Alabama, Part 1

My Mom and her husband Dan left for the gulf coast of Alabama shortly after the new year and are staying until the beginning of March in a luxury condo on the Gulf of Mexico.  As a Christmas present, they offered trips to all their kids to come down and spend some time with them.  We had never taken a vacation in winter before so we accepted their generous offer.

A week ago Saturday we flew from Madison to Atlanta to Pensacola.  As we were flying from Atlanta to Pensacola I thought of Mike Firesmith, the Hickory Head Hermit in the right column.  Perhaps we flew right over him, I'm not sure where he is exactly in Georgia.

The Pensacola airport was a bit smaller than Madison, I'm not sure why that surprised me.  Mom and Dan were there to pick us up and drive the half hour west to Orange Beach, Alabama, kind of a suburb of Gulf Shores.  The Blue Angels fly out of the Pensacola airport.  They said they've seen them flying since they've been down, but we did not see them in our time there.

The development where they were staying had two buildings, the tallest buildings in the area as far we could see.   Luxury condos that were built at an unfortunate time, in the late 2000's when the market crashed, so only two of the four planned buildings were built.

We arrived about midday and settled in after a lunch out.  Temperatures were probably in the low sixties, not very warm but better than where we came from.  Madison was about to get another blast of stupid-cold air.  Meanwhile, we were adjusting to this view:

Super Sunday 2014

My precious Packers are not playing today, but otherwise there are several reasons to support either team in this year's Super Bowl.  My reasons lean to ex-Badgers and conference, meaning I will be cheering for the Seattle Seahawks today. If they do not win, then I will be happy for Peyton Manning and Montee Ball.  Either way, my Packers are not there so my disappointment is over no matter who wins today. I just hope it is a real good game to watch.

Have fun today, everyone! 

Home!

Better late than never.  Details later, tonight we play with the cats, just relax, and go to bed.

Wouldn't It Be Nice..

Watch and mute the first, play the second.  Watch at least as long as the song plays, anyway...

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...