.

The sponsors were super. Sir Pizza donated their lot to hold the contest in and was feeding the people all the hot choclate you could drink. Hey it was damp and wet. A1 Rental donated a huge tent and the lights so no one had to be drowned as it was a very wet day. There were plenty of pet companies that were sponsors who gave prizes to the people that entered and to the winners. In the end I think I was not the only one that had a fun evening.

Here are just a few pictures of some of the dogs in costumes. If you would like to see more, check out my set in Flickr.

The Flasher

The Cow

Octopus's Garden (took first place)

We Love Our Dogs

McCain (on left) and Obama - not sure I see it however

And there you have it. If you would like to see a few more pictures then check out the link at the top to my flickr set.

Championship Butt Sniffing, more to come

2008-10-27T15:12:00.002-04:00

This is just a little teaser of what is to come tonight/tomorrow. I promissed Championship Butt Sniffing and here you have the only photo I have of that aspect of the contest...

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-10-24T08:38:00.002-04:00

It is always the same
You’re stomach is in a not
You are in a slight panic
Over and over you ask
why am I doing this?

The lights come up
The announcer finishes
The audience is clapping

You take the stage
Walk up to the microphone
And just like that
the concert is underway

Anyone that has ever been on stage probably knows this feeling. Some of the best performers I know (and yes I am including you in there GoGo) thrive on this. I believe it makes their performance even better.

The above was a 55Flash Fiction. If you would like to participate just put together something with about 55 word. You need a theme and at least one character and there you go. Post it and go see G-Man and tell him you posted one. You would be surprised, they are not that hard to do. Some people write the most incredible 55s. Others are much more average like mine are. I hope you join us.

Well I will be on a run the rest of the day. This evening will be 17th annual Costumes Contest for Dogs. I have never seen one of these and I think it is high time I go see it. It will be damp but there should be a big tent donated by a local rental place. If I can I will bring you a few photos of the championship butt sniffing contest that I am sure will go on. I know all the costumes are always fantastic. It should be a fun time.

Shame on you Red Cross

2008-10-23T07:52:00.001-04:00

OK, I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Actually this all started yesterday...

I went to the Red Cross to give blood yesterday. It was amazing how quickly they were able to process me. Normally it takes a little over an hour. Yesterday I was out of there in 40 minutes or so. It is amazing how fast they can push you through when it is close to closing.

It probably has been happening all along but yesterday I just really noticed it. When I sat down I was asked my social security number. OK, there is no reason they need this number. By keeping this number on their database systems they are opening themselves up to future security breaches. It has happened at least once and I am sure even more often that data including social security numbers were compromised. Anyway this is my first complaint.

I asked the nurse taking my readings what the number is used for. She said it was to identify who I am. Certainly this does not need to be done. I watched medical insurance companies remove social security numbers from the medical cards. If they can do it so can the Red Cross. Anyway at the time I said they should not be using the social security number and left it at that.

At the end of the review she printed out a form with all my information on it including my social security number. So now I have a piece of paper out there with my number out there, a number that should be kept secure. Who knows where that paper is headed. When it gets there will it be shredded or securely filed? Beats me but I intend to find out. Working with computers and seeing what other companies have done I know something can be done. At the very least they should only print the last 4 digits of the social security number.

Well I have not contacted the Red Cross yet but I will. Will this go anywhere? Probably not. Will I take it further? You bet I will. Will I still be ignored? Most likely. In these times where people get their identities stolen all the time I think it is irresponsible of the Red Cross to still be using our social security number.

In all fairness I have to also mention that the Red Cross does a lot of good for people out there. Picking on them for this one practice they do, something that others still do all over the place, hardly seems fair. Still I think they need to take steps to correct this and I hope to give it a try to bring it to their attention. With luck maybe they are already working on correcting this.

Another dull day in New York City

2008-10-22T13:49:00.001-04:00

I am so behind. This past day I have been trying to figure out what things I am going to do to track health related things. Stuff like blood pressure, weight, exercise, etc. The doctor and I had a little talk yesterday. He did not push hard but I can tell he is saying you need to make a change. If I am going to do that then I am going to track what I am doing so I can share the results with him when I go back in two weeks.

Now comes part of the battle. If I am going to try and lose weight (which I seriously need to do) than I can not lose at an acceptable rate for the doctor. Only losing a pound a week for a guy that is taking things serious is actually a hard thing to do. When I was on Weight Watchers many eons ago I was losing around 3 ½ pounds a week. Of course that is probably part of the reason I developed gallstones and had to have my gallbladder removed.

We had a hard frost today, YEA. I have been wanting to clean up my planting beds anyway and now that should kill just about everything off once and for all. Well it better not touch my new shrubs but other than that…

Today I go see the Red Cross. I do not mind giving blood but the delay of over an hour to give is a pain and it does not always fit in nice. Hey have been hounding me for a little bit. I guess tonight is the night. Of course I had coffee today and that tends to elevate my blood pressure. Maybe I will not be giving after all.

I had an electric tooth brush give out on me. It turns out it was just in need of a good charge. Yea, that is a few bucks that I can save. Speaking of saving, gas in my neck of the woods is about $2.65. Amazing, less than a month ago it was somewhere near $4.12.

Sorry my blogging seems to have hit a long skid. Nothing exciting to write about for me. I will see if I can change that without getting my self tossed in jail to provide an interesting story.

Q and J

2008-10-20T13:52:00.003-04:00

I know I am late with a post today so I thought I would post two things. The first one is a question then how about a blonde joke just for good measure ... and no I am not picking on you Sign, honest.

My question

Having been around for a lot of years I have noticed something I think interesting. When I was growing up there was not this big credit card thing. Yes you could get them. One of the big things to do was get a Sears and Robuck credit card and they were hard to get. If you were lucky they may give you a $400 limit on a card. Then again it was more likely you would get rejected. Sears was a great place to start building credit.

So what did you do without a credit card? Well back 30, 35 years ago what you did was used layaway. I would take your item or itemes to the layaway department and then you would leave it with them after paying a certain amount down on the item. Then in a few months you would pay off the layaway item(s) and you would finally take them home with you. Putting things on credit was not the norm at all.

So fast forward many, many years and what do you see? Layaway, what is layaway, everything goes on credit. You get to take things home right now after all we all expect instant gratification.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and what do I see, people talking about layaway once again. An then over the weekend I saw a commercial for KMart and it mentioned layaway too. I do not know if this is the credit crunch or what but I was amused when I saw this happening. So is it just me or have you noticed that also?

The Blonde Joke

A guy took his blonde girl friend to her first footballgame. They had great seats right behind their team’s bench.After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience.

“Oh, I really liked it,” she replied,” especially the cuteguys with all the big muscles; but I just couldn’tunderstand why they were killing each other over 25 cents.”

Dumbfounded, her date asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I saw them flip a coin and one team got it and thenfor the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was:

‘Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!’

Helloooo? It’s only 25 cents!”

55Flash Fiction Friday (Part 3 - Conclusion)

2008-10-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

and now the conclusion...

At long last someone comes
and places a load in the washer
next to yours. But then
they do something unexpected.

They stop the dryer and
snatch one of your panties
and quickly turn to leave.

At long last you caught
the panty thief.
But much to your surprise,
it’s your
next door neighbor Heather.

OK, sorry to drag this on for so long and sorry if it offended you. It was just something that kind of slipped into my mind and I just knew it had to have a twist. I won't head this direction again, promise.

I had one of the most unique experiences. I think it is part of what I love about Mom and Pop operations. Yesterday I went to see a movie at my local cheap movie house. Half way through the two hour movie the movie projector broke down. We spent the next 40 minutes as at first one of the workers tried to get the film back where it belonged. Then she called in the big dogs and they made their attempt until they finally said this will be a while.

The whole time we were getting the occasional information, always on the positive side but never right. Occasionally the projector would come on and we would get maybe 10 to 20 seconds of the movie and all of a sudden it would go in slow motion and finally come to a stop. One of the comments once was, "well we did not melt the film". Great confidence builder I tell you.

At one point I ended up talking with the guy across the isle from me. Short nothing much sentences. Then after a while the last presidential debate came up as it was just about to start. Then we talked a little about politics. Now that and religion are things I generally never talk to someone about. I mean I have opinions and all but I also know these topics can be get pretty heated. But it was refreshing to talk a little politics, even if it was guarded. I was rather surprised when he mentioned Ralph Nader was looking better all the time, something I had thought about a month ago. Anyway after talking a little while it was time to go but not before I learned that he knew the owners.

When I went out into the lobby the person was friendly enough and was offering a pass for a future movie or your money back if you wanted. I figured I was not giving up on my little Mom and Pop theater that easy. Besides, the last thing they need is people taking their money back and just splitting. So I talked a little with the person giving out the pass and son of a gun if the pass did not turn into two passes. All I was hoping for was one pass so I could see the movie again today so ... bonus.

Today when I showed up the person (one of the owners family) remembered me and said good, you are back. It is kind of fun to be somebody. We said a few more words but I was just barely on time to see the movie. One thing she did mention however, they were working on the projector until 3:30 am. I am glad they were able to get it.

When the movie was over I discovered that the guy that was sitting a few seats away was the same guy from the night before. He made a comment about how when we got to the point where all the problems had happened he noticed the film kind of jumped and he was worried we may lose the projector again. Funny, I was worried the same thing. We said a few more words and then headed off in our own direction. I still have no idea who that masked man is but next time, should there be a next time, I will be sure to introduce myself. Now tell me, when was the last time you had anything as exciting happen at a movie.

I have this fun little thing I do when ever I go to movies. Usually on my return trip home I take this fun little road. It is kind of a country road only it is black top. It winds, it has gentle rolling hills, it has fun turns, it has a traffic circle (well that is just OK), and it runs along a little river. The houses are back off the road a little which helps lend to the country feeling.

As I am flying down the road having to keep flipping my brights off out of courtesy for the on coming car only to turn them back on it hit me. I love this little road and this is not the first road like this that I enjoyed either. I have another road the runs between Ann Arbor and Dexter that I really love too and it has nothing to do with the fact that I took that road to go get a keg on more than one occasion. It turns out that road is very similar to my little road I was on tonight. There are a few less trees, a little more country, and you can actually get right down to the water in several places but as a whole they are much the same kinda road. So now I sound like a weirdo collecting favorite roads but I can not help it, it just is a fun thing to do for me. I guess I am just easily amused.

UPDATE: Oh my, I reread this last part of the post and you can tell I was falling asleep when I wrote it. I did a little patching to make it at least half way readable. Sorry 'bout that chief.

Eagle Eye

2008-10-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend one of the things I did was go see a movie. If you are looking for a chick flick then look somewhere else. Eagle Eye is all action. As a mater of fact this is the first movie I can remember where I thought it was to much action. I will give you an example. There is a point at which they are on a road and suddenly there are cars and trucks flying everywhere. Of course most of that is in slow motion and it is heading your way... and heading... and heading... and heading. In the end it just got a little uncomfortable for me in a few spots but that is probably just me.

Now I am sure I missed a bit of the movie as I was think about my niece's volleyball game that we needed to bolt out of the theater as soon as possible to go see. I will be going to see the movie again at my local mom and pop theater next week just to take in a little more of what I missed. It is nice to support Mom and Pop and $2 is not bad at all.

Anyway the action was interesting. At first I was saying there is no way that all of this could happen. Then as the story progresses I decided yea, maybe it could happen. I enjoyed Shia LaBeouf in the lead role. They even tossed in Billy Bob Thornton in there too. I really enjoyed all the characters. Now was the movie original? No, but then they sort of mixed things up a little. I found myself entertained from beginning to end.

So what happens? Well without saying much you have two characters who's lives are thrown together who eventually work together to overcome all that is happening to them and their families. You have a few surprises tossed in, you of course have a villain who does a decent job of it. Sometimes things are just to cast to dark either just by the plot or other times they are actually to dark and you can not see anything. Not a problem here. The sound was brilliant as I felt luck ducking out of the way on many occasions. Of course I saw this at a modern theater and not the Mom and Pop shop I normally go to so that could explain why it was so nice. Oh one more things about the movie… they left it wide open for a sequel.

In general I would recommend this movie to anyone. It is rated PG-13 and has a bit of intense action and violence in it but other than that, if it is action you are looking for, go see this on the big screen.

Wasn't That a Weekend

2008-10-13T08:20:00.000-04:00

What a weekend. I was busy making a little bit of food and making my way down to my parents. We celebrated two birthdays. I came home with the 6th season of 24. Later this month seasons 1-5 will be priced right and I will have the series. I starting watching 24 last year and really loved what I was seeing. I got so hooked. So some time over the winter I will have a 24 marathon. Oh boy.

My Dad turned 76 and we were nice to him. He only had 3 candles on his cake which him blew out no problem. I can not believe it, I bought a birthday card on Friday at lunch time at work and forgot the card on my desk. It is hard at best for me to get into the office on Saturday so I picked up another card on Saturday which I misplaced when I got down on Saturday. Me and birthday cards. I almost always buy cards last minute and I tend to lose or misplace them. Oh well, in the end my Dad got his card on Sunday which was his actual birthday rather than Saturday when we celebrated it.

They said they did not want anything for his birthday. I had no idea what to get, well until we were actually celebrating. So now I am in the process of looking at all in one copy/print/fax/scan machines. As long at you can copy without having the computer on. He is always using the copy function we have set up for him but he gets confused with everything. So a nice stand alone thing should work out well for him. That and I will probably get them a few things for their furnace but that will not be a birthday present.

Sunday, among other things I visited with friends and also got to see my nieces last volleyball game. The won one and lost two but they were close. I also got a chance to learn a little more about shooting volleyball. Still much to learn but I did much better.

While I was in the Detroit are I also bought gas for about $2.85 a gallon. I also say one station selling it for $2.73. Amazing. I filled my tank for just under $50. I only wish it would last.

Today I plant a few things including shrubs and bulbs. That should be fun. I can not wait to get home from work now. I will be planting my first tiger lilies and some more tulips too. Next spring and summer should be fun. I just hope Mr squirrel does not dig up my work.

Enjoy the nice weather while you can...

55Flash Fiction Friday (part 2)

2008-10-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

Continued from last week...

It has been over a week,
time to trap the thief.

You do one load of laundry
and place it in the dryer.
The other load is placed
in the washer and you noisily
go back to your apartment
only to sneak back down and
hide in the corner of
the laundry room and wait.

Yesterday I had and awesome time. I met Sign Gurl at her favorite spot and she showed me around the trails. Now I knew the place I was going to had something like a mile and a half track around it. That was incredible in itself. But now I found out that the trail system was much larger than I ever knew about. First there was a series of trails that was already there. But then I found out they recently extended the trail to allow it to connect into a 8 mile trail system.

OK, I am out of shape so we did not make it a real long ways but I was really impressed with what I did see. I even got to see the location of some of Sign Gurls previous posts, It is so amazing that they would put together such a wonderful trail system for all to enjoy. I think that means I need to make a whole bunch more visits and get in some exploring time. Oh, one thing however... I saw a ton of wild life. Yep, there were mosquitoes everywhere. I should have know better as the other times I have been there they were out. What did I expect as the other times I was there I got ate alive. One of these days I will remember and bring spray.

Let me tell you, even though I am sure my legs are killing me today, it was so worth it. Thank you so much Sign and thank you for dinner afterwards. What a most enjoyable evening. And one more thing, Sign is every bit as lovely as she is in the photos. I can not believe how much change I see in her face. I always thought she was pretty seeing her in person now... incredible.

The above was a 55Flash Fiction Friday. If you are interested in attempting to write a 55, you can visit here to learn about it. Then tell G-Man you played this week.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Stuff

2008-10-08T08:42:00.002-04:00

OK, bring on the election already. Are these Presidential debates changing anyone’s mind? If you are undecided you certainly will not learn very much new at the debates. At this point no one is making big mistakes either. Wouldn’t it be nice to just go out and vote already?

My bulbs arrived. Time to plant for next year. I have some tiger lilies for the summer and some tulips for the early spring. I love flowers that are early risers. I can not wait to shake off winter and seeing the greenery always helps.

Why or why did I fertilize my lawn. I took forever cutting the lawn yesterday. I think I am going to cut it again today. No, I don’t have a thing for cutting the lawn. It is just time to start cutting it shorter for the winter.

Eating cereal for dinner is no fun. I am so hungry right now. Of course after eating a foot long subway sub for lunch I best slack off a little.

Why is it most of the time nothing is happening. Then a million things happen all at once. That happened to me at work yesterday. I had so many things happen that I just got rather frazzled. I did kind of lose it for a little bit there. Maybe I should bring in treats to make it up. I hope today is better.

I celebrate my birthday (again) this weekend. The family has been “busy” and we partially celebrated it back when my birthday was (beginning of July). Now we will do it again. I wish we would just drop it. This weekend is my Dad’s birthday, on the same day as Lime. We will celebrate for him too and most likely go golfing. The weather will be great for it.

Some Humor that came my way...

Investment tips for 2008

For all of you with any money left, be aware of the next expected mergers so that you can get in on the ground floor and make some BIG BUCKS! Watch for these consolidations in 2008:

1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2.) Polygram Records,
Warner Bros., and ZestaCrackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4.) Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa .

5.) FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.

6.) Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell, Honeychild.

7.) Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: Poupon Pants.

8.) Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become: Knott NOW!

And finally ..

9.) Victoria 's Secret and Smith/Wesson will merge under the new name: Titty Titty Bang Bang

I have more ramble to do but no more time to ramble. Have a nice day everyone.

Songs From 1975

2008-10-06T21:55:00.004-04:00

I stole this from Lime who stole it from Suldog. They both seemed to think their year was rather dark. Well I happened to like my year but what I found out when I went back, I liked more songs after 1975 and before 1975 than songs that actually were from 1975. Oh and I found out I suck at this list as I do not want to say I disliked any of them. OK, here we go.

The rules:
A) Go to Music Outfitters.
B) In the search function, enter the year you graduated from high school. Get the list of the 100 most popular songs of that year.
C) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate, and underline or italicize your favorite.
D) Do nothing to those you don’t remember or don’t care about.

Lime followed the lead of Suldog and decided to break the songs down into lists. I thought it sounded like a splendid idea.

Songs I love: These are the songs I really like. When I hear them I crack up the radio and sing to most of them if I am alone or lip sync if I am not. It is not out of the question to car dance either.

1. Love Will Keep Us Together, The Captain and Tennille (hey it is fun)
2. Rhinestone Cowboy, Glen Campbell
6. Shining Star, Earth, Wind and Fire (my new favorite group)
7. Fame, David Bowie
9. One Of These Nights, Eagles
10. Thank God I'm A Country Boy, John Denver
13. Lovin' You, Minnie Riperton (Yes, embarrassing as it is I love this song)
15. Black Water, Doobie Brothers
16. Ballroom Blitz, Sweet
20. Pick Up The Pieces, Average White Band
21. The Hustle, Van McCoy and The Soul City Symphony
22. Lady Marmalade, Labelle
31. Magic, Pilot
34. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Elton John
36. Have You Never Been Mellow, Olivia Newton-John (A crush no drought)
38. Cat's In The Cradle, Harry Chapin
41. Listen To What The Man Said, Paul Mccartney and Wings (Love Wings)
50. You're No Good, Linda Ronstadt (OK, her too)
60. Lady, Styx
64. Get Down Tonight, K.C. and The Sunshine Band
65. You Are So Beautiful/It's A Sin When You Love Somebody, Joe Cocker
68. How Sweet It Is, James Taylor
74. Some Kind Of Wonderful, Grand Funk
78. Killer Queen, Queen (Queen rocks)
81. Can't Get It Out Of My Head, Electric Light Orchestra (Gotta love ELO)
83. Lonely People, America (I like other songs that they do better but...)
89. Bungle In The Jungle, Jethro Tull (I love Tull)
91. Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Elton John (for the most part, Elton John too)
98. You Aint Seen Nothin' Yet/Free Wheelin', Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Songs I Like: Now these I like, just not to the extent I like the songs above. I probably don’t know all the words either but I still like them. Being someone that never wants to cause trouble I threw most of the songs into this category.

3. Philadelphia Freedom, Elton John
4. Before The Next Teardrop Falls, Freddy Fender
5. My Eyes Adored You, Frankie Valli
8. Laughter In The Rain, Neil Sedaka
11. Jive Talkin', Bee Gees (for not liking disco... I loved Bee Gees)
12. Best Of My Love, Eagles
14. Kung Fu Fighting, Carl Douglas
17. (Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song, B.J. Thomas
23. Why Can't We Be Friends?, War
24. Love Wont Let Me Wait, Major Harris
25. Boogie On Reggae Woman, Stevie Wonder
28. Angie Baby, Helen Reddy
29. Jackie Blue, Ozark Mountain Daredevils
30. Fire, Ohio Players
32. Please Mr. Postman, Carpenters
33. Sister Golden Hair, America
35. Mandy, Barry Manilow
37. Could It Be Magic, Barry Manilow
39. Wildfire, Michael Murphy
42. I'm Not In Love, 10cc
43. I Can Help, Billy Swan
44. Fallin' In Love, Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds
46. Chevy Van, Sammy Johns
47. When Will I Be Loved, Linda Ronstadt
49. Please Mr Please, Olivia Newton-John
52. Walking In Rhythm, Blackbyrds
53. The Way We Were/Try To Remember, Gladys Knight and The Pips
54. Midnight Blue, Melissa Manchester
56. Poetry Man, Phoebe Snow
57. How Long, Ace
59. That's The Way Of The World, Earth, Wind and Fire
61. Bad Time, Grand Funk
62. Only Women Bleed, Alice Cooper
67. Feel Like Makin' Love, Bad Company
69. Dance With Me, Orleans
71. Never Can Say Goodbye, Gloria Gaynor
75. When Will I See You Again, Three Degrees
82. Sha-La-La (Makes Me Happy), Al Green
85. The Rockford Files, Mike Pos
87. No No Song/Snookeroo, Ringo Starr
88. Junior's Farm/Sally G, Paul McCartney and Wings
90. Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance), Leo Sayer
94. Only Yesterday, Carpenters
96. Only You, Ringo Starr

Songs I do not Like: Now these are just a few songs that I really did not like. Not hate but just was not thrilled with them.

26. Wasted Days And Wasted Nights, Freddy Fender
66. One Man Woman-One Woman Man, Paul Anka and Odia Coates
80. Do It (Til You're Satisfied), B.T. Express

These songs are from 1975???: And finally these are the songs that I have no idea what they are or just do not care about them. I was surprised how many fell into this category.

18. He Don't Love You (Like I Love You), Tony Orlando and Dawn
19. At Seventeen, Janis Ian
27. Fight The Power, Pt. 1, Isley Brothers
40. I'm Not Lisa, Jessi Colter
45. Feelings, Morris Albert
48. You're The First, The Last, My Everthing, Barry White
51. Dynomite, Bazuka
55. Don't Call Us, Sugarloaf
58. Express, B.T. Express
63. Doctor's Orders, Carol Douglas
70. Cut The Cake, Average White Band
72. I Don't Like To Sleep Alone, Paul Anka
73. Morning Side Of The Mountain, Donny and Marie Osmond
76. Get Down, Get Down (Get On The Floor), Joe Simon
77. I'm Sorry/Calypso, John Denver
79. Shoeshine Boy, Eddie Kendricks
84. You Got The Love, Rufus
86. It Only Takes A Minute, Tavares
92. Misty, Ray Stevens
93. Bad Blood, Neil Sedaka
95. I'm On Fire, Dwight Twilley Band
97. Third Rate Romance, Amazing Rhythm Aces
99. Swearin' To God, Frankie Valli
100. Get Dancin', Disco Tex and The Sex-O-lettes

Why don't you give it a try and share how the songs from the year you graduated worked out for you. I had fun doing this but it took me a while as I looked up most of the songs with Amazon.

Homecoming weekend

2008-10-06T08:37:00.002-04:00

This weekend was homecoming for the local High School. As usual I made it to the parade but this year I also attended the homecoming football game.

Things sure have changed since the bagillion years ago when I attended High School. First the floats were much more to them. The one year we built a Raggedy Ann and Andy on the float. I think they must have been 10 foot high. I still remember one of the floats I saw this past weekend. It had a pig on it... at least I think it was a pig. I suppose it would have helped to know the theme for the year but I had no idea. Oh well.

They had 2 bands in the parade. The High School band was first and they did pretty good. The lines were OK but not as straight as they should have been. Sorry I am a former band geek and I look for things like that. The drum line was strong but you know, I can not think of a band that does not claim to have a strong drum line. Of course as soon as the band got in front of me they stopped playing. Typical. When they were playing they were playing Anchor’s Away. Later I figured out that must be the schools song.

The second band was strange. While the first band had spiffy uniforms, the second one had on what ever. Some shirts with the district name, some with ratty jeans, some with something else that at least had one of the school colors. And what were they playing??? Why Anchor’s Away of course. I do not know who these people are. Maybe it was the overflow band if to many people went out for High School band. UPDATE: It turns out it was the eighth grade band and the reason for the mismatch is they normally wear pull overs and it was to cold for that. So they asked the kids to wear school colors. Apparently they should have asked the parents to make sure they wore school colors.

Now what else was in the parade? Why of course you had to have the cars with the homecoming court on board. Now once again things were so different. When I was in High School I think there was four or possibly six couples but not this parade. They had 13, count them 13 couples. One for the class of 2009, one for 2010, one for 2011, and one for 2012. OK, that leaves 9 other couples. I am not sure why there were do many.

Even though it does not sound like it, I actually enjoyed the parade.

Well I took some time getting to the football game and offloaded all the pictures I took from the parade and got all primped and prepped for the game. I showed up about 10 minutes before the game and found my friends and was all settled in before the game.

Out came the camera and zing, zing, zing went my camera as I took a butt load of pictures of the band as they performed on the field. That was followed by an exciting football game. The team was ahead by 14 points at one point but before the first quarter was done it was 14 to 14. It went downhill from there. As I watched I found out that my local team was not good at all. Actually people were amazed that they scored. One game they almost had the mercy rule applied. I had no idea they had a mercy rule in football.

Part way through the first quarter they lost their quarterback and after a while they took him away with an ambulance. Maybe that is why they lost 33 to 21. I noticed after a while the otehr team started practicing going for 2 points instead of a field goal after the touchdown. Might as well, my team was not going to beat them.

The band performed at half time and did pretty good. The drum line was good, the flag girls did very well and their flags were great. Over all I liked the performance. I would not mind watching them some more. But boy did it get chilli after a while. The second half of the half time show was presenting the court and picking the king and queen. The King was a of course a football player. The Queen, well I have no idea who she was but she was very pretty, seemed to be filled with a great personality and seemed to be very popular.

I watched some more of the game but was out of there before the third quarter was over. When I left it was 33 to 21. I did stop by Tim Horton’s to get a nice hot chocolate and when I drove pass the game again it was still 33 to 21 which is what the final score was.
Well that was homecoming. I hope you had a nice weekend.

2008-10-04T20:31:00.002-04:00

I think I found a nice hat for G-Man to wear after the football game this afternoon.

G-Man, if you see this... maybe you need to find something else to do with yourself on Fall Saturdays.

I feel your pain.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-10-01T21:25:00.001-04:00

Ever since you moved
to this apartment
you’ve been losing panties
every time the laundry is done.

Now you’re mad,
your lucky pair just
turned up missing.

You decide to set up a trap
to catch the guy responsible.
But staking out the laundry room
did not work this time.

Next week will be different.

Sorry, when reading someones comment on another blog this idea struck me. Anyway I hate to string this along but this is a several parter.

Is it just me but, if you watched the Presidential debate and the Vice Presidential debate... would you rather vote for the Vice Presidents rather than the Presidents. I like the debate that happened yesterday more. All I know is I can't wait for it to be over.

Today is homecoming for my school district. That should be fun. I will rush home so I can see the parade and maybe, just maybe catch the football game. I look forward to seeing the band, it is my favorite thing about football games.

Well I best post this thing. I thought I did it last night but no. Have a wonderful weekend.

Humor: And then the Fight Started

2008-10-01T14:00:00.003-04:00

This was just to cute not to share ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My wife sat down on the couch next to me as I was flipping channels.

She asked, 'What's on TV?'
I said, 'Dust.'

And then the fight started...

==============================

My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.
She said, 'I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.'
I bought her a scale.

And then the fight started...

==============================

When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive... so, I took her to a gas station...

And then the fight started....

==============================

After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social
Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver's license
to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet
at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and
come back later.

The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I opened my shirt revealing
my curly silver hair.

She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and
she processed my Social Security application.

When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office.

She said, 'you should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.'

And then the fight started...

==============================

My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asked, 'Do you know her?'

'Yes,' I sighed, 'She's my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up hose many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.'

'My God!' says my wife, 'who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?'

And then the fight started...

==============================

I rear-ended a car this morning. So, there we were alongside the road and slowly the other driver got out of his car. You know how sometimes you just get soooo stressed and little things just seem funny?

Yeah, well I couldn't believe it... he was a DWARF!!!

He stormed over to my car, looked up at me, and shouted, 'I AM NOT HAPPY!'

So, I looked down at him and said, 'Well, then which one are you?'

And then the fight started...

I have an idea, run for the hills...

2008-10-01T08:06:00.001-04:00

I have an idea, run for the hills...

I just heard about someone out in California that is painting lawns green and he is swamped with lots and lots of business. Basically he says you paint the grass and it looks good for about 4 months allowing foreclosed homes to sell easier. It is sad that it has come to this but I guess you need to make the most out of it you can.

So I was thinking, what can I do with this. I mean my lawn is not picture perfect... actually far from. But at the same time it is in decent shape. So I really do not need his service. Maybe in the middle of summer when everything turns brown, but wait. Here is my idea.

Here in Michigan we have a winter that usually arrives about December sometime. By this I mean we start getting SNOW. Now snow is OK for a few weeks but then it just is no fun what so ever. By the time March comes along or even April you are so ready for it to be over. So why not paint the snow green. It will not be grass, it will not be spring but if you combine that and a nice sunlamp ... yep, that could just work. Well that or maybe just move south to like Kentucky or Tennessee or something.

OK, maybe I should just go back to sleep and try and not hurt myself thinkin’ any more today.

Extreme Edition

2008-09-29T11:09:00.002-04:00

Have you ever seen the show Extreme Makeover Home Edition? If not then did you happen to see Wild Hogs and stay to the very end where the crew rebuilt the Fuegos bar? If not then you are no fun. Anyway here is why I brought that up.

They had their season opener yesterday. I missed it. But yesterday was another big day around my area. On Friday they let a local (just over 10 miles from my house) family know that they had been selected but Extreme Makeover to have their home rebuilt and they were whisked away to Disneyland.

Pre dawn Sunday the entire process sprang into motion with the parade of workers and the home being cleared for demolition early today. Hopefully they can get some sort of foundation in and a framework soon because the local weather, which was incredible last week, will start two days of rain after dark today. Anyway I am sure the local builder and the TV show can still pull it off.

They are scheduled to be complete on Thursday and bring the family home on Friday for the "Move That Bus" moment Friday afternoon. In about a month the episode should be airing. I am not sure if I will get a chance to make it over there. It would be really something else but there are 250,000 people in the area and I have to believe even just the crew will swamp that area. I can not wait to watch the episode filmed just miles away from my door. They could not have picked a more deserving family. See story here.

Gee I wonder if I could get the crew to come over and put a piece of siding back on for me?

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-09-26T08:23:00.002-04:00

You have been practicing hard
You’re ready for your solo performance
Your reed is prepped
you’re ready to go

The orchestra strikes up the tune
it is time for your solo

Your first note is a huge clarinet squawk
You are so embarrassed

And then you wake up from your nightmare
It’s just a dream

I was in high school band for 4 years, my sister was in for longer. One of the things I remember from those days was the different times, for what ever reason, her reed was not wet enough and she would just squawk away. Luckily this was usually at home and not while performing. Still memories of the band are there to stay.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign (Again)

2008-09-24T15:48:00.000-04:00

Have you been noticing these signs popping up all over the place? They are littering land as far as the eye can see. Just driving down a road one day and going past the very same road the next day you see yet another new sign. I really dislike these signs. I just wish they would go away. So what am I talking about?

I am not talking about the political signs although I do not like them either. What I am talking about are the house signs. Some of them are for sale signs. Some of them are action signs. At one point there were 9 signs on the short distance I drive through a subdivision. Now there are much more as people continue to struggle to make ends meet. They are having to deal with declining property value, balloon mortgages, the inability to get a new mortgage due to the credit crunch, the loss of jobs, the tiny or non existent raises while bills continue to rise. I just noticed that one block I pass in particular, a fairly short block too, there are 2 for sale signs and two auction signs. There were more action signs but the auctions must have already happened.

Michigan is being hit much harder than any other state but I know it is no piece of cake no matter where you live. It just is amazing to get these little reality checks from time to time. I mean I know times are bad. I get small raises if I get one at all. I also have bills going up. Last year my job was real threatened, luckily this year has not been that bad but one never knows. Something needs to be done to get things turned around in the right direction and I am afraid neither candidate for President is capable of doing this on their own. They will need to be able to bring Congress along with them to get the job done. And if we do not get our act under control we will continue to seriously impact the world markets just like Japan did several years back.

Hey, I have an idea. I am going to collect the signs I see and maybe, just maybe I can use it for warmth over the winter as I burn them.

On the bright side of things, I am moving forward on the landscaping project. Tomorrow I get to see if I can order some supplies for the weekend. I will be a busy little puppy but it will feel good in the end.

I Might Be gulp Growing Up

2008-09-23T10:42:00.000-04:00

Yep you heard it here first. Yesterday I went out and bought some shrubs. Time to do some landscaping. I thought it was about due. I have lived here for almost 10 years. Now the fun comes. All the work to get them planted, lay down some plastic or cloth, and get some mulch. Oops, I forgot I need to get some topsoil. Rent a tiller to dig up the earth. You know, I am not sure I like this growing up thing after all. Where is Peter Pan when you need him?

I ended up with a two dwarf Alberta spruce and a densiformis Yew. I needed something that could do OK in partial sun and also something that needed well drained soil. If only I could find a couple more smallish shrubs, possible purple, that like the same conditions. Then I am off to select some nice perennials. Yep, lots of work in my near future.

I think I am going to go over to Susies and be a tennybopper instead. It sounds like much more fun. :)

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-09-19T01:01:00.002-04:00

You remember me for...

the ticket you received
the last accident I was called to
the DWI that you received
shutting down an out of control party
busting you for illegal substances
catching you when you run a red light

Next time you see me
try and remember
I do a lot of good too

I know I have written about the boys in blue or the firefighters or the many other really important people in our lives that we never seem to remember but I thought it was time to revisit them again.

Earlier this week I saw something that made me want to write about it. Now I only saw part of it because all I saw was happened during one traffic light cycle but here goes. I saw a police car with someone pulled over. I thought oh great, I can not get past the police car, I will be inconvenienced but I was wrong.

What I did see was a police officer that was escorting a little old lady, probably in her 80s or older, from her car to the front seat in his squad car. Once he got there he helped her into his car. Then he got in her car and moved it off the busy road on to a side street before heading back to his car. Now who knows what really happened. Maybe she got busted for robbing a bank but somehow I do not think so. I get the feeling he was helping her out. It really is easy to think of the bad things but police officers are really responsible for doing a lot of good things for us too. Please remind me of that the next I get busted for exceeding the speed limit.

Have a great weekend. And if you happen to be G, take a peek at my previous post if you have a moment.

Something for G-Man

2008-09-17T18:52:00.004-04:00

Now that you have a laptop WITH SOUND I thought you might appreciate it. Oh and would you look at that. One of the ten people that made that video, Jimi Hendrix died 38 years ago today.

Oh and here are a few sound files you might enjoy.

Woody Hayes Poem
Patton Scoring Horn
Meechigan Story

This year may be a long year but keep the faith G.

Would Someone Please Turn off the Water?

2008-09-14T22:50:00.003-04:00

It started raining sometime on Friday and only occasionally stopped here in mid-Michigan. Now it was not raining real hard or fast but it just was not giving up. Everywhere you look there are puddles or small ponds. I saw a few people who’s driveways were flooded enough that I am not sure I would want to drive through it. See they have ditches on both sides of the drive at the road and the land on either of the rest of the drive is also a bit of a drop off. One mistake, miss the drive, and you would be stranded. Now I am not complaining. I know we have it lucky compared to the rain, high winds, and horrendous storm surge that Texas and Louisiana experienced. But I am just trying to mention what all the impact was of Ike all the way up here 2,000 miles away.

That rain just made it so I did not feel like doing anything. I was hardly out but when I was I got wet, yes I did. The rain also played games with my satellite tv and I had long periods of time with no signal. I was going bonkers. OK, some people might say to late but that is a different story.

Well I decided to get out of the house and went to see a movie I was not particularly interested in seeing. But getting out of the house and having some popcorn to boot ... priceless. I was right, I did not particularly like Star Wars but it felt good to be out.

Here in Michigan we started to hear rumors while at work on Friday. Rumors were coming in from family and friends. Reports that by night on Friday we would see gas prices of $5 or $6. People were in a panic and rushed the gas stations. The lines were long. Gas stations everywhere were running out of gas. Prices were going up. Of course they would go up. I mean first of all the last several hurricanes were having an affect and gas had already went up 10 to 20 cents before Friday. And then the people were creating an artificial shortage of fuel so again, of course the cost was going up. People were in line at stations waiting to get gas only to have the station run out of gas and they had to move on to the next station. People were running out of gas in line.

I saw this very same thing happen on September 11, 2001 and again when a large portion of Eastern United States backed out August 14, 2003. I was on vapors and there was no power to pump gas. So I decided to drive west and see what I found. Luckily the power outage was stopped in Lansing as Consumer Power had reacted quick enough and taken itself off the grid before the grid pulled it down. Lucky for me, 5 miles down the road I not only get water but also got gas. But the gas experience was interesting. I got into a long line and after a while word came out that the Shell gas station was out of regular gas. Not to much later word got out that the station had just run out of mid grade and all that was left was premium. Now I hated to spend over $2.00 for gas (boy don’t I wish I could do that now) for premium but at least I got my gas. Anyway what happened was people who normally may have went one, two or even three more days before filling up were filling up RIGHT NOW. That created the excess demand, well at least it did this time.

The Governor addressed the people of Michigan on Friday early evening and said if anyone was guilty of price gouging they would be prosecuted. She also encourage anyone seeing price gouging to call the Attorney General’s office.

On my way home from the movies Sunday night I noticed one station with a price of $4.11, everyone else was higher. So since I only had about an 1/8 of a tank left I decided to decided to fill up on the return trip home. I found by then one other station had also lowered their prices to $4.11. What I did not know is that the area was actually pretty much run dry of gas on Friday (well at least the news said that) and had not got more gas in until Sunday evening. So I guess I was just lucky.

Well now here I am. The weekend is just about over and it will soon be time to go back to work. Of course the rain is just about to stop now that the weekend is over. I wonder if I can get away with cutting the lawn tomorrow or not?

Oh one more thing, it was real interesting but I could tell that tropical storm Ike reached Michigan this afternoon. Besides the rain picking up and both in how fast it rained and how much came down but also there were winds that had not been there. Nothing huge, maybe 20 or 30 mile an hour winds but it was very noticeable. So we were affected by Ike also, just nothing at all like Texas, Louisiana, and others down south were affected. We can only hope that the death toll continues to stay low but you know that things will be worse as they are able to reach more distressed areas. I find it frustrating that people chose to ignore the mandatory evacuation order and then put all the rescue workers lives in danger to rescue their butts. I know this is going to sound heartless but I think these people should be charged for the rescue if there was a mandatory evacuation order in place. I mean something needs to be done to cause more people to evacuate. The story would be far less tragic and less costly if people would just listen. Didn’t anyone learn anything from Katrina?

Well we can only send our prayers to those in need and help out organizations like the Red Cross so they can help others, volunteer time and materials or what ever is needed. Let’s hope the rest of the hurricane season is a little more tame.

Oh and one more thing, something for you to think about. Obviously New Orleans was hit once again but not as bad as Ike was a massive hurricane. So why is it in what ever news I saw, about all they talked about was Galveston where the Hurricane came ashore and Houston more or less next in line? It really makes your wonder how censored our news is based on what stories our news media choose to cover.

Puck Drop Party

2008-09-10T08:36:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend I attended a Puck Drop party put on by the Detroit Red Wings organization. It is a little something they do to show their appreciation for people that purchased season tickets for the Detroit Red Wings hockey team. This is something they have been doing for some time now. OK, before we get started, a little disclaimer. Not only am I not a season ticket holder but I also did not attend a single game unless watching on TV counts. I was fortunate in that my sister lives next to someone who is a season ticket holder and they gave her the tickets for the event since they would not be able to attend.

Here is the simple page that you received when you came it. It was a road map to what all was going on and where it was located.

Now here is something that I really like. Stuff from hockey at the end of 1800's and the beginning of 1900's. I just had to share the picture.

I thought this turned out pretty good. They had the locker room open for people to tour. Several of the lockers were placed on display like this one here. This is the uniform of our goalie, Chris Osgood.

The walls entering the locker room and all throughout the area had tons of pictures and plaques on them. I had to capture this picture. It is of Dino Ciccarelli in his day. Now I thought this would be great to capture because I knew he would be signing autographs and I suspected I would be there.

And here they are at the signing. I ended up with a Red Wings cup and a program autographed. Something to keep for sure.

And then there was the Stanley Cup, what the teams work for all year. It is a gorgeous thing that has so much detail that just does not show up here.

It was a fun time doing something I may never have a chance to do again. I really enjoyed it. I am out of time but I will see if I can not add just a little to this later on.

Have a nice day everyone.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-09-05T04:14:00.002-04:00

I can make you happy
I can make you sad
I can make you hungry
I can make you stomach turn
I can make memories
come flooding back

Flowers and candles
A big plus
Skunks, not so much

Sometimes I’m sore
sometimes I run

A nose can be
a wonderful thing
sometimes
Other times, PU

Can you tell my creative juices were a little dried up? Well I had fun just the same. Want to try one of these. Just take and create a little story with at least one character and a plot. Try and keep your story to 55 words ... and there you have it. It is always a fun time participating. If you do then go tell G-Man so he can come and visit ad bring along the troops. Come join us...

Wow, I just had something interesting happen. I will be going to see the Stanley Cup, get some signatures, see the behind the scenes areas, etc of Joe Lewis Area... the home of my favorite sports team, the Detroit Red Wings. That should be a fun thing to do on Saturday. Probably not something I will ever do again. I wonder if I can find somewhere to leave some graffiti? BARMAN was here. Yea, I got to do that... Well knowing me I wont do that but. And then time to take in college football. Top that off with celebrating my parents anniversary and I think I will have a nice little weekend.

Enjoy your weekend.

Meltdown

2008-09-04T07:48:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the prior post. Here in Michigan we have a mayor, the honorable mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. Actually I am not sure how honorable he is. Anyway he is in meltdown mode now. He has been accused of a bunch of things in the past but somehow nothing ever stuck. Well now things are beginning to stick. He is now accused of 10 felonies in the past 8 months.

The Governor started proceedings yesterday to determine if the mayor should be removed from office at the request of the Detroit City Council. If she is allowed to complete the proceedings, it appears she will be wrapping things up by Saturday or early next week. She has promised a quick decision. Now I say if she is allowed to complete things because the mayor has filled with the Michigan Supreme court to stop the proceedings. Also there is talk of the mayor taking a plea deal where he pleads guilty to some charges, leaves office, gets jail time, probably is disbarred, and who knows what else. I tell you, who needs a soap opera when we have a reality based soap opera right here in our own backyard.

This was a private little affair. Then it spread to the suburbs around the Detroit area (where I was from which is why I have been following it even more close than most). Then it went state wide and yesterday I see the Governor proceedings were being telecast on CSpan 2 which means it is national. Boy when he messes up he sure does it up well.

Anyway we have a slightly used mayor up here. Any takers? I wonder if Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans should be replaced... I certainly think so. I think we have a replacement that is just corrupt enough to fit right in.

Update: A sad day in Michigan as the mayor of Detroit pleads guilty to two felony counts with six other felony counts being dismissed. He also pleads no contest to one additional felony count with another felony count being dismissed. He must leave office with 2 weeks, go to jail, be on probation and pay restitution. The meltdown is complete and he is only 38 years old. I am sure repercussions on this will be felt for a long time to come.

its hammer time!

2008-09-03T19:44:00.001-04:00

What an interesting day in Detroit...

Camp Wallnut Hills

2008-09-02T09:11:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend, well over the weekend I almost could not get out of the house. It took me a while but I finally made it up camping before the University of Michigan game was on. After a little work on getting the DirecTV set up we were in business for the game.

I started in on making a dish (Greek salad) to pass and only caught portions of the game. I was hearing lots of complaints from the people watching it and an occasional YES, YES and more. In the end it was disappointing and Michigan lost but they managed to make it respectable by only losing by 2 points. Oh boy, it is going to be a long year. One person who is very passionate about football vowed he was changing teams. For heaven sakes it was only 1 game and this is a rebuilding year…

This was the weirdest year camping and I have been doing this Labor Day camping thing for 19 years now, 18 of those years at our present spot, Walnut Hills in Durand Michigan. When I showed up I wondered where everyone was. It turns out the largest group, probably about 14 people, were not coming because the truck they haul the large trailer with was broken. If the Mom and Dad were not showing than none of the Lick clan was showing. There were a couple others that pulled out too. All in all we had only 15 people camping this year. Now don't get me wrong, we still had fun. Somehow it was not the same. Normally we have about 30 to 50 people show for the weekend.

We did not do games. We figured we would hold out on that until next year when more people were present. We did have some Euchre playing going on, lots of socializing even with the person charged with keeping order. Never hurts to be in good with him. We watched some football. We had a mini Toga party complete with costumes by most (pictures to follow once I can get them off the camera although I did not don a Toga). We also had Greek dinning on Saturday late afternoon but it did not go so well. Almost everyone made some form of salad. Every salad was different however and you know, I do love a good salad.

There was a dance for the kids, karaoke, bingo (I one big … a whole $3.00), wagon rides, teen girls talking to boys on the cell phone (my niece took part in that… yikes), a little drinking… all and all it was a very nice weekend. It just was very different than a typical weekend up there.

We did our future planning. Next years theme is tailgate. We will come dressed up as a fan for our favorite team. I may need to go with half a face painted Green for Michigan State University and half my face painted blue for University of Michigan. We will have food all based on what you might typically have at a tailgate. That will be our dinner for Saturday. We will also have typical tailgate games. Games like cornhole, washer toss, ladders and I am sure there will be more. There should also be a football being tossed around and I do believe a flag football game will be played. Yep, it is going to be a fun time for sure.

The following year is going to be funny. We do not have the details ironed out yet but the following year will be out 20th year at the same campground. At this point we are talking about making this a black tie affair. I did a little shopping around and I guess I can get my hand on a tuxedo for a not terrible price unless I want to go with the $99 bargain basement jobber. I best work on losing some weight if I am going to plan that. Some how I think it would be funny to put together this thing and possibly fun but I must say I do not know about dressing up formal at a campground.

We had an awesome weekend. The sun was hot, the days pretty warm, the nights kind of cool, no rain in sight. All together everyone had a great time and, even though we have known each other for years and years, we got to know each other even better.

I am already looking forward to next year.

I hope you had a nice holiday weekend as well.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-08-29T08:08:00.002-04:00

It was an unremarkable
warm summer day
like yesterday
or the day before
But today was my last day

Normally you are so careful
but today you were distracted
A distraction which lead
to my untimely demise

Crayons (and pets and kids)
should never be left in a car
in the hot heat of summer

I thought this might a little fun. I do not know if you have ever last a crayon or CD/DVD or any number of other things because you left it on the dash of a car, only to have the sun melt it. Now do not get me wrong, the smell of crayon, even melted crayon is wonderful but still, not something you want to do.

But of course even worse is the moronic people that make the news every now and again. The people that leave their children, especially babies, and their pets in a car in the summer. I mean it is bad enough leaving them in a car period but in the summer, so many times it turns out very, very wrong.

Now Susie is the whole reason I went in this direction to begin with. She posted about the new, 96 count Crayola crayon set she got. She pointed out Mac and Cheese is one of the colors. Well, I looked around and found out one of the colors was Electric Lime. I thought it was appropriate to mention this color because not only was it a fun color and it so fit in with what Susie was saying, but it also mentioned “Lime”, one of my favorite bloggers.

The week went on and Susie mentioned the crayons some more including a response from Crayola about which set of crayons contained Electric Lime. It turns out the 96 pack does not contain the crayon but the 120 count pack does.

Well yesterday as I was shopping I found... are you ready for it... a 150 count pack. I looked at the package and could see the Electric Lime crayon in the package although I could not read it’s label. I so had to make this set, the last one they had, my set of crayons.

So now I have a new set of crayons. They not only have the 120 set of crayons but they also have a set of glitter and metallic crayon colors as well. And now, here at last is one of my new crayons. Let me introduce, Electric Lime.

Passion

2008-08-28T08:19:00.002-04:00

I have several different passions in life. One is and will always be music. I played French Horn in band in high school. Well played might be giving me a bit much credit. Still I did enjoy those years. Other than that I mostly just experiment on a keyboard I have. I have always had an ear for music. Other than that I get out a flute I still have every now and then but I never did much with that other than putz. But still for me music has always been important from way back in the 60's until today and it always will be.

Another passion is photography. I got my first cheap camera when I was a young boy, had a film SLR while I was in High School. A second film SLR while in college. A while back (maybe 2000 or 2001) I got my first digital. What amazing freedom to do what I wanted although it was not as good as my film cameras. Then I got a beginners digital SLR and I fell in love. It took great pictures (with my help) and all the shortfalls I had with the first digital were gone. Eventually I got a point and shoot to round me out. Needless to say, I love my cameras and taking pictures of thinks is a passion.

I also have a passion for programming, at least sometimes and that is a good thing as that is what I do for a living. I know, boring geek.

I have a bunch of other things I very much enjoy but those are a few of my favorite things. So how about you?

Sorry this was so short. I had this rant I was going to go on and then I think I found out that I must have some infection on my computer at work that is causing this strangeness. Not a virus but more of an ad thing. I go postal on that today. Thank goodness, not that I use it a lot but it would have meant I would have to removed site meter.

How old is to old?

2008-08-27T08:42:00.000-04:00

I am a weird duck, I know that. I have these things that I believe in that I pretty much will not break. Sometimes I think it is a good thing, other times I think it is just silly. Here is one of my more silly things.

When I was in High School I remember liking girls that was in my class... fine. When I became a senior I found myself liking this freshman. But how could I do that? I mean she was a whole 3 years younger than me. So I never did anything with that which was probably for the best. Fast forward a few years and things continue to be the same.

A little after I turned 40 I noticed things changed a little but you know what, no matter how much things change, sometimes they just do not really change. I noticed that now when I became interested in someone they were typically 9 years younger than me. Again I have had such a hard time with that. That just seems like so many years difference. Of course it does not help that the handful of times I tried to get something going with someone it never really happened.

I found out yesterday that one of these two sisters, twins I believe, that work for the same organization I work for had been married back in May. She was 25, he was 42.. They are 17 years difference in age. I was a little surprised. I guess that would be a hard thing for me to do.

What about you, what do you think? Does age matter? Is there a such thing as to old (or to young) for someone? Or am I just weird? OK, never mind that. We all know I am weird.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-08-22T08:27:00.003-04:00

So, did you get the text message?
Are you Obama’s choice for VP?

Please, we look like a joke already
and now this?
And McCain isn’t off the hook either.

I say time to settle this. Dueling pistol’s at 50 paces.
The survivor is jailed for bumping off
their opponent

Signed, Ross Perot for President

Just when I think I have seen it all, the stupid campaign for our next president gets more bazaar or just plain old silly. Come on, we have been campaigning for over 2 years and spent millions and millions of dollars and the best we can come up with is McCain and Obama? I am so sick of this entire mess.

Hey, I have an idea. How about Galen for President. Now that I could get behind.

I love following politics usually. It is sad but it is this huge chess game. Politicians promise things that there is no way they could deliver and yet people eat it up. One moment they say something and as soon as it servers them, they promise the opposite. The truth is all that they care about is furthering their party and their own career. If it so happens that it is good for the people too, BONUS.

I think we need to limit the amount of money and time spent on campaigning to something reasonable like 6 weeks campaigning and for heaven sakes cap that financing for the campaigns. Anyway sorry, I just find the need to vent from time to time.

Well this weekend should see the end of my weeds, getting ready for camping next weekend and maybe the Michigan Renaissance festival. The acts are fun but the people watching is even better. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Romantic Poems

2008-08-21T14:55:00.001-04:00

I am afraid I am going to be to busy to post anything before Friday so I thought I will post something I got in email...

Are these romantic or what?
These are entries to a competition asking for a rhyme with the most
romantic first line but least romantic second line:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you because I was pissed.

I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother.

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty, and so is your head.

Of loving beauty you float with grace
If only you could hide your face.

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot
This describes everything you are not.

I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don't take that paper bag off of your face.

I love your smile, your face, your eyes -
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you screwed up my life.

I see your face when I am dreaming
That's why I always wake up screaming.

My lover, you take my breath away
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

My feeling for you no words can tell
Except for maybe "go to hell."

What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime

Junk Mail

2008-08-19T08:09:00.003-04:00

I know we all hate to get junk mail. You go to the mailbox and there you have bills (the ugliest form of junk mail) and real junk mail. I mean how many times does that credit card company need to send an application to me anyway? No I am not looking to buy a new car and for heaven sakes would the politicians just GO AWAY!

Many, many years ago I was on the other side of the mailbox. I worked for a market research firm. We did lots of things but some of our most prominent things we did was research people that had just bought a new car to see how happy they were with the experience and the car. Also we did a lot of political research. That included all forms of things including walk lists, mailings, get out to vote, exit polling, signature validation on petition drives, you name it. Some of our stuff was done with phone surveys but a lot of what we did also made use of “junk mail.”

Well here I am again, this time working for a cause. The group is trying to get a membership drive going for child abuse prevention so they can carry on their programs. The group is trying to get out a 3,000+ piece mailing. Now that does not sound real terrible but in reality it is a bunch of work.

To help offset costs they have many pieces of paper that are going into each flyer. The workers need to gather all the pieces of paper, put the outside mailer paper on that has the groups information and also the mailing permit number on it, and fold things in half. Then comes a staple to hold the flyer together. But of course a staple is a bad thing for post office automation machines. So the next step is to take one of those tiny return address labels and cover up the staple. Why a return address label? Well it is about the cheapest and easiest thing to use. Then comes the job I was doing, peel off the mailing label and stick it on the flyer.

Of course nothing is as simple as it seems. The mailing was expected to contain on zip code. This is important because with such a good size mailing they are getting a discount in postage based on the fact that the zip codes are pre-sorted. Well only having one zip code is pre-sorted, right? So I went through all the labels and picked out the ones from a different zip code, applied those labels to a flyer and set them aside for who ever to deal with them.

Next I went crazy with laying out the flyers, pealing the labels off and affixing them. I was going along like a mad man, peel, stick... peel, stick, etc. And then, after a bit of work... I had one blank page that used to contain 30, yes only 30 labels. Boy talk about time consuming. I have put in just over 4 hours of work on this project and have probably only done about 20 percent of the mailing. Add to that the going on 5 hours of work each my two friends that talked me into helping out with this cause have done and we have legitimately done 20 percent of the mailing. I sure hope they have a lot more help because this all needs to be done by the end of the month.

Then comes the fun. They need to introduce the 3000+ piece mailing to the post office. I remember how much the post office LOVES it when you do that. If you have not followed the protocols to the letter the entire mailing will be rejected. Also it does not help that the protocol changes depending on who you introduce the mailing through. Or you may get a much higher percentage of undeliverable than is normal. Of course being a non profit organization they have to account for everything including pieces of mail that were not delivered.

I sure wish this group well on their worthy cause but I must say, I am glad I am no long in the “junk mail” business. I get enough of it, I sure do not need to contribute to the mess.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-08-15T07:10:00.002-04:00

In his mind he’s still 18 or maybe 20 something
But his body rudely reminds him of reality.

What used to be no big deal is now a major chore.
Funny, when did they start sealing those jars so tight?
And when did that type become so darn small?

It can’t be I’m getting old.

That was a 55Flash Fiction Friday. If you would like to give it an attempt go visit G-Man. I am sure he can fill you in. Basically you are coming up with a story in 55 words. It has at least one character and a plot and away you go. Some people do absolutely incredible things with their 55. Anyway you post that baby up Friday, hopefully early and go visit G-Man to let him know so he can make the rounds and so can everyone else.

Oh my goodness. Sometimes I feel like I am so old. Take yesterday for instance. When I got home from work I went outside and spent the next 3 hours sitting on my driveway. Sitting because there was no was I could stand that entire time bent over working on the driveway. I was pulling all the weeds out of the cracks in the cement trying to get ready to caulk the cracks.

When I was done fussing with the weeds I went to get up. I was crippled. My hips both were killing me. Getting up was a chore. Heck even walking was a chore. I know I have seen 80 or 90 year olds that are in better shape. I could not get comfortable when I came inside and decided to go to sleep early but no, I had to watch Women’s Beach Volleyball and of course Swimming and Gymnastics.

I was dog tired when I went to bed, so tired in fact that I started to shiver. When I get over tired like that I have learned that if I put my head under the covers for a little while the shivers go right away. Of course than, after the shivers went away I found it difficult to get comfortable from the aches of my grueling 3 hours sitting down outside. This morning I still feel it, just not as bad.

So when did I get old? Heck, who am I kidding? Look at my High School Senior picture from yesterday and then look at my Profile Picture from about 3 years ago. It has been a few years for sure. Now not that I am complaining. I just need to wrap my mind around it. Well that and if I could just take off come of the weight and work on a bit more I know that would help tons. But getting motivated is sometimes a chore in itself hence all the weeding I am having to do.

So what can I do to feel young again? I know G-Man seemed to be energized by his reunion he just came back from but mine is not for some time. There is camping over labor day. The theme this year is Toga, I hope I look OK in a sheet. The food theme this year is Greek. Say now that is something I can do. I need to figure out what Greek dishes I am going to learn how to do, hopefully something I will not poison everyone with. I know Greek salad could not be that bad and I would love to give avgolemono (Greek Egg-Lemon soup) a try. It sounds like baklava is a bit of work but if I could pull that off I know it would be a hit. Yes, a little cooking might just get my mind off of getting older.

Gee, do Greeks like to drink? Maybe I need to get some wine for this weekend... Speaking of weekends, everyone have a wonderful weekend as we all know we live for our weekends.

Mama Mia/Slice of Barman

2008-08-14T08:39:00.001-04:00

The other day I went to see a movie, Mama Mia. I know, chick flick big time but I can do chick flicks as long as they don’t go all romance novel on me. It is also a musical and what can I say, I love musicals. Now they are strange, standing right next to someone and you want to say something to them so what do you do? Why break out in song and dance of course.

Anyway part way through I found my self bopping to the songs and generally just having a great old time. Yep I was really into the show. Even my theater that, does not have the best sound in the world, and has a small screen was working for me and then it happened.

Here I was having a wonderful time to DISCO music. Back in the late 70's/early 80's I could not stand disco music. It seemed so mindless. It had a heavy beat so you could dance to it and all it did was give me a headache. I even joined a group that was basically for fun, but I still joined. It was called D.R.E.A.D. which stood for Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco. I still have my card kicking around somewhere I suspect. I did find a picture of one from the Internet so let me share that here.

Anyway we were sworn to appose disco. Here I was going against what all the group stood for. OK, so that group was a long time ago and you know what, I like disco a whole lot more than some of the stuff that is considered music these days. So I guess it is not all that bad but ... IT WAS DISCO ... IT WAS HORRIBLE. (I had to do that in case anyone was looking)

Anyway this movie is not for everyone. Most men folk should run away and some women folk along with them. But if you enjoy musicals, if you like disco, if you like chick flicks... I think it is a pretty good movie.

Luckily tomorrow is Friday so I will do a 55 Flash Fiction Friday and not bore you with my exciting evening yesterday, affixing address labels to a mailing this non profit group is trying to send out. Fun stuff here...

Oh and in honoring something I saw over at Limes ... here is my High School senior picture for a slice of Barman.

Tim Barron is Back - 2008

2008-08-12T05:58:00.002-04:00

OK, let me explain but I will keep it short. Do you have a radio station or even an on air personality you listen to all the time? Well for me that person would be Tim Barron. He runs a morning show and he is not for everyone. A matter of fact most people could care less about him. Still others think he is a jerk but he does have his following too.

Some people just want to hear music when they tune in on the radio. I admit most of the time I am right there with you, but the morning to me is a different time, a special time. During this time I like to have something that eases me into the day. News is a must. Of course I also like to get a little more than just news and weather. For one thing what is going on in our local community. Also, I have gotten very used to hearing some of the news stories that do not always make the news. Toss in traffic information, get some of the listeners involved, maybe even toss in some contests but those are not important to me. Oh and have some music in there too but to me the emphasis is more on the news and the personality. Sorry, I got hooked on this type of format back when I lived in the Detroit area and was so glad to find something similar here where I am now.

For over 10 years I have been listing to Mr Barron’s morning show on three separate stations, soon to be four. I am excited to hear he is coming soon to the air waves of 92.1.

Let me end this boring post (to most) by saying yea, the headache went away. And now here is a miniature collage I was working on yesterday. It sure could use some work but it was a fun first attempt. I hope you enjoy.

Mr Grumpy Buckets

2008-08-11T08:31:00.000-04:00

Oh what a fun weekend. I spent part of it dealing with a headache that would not go away. I think it was because of the big change in weather in Michigan. We dropped about 15 degrees over the last several days. That led to me playing on the computer a little but mostly watching a bot of the Olympics.

Might I say, I think I am rapidly having my share of the Olympics. I am curious to see how Phelps does on his quest for 8 Olympic Gold medals this year. I am a little bit turned off on the scoring on the gymnastics events. It is obvious the judges are not judging even and fair. Hey, maybe I can find some of the equestrian events ...

I did manage to get most of the weeding done but I do need to bag all of it. The edging is done up front and the grass is cut. Given another day or two and the property will be all spiffed back up. Any suggestions for perennials that I can plant that love well drained sandy soil and at least partial shade? I suspect I will be planting some of those lovely orange lilies as long as they get along with iris’s alright. Ah and shrubs. There is a 40 percent off sale. Time to go shrub hunting. Soon it may even look like someone lives here.

Well that was my mini update. Not a lot of words but a fair amount of work happened behind the scenes. It’s about time.

I hope you have a much more fun weekend than I did.

When it Comes to Summer Olympics...

2008-08-10T01:02:00.001-04:00

I know I am a pig and here is why. I don’t watch tons of the Olympics but I do have my favorites none the less. My favorite summer Olympics sport is Woman’s Beach Volleyball. See, I told you! Other then the obvious, they look fantastic in their uniform, I also love volleyball and find this 2 on 2 volleyball amazing. I could not even imagine the energy it takes to do what they do. They are incredible athletes for sure.

OK, other than that sport I also enjoy gymnastics, go figure. It is amazing to see what the men and women can do. Sometimes graceful, sometimes in total control making something look so easy even when you know they are not.

I also enjoy track and field although I do not catch a lot of it. Saturday as I took a few breaks from trying to get my landscape under control, I managed to take in some of the swimming events. Again absolutely incredible. The energy and the strategy is amazing. And when you notice that the difference between first and third is usually under 2 seconds, sometimes under a second you can not afford to do anything that even only loses a fraction of a second.

I am so proud of all of the athletes. Speaking of all, I so actually mean all, even those from other countries. I find that if there is someone from the United States I will pull for them. But when I see another country putting in an incredible performance I can not help but get all behind them and all excited to see them win. I am very impressed with how China has been performing. Talk about dominating mens gymnastics.

Now I may watch other events too but there is one strange one that I really enjoy. Well at least you would think it strange. I love the equestrian events. Well all except the dressage. I can only take so much of that before I just need to turn the channel. Other than that however I really enjoy the sport.

Well that is how I spent my Saturday and probably how I will spend my Sunday. What can I say, I let my landscape really go this year and I am trying to get the yard back into shape. I am close to getting the edging done, weeding should get done tomorrow if the picker bushes leave me alone. Cut the lawn and weed and feed it. Yep, busy Sunday but it will feel good. Got to take advantage of the good weather when you can.

I hope you are having a nice weekend.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-08-01T07:47:00.002-04:00

“Tickets please” you say as
the next person in line steps up.
You separate the tickets and
point them in the right direction.

You thought this job would be fun
but now you can not wait
for your next job.
To be a candy counter person
would be the best

The grass is always greener

It is funny, you can always look at what someone else has and envy them. But no matter where you are, no matter what you do there is always pluses and minuses for everything. To raise a family would be incredible. To see children grown and become their own little person would be so rewarding. But at the same time the life of the single. Not tied down, free to do anything you want any where you want. It just never ends.

What we all need to do is try and be thankful for what we do have. If we can do that than, at least in some small way, we will have and even better life to live.

You know I am not even sure where all that came from but I guess it really wanted to get out. Everyone have a wonderful weekend. I know I have a couple of little things planned and I think, short of problems with misquotes, I will have a wonderful time.

The above has been a Flash Fiction Friday. It is 55 words (more or less) that contains a plot and a character at least. The are fun and easy to do. If you would like to give it a try go see G-Man from my side bar as he is the keeper at the moment. Give it a try...

... Always look on the bright, side of life... (Gotta love that song from the Life of Brian)

Heaven on Earth

2008-07-30T21:56:00.004-04:00

OK, I threatened to do this but just never did get around to it.

Earlier in the year SignGurl introduced me to a truly wonderful park. At the time I had no idea how wonderful it was.

This past week I finally got around to visiting the park. I spent a little over 2 hours just wandering. Here are a few photos I took that I thought I would share with you all. Give me a week or so that I can exercise a little SignGurl and I will take you up and a trip to the park. I would love to see some of the treasures you have discovered. I bet they are incredible.

Lets start out with some flowers. They were very beautiful. I only took a few pictures of about 3 different flowers. I am still trying to get use to my new point and shoot camera. There will be more to come in the future for sure.

Now here we have a new project of mine. I want to get a nice close up picture of a flower with a buzzz, buzzz, buzzz bee on it. Bees bother me so I am sure this will be a major challenge. Here is my first attempt. Yes I have a long way to go.

Next up we have a view of the dock that extends around a large part of the man made lake. In it's former life it use to be a quarry. Here we see the dock and the lake. For some reason I fell in love with the cloud reflections in the water. I have a lot of this pictures. I thought this was the most interesting because of where I was holding the camera when I took the picture.

This cardinal was one of about three different types of birds I saw. Apparently one of the others I saw was from the canary family. They were fast and very yellow. I wanted to get their picture but there just was no way. This cardinal just would not cooperate and come out to where I could get a clean picture. Oh well, it turned out OK anyway.

This is so typical of what you might see in Michigan, usually up north or maybe the upper peninsula. But here we have an awesome sight all right near home. This is incredible as as is Michigan in general. Come winter, spring, summer or fall Michigan rocks. At one point I needed to find my own path as I came to the end of the docks and I wanted to find the paved pathway. So I saw this gate in the fence and decided to head on through. This is the view from the other size of the fence. Of course they must expect people to do this as look at the nice dirt path I had to walk on. Now take a moment and take in a nice deep breath of MICHIGAN. Note Michigan does not corner the market on this, several other wonderful northern states come to mind, but Michigan sure does it up proud.

Here at last you see a small part of the nice 1.5 mile paved path around the lake, through the woods and past some of the parks attractions. This path is awesome. I saw people walking, jogging, blading, biking ... just about anything that does not have a motor is fine here. The quietest person on the path was this one roller bladder. Well when she was not on her phone that is. I am sure that SignGurl has put on many the mile on these here paths. And no that is not SignGurl up ahead but you already knew that.

This is one of my treasures I came across. I could not believe it. I was going down the path and then I heard this loud cracking noise. Now when I was growing up I used to hunt deer so I was very familiar with that sound. I looked around and sure enough there was a deer. I decided to try and get a picture but it turns out it was very blurry picture. Then the deer moved and that is when I saw the second smaller one. The Mom deer (I assume) went over to be protective of the littler deer who never even looked at me. That is when I got the shot I am including here. I can not believe I was less than 25 feet from the deer and they let me take their picture. I wanted to do more but I did not want to spook them so I moved on.

OK, this next picture is fun. At least it was for me. I saw this tower while I was in the woods. Now I say woods but I really am not real deep in the woods when I stay on the track but anyway... I could not believe that I was seeing this tower poking through the clouds. What an awesome picture. But I was not somewhere that I could capture that picture. So I hurried down the path peeking at on occasion until I finally got to somewhere I could capture the picture. By then the clouds had moved on. Now when I looked at the tower when I got home I discovered that is was painted red then white than red then white then... so I never did see the tower going through clouds but it sure did get me excited thinking it was. But here is the one fun side benefit. It is not much more than a blur. You could paint it with a paintbrush in one quick stroke. But there in the upper left corner is a hawk. At least I am pretty sure that is what that is. Yea. I did not see it until after when I was looking on the computer. I wonder what else I missed?

This is just a sample of the awesome skies that day. They were incredible. I wish I could have done them justice. I am working on that. HDR and polarizing filters are coming to a camera bag near me soon.

Now here you have my attempt at an HDR photo. Now this is just a beginner doing this. If I really knew what I was doing it would be incredible. What sets this apart from a regular photo is both the skies and the landscape look wonderful. HDR uses multiple exposures to get the best of all worlds in composing the photo. This picture is a lot more grainy than I would like but it is a beginning. You can not use this technique for everything but I can see pictures of the skies and other darker items are just made for HDR.

And there you have it. The promised walk about SignGurl's park. there is more I did not show and probably tons I have not found. Sadly this is not a good place to take a sunset or sunrise photo, I checked a couple of days ago. The trees just are to tall in the area. But there is a lake not that far away that, at least from the satellite view, looks like it will be a great place for a sunset and sunrise. As a matter of fact I found someone on flickr that had the same idea and posted the very same picture I want to take.

Thank you SignGurl for introducing me to a nice little slice of heaven on earth.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-07-25T16:55:00.001-04:00

You usually take a moment
letting people know they're appreciate
But some how today
You just don't have it in you.

Then a miracle occurs.
Someone tells you
How much difference you made
And you're flying on cloud nine.

Life is good when you do unto others
As you would have them do unto you.

Ok so I am breaking the rules but I just had to do this. I had two things happen in the past week that really was nice. First I put together some CDs for a handful of people. It took a bit of work and a little money but I got it out to people. This past week I had this person email me and say how professional everything looked and they really appreciated the keepsake I put together for them. Wow, talk about a nice feeling inside.

Then this past few days I left a comment for someone about a picture they had taken. I went out of my way for this person because I knew they were a kid. I thought they would appreciate it. You know what, they REALLY APPREACIATED IT! His Dad ended up saying something at one point. It is tiny little moments like that that really make things worth while. Somehow the 55 just needed to head in that direction.

Over the weekend I will be posting some pictures I took at SignGurl's awesome park she shared with me. I am stoked. I see I am going to have to spend a lot more time there. Well I will as long as I bring a case of off or something. You will see why later.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

55Flash Fiction Friday

2008-07-18T08:18:00.002-04:00

You have been stalking
this person forever
They hold all your attention

You notice every little detail
of what they are doing
Hoping somehow for an edge

You are all poised to strike
but still you get closer
hunker down and finally
Make You Move
as you pounce

Ah the life of a playful kitten

Wow it has been a while since I did one of those. These 55 flash fiction Fridays are fun. If you would like to try your hand at it they are simple. Just come up with a simple little story with somewhat a plot and at least one character in 55 words ish. That is it. Some people are so darn cleaver with these. Some love to have the final little gotcha at the end. Over all it is a fun little exercise.

I tried it, yes I did. I made a batch of Michelle's (Lime) grammy's German Potato Salad. You can find the recipe here on her blog. I tell you it is yummy but I made a few mistakes. I shall have to try this again.

First when I added the eggs to the bacon grease I was not stirring and I ended up with egg bits in the recipe. I hardly noticed but that simply will not do. Second I did not boil down the dressing far enough. I think a little more reducing would have made things much better. It would have been a little less runny and just a little more flavorful. Don't get me wrong, I love this recipe and will do it again. I followed most everything but used green peppers instead of celery. Next attempt it will be celery as Michelle called for. Other than that I cooked the bacon properly, made the roux, used the proper vinegar, left the skins on the red potato's... in short Michelle (and grammy) would have been proud. Thank you Michelle.

What I did on my summer vacation

2008-07-14T08:17:00.000-04:00

I was invited to a cottage the end of last week. I took them up on it. It was lovely there and the boat ride spectacular. I had no idea the lake was a huge as it is. So here is a picture of some of the fun to be had at Gun Lake.

On 4th of July I went to see the Wyandottee Parade.

I just always get a kick out of this parade float. Who would have thought this was a Shriner float?

Growing up in the Detroit/Windsor area this always has special meaning to me.

Cute car.

I don't know about you but I am getting sick of all the politics that are are going on. This parade seemed stuffed with politicians or politician wannabes. I think we need to charge them to be in the parade just like they need to pay for ad tie on TV. What do you think?

Later in the evening I went to see a concert.

The concert was followed by fireworks but these are picture of the fireworks in my neck of the woods from the night before.

Well other than that there was catching up on work at home like cleaning the house, cutting the grass, getting my license plates (I was late but did not get fined, yea) and other equally fun stuff. Oh and playing with new software and taking a few (read that is hundreds of) pictures here and there. Sorry I have been more or less missing over the last little bit. Time to get back to work.

Have a wonderful week.

Today is her Birthday

2008-07-04T19:11:00.002-04:00

Oh dear, I am so behind the times but I have been non stop running.

Today, yes today is our dear friend GABS birthday. Yep, a 4th of July baby. I was suppose to be born oon the 4th buck snuck in a few days early. Any way...

Happy birthday, to GAB
Happy birthday ,to GAB
Happy birthday, dear Gale,
Happy birthday, to GAB

If you have a chance how about wishing her a happy birthday at http://gabalotgal.blogspot.com/

She is always wishing everyone a wonderful birthday, now it is her turn.

Happy birthday Gale.

Photographing Fireworks

2008-07-02T07:40:00.002-04:00

Have you ever thought of taking pictures of fireworks before? Did you do it? Did they turn out?

I have taken pictures several times but I have never got all that serious about it, that is until this year. So I did a bunch of research and, in the nut shell here is what I learned.

USE A TRIPOD

You will be taking a picture for anywhere between 2 to 8 seconds or so. If you do not have a tripod or at least something sturdy then your fireworks will wiggle all over the place. I do not care who you are or how steady you are, use a tripod.

A SHUTTER RELEASE OR TIMER IS NICE

To further keep from shaking things use a shutter release to take the picture. If you do not have that or if you have a camera that can not have a shutter release than use the cameras timer. Set it to 2 seconds if you have that option. Now using a timer is harder because you need to anticipate when the firework will go off.

MANUAL FOCUS

Auto focus cameras do not do well in dark situations. For the most part they advice to set the camera on manual focus and focus to infinity than back it off just a little bit. Then focus the camera on the first firework and leave it there for the rest of the show. For those Point and shoot you can also set your camera to Landscape or Fireworks if you have that setting.

VERTICAL vs HORIZONTAL

Most suggest to turn you camera vertical as fireworks go and then they float back down. They usually do not move left to right very much. Holding the camera vertical gives you more room to capture the movement of the fireworks. There are advantages of leaving the camera horizontal but most pictures are better served with the camera vertical. I myself will be shooting pictures using two cameras with one turned vertical and on left horizontal.

LEVEL YOUR CAMERA

Especially if you are going to take a picture that shows buildings or shoreline or anything that establishes what is level, you will want to make sure your camera is level. Some tripods have levels build into them. You could use a portable level or just look through the camera, possibly taking a picture, and make adjustments if the camera does not look level.

WATCH OUT FOR LIGHTS AND TREES

Lights will show up and make you pictures either terrible or much less interesting. Try and avoid street lights and other lights that are near by if possible. Trees can just distract from the fireworks or even hide them. Be careful if there is a tree near by.

ARRIVE EARLY, PICK YOUR PLACEMENT

If possible avoid the crowds or at least be a little ways away from them. I giant head in the picture will not make a nice firework photo. Also they can bump you tripod and add a very interesting movement to your fireworks. Also try to be upwind of fireworks. If you are downwind then the smoke from the fireworks will fill the sky and make things less then sharp. Also be sure to get pictures of the first fireworks shot as they will be your clearest ones.

SHOOT MANUAL

If at all possible shoot manual. This will allow you to have better control of what you are shooting. If you can not do that than look for settings on your camera like Fireworks or Night Shot to help set you camera settings. While you are taking pictures be sure to check some of the photos to see how they are doing and make adjustments to make the pictures are more pleasing to you. Be careful not to spend every second checking you photos however because fireworks are suppose to be fun unless you are a pet. They tend to not like all the booms.

USE A LOW ISO SETTING

Set the ISO as low as possible or if you are using film, get as low an ISO speed film as possible. Most of what I saw was based on ISO 100 so lets go with that. If you set it lower you will need to use a larger aperture setting.

APERTURE

For ISO 100 they recommend using an aperture of between F8 and F16 so maybe start out at F11. If you are using ISO 50 you will want to use F8. Be prepared to vary the aperature a little if the fireworks become brighter especially for the grand finally. If that happens then use a higher f-stop number like F16.

SHUTTER SPEED

Here it depends on your taste, also on how bright the fireworks are, how close you are, etc. For the most part they recommend that you have a shutter speed between 2 and 8 seconds. The longer the shutter is open the more the fireworks will rain down yielding a pleasant affect. Also if you do not keep it open long enough you will not get the full affect of the firework. You can start taking the picture as you see the streak as the firework heads skyward or you can wait until just before the initial explosion. Be sure not to leave the shutter open to long or you will over expose the fireworks and no one wants that.

ZOOMED ARE IS NICE BUT

The more you zoom in the more accurate you will need to be as to where the firework actually explodes. Otherwise you may not have it in your frame. I think you are better to be zoomed out a little and crop your picture afterwards. Don't be zoomed back to far. Zoomed in and not being able to get the entire firework in the frame can be interesting however after all variety is a good thing.

SUPPLIES

Bring plenty of memory cards (or film) as you will be surprised how many pictures you take.
Also be sure the batteries are charged and you have spares if possible.

FLASH LIGHT

Bring a small flashlight like those maglights so you can see to make adjustments to your camera.

RESEARCH

There are tons of articles on the Internet about this. That is where a lot of this came from and I kind of blended it. Some of it was from my own experience. Also practice, practice, practice and take notes afterwards for the next time you shoot fireworks. Why listen to what the Internet or I have to say about this. Why not get better based on your own experience.

Well that is most of it. It sounds like a lot but I think a lot of it is setup before you start. After that it should be a piece of cake. Hopefully I will have some nice pictures to post after July 3rd when a nice local fireworks display happens.

Have a wonderful 4th of July or, if you are not in the states, work on having a wonderful weekend.

This Day in History

2008-07-01T01:48:00.004-04:00

Two events happened on this day.

Today is Canada Day. I am still confused exactly what Canada Day is. It is not exactly the Birthday of Canada although many consider it that. It is not the same as many countries Independence day. I guess it is actually “marking the occasion of the joining of the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada into a federation of four provinces (the Province of Canada being divided, in the process, into Ontario and Quebec) on July 1, 1867” (from Wikipedia). Tell you what, I am going to go on considering it the birthday of Canada if you do not mind.

The second thing, today is my birthday. I was born in Michigan way back on July 1st in 1957 at 5:16 am. I was suppose to be born on July 4th but I guess I was in a hurry. This will be one of the last times I was so early for something however... I was a rather small baby at 6 pounds 10 ounces. My Mom had a semi private room and the person that she shared the room with had a daughter, Lynn Bryan. Lynn passed away several years back. I try to remember her every year on our birthday. Anyway my name came about because of their last name. One more note, a very famous person shares our birthday. Princess Diana was also born on July 1st only she was born several years later in 1961. Gee, that is another person that is no longer with us. I am starting to get worried.

I normally just pretend like it did not happen and keep it quiet but I thought I would mention this time. I am not trolling for birthday wishes, I just always like to bring up Canada day and ... well it seems like I should mention ... Anyway thank you for the wishes I have received. You guys rock.

Whazzup

2008-06-30T23:20:00.005-04:00

You know, I have no idea. I have been doing a few things. Wednesday was kind of fun. I went to see a baseball game. I was 9 rows off the field. I brought my camera so I could take pictures. Not just of the game but also of my friend throwing out the ceremonial opening pitch. It turns out there were 7 people all together each doing an opening pitch and I captured the moment for everyone and will give them a CD of all the pictures from the day. Did I tell you I am addicted to my camera and taking pictures. Did I mention I want to get a point and shoot now so I can take it on walks, etc. As if I do not already take to many pictures.

Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is a group picture of the 6 Rotary Club Presidents that I will be giving pictures to.

The next one is what I doctored for each person. It shows them pitching their own opening pitch. It also has a caption and a super imposed head shot in the corner. Now I know this is pretty basic stuff but it took me half a day getting everything together.

So that lost me half of the week. Friday was insane and lost me Friday and the whole weekend. Staying up to 2:00 am on Saturday for work IS INSANE! My body can not take it like it used to.

Before this I had Red Wing parade picture, wedding pictures, and other pictures to get ready. I have been in picture overload for at least 2 weeks. I think it is time to just stop and smell the roses... but wait, lots of opportunities to learn how to take fireworks... I am going to run out of disk space!!!

Since I did not share any of the Red Wings Stanley Cup parade before, let me toss in a couple of quick pictures. Here we have #44 Mark Hartigan with one of our newest fans. The last time we took home the cup was 6 years ago so I can safely say this is her first Red Wings parade.

Ah, Brian my boy. He joined the Red Wings about a year ago. He had a pretty decent year. I would say he is an up and coming player for the team. Although in saying that he already has 2 (I believe) Stanley Cups behind him when he played for New Jersey and now one with the Red Wings. What makes him special??? Well to me it is he was born (I think) and raise in the downriver area of Detroit just like me.

This is what it is all about, Lord Stanley's Cup. I have my picture taken with the cup and some day I may even get that picture. The step daughter of someone I work with even had the Stanley Cup at their house. That just goes to show you it is who you know.

Here is a face that only a Detroit Sports fan can love. The Detroit Tigers (our baseball team) mascot wearing a Detroit Red Wings Jersey (our Hockey Team).

This is a view of the front of Comerica Park showing where the above statue is located.

I am trying to catch up on peoples blogs and put out another post for tomorrow. I am so going to get it done. Yes I am.

Requiem

2008-06-24T08:05:00.000-04:00

I had the hardest time getting myself all put together for this past weekend. I had a viewing/mass to attend for my friend, I had golfing with my Dad for a belated Father’s Day, I had a celebration of Father’s Day, I had photos I took of a wedding almost a year ago that I wanted to get out even though I really did not like they way they turned out... For one reason or another I just could not get moving. So that scratched going down on Thursday.

Friday morning and I am still going through the pictures and finally calling it complete. I then burnt 6 copies while getting myself ready. My shoelaces needed changing badly and, amazingly, I had a new pair to work with. Of course who had the time. I packed the clothes, the camera, the golf clubs, phone calls to my parents trying to coordinate as they wanted to attend the mass also...

Somehow I managed to get out the door mucho late but I did make it. I got my bearings and made a guesstimate of how long I thought it would take and called my parents. We were meeting near by at a place they knew how to get to and then going the rest of the way together.

Adjusting my speed here and there I actually made it to the meeting point a few minutes early so I could scope things out. When my parents arrived we got them parked and headed the rest of the way in.

The retirement home community was lovely and oh so quiet. It is funny, the guard at the gate asked if anyone needed to be let off closer. Normally that is not a question someone would ask but I suppose in a retirement community that makes sense. Anyway I let my parents off and parked the car.

The chapel was beautiful and much bigger than I was expecting. The first thing I saw was my friend and his family scattered about. The casket with Ruth in it was open for viewing, her husband was right next to her the whole time.

My friends was very touched my parents came. You see even though I have know Paul and his wife for over 30 years now, my parents had only met Ruth once and Joshua their Son and possibly Paul once. My Mom felt she really wanted to come seeing as how this was my best friends parent and also she was real impressed the one time she met Ruth.

The mass was a Requiem mass. Besides the organist that was part of the chapel we had lots of music. We had Ruth’s Sister who played violin. I later learned she was 93 years old and still teaching music students. She was amazing on the violin. There was her one daughter who played a fantastic Steinway, the same that Ruth had always played. Her husband, the choir director, sang several songs. Her three daughters played the violin, cello, and another stringed instrument that I just do not know the name of. My friends middle son, also a choir director, played the guitar and sang as did his daughter (also studying music). At one point my friend sang one hymn. It was just amazing who much music is part of that family.

The grieving was intense, especially just before the casket was closed. I know I probably should not have looked but I could not help it. I so wanted to be there with my friends to try and comfort them in what ever way possible but some things you just can not do.

The priest was had a thick accent and I worried I might have a hard time hearing what he had to say. My worries were for nothing as I heard his message that he kept putting forth. In the end I thought he did a wonderful job (I know that sounds bad but words escape me at the moment).

Afterwards there was a little luncheon and that was real good. Besides the food I think the part I liked the most is hearing all the people in the background sharing lovely stories with each other and with my friend about Ruth. I think that made the luncheon a huge success. Who could ask for anything more.

My friends Dad actually picked his head up a few times from being all slumped over and at one point I could see his lovely blue eyes. I really like my friends Dad but you know, I had no idea he had blue eyes. Anyway I was happy to see my friends Dad actually respond to some people. I can not even imagine how tough that must be to lose a spouse like that.

We talked with my friends for a while and eventually called it a day after I handed off the pictures I had been working on. I know, not the best timing but I also know I probably would not see them anymore over the weekend.

Over all I hate going to a viewing or a funeral. This was out together so wonderfully. I have to feel that Ruth was smiling down on everyone that day.

I will try and catch things up tomorrow on the rest of the weekend. Sorry this went on so long.

Charles Schultz Philosophy!

2008-06-23T10:02:00.008-04:00

I got this in email and just had to share. I especially love the quote toward the very end. I will update about the weekend tomorrow.

Schultz Philosophy

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic strip. You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you'll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of Miss America .

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are not second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz.. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.

Pass this on to those people who have made a difference in your life.

'Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia' (Charles Schultz)

Aren't Friends and Family Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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