Time Lapse: Earth

A short video of the views from the ISS.  Best watched in full screen, of course.

Thanks Joanne!

St Patrick's Day 2013

Happy St. Pat's Day, all!  No corned beef and cabbage here today, but I did pop out to pick up a new desk chair and tried the new Cool Ranch tacos at Taco Hell.  Meh, probably won't do that again.  They were just okay and so were the nacho cheese ones, I only tried those once, too.  I guess I fell for the ads and novelty of it.

This day, this weekend, revolves around Badgers mens basketball and the B1G tournament.  The Badgers had a first round bye, beat Michigan on Friday, and beat Indiana yesterday - both are among the top ten teams in the country and we face another one today (that's playing 3 top-10 teams in 3 days!) in Ohio State for the tourney championship.   After today is the NCAA tournament where all but one team will finish their season with a loss.  It happens so quick, I'm just enjoying it while I can.  Go Badgers!

Sports, Weather And Movies

It has been a week since we got around 9 inches of snow.  It rained over the weekend and has been snowing almost constantly again for the last day and a half.  At least this time there is little to no accumulation, but we do have quite the pond starting in the back yard.  Thursday and Friday call for temps in the low 40's, (much different than last year,) so there should be even more melting of the several inches of snow still left on the ground.  I have heard others talking of water in their basements but we have seen none in ours so far.  We've never gotten a whole lot down there, but the floor does get wet in some places every so often when it rains long and hard.

Aside from the weather, it has been a usual week for us.  Free agency begins today in the NFL, and the Badgers start play in the B1G tourney on Friday, then March Madness is upon us!  I'm not one to fill out brackets or place wagers, I just enjoy the fun of all the games.  It's win or go home time!

Jerome came over on Saturday night with the movie "Wreck-It Ralph."  It was just a big bowl of okay.  I'm really not a movie person and he really is.  He wants me to get into them but I'm sorry, Jerome, I just don't enjoy watching movies a whole lot - very rarely, in fact.  This movie was a rather tedious kids movie, I thought.  Now, I don't always see late Saturday nights turn into Sunday like I used to when I was younger, but I was so tired just from sitting through this movie that I wound up going to bed at 9:00 p.m.  On a Saturday night.  When I wasn't deathly ill.  (How's that for an inadvertent movie review!  That's "Wreck-It Ralph," everyone!  Ask for it by name!)

PTFO

It. Never. Stops. Snowing.

It started snowing this morning about the time I left for work and hasn't stopped since.   March is 'in like a lion' this year, I can't wait for the 'out like a lamb' part of it.

Trying To Un-Hibernate

I realize that I'm not particularly sociable in late winter unless I have to be.  It begins with the seasonal holidays that bring us short, dark days followed by all the cold and snow again and again every January and February.  I've been in that funk a bit again this year.  I haven't seen many friends at all so far this year, and certainly not often.  We have had some small meetings with some friends, some even mentioned here, but we have not been out and about as much as we would normally be the other two thirds of the year.  Perhaps that is an excuse, or perhaps that is the reason to hibernate that I use, probably both since they both mean the same thing.  See what winter does to me?

I have been trying to come out of hibernation a bit lately.  Nothing has really worked out yet, but I am starting to make that effort to see friends and be sociable again.  Eventually the sun will shine warmly on green grass and all will be as it should be.  Mostly I look forward to outdoor projects again.   There is much to do for the garden this year as my wife has made grand plans.  And there are several things on my to-do list with the house and yard that cannot coincide with snow and ice.  I like to think about these projects some during the cold months, but most cannot be done until Old Man Winter unwraps its bony cold fingers from around my neck.  What the hell did that groundhog say, anyway?

PTFO

New Shoes!

Last week, after pondering it for a bit, I finally ordered new shoes online rather than take that dreadful trek to the store.  Okay, I may be a bit pessimistic about it, but a trip to one store would end up being a trip to at least 3 stores and then maybe returning to a previous one to get the shoes I will resign myself to wearing for the foreseeable future.  Yes, I would have had the opportunity to wear it before I bought it, but searching was just so much easier online.  There was also a far greater amount of shoes for me to choose from than a brick and mortar store could provide.  But I did think ahead, I made sure I ordered from a one of the many larger retailers in the area and that I could return them to the local store if necessary.

Late this morning, shortly after I finally acknowledged the new day, I glimpsed a Fedex truck slow down outside and my new shoes were here!  I waited until later after I cleaned up to put them on, but then I wore them to the grocery store and, well, I like them.  They feel closer to a boot than my old shoes, the soles are bigger and they go a little higher on my ankle, but so far I like them pretty well.  They are stiff and need to be broken in, but I think I can get away with these on my feet for a while, and they do have this neat zipper feature alongside the laces.

It is still the first day in the new shoes so it is hard to know how I will ultimately feel about them, but so far I am tentatively positive.  The zipper does allow me to slip in and out of them without undoing the laces, but barely.  And if I have to add my gel pads and arch supports then slipping in and out of them with only undoing the zipper will be almost impossible.  Of course this is all conjecture at this point.  The shoes are still hard and my feet need to get used to them some but so far I feel pretty good about them, they just need to be broken in a bit.

And, I promise, this is probably the last time ever you will hear this straight man obsess about goddamn shoes, expletive for effect.  You do know that sarc is my second favorite asm, don't you?
PTFO!

Cats, Nephew James And More

It was a busy weekend around here.  Well, for some of us.  Not the cats.

Hamish, top, and Basil still seem to be growing at just over 10 months old.  Bigger and as naughty as ever!

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We had the pleasure of having my nephew James spend some time with us on Saturday.  My sister was in town for a play (I think it was called Spank... probably inappropriate for a 10 year old, you can look it up on your own) with my mother, aunt, cousin and more.  An interesting group to see such a play maybe?  I wonder how many 'uncomfortable' moments they may have had.  Heh, heh, in my imagination it is hilarious!  Okay that was for them, share if you wish, Mom and Sis!

Anyway, the afternoon got off to a bad start, we went to an event I found on the internet that was not at all what I expected.  But after we got back home we were able to go through some of my old Piers Anthony books.  He's been interested in the Xanth series so I gave him all those books that were in good enough shape and threw out the old and damaged ones.  I also gave him the Adept series that I remember really enjoying.  After that I went through my Kiss CDs - he's a fan - and managed to give him several that he can enjoy until I can give him the rest of them.  I never did get the complete Kiss catalog on CD, like I managed to collect every album on vinyl (still have them!).  Digital is everything now and CD's are not as big of a priority for me anymore for most music.  I think he only has a couple so I'm happy to give him some new-to-him Kiss to listen to.

For dinner, we took him out to a nearby landmark, a place called Ella's Deli.  Unmistakable along one of the city's main arteries, especially in Summer when the carousel outside is uncovered and all lit up!  Inside it is full of all sorts of moving, flying, spinning everything.  You can see some of the hundreds of displays here, but photos are still and the whole place is actually in mesmerizing motion.  I hadn't been inside there for at least 15 years, so I think I had as much fun as he did!

Love ya, James!  Thanks for hanging out with us! (We missed you, Lindsey!)

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Sunday was a pretty fun day.  I had a pretty casual morning, my wife did a lot of housework.  As usual she wins that battle, I realize it and do feel guilty.  We went out to brunch with our friend Bridget along with Zubin and several of her friends for her birthday - Happy Birthday, Bridget!  It was a nice place and even though the service was a bit slow the food was good and we had a very good time.  It was actually a very nice day out - sunny with no wind and above freezing, a nice day to be out and about.

Afterwords we stopped for a few drinks at another local watering hole before going home and relaxing for an hour or so.  Then, the neighbors a few houses up the street were having a gathering for all their neighbors and friends, including our local alderperson, so we went up and socialized for another hour and a half or so.  I like our part of town, there are many like-minded people here and who wouldn't be comfortable with that?  Many are youngish couples, some with children, and relatively recent to the neighborhood, as we are.  All in all a nice day and an unusually busy weekend for us, yet I showed up for work this morning with a great big smile! 

Latest Listening Pleasure... Newsted

Okay, I wanted to do this LLP post several weeks ago for this new video/EP, but the winter funks had me and never got around to it.  After posting Paramore, now I just have to post the new Newsted.  I do enjoy the Paramore but the new Newsted EP is pretty darn good... and heavy.

Now, I'm a great fan of early Metallica (mid-80's), then they went bigtime and I enjoyed them some, after that I got sick of them and, for the most part, have been neutral ever since. I saw them on the 'And Justice For All' Tour, shortly after Jason Newsted joined them, then after that was the Metallica 'Black' album with that 'Enter Sandman' song.  That was the beginning of the end for me, I kinda liked it then but they lost me after that.  No, they lost me before that, I just enjoyed that era of metal trying to get it's comeuppance, especially after the Jethro Tull debacle of 1989.

That was a different time and place, and this is just a new EP by their former bassist, but dang it, I'm diggin' it!

Latest Listening Pleasure... Paramore - Now

I think the song is good, I think the video is better.  Anyway, I'm not sure how I came across the new video by Paramore called 'Now,' but I have been enjoying it lately.  The song is off their yet to be released new self-titled album, fourth overall as they have been around for almost a decade.  I will be interested in their new release when it becomes available.  I have been looking into their past music a little bit as I had not heard of them before, and while they seem like a pretty good one, they sound like a band you would hear on top 40 radio these days.  I believe they are from Tennessee, but it seems they have had more success overseas.
This kind of music is hit or miss for me, and this song and video hits.


You can read more about them here on wikipedia. 

And if you know me, you know I love the live stuff.  Here they are playing their new single last week live in Bangkok.

Shoe Shopping

I've worn the same shoes for about 20 years now.  No, not the same exact pair, I've had several pair over the years.  They are completely black tennis shoes, leather, and high top.  Well, not the high tops that I remember from the eighties, they come up around but not above my ankle.  I remember a doctor a couple years ago remarking to me that he liked the type of shoes I was wearing, they would help my back, or knee, or whatever problem I was having at the time.  I like these shoes because they are comfortable, and the completely black color lets me get by wearing them for any occasion.  Whenever I get a new pair, the old pair gets demoted to yard work or other uses when you would rather not wear your 'good' shoes.  The style has changed slightly over the years, but it would be hard to tell unless you had them side by side as I have many times.  So when my current pair started squeaking, meaning it was getting moisture in the sole when it is wet out, I started looking for my next pair.  I didn't like what I was about to find out.


They changed the color of the soles!  It was no longer the black tennis shoe that I could wear for any occasion.  Why, after all these years, would they change it?  And now what the hell am I going to do?  Shoe shopping has been so easy for me for so long.  All it used to take was a very short trip to the shoe store, I didn't even need to try them on.  Recently the internet has made that even easier - click click and it shows up at my door.  I don't think I even want to consider the new style, which means I need to do some actual shoe shopping for the first time in ages.  I dread going in to one of those large chain shoe stores and emerging hours later with shoes that I settled for.  But do I trust shopping for something so intimate to my daily comfort online?  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, it's all just so much to take in!

Tears.  Drama.  Anger.  Resignation.  Acceptance.  Sigh.  Eff you, Reebok.  PTFO.