Weird ...or at least funny peculiar

Yesterday (July 30) I commented in response to a comment on another blog over on the other side of the International Date Line. Now I know they are one day ahead of us here on the West Coast, but it still seems strange to see tomorrow's date show up automatically at the bottom of a post.

So if tomorrow someone was to look at my comment over there, then immediately click to this post, it would appear I post this about eight hours later. When in actuality it's 32 hours later.

It's a small wonder they call it Oz.

Australia, that is

Chinese Food (yeah, yeah... inspired again)

First Cranky, then Suldog posted about Chinese Food.
No, I'm wrong. It was IT (aka Ivan Toblog) who first posted [it's a video], but that was uninspiring.
I used to not particularly care for Chinese, but I can chalk the up to having never had good stuff until I moved away from home. What I mean is we didn't go out for Chinese. We ate in and it wasn't from a Chinese restaurant. I think I preferred liver and onions.
My introduction to real Chinese came courtesy of a family in Hawaii, who are cousins to the husband of my father's first cousin. They treated me quite well. So well, in fact, that I had a place to stay on weekends I didn't have the duty while I was stationed at Pearl Harbor (or any other time my ship was there).
Every Sunday evening everyone would head on down to Fong Fong Chop Suey on Waialae Avenue. They were such regulars and there were so many that the big [pronounced BEEG] table was where we were seated. Nobody needed a menu, everyone (except me at first) had a favorite and the dishes were passed. There was always plenty of food and it was plenty [pronounced PLENNY] affordable.
Now I have so many favorites, Chinesewise, that we can't seem to go often enough. At least and go to the two or three other place we like, which don't serve Chinese.
My favorite Chinese restaurant here in Anderson, the Silver Star closed a couple of years back. The folks who owned and operated it made enough to be able to buy an apartment building in San Francisco's Richmond District and retire. The building it was in is now a Mexican restaurant.
We have at least two other Chinese restaurants here that are more than adequate. The Oriental Express isn't exactly conducive to eating in the restaurant, but they are fast and really close so takeout works just fine. The Peacock has turned out to be the real gem. They opened in a building that was at first an independent American cuisine place, that was doing quite well until the owner died, then was a Denny's that couldn't cut it (how many times has one with a freeway location failed?), and the current operators are going like gangbusters. I haven't been disappointed yet.

After I got out of the Navy and went back to the Bay Area, I tried any number of Chinese restaurants. If I could remember the names of any but the Golden Dragon and that place across from Old St. Mary's Church on Grant Avenue.

Sometimes it's just neat to have the waiter bring out what he thinks you'll like.

was hungry when
this started
...hungry again

Read this, not the last one

Unless you're into alliteration... or reading year-old blog posts you can skip the previous post. If you've already read it ...I'm sorry.

I think I mentioned GS and I were helping at the Lions All-Star Football game yesterday, She with the ticket sales and I with parking. Unfortunately, I was too involved with issues in the parking lots [translates to car park in English English] to shoot any photos... and there were some opportunities [Darn!].

One of the disadvantages of working at an athletic contest, particularly outside of the venue, is there isn't much opportunity to see the actual contest, or, as in the case of yesterday's event, two contests. There were two games played yesterday, and eight man game, for players from the small high schools, and an eleven man game, for players from the large schools. When asked about the difference between the games, someone said that eight man is more wide open and high scoring. They may have been a little premature in that description.
The outcome of the small school game was a close win by the South Team 30 - 28 over the North Team. There was some doubt if that score would hold up.
The main event was an entirely different story. The game wasn't even as close as the final score.

As for GS and I, we had no difficulty sleeping last night.

my feet are killing me

Retro redux

Is that redundant?
In that case I should call this Redundant Retro Redux, huh?
More stuff from last year at this time because...

come up with your own answer

Retro

I went back and looked at what I posted last year on this date. The biggest changes are it's a year later and it's not Thursday.
That means, of course, I am too busy to come up with anything original and haven't any new photos.

some even applies this year, too

Don't ask me

I've no clue why during a three hour period the other day there would be 166 pageviews. I can say, however, that Buck, Craig, and my brother in law, George, are responsible for about 15% of all of the pageviews that day (Wednesday). Also, most of those viewers were not from Russia (for a change [just kidding!]).


Buck [that's two mentions so far] posted the results of a little political test the other day. I couldn't resist the temptation to take it myself. The results surprised me a little.
I always considered myself Independent, but then I guess if you aren't with either of the two major parties...


Football starts tomorrow. At least the local version of American football starts. I may give the long explanation later, but the short version is the Lions All-Star Football Game is tomorrow evening. This year it is being played at Anderson High School and our club is heavily involved. What I mean is we didn't just send money to help sponsor it.
Oh, and it isn't just one game. There are two games. There is a small schools game for those players from schools fielding eight-man teams, followed by a large schools game for players from schools with regular eleven-man teams.
We'll let you know if two games in one day at the same venue is overkill.


The good news is the local temperatures won't be in the triple digits. It will only be Sunny (95°F and below) or Hot (96°F to 99°F) for the next week.


Anyway... thanks to the total of 205 pageviews from Wedenesday, this month has greatly surpassed any other since I started doing the blog. I'm humbled [and curious].


Paesano Days is next weekend. So there won't be anything (except a community breakfast) to interfere with the enjoyment of that.

Italian sausage sandwiches

Evening sky

At sunset last night I took the opportunity to grab the camera, more to get the colors than the shapes.

clicking the images will enlarge them

Then I was distracted by this.

what a country

Does this thing work?

12:00

So... that was fun

The other day I posted about my attempt to shoot the Northern Lights (as in take their picture). Those who attend regularly know how much success I had. Depending on your monitor and browser you may have actually had more than a black square with a bright dot in the lower right corner.
It was stupid.
Just because I can just make out the outline of the trees and a bit of glow on the skyline (from the city to the north, not the Aurora), doesn't mean I should impose it on blog followers.

There, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can go right on doing what I always do.

Hey! it's better'n a poke in the eye.

click the image for the story

humor me

We have an apricot tree

This year it produced enough fruit to count with the finger of both hands...

...and they were all out of reach.

This is last year's crop

which ripened while we were away

So I decided not to tell you about yesterday's weather

It's kinda like reading Suldog's softball stories ...repetitive.
It had been reported in the local media that we might observe the Aurora Borealis Northern Lights, if we looked to the northern sky last night. It was a good night for it. There was no Moon to speak of, it was clear, and it was warm [no weather reports].
I went out on the patio with the trusty Nikon for about 45 minutes.

This is what I saw:

Maybe I was too early

...and to think this was the scene only a few months ago.

Acclimated

I didn't even think about it yesterday.
We were away from the house most of the day (from before 8am until after 3pm). When I went to the car to drive the 20 miles home, I noticed it was warm but didn't think much about it.
This morning, when I checked the Weather Service site, I found yesterday's high had reached 103°, which is about what you'd expect for this time of year around here.

but it's a dry heat

Lies ...all llies

A quick glance at the sidebar tells me none many of the other bloggers haven't been updated.
Blogger's on a roll again.

gone fishin'

Odds 'n ends

So... some of you may have noticed some activity over at the photo site, R,M & P.
I can't leave anything alone for very long if I haven't tossed it. [I almost wrote shitcanned, but decided that was inappropriate]


You've probably guessed by now that I have nothing to say (I do but can't bring myself to make it public).


Buck posted a video that reminded me how therapeutic bluegrass music is. I'll probably avoid some Leonard Cohen for a bit.


I hope the Brighton Pensioner has managed to finish all his tasks before heading off to France this morning [yes, I know it's well into the afternoon there]. He had quite a list.


Tomorrow's an all day Lions District Meeting. Behave yourselves while we're gone.

but it's only one day

Now we know

There is photographic evidence.
Click the image for credits

Yesterday

BP posted about the Olympic torch being in Brighton and to quote him, "Well, it was Hove, actually..."

I commented regarding my take on the Olympics this year. I seems for everything I see about the athletes, which is really what it's about, there are a whole lot of other things to distract us from the actual events. I'm particularly fond of the stories about anti-aircraft batteries on rooftops.

Maybe I've missed something, but two periodicals I read regularly (as soon as they hit the mailbox) have featured only the economic aspects and disruption to the local culture. Nary a word regarding athletics, except to mention the facilities will be around when the games are finished.

I thought the purpose of the games was to show how folks can come together every four years and show how well they get along. Today it seems the Olympics is more about money. Was that the case when the participants were amateurs?

Maybe the Olympic games have outlived their usefulness? I'm sure the monies spent could be better used elsewhere. I mean at best they only create part time summer jobs in the community where they take place. It's not like the athletes don't have other places to compete ...is it?

...or is team handball
something they only play
once every four years?

Why wasn't I told about this?

308.6ft BLT

been awhile since
we've done bacon here

Groundhog day?

Well, from the look of my sidebar, it appears as such. Whatever gadget blogger uses to update the posts from other blogs has failed for the moment, so everyone is stuck on Sunday ...or worse, last week (unless it was a good week, then it's not necessarily worse).

It's fixed now

We're supposed to get a break from the triple digits (Saturday's 99 wasn't really much of a break). There's even a supposition that the rain that's been bothering Washington may make a brief appearance tomorrow morning.

we'll see

Forget that last bit

Today is

National Ice Cream Day

how'd we miss that

Better late than...

So...
A year and a half* ago this was posted by a fellow blogger and friend.
I dutifully followed up with this post.
Where I have been lacking is in following up. What I mean is somehow I missed The Broad's acknowledgement (well I didn't miss it entirely... just didn't see it until Thursday). You will note she wrote it in February ...2011.

*can you hear Tony Dungy, in that incredulous tone, saying, "A year and a half?"

I can

Yeah... right

I'll get right on that

click it for the whole story

You know what today is

So I'll say nothing further about it.


Here's hoping for no example of this today:
I stole that from the Brighton Pensioner's blog [don't bother to look now, there's a new one]

Debating with myself

Would I rather post about the weather ...or
...post pictures of the daylily out front?


















Yes, that's a frog





...and here's the weather (yesterday)

More of the same today.

Oh, thank goodness

Just in case anyone is wondering why I posted about the critter yesterday, it's because I didn't feel like posting about the weather, which refuses to be ignored.

We never did reach the predicted 107°F yesterday. Depending upon whose forecast one chooses to look at today could reach even higher than that. Of course, around here in the summer there is absolutely nothing unusual about that.

What has folks disturbed is the smoke from two major fires about 100 miles southwest of here.

Bless those firefighter who go out in this heat to protect the property endangered by these fires and then scramble to surround and contain them.

good day to stay in

In case anyone's wondering

That creature, who has periodically found a place in this blog, has made the local news again.
It must be a really slow news day because there's no editorial and the paper's added only one blog post since yesterday.
Anyhow this is their story (obviously the headline writer didn't read the first half of the first sentence) or look at this map

(click to enlarge)

In the past he's been reported to have been cavorted with coyotes and devastating entire livestock herds.

huh?

An(other) Anniversary

This is another of those inspired posts. Back last month Craig (used to be Desmond), who runs in the yard next door [no not my neighbor's yard], implied I might remember some events better than others (wedding anniversaries*, for example). My first inclination was to claim that post was about the day was the most important up to that point in my life. I honestly do remember my wedding anniversaries [yeah, more than one]. This is about the one GS and I are celebrating today.

It is memorable for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was relatively spontaneous, not that we decided spontaneously to get married. We'd pretty much established that we were going to do that. It was a matter of when would we do it. We were already veterans when it comes to marriage, even to the point of having three kids (a boy and two girls each). We'd been a couple since April [Friday the 27th, okay?] 1984, eventually moving in together. Several times we were within days of making a trip to Reno to make it official, but some other event [like a Christmas or New Years party] would intervene.

On this particular occasion things were in a physical mess in the house because we'd determined the kitchen was too small, there was wasted space in the master bathroom and laundry room, and there wasn't enough space to really entertain unless we used the garage. In other words, we were remodeling. It was a huge undertaking because we added a new garage and converted the existing one to a big family room, almost a great room. We stole two feet from the laundry room and an oversize hall closet to expand the kitchen, and we opened the wall between the kitchen and family room with an archway [in a wall that supports the roof]. It was a typical July day, only warmer and there really was no way to cool the house. We were unable to prepare meals and had pretty much exhausted all of the eating out establishments. So we pretty much wanted to get out of town. That's one thing where there are plenty of options.

We can go south to either Sacramento or the San Francisco Bay Area (or further). We can go west to the coast (Eureka/Arcata) and the Redwoods [they're so big they need to be capitalized]. We can go north to Southern Oregon, which is really a lot different from Oregon. And we can go east. The relatively close places are pretty cool (and nice to visit,too), Burney Falls, the Fall River Valley, Lassen National Park, or Lake Almanor. But in this instance an opportunity presented itself that just couldn't be passed up.

A friend's wife [I guess she's a friend, too?] was leaving early Saturday morning from the Reno Airport to visit her family in Kentucky [how her destination is relevant to this story is unclear]. As soon as it became know to GS and I a light bulb lit up (figuratively). We offered to drive. Their response was, “You don't have to do that!”
“Oh, yeah, we do.” was the response. “We need witnesses.”
“Huh?”
We explained. They agreed. That's how we got married on Friday night, July 9, 1993.

Happy Anniversary dear sweet GS

*the other's sometime in February, not that it matters

So... what do you think?

Some months back Blogger decided word verification was too easy. They made a switch from made up words like this,which is a dog house for an eskimo's beagle,to a different, mostly indecipherable combination of made up words and/or numbers like this,
this,
and this,which are all a lot easier to read here than they are on the comment post pages.
Add to that the condition where some bloggers moderate comments and a commenter may find himself frustrated that the verification thingamabob keeps showing up and he is liable to find himself repeatedly wondering what's wrong with his eyesight (other than he needs glasses for distance, close, an astigmatism and double vision).

Inspired again

This time by Buck.
He wrote a post about all the autos he's had... or most of them anyway. Among those he mentioned was a 1965 Volkswagen.
That brought mind that I'd owned a 1964 VW I'd bought used in December 1965. It was the second car I ever owned, replacing a '57 Chevy Bel Air. I had that VW for almost five years until I drove it, roof first, into the ground.


It all happened innocently enough. A coworker and I had gone out for dinner after work and were returning to pick up his car. We were driving northbound in the right-hand lane on the El Camino Real across from Stanford Stadium, in fron of Palo Alto High School, approaching Embarcadero Road. In those days the speed limit was 45mph and I was using all of it. Suddenly a swifter vehicle, which I believe was a Porsche, overtook us in the middle lane and veered right, into my lane. The result of my reaction caused the VW to trip, bounce on its roof, and land upright on Embarcadero Road blocking the two eastbound lanes. The other car continued as if nothing happened. A friend, who happened to be a Palo Alto cop, suggested afterward that I could be cited for failure to negotiate a straightaway [that's funny now, not so much then].
Fortunately, my coworker and I were uninjured, except for being extremely sore the next day or two. We never did find out who was in the other car and I replaced the VW with a '69 Ford Torino GT fastback that passed everything on the road except a gas station.


The Torino was a target. It was hit in parking lots on three different occasions and also hit in a food fight at a picnic. I replaced it fairly soon with a 1969 Alfa Romeo Spyder. It was a fun car...


Unlike Buck I'm not going to go into detail about every car [I don't remember all of the details]. I will tell you that I tend to keep vehicles for a long time if they serve me well. I sold my Ford Ranger pickup after twelve years, and that was because I just couldn't justify keeping a vehicle I only drove about once a month.


None of the cars pictured are the actual cars I had, but you'd be hard pressed to know the difference

My two cents worth

The local media ...and Facebook ...are all abuzz about the fire(s) yesterday.
The first, called the "Dale" fire went from what may be a downed power line to 1200 acres in just over three hours. It's burned mostly in less inhabited areas (wildlands).


The second, whose name escaped me, burned much less area, but could have proved much more tragic. (the smoke can be seen in the foreground. the background is the larger fire's smoke)


An errand had taken me to the Redding Airport, where I was able to shoot this pictures...


...and these of a couple of "stoofs" taking off one behind the other.




Fortunately, for some anyway, the weather mostly cooperated. Temps stayed below 90. Humidity stayed above 10%. Had there been no wind, the first fire could easily have been contained. On the other hand had the wind been from the north it could have proved to be an entirely different (more tragic) story.

Then the work started

The main reason we went to the camp last Saturday was to do some cleaning.
Nothing was missed.


Having a power washer really speeds up some of the process



More photos here.

100 Things I Love About America...again

I like traditions [sometimes] and routine. What better day to continue a tradition started last year than July 4, also known as Independence Day [or that little ruckus in the colonies to the Brits]? I've made a minor format change from the original. Everything beyond this point has been here before except for the image directly below.



I'm doing something I should have done a long time ago. Lord knows there are at least one or two posts worth doing it for to with. That's right. I'm re-posting something I originally posted last year, but not on Independence Day, which would have been most propitious.
I have only done some minor editing so even those of you who've seen this before may not recognize any changes.


First, let me thank Jim "Suldog" Sullivan for planting this in my head. I'd put a link to his blog here, but there's one on the sidebar to the left and I've already promoted his blog this week anyway, along with that of the Brighton Pensioner, also on the sidebar as Pebbles, who beat this post with his own by a good 24 hours. That may be because he is already eight hours ahead. Gee, now that I think about it, Sully's four hours ahead. So if this was a race I'd be behind from the start.

Enough foolishness [sic]. Let's get underway.


I thought about this for a long time. Then I decided not to number them because some of you might think it was a ranking. Oh, and there are some places where I've listed more than one. Those are bonuses.
Then I thought further and decided I am not required to list them all at one time. I can milk this for a bunch of blog posts... a whole bunch. In fact, if push comes to shove, I can do a series of lists and make this last until next year.

That said, I begin the list in no particular order:

I can do any darn thing I want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others... and I don't get caught

It is next to Canada, where they turn everything they say into a question by saying, "Eh?" at the end. They also only do a fair job of keeping Winter where it belongs.

There are two oceans... big ones.

Aircraft carriers... they're so freakin' awesome

Cigars

Photoshop!

ESPN

The Food Network

Copy and Paste

Snopes

Bacon... no, not Kevin.

Political Correctness... it gives us something to bitch about

Places we can laugh at when we hear the name... like Cucamonga.

Alviso... see the previous line.

Pulled pork

That the history is only about 500 years, so there aren't so many dates to remember.

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, John Jacob Astor, Alexander Graham Bell, et al.

Immigration, emigration and migration, or we'd all still be on the East Coast.

Homonyms.

The Grand Canyon.

Hot dogs.

Peach pie.

So many zoos and wild animal parks.

That the buffalo isn't extinct.

Baseball

Creme brulee

Osso bucco

Memphis dry rub

Bluegrass

Jazz

Kazoos

Soft rainfall

San Francisco... warts and all

The Declaration of Independence

Bloggers... well, most of them anyway.

Delicatessens

Basque restaurants

Harry S. Truman

Costco

Libraries

Chinese food

Satire

Mountains

Ol' Glory

Diversity

Rednecks... no, I mean the real rednecks

Choice

Grape, pomegranate and jalapeno jelly

Oreos

Rubber Ducks

Convertibles

Wikipedia, Google and Bing

Open Office... 'cause it's free

Gimp2... 'cause it's free

Free stuff

Chocolate

Hartford, Connecticut

Springfield, Massachusetts

Madison, NC

Lists

The Three Stooges... all six

Who's on First

The NFL - most of the time... not so much right now

Home

600 count cotton sheets

Mexico's cultural influence... and the food!

James Fenimore Cooper, Kenneth Roberts, Richard Haliburton, Shel Silverstein and John Grisham... bet you don't see them lumped together very often

July 4th... just a wee bit more than most other days

Cheddar cheese... yeah I know it's not really from Cheddar

The Rockie Mountains

Mount Shasta... both the mountain and the town

That there are so many things I can't finish this list because I keep Googling them

Harleys

Texas isn't anywhere near California and L.A. is almost in a corner by itself

It is big... but not too big

Chocolate Ice cream

Adirondack chairs

The Coast Daylight

Trains

Golden Gate Park

Bacon! [Yeah, twice]

Zoos... rank right up there with bacon and are even more fun

Iced tea

The National Parks... I can't just pick one

Custer's Last Stand... the indians won that one

Hamburgers

Cheeseburgers

Double cheeseburgers

In-n-Out

French fries... no ketchup [or catsup], thank you

Thanksgiving

Cioppino

U.S. Highway 50 (aka The Loneliest Road in America)

Interstate 80... so we don't have to take Highway 50

Jack Benny

Lake perch

Fish and chips (see previous entry)

Real chili [has no beans]

White corn, roasted in the husk

Escargot

The Blue Angels

Calamari

The tiny heads on my sidebar

- and the lovely lady who occasionally comments (aka Grandma Skip)

That's gotta be at least a hundred. Now if I were nefarious, I would post these one at a time. That would carry carry me through to the end of the year because I would have to interject other posts occasionally.

Unnumbered for
the benefit of those
who want to see if
I may have cheated

Thunder Moon

Well, that's what the Farmers' Almanac is calling it. Actually it was full a few hours earlier, but for some fairly apparent reasons not visible here in the Far West.
Of course, the only reason there is even a picture here is because I was experimenting again.





Click on the image to the right to get the full effect

only took six attempts