Bogieblog

Eagle Cam 2012

eaglets have hatched. I believe this nest is in Iowa, although I could be wrong.

Free desktop streaming application by Ustream

Music Meme Round 3

So the third album I am posting against Stu's music meme is Molly Hatchet's Flirtin' with Disaster.

This is southern rock at it's best (my appologies to those who worship the Vahnn brothers). This 1979 album features a bunch of songs that were played on a regular basis on the radio: the title song, Whiskey Man, One Man's Pleasure, It's all Over Now etc.

The title song, Flirtin' with Disaster was my favorite, and I managed to find a concert video from 1979:

This song is high energy personified and talks about traveling life. However, the lyrics that really pulls me are:

We're flirtin' with disaster, ya'll know what I mean
And the way we run our lives it makes no sense to me
I don't know about yourself or what you wanna to be, yeah
When we gamble with our time we choose our destiny

Guess it's because really, I've never been sure what I wanted to do with my life. At one time I thought I wanted to be a vet, but came to realize that I couldn't handle some of the demands, and my gray-outs were not conducive to that type of work either. Even now, I am interested in so many different things, but can't put in the concentration to really become an expert in any of them, so wind up just drifting thru whatever work that whoever hires me will put me to (it has worked out fairly well, so I'm not complaining).

Bugged

One night this week, I saw a bug on the deck. The sighting was just after I had been on the deck, and the bug wasn't there then. I believe that Fuzzy had brought it up as a play toy. It was pretty large as demonstrated by the tape measure next to it:

The reason I am pretty sure that Fuzzy brought it up is because I think it is a Large Diving Beetle. As the name implies, it is primarily a water bug. However, according to my bug book, when the larva is fully grown, it creeps out of the water to pupate in moist earth. We have plenty of moist earth that it would be interested in (and a small stream out back).

Fuzzy was playing with it, although carefully as it was prone to jumping at the cat, instead of away. The larvea are voracious predators, according to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects & Spiders, so the adult could probably could inflict a decent bite/pinch if given a chance. Last I saw, Fuzzy either batted it down the stairs, or carried it down the stairs.

I'm good, as long as it didn't end up inside the house!

Repotted

Last Sunday I repotted indoor plants. They desperately needed care since most have been in the same pots for years. The first thing to work on were two aloe plants. I didn't think to take pictures before repotting the first, but the results were 4 plants potted into one container containing four seperate pots:

The second aloe was photographed before dividing up into 4 seperate containers:

Then it was on to repotting the rosemary and citrus tree. Originally, I was going to just change out the soil to the citrus tree, but when I got it out of the pot and saw the roots, I had to take a quick trip to Agway for a bigger pot:

 

The old pot was a 12" diameter, the new pot 14". The citrus tree can no longer fit in the bay window, so it is now on a rolling platform in the back room for now.

The rosemary seemed to be fairly happy in its pot, but figured it would be good to give it the bigger pot that the tree had come out of.

So, although it didn't need it, I then divided up a Plantain Lily - both pots worth came out of the white pot.

That is pretty much what I did to keep myself out of trouble last weekend, while managing to enjoy the weather.

Trigger Finger

We just finished up a pretty much record breaking week in NH. Most days, the high temp records were broken, if not shattered. Great riding weather, Mondya thru Thursday, by anyone's definition (Friday it only got to about 70, so a bit cool for the shorts riding type).

Us, our bikes are still in storage. We are supposed to pick up mine today. Great - it will be 50, and possibly rainy. Then, next week will see lows in the 20's (19 for one morning) and highs in the 40's - not riding weather. However, that doesn't really matter - I wouldn't get to ride even if the temps were the same as this week. In fact, I most likely won't ride my bike home today - WS will be doing the honors.

I've been fighting a case of Trigger Finger, in my left hand middle finger since early January. It not only hurts, it has severely limited my range of motion, made it impossible for me to totally straighten OR bend my finger, and sometimes the pain keeps me up at night (expecially when it "locks" and I have to use the other hand to get the finger to open up). It finally got so bad that I went to see the doc on Tuesday, and saw a hand orthopedic yesterday. Got a shot of cortisone at the orhopedic's, which is usuually a successful treatment (and a shot, in the palm of the hand, is NOT, unpainful - and no, they didn't give a topical numbing agent).

Unfortunately, the shot hasn't seemed to make any differenced, except when my fingers were numb, and I couldn't move them at all yesterday afternoon. Unless it kicks in at some later date, I will be looking at surgery.

My whole left hand is shot, from the elbow on down. Maybe they can just give me a bionic arm and I'll be all set

Short Takes For March

After a record warm day, I put out the hummingbird feeder. While watching the news, they had a picture of a ruby-throated hummingbird at a feederin NH, so I decided that I better put mine out. I have never put it out this early; usually toward the end of April.

*               *               *               *               *               *               *

Spent the day repotting house plants. Will have pictures next week.

*               *               *               *               *               *               *

Had 3 evenings last week that we didn't start the woodstove. Also, didn't start it until evening last night, and may not start it tonight.

*               *               *               *               *               *               *

Attended the town meeting yesterday from 9 AM until 2:30 PM. We approved a new ambulance, and the submitted town budget (after adding 1k for maintenence for the police cruiser to cover issues that arose a couple of weeks ago). The selectmen did a great job keeping the budget fairly flat, so we didn't find much to complain about. We did have a long debate on a couple of items added by petition; one of which passed, and one that didn't. All in all, a typical town meeting for Deering.

*               *               *               *               *               *               *

It will be really nice this coming week, temperature wise. Unfortunately it is so muddy that there is no sense in us getting the bikes out of storage. Just have to wait it out for a while more.

*               *               *               *               *               *               *

WS did bring BILs bike down from the storage unit out back. He thought the tire was flat the mud bogged it down so much. But, everything was fine, so he spent the afternoon washing it and starting cleaning up the rims. Once it is all cleaned up, we will be putting it up for sale.

*               *               *               *               *               *               *

The laptop has suddenly (as of this typing) started having trouble with the space bar. So will close out this post, shut down and see if I can clean it out.

Hope everyone had as nice a weekend as we did!

Almost There

Although the Iditarod isn't quite over yet,there are still two teams racing, I would like to congratulate everyone who entered the race - just starting the race takes more courage, strength, and determination than most (even me) can imagine.

The top finishers were:

1. Dallas Seavey
2. Aliy Zirkle,
3. Ramey Smyth,
4. Aaron Burmeister,
5. Peter Kaiser,
6. Ray Reddington Jr,
7. Mitch Seavey,
8. Michael Williams Jr.,
9. John Baker,
10. DeeDee Jonrowe.We

We are still waiting to find out who will win the Red Latern award (last racer in).

New Targets

Last Sunday, after WS got home form work, he declared that it was time to go to the range. So we packed up the pistols and headed for Deering Fish and Game. DF&G is an outdoor range, that is pack in / pack out so we were shooting in the mud (hey, at least it wasn't snow covered in our area), with a slight breeze.

We started with ordinary bullseye targets, getting back into the groove of shooting. Then, WS pulled out some special targets; Jimmy had given us exploding targets for Christmas, and we were eager to try them out.

Now, the reactive targets were 2" x 2"cubes that hold a magical powder that goes BOOM when a round goes thru it. Additionally, a bright flash of light and a small smoke show ensure that you can't miss when you hit the target exactly right. See, you have to get exactly in the center before it explodes - we know, we had several that had myriad holes all around the center, but stubbornly refused to go BOOM, until hit just right. I should have gotten pictures of some of those targets, but didn't think of it until we were on the last one, and I made WS quit after one shot so I could take the picture:

Ignore all the holes around it - Other targets had been placed there before, so those are holes from it - this one had only one shot aimed at it, and WS did a mighty fine job of getting it close (remember, it's 2 x 2). It only took him another couple of shots to get it to go BOOM on this one.

And yes, it was great fun getting them to go BOOM!

Move Vinyl Meme

Another entry for Stu's vinyl meme, Ole Elo:

This album had so many good songs; 10538 Overture, Roll Over Beethoven, Can't Get it Out of My Head, Boy Blue, Evil Woman and Strange Magic.  Released in 1976, this is certainly over 30 years old. My draw to this band is the mixture of orchestra music blended with rock - which they acknowledge in their whole name, Electric Light Orchestra.

This was not neccessarily their best work (Theme for Wide World of Sports and Mr. Blue Sky come to mind as better), but it seems that it was the album that most of the songs made it to be played on the radio, so I actually knew what I was buying when I plunked down my money. So maney times we would buy albums and find that there were only one or two songs worth playing - with this album, we avoided that risk.

Unfortunately, there is only one YourTube video that I could find on YouTube, which was only of a partial song, but here it is FWIW:

 

And by the way Stu - you are incorrect that the only people that hung onto their vinyl must be in their 60's - we obviously hung onto our, and I'm not even 50 yet. I even bought WS a new turntable about 5 years ago because our other one had died. True, it is mainly used to play albums while transfering them to CD, but still, we have them.

Iditarod 2012 Update

Jeff King, a yearly threat to win, has scratched from the Iditarod. Aliy Zirkle, a New Hampshire native, is currently in second, behind Dallas Seavy. Looks like a different generation of dog sledders is trying to kick some butt.

Of course, there are still some miles to go, so it is still anybody's race.

As usual, besides the official Iditarod site, the Anchorage Daily News has lots of stories on the race.