Snow . . . . .

Gout!

Yup, I've got gout. I thought that was an old man's affliction. Ok, I'm getting older, but I thought it for folks older than I. Visited my doctor this morning and he examined my foot and pronounced it gout. He prescribed a med and a pain killer for it. I've taken the med and only one of the pain killers and the start of the treatment has definitely helped. The gout attack was centered in my right ankle. Painful. Ok, enough. ■ Worked today and hobbled around on 2 canes. Not pleasant, but workable. ■ Tomorrow Bullfrog has a gig at a bar in Round Lake Park, Illinois. It's not too bad of a drive, but it starts late - at 10:00 pm. We play until 2:00 am, breakdown, loadout and drive home. That means I won't get to bed until 3:30 am. That's later than I want to gig, but it's a bar with a late crowd. ■ Time for bed. I've got to give a guitar lesson tomorrow at 9:30 am. ■

Thanksgiving

It's been a nice day. Our daughter and boyfriend arrived last night after a 6 hour drive from Louisville. This morning we slept in a little which was nice. ■ Turkey: I started the grill this morning and put the 12lb bird on to slowly smoke and cook. It turned out very well. ■ We went to the home of one of our good friends for Thanksgiving dinner. Everything was delicious. There were 2 turkeys and 1 turkey breast. I smoked one of the turkeys; Terry deep fried the other turkey; and the turkey breast was done in the oven. More food than you can imagine! ■ Foot: I'm beginning to think that maybe I've got gout in my right ankle. The ankle throbs while I'm sitting and I've got to use a cane to help me get around. Tomorrow morning I'm going to the doctor's office and see if I can get in. This has just been getting worse since Monday when it started. ■ Off to dreamland now. . . . . .

Wolves hockey . . . . . .

Went to a Wolves hockey game tonight. It was lots of fun to watch. Unfortunately the Wolves were losing when we left. ■ I've had a problem with my ankles for the last couple of days - especially with my right ankle. Both hurt when walking. Just another O.M. thing, I guess. ■ Time for bed. It's late. ■

Posts? Where have I been?

I see I haven't posted anything in almost a week! I've been tied up trying to get this pc back in working order. ■ Last Friday Bullfrog's gig was cancelled. The bar/restaurant we were to play at lost their liquor license. No license - no customers - no band - and no reason to keep the doors open. ■ Had a rather relaxing weekend. Watched a movie on Saturday night. Sunday watched football and had brats on the grill. That's the entire crowd watching the Bears win one. ■ Holly took a brat and a bun to work with her this morning. Well, the brat made it. Zoe went in her briefcase and took the bun. She didn't know it until she got to work. Ooo, Zoe, mom's a little ticked at you. ■ And we had snow on the ground this morning. Nothing that stuck around very long, but here comes the start of old man winter. Brrrr. ■ Zoe had her annual appointment at the vet this morning. She's healthy, not overweight, and has all her shots. All for $121.00. Mollie's appointment is in January. ■ Tomorrow night Holly and I will go to a Wolve's hockey game. Should be fun. ■ Time for bed. Goodnight.

Home

Home, sweet, home . . . . . isn't that it? We all love our homes. This is a photo of the welcome sign above the doorway to our hall. It was given to us by our very good (and old - not meaning that they're actually old - just friends from long ago) friends for our new house. Well, it was new to us in, I think, 1986. The sign has been up above that door for 20 something years and it means a lot to us. ■ Time for bed . . . . . . .

Almost back . . . . . .

I think I'm almost back - pc-wise. It's been a rough 10 days of pc h???. The one thing I think I have to do yet is buy a new scanner. The printer that came with the pc is a multifunction printer - prints, copies, scans, but I think the scanning is coarser than I want. Bummer. ■ The drawing to the left is a very quick sketch of an old home that I have to draw. I have to do a quick pencil sketch of it tomorrow (that one was scratched out with a marker.) I have six photos of the home, but each one only shows a small portion of the house and I have to come up with what I think the structure looked like years ago. This one is a challenge. Sort of like giving someone 6 pictures of a person's face - but each photo shows different parts of the face from different distances and angles. Now try and draw the person! ■ More tomorrow.

It doesn't look as good as the girls do!

The Bears are losing big time.

It's packed!

The party is packed with people.

At the party. . .

We're at the party. Bullfrog already played for the pregame. Now
it's time for the game. Go Bears!

PC up and running??? Cross your fingers . . . .

A few days ago I thought I had my pc up and running again. Boy was I wrong. It's been a full week since it ran correctly. But, I think (cross my fingers) that it's back working again. What was the problem? I think a virus, but I could never confirm it. At any rate after struggling with it for a week - booting and rebooting in normal mode - booting and rebooting in safe mode - trying all sorts of stuff - I ended up using HP's recovery method - which is drastic, but it works. What is it? In short when you buy your HP pc you're instructed to make a set of recovery disks. These contain all the software and settings that you had on the hard drive when you purchased the pc. What the recovery process does is to format your hard drive - and yes, you lose everything - and then reinstall the operating system, drivers, etc. which puts the pc back into the shape it was in when you bought it. Drastic, but it appears to work. ■ But it's still not over. I still have software to install and data files to copy from an old backup. Still a few more hours of work to do. ■ Tomorrow Bullfrog has a gig at a private Bears-Packer party. It's an annual event that the band has played at for the past 4 or 5 years. It's a lot of fun. I'll see if I can't do a few posts from there tomorrow. ■ And I suppose you're wondering what the blog picture is of . . . . . . . . it's of a crystal that contains a frog in a swamp. It sits on a rotating, lighted mirrow. It's pretty neat. ♫

PC up and running again . . . . .

My pc has been down for the past few days. I think it's back up and running . . . . I certainly hope so. ■ The drawing above is of a home in Kentucky. Since my pc has been down the only way I could capture a digital image is by taking a photo of it. Scans work much better. Now if I could only get my old scanner to work! ■

It's hard to call these shrimp!

'Cause they're so big! These are shrimp from the gulf. Just huge. And what you're seeing is only a small portion of what our friends brought back from their trip to Louisiana and Mississippi. These we ate with a little cocktail sauce. The remainder went in the fryer. They were delicious. ■ Tomorrow I'm making chili and smoking ribs accompanied with a couple of beers and the Bear's game. Maybe a post of two from the cooking front tomorrow . . . . . . .

$2 - half pound burgers . . . . . . need I say more???

Had a gig tonight at The Gambler in McHenry, IL. It was a great gig. Lots of people and they stayed the whole night. And that's good for the bar owner. In fact the owner talked with us and told us how much he liked the band. ■ We had dinner at The Gambler with Hank and Lois. They have $2 half-pound burgers. What a deal. ■ Ok, enough for tonight - or should I say this morning. It's 2:20 am and I'm off to bed.

Old radios. The one to the left is similar to the one I used to listen to the radio stations WLS, WCFL, WVON & WGN on. I think it was my grandparent's (on my mother's side) radio. You had to turn a knob to turn the dial and tune in the station you wanted. I got so I could easily turn the knob to go between WLS and WCFL without looking. Memories . . . . . I'm sure that radio was probably thrown out at some point. Wish I had it now. ■ The weather has turned towards cold. I was told that it was snowing out west and that it is headed our way. I'll have to check our weather forecast. . . . . and I just did. A chance of snow showers tomorrow and Saturday. Burrrr. I don't think I'm ready for that. ■ So, does anyone else remember those old radios?

What! No picture?

No picture today. I always like putting a picture in my blog. Makes it more interesting, I think. ■ I got on my John Deere today and ran over the leaves in the yard to mulch them. When I finished it didn't look as if I'd done anything. The wind was blowing and there were just as many leaves on the lawn then as there were before I started. ■ Driving home tonight from work I listened to Dick Biondi on an oldies station. I used to listen to him when I was in high school. He's still on the air! ■ Bullfrog has a gig on Friday night; Saturday we're going to the Murphy's for a fish and shrimp dinner - home cooked with fish and shrimp from the gulf coast. Sunday we're free and I'm going to do ribs. Time for bed. . . . . . . . . . . .... . . . ... . . . .. . . . .. . . . .

Fall - warm temps and leaves . . . . . .

It's fall. The leaves have been turning - making this season beautiful . . . but they're also aching to be raked, or in my case, run over by my Deere with the mulching blade. Sounds much better with the "beautiful" part. ■ It was warm today. Must have been around 70+. I got outside for a bit and picked up "stuff." I guess Joe Walsh's lyrics would say it best from his song "Ordinary Average Guy." ■ Returned a call to a bar that is interested in having Bullfrog play there. We'll see what happens. ■ Went and voted this morning around 10:00. Quick and easy. ■ Got to get to bed now. Love to all. ■

Ok . . . . . this is just too good to pass up . . . . . .

Yeah, what the heck is this? It's my neighbor, Jac, with one of his inventions. I'm not sure how many inventions he's had, but actually this one is pretty good. And now you're asking "just what is his invention?" --- and that's for another post . . . . . stay tuned - as they say . . . . . ■ It was a beautiful day today. Warm, or at least warm for this time of year. I did cut the grass and thus mulch the leaves. Much easier to do that than rake the things. ■ Had a gig on Halloween. We played in a place where we had so little room to setup that I elected to not bring in a mic stand, or guitar stand. There just wasn't room. The gig was fine and we made new friends. ■ Had a couple of brews tonight with my neighbors - yes, including the inventor too, and cooked some burgers, brats, and chicken on the grill. I did forget to take my nightly meds, which is why I'm writing this at 12:23 in the morning! I should be fast asleep. Well, I will be soon, since I just took it now. ■

Ooo, another new toy!

Yes, another new toy on my iphone. This one lets me make photo collages from pictures on my iphone and then save those results - like the one above. You can resize the photos, turn them any-which-way, and bring them to the front, or back. You can even draw on them. ■ Had a gig last night - on halloween. We were really crammed into a small space. I decided that there wasn't enough room for my mic stand, so I left it in the car. And we only used one monitor (usually we use 2). I also left my guitar stand in the car and just put my guitar in its case between sets. Talked about trying to setup in a small space! ■ We are hosting cribbage tonight. Holly's downstairs giving the rooms there a cleaning. I'm installing antivirus software on her pc and writing this blog entry. I know it doesn't seem fair, but I've got a gout attack on my left foot and it's kind of hard to walk. ■ In another 1/2 hour I'll have to run and get ice. Our icemaker appears to be non-functioning. Ah, great. Another unexpected expense coming up. ■ I'll also have to start the fire for smoking some salmon, which we're having for cribbage. ■ All for now. . . . . . . . .