Happy 9-11 To Me

I turned 45 today.  Thank you to those who emailed and sent cards or gifts.  I have taken today and tomorrow off, a luxury that I haven't been afforded in quite a while.  A Tuesday sucks anyway, but I also have this 9-11 stuff to look forward to every year now.  Well, it could be worse, I know.

Just what I need, another reason to drink...


Really, though, I slept in today, and then napped for quite some time in the afternoon and it felt really, really, really good.  Earlier this evening my wife and I made a very rare mid-week outing to our favorite local bar and grill for dinner and drinks.  I have tomorrow off and I may just surf the net, catch up on my newspapers and maybe tie up some loose ends here and there.

My next planned vacation day comes later this month, the day after the Andrew Bird show at the Overture Center.  We went the last time he was here, back in 2009.  This post from 3 years ago today shows how I am looking forward to it.  Last time I got pretty good tickets in the back of the main floor, this time I got tickets in the front row of the first level up and almost dead center.  I'm looking at this as a nice occasion to show my wife that I have some class and treat her to a fancy night out.  You know, dress up a little bit, have a nice dinner and then off to the show.  This is no heavy metal concert, and I may be one of the older ones in this audience, but all I know is that I like what I happen to like.  Thankfully, this is one performer that my lovely wife can appreciate enough to do this with me.
Or at least she humors me well....

Andrew Bird - The Happy Birthday Song. 


PTFO

Kittens Are Becoming Cats

The kittens are listed as being born on April 20, so they're not even 5 months old yet, but the size difference since we got them on June 9 is amazing to us, and they're not nearly done growing.  I was looking back through our photos and I tried to find a couple that have something in them for perspective (a chair and my lap, in this case) to demonstrate how they have grown.  The pics on the left are dated June 25 and the pics on the right were taken yesterday and today.  They look pretty cute here, but they are very mischievous cats, indeed.

68% evil, my ass.  Oh, my wife is only 50% evil, somehow I find that more believable. ;-)

I am 68% Evil

You Are 68% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care. Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Blogthings: Our Quizzes Weren't Written By Bored 12 Year Olds

 

 

 

Well, how did you do?  Tell me in the comments.  Thanx Joanne!

Latest Listening Pleasure... Pain, Part Two

My first LLP post featured the band Pain.  Seven months later, and while enjoying my other LLPs greatly, I find myself coming back to Peter Tagtgren's project more than ever.  There hasn't been anything new released, but I don't care, I'm still enjoying Pain's whole catalog of music immensely.  Enough to share it again. 

Here is probably their biggest song, Shut Your Mouth.


And another of my favorites, Bye/Die

A Fire With Friends

After work on Friday, Kate and I went out for a couple drinks and a snack.  When we got home we proceeded to have a couple more drinks and someone (me) suggested we have a spur of the moment fire pit with friends the next night, Saturday.  So after a half day of recovery we prepared to do it again.  It was fun to get together around the fire, now that the fire ban has been lifted and the lawn is almost all green again.  I still used the pallet and grill mat, I don't want to scorch the grass like I did the first time we had a fire.  That brown spot was in the lawn almost all summer, that year.  It was nothing fancy on Saturday night, just a few friends who mostly would otherwise be sitting at home gathered around a fire and enjoying each others company.  It turned out to be a very enjoyable evening after all, though we did pay for it again on Sunday.  I'm getting too old for that much liquid fun in one weekend, I think.

Bullets and New Ink

Hi!  How are you?  It has been over a week since I've last posted.  I know I have been lazy about blogging, and I don't really have a lot to say, but let me say a few things just to keep in touch.  Yes, bullet points again.  It just makes it easy and quick for me.

• We went out on Kate's friend Terry's pontoon boat on Sunday.  It was a nice day for it and her dog was relatively calm.  I don't think I got on the lake at all last summer due to health and healing so it was nice to be on the water, um, except all they do is drive about 10 minutes from the marina to a cove and put down anchor.  If it was my boat I would spend a lot more money on gas and see the sights and sounds around the whole over 200 square mile lake.  But, alas, it is not my boat, and I'll take what I can get... sometimes.
• I have been meaning to do some maintenance around here, mainly the right column.  Lists and links need to be updated as it has been more than quite some time since I have done anything.  That's another lower priority thing to get done, but it bugs me more and more so it will probably get done sooner than later.
• Now, I think that I get 300 MB of memory a month for free from flickr.  I'll have to look into that later, or be lazy and let it play out.  So far, 1 pic seems roughly 1 MB.  I may learn to like flickr after all.
• I'm sorry I haven't called you yet, Sis! I'm glad the appendix came out okay and I hope all is well with your new home and the kids. Send me pics!  I'll call you this weekend, I promise!
• After work yesterday I went straight to an appointment I had at a local, well-regarded tattoo shop.  It has been 20 or more years since my last tattoo.  I spent about 3 and a half hours in the chair and received a touch up of two older tattoos and a new design to pull them together and another brand new one that I really like.  I won't post pics of them here, but you can get a hint from the bandages I took off this morning if you dare!  No, it's not really too gross and, yes, that is the paw of a bad kitty in the lower right corner.

Picture after the break

Photo Uploading and Final Compost Bin Pic

For about three and a half years I have uploaded pictures to this blog and my garden blog without a care in the world... until I could no longer post photos.  I didn't realize I had a limit of free space so I shared a lot of pics, 1 gigabyte, if I remember right (I forget those measures of memory sometimes, is that irony?).  So anyway, I had to venture out and do what I hate to do - sign up with another site.  I've been on the web for quite a while now but I have always been judicious about what I sign up with and why, so I hate this. 

I now have a flickr account.  I have finally figured out how to get the picture from there to here.  It's not quite as convenient as it used to be, but I will get used to it.  I'm not sure how this will change the viewing experience, but then, I guess if you didn't click on the pics at all then it will be pretty much the same.  Flickr is allowing me 300mb of space for free, so from this point on I will be more careful as to what pics I post.  I like using accent pics for the post I'm writing (like above), and I should be able to link to one in google pics or something for those occasions (again, like above), thereby saving my free space available in flickr.  Sorry folks, I think the Pic Dumps are dead.  If I do anything like any pic dump again it will only be for a very good reason.

Now, with all that said, it would feel like unfinished business if I didn't post the pic of the finished compost bin placed in the corner of the back yard near the gardens.  I also have to go update that site now.  PTFO

An Unexpected Letter

I received this letter close to a month ago.  I have been unsure how to react so I set it aside and have looked at it now and again and I still don't know what to do.  As soon as I saw the name on the return address I recognized it immediately as an old grade school classmate.  I had probably last talked to him when I was 11, in 1978 or so.  Our class was rather small in that catholic grade school, so my first thought was of a reunion, perhaps.  I was a little taken aback by what I then read.
Red is the letter, Blue is my thoughts and responses, just to be clear.

Hi [Scoakat],
This note is from [childhood chum].  I don't know if you'll remember me, but I was in your class at [grade school] in [city, state] before your family moved away.  I hope you don't mind me contacting you out of the blue like this.

No, really, not at all.

I'm sure it's weird getting a note from me after 35 years!

A bit, but my first thoughts were good ones.

The reason I am writing is to ask your forgiveness for being such a jerk to you in grade school.

Really?  Now I was one that was prone to bullying*.  But I probably would have expected this letter from 1 or 2 others than this classmate.  He was a real dick sometimes, but also a showoff, as all kids are at that age.

I am currently working through some issues in my life and actually going through the Twelve Steps made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous.

A-ha!

When I got to step 8 and started making a list of people I treated badly in my life, I thought of you.  I remember some distinct times where I treated you badly when we were kids and wanted to write and let you know how sorry I am about that.  You certainly didn't deserve it.  I remember some times of being friends and doing fun things together (like watching those old SpiderMan cartoons at your house), while at other times I'm sure I must have seemed much more like an enemy.  At the very least I was a really poor friend.  so I hope you will receive this apology and be able to forgive me.

As I noted earlier, that was a very small class even for those days, I always thought we were pretty tight as a group when it came right down to it.  Well, I thought we all felt that way back then, but I moved away and they had to grow up together!  I had bad moments and good moments with each, to varying degrees, but I never considered myself as bullied too much, unfortunately I just was near the bottom of the pecking order then.  Cripes, we were kids!

You were a nice kid, and I have good memories of you.

Well, thank you.  Really kind of unnecessary, but if it helps, thank you.  The next few sentences are just personal info and chat.

Sincerely, [Childhood Chum]

He did provide his email in case I wished to contact him, and I may. Now that I have written this I may just send him the link as my response and then take it from there. In that case, I do want to say thank you for your thoughts, Childhood Chum, and good luck dealing with whatever brought you to this point.  All my sincere best wishes to you and yours.

Regards, Scoakat


*Edit  8/22 - What I meant by 'prone to bullying' is by other kids.  Sorry if my writing was misleading.
*For perspective, when I was that age I can say that I had no older siblings, no kid relatives (cousins, etc.) in the area and even if I did I was one of the oldest of those, and my dad got home late and left early six days a week.  I could go days without seeing him and when I did it was usually to berate me and/or whip me with the belt.  I'm just saying that I had no one to look up to or out for me back then and I didn't really do a good job of it myself.  But that was as kids, mostly when I could tell you my age on my fingers.  I've turned out as fine as anyone.

Pic Dump 42

Once more, time to dump my collected pics since last time...   No, I haven't fixed my photo uploading problem yet, this is one I had in the can for a week or so.  Again, some are funny, some are strange, some are wonderful and some are NSFW.  Many are a combination of the above, and much, much more after the break.  Enjoy!

Once again, many thanks to 'My Favorite Sites' listed in the right column always, and here now:
Bits & Pieces, Crazy, Lazy, Silly and Strange, I Have Seen The Whole Of The Internet, Naughty Bits, and the Watcher's Web Funny Farm. 

Photos, Compost Bin and Kittens

There have been a few things rolling around in my head lately.  Time to shake my head sideways and see what falls out

• I still can't post photos unless I use one with a url.  Tomorrow I hope to find time to tackle that issue.  I may have to look at other sites like flickr, etc., so I don't lose any from earlier posts.  I wasn't expecting this issue to come up, but it is fixable, I'm sure.  I just have to spend some time looking into it.
• Overtime at work was cancelled a couple days ago so I was able to take Friday afternoon off.  I spent my time building the doors for the compost bin.  It is now completely finished, well, except that it has to be moved into the back yard.  Kate is hosting a small party tonight so we should have more than enough help.  I'll have to remove the top for the move, then put it back on once the bin is in place.  I was outside this morning doing yard work and leveling the area so it drops in easily.  Oh, and 'sweating buckets' is not just a saying, it is very hot and humid today.
• The kittens, Basil and Hamish, are growing bigger every day.  They must be twice as big as when I posted all these pics of them - and that was only a month ago!  We have been trying to give them baths every so often so they get used to it.  Basil enjoys them, Hamish not so much.  We're also trying to keep their front claws clipped.  The best time to do it is right before they nap so they're too tired to mind too much.  Training them to stay off the dining table, computer desk and, eventually, the counters is problematic, but we got the litter box downstairs easily.  They have no fear of the basement.  Hell, they have no fear.
• I received an odd letter a few weeks ago.  Hmmm.  You know, the more I think about it, this deserves a post all by itself.  I guess you can look for that one soon.

In fact, that's about all I have right now. PTFU