My Momma Didn’t Raise No Smart Kids

What’re some of momma’s first rules?

• Don’t pick your nose in public
• Always wear clean underwear

and

• Dress warm when it is cold out (!)

I know this.  I know I know this.  (As I try to move my desktop mouse and expect my laptop pointer to respond… jeez.)  But would you know I know this to look at me?  NO  (or KNOW!)

I blearily peer at the outside temperature gauge and make out what appears to be 40F.  But it really doesn’t feel too bad as I test the air when I let the dogs out.  (But that is also what I always say.)  It feels a warm 40F compared to the frigid 38F last week.

I have three choices of clothes for my morning walk.  The thick 2 layered workout pants.  Great for cold mornings.  Better with thick fleece underneath for those 18F mornings.  I have single layered workout pants for those nippy mornings that aren’t too cold.  And I have shorts for these upcoming HOT summer months.

My choice this morning is between the thick and heavy 2 layered pants or the shorts.  The single layered pants are currently on the cold cement floor in the garage covered in grease.  So what do I decide?  Come on, take a wild guess…

The SHORTS!!!

In actuality it wasn’t too bad.  The trail was still dark this morning.  The sky has the faintest hint of black turning blue color with the branches a dark black against this.  The birds are beginning their morning songs.  It is nice to hear them out and singing since it has been lacking over the winter.  The rabbits are stirring around.  Though I still haven’t seen as many of them as I did before the big flood.

Right, back to the shorts.  The couple of mini hill climbs at the start of the trail warm me up and there isn’t much fallout from wearing the shorts.  It’s when I reach the end of the trail and head back that I realize my decision making skills are sometimes lacking.

On the way back I am just on the wrong side of the wind.  The front of the legs are downright chilly compared to the backs.  I have to tuck my head down a little more to reduce the breeze.  And I’ll be bamboozled but I do believe the temperature has dropped a little more with the sun coming up.  It is possible.  Our high today is expected to reach 43F.  Not much different then that readout this morning.  Of course, if it did drop a minute ago it will have more room to climb.

My morning trail buddies notice the shorts and always have something to say.  We chat briefly and do agree that the second time out of the house is a better indicator of how cold that temperature really is, not the first.  And that sometimes 40F can feel cold or warm.  Today it was mostly warm. 

Oh…and sometimes I’m even known to run with scissors.  <gasp> 

Project 365

I’ve seen reference in a couple of different places now about this Project 365.  The idea is to carry your camera everywhere and document something interesting each day of your life for a year.  It seems to be meant as a way to chronicle your year, whether you image a new person you have met, a new adventure you have undertaken, a new haircut or a new perspective of something old, near and dear to your heart.

The hopes of it seem to be a way to highlight what is important in your life, how you view the world, sharing personal insights and learning more about photography.

I realize that I am a little late in starting this on the 20th of January.  But I just learned of this idea a couple days ago.  Even though I have taken pictures this year I haven’t decided if I want to post anything up from the sparse days that I have brought the camera along on my adventures.  Or just wipe the slate clean and start from the here-and-now.

One of my regular self-criticisms is not taking the time to stop and pull the camera out.  To document something I find interesting because it is too much of a hassle to unpack the camera.  Or better yet, that I didn’t even bring the camera.  So hopefully this will make me a little less forgetful and a little more assertive and take the time to take the pictures that I want to take.

My biggest obstacle in pondering this assignment is the mundaneness of my life at times.  I mean, if this should embody the events of my day, how exciting are 100 pictures of my office going to be??  Or how interesting will you find 100 images of the morning trail going to be?  I’m going to have to be creative at times to come up with something interesting.

I am hoping to post at least once a week.  So…here are my first three days.

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Jan 22, 2010
The first BBQ of the season!!  Here’s to many more this year.

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Jan 21, 2010
Mud, mud and more mud!!The disheartening part is the squelching sound as you open the back door and she tries to anticipate which door you will open. And it doesn’t matter if you head towards the one she is moving towards. She will still turn around at least once. We’ve resorted to washing the paws. Now just imagine the mud covering the paws, up the legs and even onto the underbelly of the beast!

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Jan 20, 2010
Decided to ride to Coffee & Chat despite the rain forecasts. It has been a while since the meetup has been on our side of town. We felt it our duty to go and encourage more people to attend or encourage them to have the meeting here more often.

Apocalypse 2010

Apparently the Apocalypse is coming to the South TODAY!  Did you know that?

Our “unseasonably” low temps this week have been accompanied by very low humidity.  Such a blessing.  But the “forecasters” have been predicting the snow and ice to arrive today for the last week.  Five days ago we were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow.  Two days ago it was down to 1 inch accumulation.  Yesterday it was down to half an inch.

But it is too late.  The panic and paranoia have already been stirred up.  And I believe it is the news’ fault, shouting doom and gloom.

They were already announcing school closures yesterday.  The radio station I was listening to was also announcing afternoon closures for its office.  They had even rented hotel rooms nearby already for the on-air personalities.  The markets have been mobbed of staples.  People are already making arrangements to work from home or take PTO.

Forecasts today have now postponed the storms arrival.  It was supposed to hit mid-afternoon.  Now it is supposed to begin approaching at 5 PM with the “snow” arriving around 8 PM.

What about all those closures now??  Dweebs.

This same thing happened in early 2001.  Huge predictions came for terrible and severe weather.  Businesses shut down for two days in anticipation.  But it never came.  So when everyone HAD to get back to work as normal is when the debilitating weather came.  And people just had to deal with it.  And they dealt with it quite poorly I will add.

So…here is to my hope (and expectation) that it will not be nearly as bad as anticipated.  We are already off to a better start with 25 degrees at 6 AM instead of the 18 degrees we have been stuck with the last 3 days.  The daytime temp should reach 40 degrees today.  Much higher then the reality of 33 degree highs the last two days.

Please keep your eyes on the news.  Just in case Hellanta freezes over I think the outside world should be aware of what happened.  ;-)  If anything exciting does happen I will take pictures and post if connectivity to the outside world is still intact.

You know it’s cold when…

…or Stalagmites growing on the north side of the house.

Our slothfulness became glaringly evident today.  I was confronted by this closing the house up today.

This year we haven’t bothered to remove the little Styrofoam spigot cover from the front of the house.  Conversely, we hadn’t bothered to replace the Styrofoam cover on the rear spigot when the temps plummeted last week.  Even though the stupid little thing was sitting on the ground two feet away.  Exactly where it had been discarded months ago when it had been removed.  Because we obviously can’t be bothered to put things away anymore.  Too much work.

So our 18° nightly temps are having some effect.  This pipe and the water pipes for the washing machine are in the same outside wall.  Last year we applied the spigot cover properly.  So no worries.  The worry came when the cold water pipe to the washing machine froze.  We held our breath and brought in a little space heater to thaw the wall/pipe.  And the temps soon increased and we didn’t have to worry.  See, there isn’t much insulation in that wall, and it would be quite a bit of work to take it apart and remedy that.

So I have been keeping a keen eye on that room.  Each morning I get up and turn the washing machine on quickly to see if the water is flowing.  At night I try to run a load through the washer and run the dryer to heat the room up a little.

The temps are holding there own for now and seem safe enough.  So what happened outside?  Don’t know.   I knocked the stalagmite away.  Doused the spigot with hot water.  Held my breath and opened it up.  I was just hoping the pipe wasn’t broken and I was unleashing another flood inside the house.  Water flowed unimpeded.  Good news.

Once I could breath easily I grabbed the big camera and took some fun shots.  I particularly like the weeds and air bubbles caught in the bottom.  Yes, the ice block was basically solid.  No, it didn’t melt one iota today.  Ok. I didn’t exactly measure it, but the ridges of paneling were almost as sharp as they were this morning.  I think our high today was 33°.  At least there isn’t any precipitation.  (Other then the darn faucet.)  The snow and ice should come on Thursday…

Cutest Little Thief

We have a thief in our midst.  Incredibly the pups have been so good for years.  Yes, there are infractions every once-in-a-while, but overall they have been supremely good.  We’ve never had issues with counter surfing or sandwich snacking that others have.  It sure isn’t like they haven’t had opportunities either.

MotMS isn’t the best at putting his snacks away.  You can look around the living room on any given day and see an open bag of tortilla chips or saltines or some chocolate do-dad.  Most of the time I catch it and swoop them to a higher surface.  Sometimes something slips through.  And still, most times it is undisturbed for the first day or two.  It is when you actually notice something, decide it is okay because it has been there for a couple of days that they finally decide eminent domain has kicked in and they swipe it.

So it was quite surprising to us that we walk in the door and see little, empty Hershey kiss wrappers on the floor.  Now, MotMS swore he put his kiss container in the kitchen.  Not likely since it is clearly on the sofa table.  At least these are milk chocolate and shouldn’t hurt the pup that snacked on them.

You rarely get to catch them in the act, but I wish I had my camera handy a couple days later.  I’m getting out of the shower and hear a distant tupperware thunk.  I look down the hall and see my little baby sneaking back to her bed with a little hershey kiss swinging from her little front teeth.

I make an outraged noise of some kind and plunk, she immediately drops it and walks away.  I survey the scene and see that she had managed to snake one and eat it already.  This was just her second one.

I swipe the container that MotMS has left out again and put it up higher.  I deposit the slimy one in a used bowl.  Which is managed to snake later in the day.  This is one little pup that definitely takes after her mommy.

I wasn’t able to get a shot of her in the act.  But I could catch her guilty face over the one she did manage to eat.

Snoring in 2010

Happy New Year!!

You are getting a recycled image because I will be nestled in my bed with my feather comforter snuggled up to my ears asleep as 2009 tip toes out and 2010 comes screaming in.

So we wish you safety in your party of choice this evening.  And wish you many blessings and happiness in the New Year!!

Just wanted to share some firework photos from my friend DaviMack, taken in Glascow.  He has more wonderful photos here.

Fort Jackson

cont’d from Savannah trip…

No rest for the wicked.  Attended a wonderful party on Friday night a couple hours after arrival.  Had just enough time to rest a little and make the cookies for the cookie party on the morrow.

Saturday was reserved for party, party, party.  Literally.  Attended an annual cookie party hosted by a wonderful neighborhood couple.  Had the chance to meet many neighbors and chat.  Then took off for a party at Jesse Blanco’s, a local evening news caster.  Some were expecting the Salsa dancing to give them a warm-up for the dancing festivities even later in the evening.

We munched some wonderful Cuban rice, bean and pork dishes.  And washed it down with a little Sangria.  But the salsa was taking longer to start, so we grabbed additional friends and headed for downtown.

We were expecting to go to some happening club.  But the party attendance drastically declined in numbers and we just looked for someplace with live music.  We found it, but it sure wasn’t that happening.

While there G ran into yet more friends.  Have you figured out that Savannah is actually a fairly small town.  So we dropped some friends off, picked some new ones up and headed to yet another bar with live music.  I appointed myself drink watcher and just let everyone else dance.  Enough said.  Sunday was late, slow and quiet.

Monday called for some alone time since G had to work.  So I kicked it around on my own with the camera and tripod.  First stop: Fort Jackson.  Click here to see all the fort pictures.

Do you know how many forts are around Savannah?  Neither do I.  But it sure is alot!  I really enjoyed climbing around the fort.  And it is just one of several along the river, nicely restored.

There is obviously good access to the river.  This has to be dredged on a regular basis.  So some areas are quite shallow.

If you understood the dredging reference, you would have realized that this is a highly used waterway with large shipping containers coming through very often.  The size of these things dwarf  downtown buildings.

And there are always fun things to look at inside the fort.

** Merry Christmas **

May the stars be bright and guide you on your journey

Cleansing the Southeast

It actually rained when they said it was going to rain!  So hard to believe.  Planned another trip to Savannah and took off on the biggest rain day of the year. 

It rained as I loaded the truck.  It rained as I eeked my way out of town.  It rained and rained and rained.

An hour and a half southeast from home the temps were a frigid 37 degrees.  37 nearing middle Georgia at 11:30 in the afternoon?!?!

Besides the people driving 65 mph with their flashers on (I still haven’t figured out why…) there were some other strange sites.

Five minutes didn’t go by that the windshield wipers weren’t on during the 5 1/2 hour trip.  The last 40 miles were particularly difficult driving with the windshield wipers on their highest setting.  The minor problem was not being able to see the semi’s with all of the water falling and being kicked up.

The major problem was the tiny, front wheel drive vehicles wanting to fly 80 mph down the road without their lights on in this driving rain.  They were impossible to see.  I just hoped none would hydroplane nearby.

It seems that some people were not so fortunate.  Someone probably did something stupid.  And the ground was so saturated that as soon as the tires entered the shoulder there was no chance to control it any longer.

The drive was mostly uneventful.  I followed the roads less traveled.  Only encountered people and traffic approaching Savannah.  And only had to pop the truck into four wheel drive once when I pulled over to the shoulder on an off ramp to secure the gps.  I know darn well how saturated the ground was. 

Catsup…

or is it Catch Up??

I didn’t want to bore everyone with the gory riding details.  Those stories have been relegated to the loveofamotorbike blog.  But if you are interested, please check them out:

We attempted a sunrise run to Cherohala.  Only to realize that you have to get up very, very early in the  morning to attempt a sunrise run on the vernal equinox and that the weather here does not have to be like the weather there.  We didn’t see sunrise.  We didn’t even get to Cherohala due to the rain that was not in the forecast.  We did manage to have some fun.

Click image to see all trip photos

A week later, we tried for Cherohala again, just not for sunrise this time.  We made it, the weather was perfect and we took the time for some photo ops.  View the ride report and pictures here.

Click image to see trip photos

We have taken a couple rides to a famous farm and food house, Dillard Inn in Dillard, GA.  Here are a couple pictures and write up.

Click image to see trip photos

I attended a great Tech Session to learn how to perform valve adjustments on my bike.  Learned lots.  Here are some pictures of what the inside of the boxer engine looks like.

Click image to see trip photos

Wow.  There are more, you are just going to have to go to the other website or wait until I can put them up here.

Oh Yeah.  MotMS finally purchased a real bike.