Bogieblog

Flowers for WS

I got lilies while at the grocery store. They smell so good. There is no way to be in a bad mood with lilies around - they just smell happy!

Posted from my Android phone.

Music Meme

Stu has started a meme on old vinyl that is 30-50 years old. He started with one of my favorites (and one I posess), Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. There were so many good songs on that album that I couldn't pick out a favorite. The Chain featured all the voices of Fleetwood Mac, so that is a good one. So is Gold Dust Woman - but Stevie Nicks has a voice that will just about make any song great.

As far as one of my favorite albums, Boston's self-titled album, from 1976, was awesome. I don't have a scanner big enough to contain the album (plus the album cover is very abused; being scuffed and worn), so I will cheat and use a picture from the internet:

(edited to add an authenic picture of our copy of the Boston album - with, you guessed it, the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album behind it).

The best song, of course, is Foreplay/Long Time - a song that lasted for dang near 8 minutes of enjoyable goodness. Although the words suggest that it should be a sad song (he is leaving: It's been such a long time, I think I should be going . . .), but it doesn't come out as sad. More of a launch into discovery and chasing dreams. There is acknowledgement of pain that it causes them both, but has excitement in seeing what is out there. And, the tune is rocking! Video from YouTube:

Although it could be a product of the fact I was a teenager - and dreams/discovery sound great at that age, I still find it to be one of my favorite songs that was one of the first I put on my Walkman.

Here are Stu's rules for the meme:

Here are the rules. Please join in.
1) Dig out one of your favourite old vinyl LPs, AT LEAST 30 YEARS OLD, and listen to it.
2) Blog a scan/photo of the cover.
3) Write a short review of your favourite track on the LP.
4) Link (if possible) to a YouTube version of the artist(s) performing, preferably of the same vintage.
5) Link to this blog entry. Copy these rules to your blog.
6) Mail me () a permalink to your blog entry that I may link back to you in the comments.
7) Repeat every sunday for the forseeable future :-)



My, Myself, and I

Cop Car has a post about the use of apostrophes. I am usually good about their use, although sometimes my right hand types faster than the left, so they appear out of place in my posts (I don't usually spell check, or even re-read the post after typing - I reserve that behaviour for work). I dont find apostrophe use challenging, and it seems straight forward to me.

The thing that has bothered me lately is the rampant use of "myself". It seems that everybody has just discovered this word, and has decided it must be used in every sentence, or at least the ones that should contain either "I" or "me".

Examples of what I hear on a regular basis, from otherwise well spoken persons:

• Mary and myself were walking . . .
• Contact myself when you are done with . . .
• Myself and Joe are going to the gym . . .
• You and myself should have a meeting.
• He was talking with myself . . .

Just as a tutorial (and this is not official as I haven't even looked it up anywhere - just from my experience), "myself" should be used when refering to one's self, but after already having used a pronoun.

• I, myself, would do it this way.
• I said to myself . . .
• I am so disgusted with myself for . . .

I have just noticed the rampant mis-use of "myself" in the last 4-6 months. I am used to people having trouble knowing when to use "me" or "I". Apparently they decided that using "myself" solves all problems.

Get Out of the Road Tom!

The other day while going to work, upon the road I spied a beach ball. At least that's what it looked like from a distance, in the semi-light of dawn. As I got closer, I saw that it was a beach ball with something coming out of the top of it. As I got even closer, I surmised that it was a Tom turkey, all fanned out, that I was seeing the profile of.

As I approached, he turned toward me, but stayed in the other lane. I slowed and looked for other turkeys to be ready to cross the road. There weren't any, but as I passed, I looked up the driveway nearest the dispaying Tom, and saw about 15 more turkeys - at least one of them was another dispaying Tom.

Pretty cool to see in a fairly populated neighborhood, it made me wonder why they were all on a paved driveway milling about. Perhaps there was a bird feeder that I couldn't see. Or, maybe it was just the vagueries of turkeydom.

Short Lived

After getting close to 20" of snow a week or so ago, and getting a couple of snow showers (one, yesterday morning), we have an almost snow free yard. Where the sun shines all day anyway. We had a major thaw Wednesday and Thursday, but the temps have gotten back below freezing again. That is just as well, as that means the ground is frozen, not all muddy.

I'm hoping for an early spring. After two springs in a row that never seemed to end (well, not until July or so), an early spring would be nice to have. Cop Car has a post up on Kansas' early spring, and how she doesn't mind it - but hopes it doesn't precede another hot, dry summer.

We finally got the shaft for the snow blower, so WS spent a portion of yesterday trying to get it put back together. I knew it was a real "project" when he came in later with a bandaid on his finger, kept on with electrical tape - as I've stated before, it's not really a project unless some of WS's blood is involved. He hasn't completed the project, but is most of the way done. Unfortunately, he is working at his paying job (although, being salary, he isn't being paid for the extra time), so it won't be completed today.

If we are lucky, snow will stay away. It should as they are predicting a good warm up for the week. One  thing that bothers me about that is that everyone at work will be riding in, and we don'e have the bikes out of storage. Not that it would be wise to get them out yet as we still have plenty of ice betweent the driveway and the shed - not a good thing on a bike. But seeing bikes on the road and in the parking lot at work, gives me the urge to be on mine. Another urge that I have to fight, is planting seeds to get starts going for the garden. I need to wait a couple more weeks (beginning of April anyway) as I can't actually plant until after May 30.

We've had one day where the woodstove wasn't going (Thursday), and we will probably get a couple more days like that in the coming week. I could get used to that.

Making Decongestants

A white paper on how to make Sudafed from readily available street meth. Yes, it pokes fun that the average law abiding citizen can't get Sudafed without signing several forms in triplicate, showing proper ID and then only being able to get a 5 day supply (or whatever the government has seen fit to allow at this point), because it could be used to make meth. But anyone can probably find some meth without trying too hard.

I also loved the names of the authors.

This is something that I am sure I got from Say Uncle.

Logic

Unfortunately, I've forgotten where I saw this at, so can't give credit proper credit. I'm pretty sure it was either Say Uncle, or Instapundit.

It's a What?

A PSNH worker did a good dead the other day by breaking down the door to a burning house to allow the owner's pet dog escape.

When I read the name of the dog breed, I thought there must be some mistake. The story called the dog a Blackmouth Cur breed. I have never heard of a blackmouth cur, and looking at the picture I thought the dog looked somewhat like a boxer mix. I thought that either the owners were having fun with the reporter, or the owners had been taken for some cash when they got the dog.

However, upon further investigation, I found that there is indeed a Blackmouth Cur breed and it has been listed by the UKC since 1998.

Hu, learn something new everyday.

Blowing Things up

This is how I originally thought that they were going to dismantle the Memorial Bridge:

 I don't know if it was because the Memorial Bridge is over a major shipping lane or what, but obviously they used more beniegn technics.

The bridge shown in the video is the old Fort Steuben Bridge, spanning the Ohio River on the West Virginia/Ohio border (according to the news story the video was taken from)

 

A Blogger's New Digs

Scary Yankee Chick has moved. Adjust your links accordingly. Hope she enjoys her new digs!