This And Thats

Been kind of a slow week around here.  I haven't done this in a while now, but here's a bit of this and some of that...


--I've tried to post twice now this past week, but blogger still won't allow that.  Just wanted to share a couple great things from B&P - but not enough to save, upload to my flickr, then post.  How does everyone else post pictures they find?  Upload? By url?   So far I get the impression that it is a glitch with Blogger, but this has been over a week now since it started.  Lately when I try to add a pic by url it freezes so all I can do is close the whole Blogger tab/window.  I think this is what is called hyperlinking, and I've heard that it can be frowned upon.  I never thought my little site would bother anything.  I'm showing my lack of computer smarts here, aren't I?

--Another 'Polar Vortex' is upon us.  Stock up on bread and toilet paper! *Yawn.*  Temperatures will generally be single digits during the day and negative single digits over night, actual F temperatures.  Just another day in the life, lately...  Many people around me are starting to get a little exasperated with the weather.  I've just been calling it the 'dog days of winter.'  I don't like it either, but what can you do?

--It has been an exciting/disappointing/laughable year for sports in Wisconsin.  Milwaukee Brewers:  Braun gets busted for doping and the team nosedives.  (On a side note: Work friend and personal good acquaintance Al has passed.  Second from the left in the pic here.)  Badger Football:  Another disappointing end to what started to be a very promising season - and yet another bowl loss - but expectations have been high.  Green Bay Packers:  Only won the division because the division was terrible.  Still, you got to have something to hang your hat on.  Milwaukee Bucks:  I have no words and they have no game.  Badger Basketball:  Here we still have hope!  They started out 16-0 but have lost their last two games.  Hopefully it's a good wake up call.  Everyone has fun shooting baskets but everybody has to play a little defense, too.  If they can get back to that, they may still go far.


That's enough for now, there are other things I need to do in my short time before bed.  PTFO

House Cleaning Here

I've been doing a little house cleaning, so to speak, around the site and such.  All lists in the right column have updated links if needed and some new additions here and there.  I have also been holding on to some video links for a while now, yet I still haven't posted.  Now is the time.  Just an interesting time lapse video from last year about our city, Madison.


And movie references to Wisconsin.

There.  I'm not saying my 'house' is totally clean, but just one room at a time, and this room is done for now...

Forty Degrees of Winter

Yesterday morning when I left for work the local TV station of choice reported -14ºF.  This morning when I left for work the same local TV station of choice reported 26ºF.  That was a 40 degree difference from one morning to the next - and still below the freezing point!  Precipitation this evening has been rain, only the temperature has fluctuated a bit and the ground is still frozen so roads have gotten icy.  With temps around freezing and the rain/ice combo I don't think we'll be running any early morning errands.

That's it.  I just wanted to relate that here.  I wanted to do it earlier but we went out for dinner and drinks and you get distracted and stuff happens...  Happy Weekend!  For the rest of the season, hopefully, our weather will not be news.  PTFO

Surviving the Big Chill

It actually hasn't been too hard to deal with this deep freeze lately.  Our cars have started every day even though it has been right around -13ºF each morning this week as I have left for work.  Just be smart and bundle up, and my wife has started her car at work a few times during the day the past few days just in case.  Work has been a skeleton crew on Monday and Tuesday.  Even though today is only a little better, almost, if not all, came to work today.  Strange how you can just get used to even the harshest conditions.   The cold has done wonders for our cutting further down on smoking - not that we smoked a ton before.  Also, with this weather the difference in our old and new windows is HUGE.  As it is the furnace is running very often, if we had not replaced the windows I'm not sure it could keep up near as well.  Now on Friday we are expecting more snow and for a time it may even turn over to rain, they say.  Progress!?  Or probably ice...


On a side note, I will not be making a collage video of NYE.  Sorry, friends, I just didn't have enough good video to go through the trouble.   Blogger is a little balky right now (maybe almost frozen as well) so I can't add another pic at the moment, so here, just watch last year's video again, same bar and mostly the same people.  PTFO

Fahrenheit/Celsius and Degrees Symbol

The high temperature for Monday is -13º Fahrenheit (-25º Celsius).  Wind chill expected may be up to -50º F (-46º C).  The low temperature that day is -25º F (-32º C).  The governor is talking about closing the schools in the state (,others are looking into if he actually has that power, but that's another odd story altogether).  That is wicked, stupid cold, and will be 'going plaid' - my wife's reference to the Spaceballs movie.  Tomorrow is actually supposed to be nicer than it has been in a while, but at only about 23ºF (-5º C) it is the mild calm before the proverbial storm.

On a related note, I like to know what I'm reading (and writing) and in the U.S., well, we're about the only ones that use Fahrenheit exclusively anymore.  So when I read something about temperature from another part of the world I want to understand what is being related, especially at this time of year for us in the northern hemisphere.

Because of this I actually (finally) took the time to learn how to make the º symbol (alt - 0186).  I also now have a widget on the right side that converts C to F and back, just so I have a handy place I know to go and check what I read more easily than going and googling some converter - if I feel like going through the trouble.  Perhaps I can learn enough, if I use it enough here, that I'll just understand the difference naturally.

Anyway, the point of this post was to complain about the cruelly cold temperatures coming up.  We'll survive, it certainly isn't the end of the world.  But it is unusual and will make for a very bad day for a lot of people.  Hopefully not us or you.  PTFO

2014: The Morning After

First, the night before rant: 
As I write this we are waiting for friends to arrive for a short NYE party here, then we'll all go out to the bar.  Exactly the same as the last two years, and I feel even worse about it.  Why not just a house party?  I'm too old to want to go out for 'amateur night,' anymore.  We waited and waited for someone to come up with a different plan, hoping one of our friends would step up.  That didn't happen so a couple days ago my wife invited everyone over for the same thing as the last two years, snacks and drinks here then move it to a local bar that we never go to normally but have been to for, well, this will be three years in a row on NYE.  I'm getting too old for this.  It is not a holiday to me, it is Tuesday and tomorrow is a day off and the Capital One bowl at noon - go Badgers!

Maybe one of these years I can get my way and stay in and go to bed early.  I've had enough.  Period.  That's enough of me ranting.  This narration will now pick up tomorrow morning, so we'll see how it went.  Exactly the same, I presume...

Now, New Year's morning realizations:
I was pessimistic, as usual.  The nap helped me A LOT.  My wife looked absolutely beautiful.  The bar was not overly crowded.  And we have pretty good friends. 

Hung over?    Well, yes, we got home about 1:30 in the morning and I wound up staying up until 4 a.m.  Now I have just a short time to finish writing this, shower up, and finish reading all that I want about the Badger game at noon.  All in all, an earlier night and less alcohol is what I would like out of NYE, even though it never really turns out that way.

Sometimes I can be a whiny little bitch and I was the last few days about going out last night.  I'm not saying I'm wrong, because I would still like to act my age more and not go out and not drink too much, but it never really turns out as bad as I fear.  Oh well, lesson learned...  And next year it will probably play out the same way.  Just wait. 

Happy New Year, everyone!



I didn't get a lot of good pictures, but here is Jerome and Terry whooping it up about midnight.  I did get some video, I will take the time to review those later and reserve the right to post one if it doesn't suck.

Oh, and flickr is still being a real pain.  I may have to find another way to get my pictures posted on my site.*

*fixed

You'll See It, Your Kids Won't

Oh, to be so innocent again... But, no, you're a naughty one, too ... you see it... *wink!  nsfw?



Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel dirty - that was your conscience.. And my odd sense of humor!
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Merry Christmas 2014*

We were with my wife's family earlier tonight for a small get-together.  Not everybody could make it then so we're having them over tomorrow for a Christmas lunch and exchange a few small gifts.  It's nice with the in-laws, gatherings are much shorter than the marathon holidays I endured growing up.  I hope you are all spending your time doing what you want and with whom you want this Christmas.  Happy Holidays!

Now, I remember when this video came out a couple years ago, 2010, then I came across it again tonight as I was looking for something to post.  I probably didn't post it then* because of the peta affiliation.  I don't always agree with their message or method, but I can still have fun with the video.  It's better than a sharp stick candy cane in the eye!

Udo Dirkschneider... teamed up with the band Evil Disposition (staff members of EMP, Europe's biggest music and merchandise mail order company) to record "Jingle Balls" and all proceeds of the single will be donated to PETA...


*Edit: I did post this, I guess I should have checked first.  Oh well, it's done now.  Repost!

87 Days...

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Christmas Is Cancelled

Well, postponed anyway.

 

We were supposed to be in Dubuque this weekend but worries of an impending snowstorm has put that off until a future date.  The snow started about 2 in the morning, according to a neighbor, and seems to have finished shortly after I finished clearing the sidewalks for 4 houses and our driveway and bits of two others.  It's easy easier when the snow thrower is running, and it started up on the first try about a week ago.  Just guessing, but it looks like anywhere from 5 to 8 inches, depending on where you're standing.  The forecast is still calling for light snow for the rest of the day, then after a short break overnight, more light snow all day tomorrow.  Thankfully it is a light work week due to the holiday but unfortunately Monday is one of the work days.

Inside, the kitties were oblivious to the cold and snow outside, just lounging on the bed in the sunlight.  It must be nice...
These pics were just taken.  Have a holly jolly one!

Now flickr is being a pain in my ass and not letting me post pictures like normal, instead forcing an embed of all my photos!  Flickr must be owned by fu--ing google too.  I'm really getting annoyed at this spit.;.@*)(^($#&@#^+ *

*fixed