I’ve thought of posting every day, but . . .

I haven’t done it.  Bad me.  ■  It’s been cold.  That’s with a CAPITAL “C” – it’s –5 degrees right now.  Too cold.  ■  Way too cold.  It’s –5 degrees.  Too cold for me; too cold for you.   ■  TFB.  Yup.  ‘Night.  ■

It’s so delicious . . . . .

. . .. yes it is.  It’s turkey breast smoked in a low and slow grill.  It’s good.  That’s what we cooked on Sunday night. Had it for lunch today too.  ■  I’ve got to remember to refill the wood chips in my smoking bucket.  Getting down to enough for maybe one more fire.  ■  Abby is very watchful over Zoe.  When Abby wants to go out she doesn’t want to leave Zoe inside, and usually sits and waits for Zoe to get off their couch (yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s “their” couch now.)  If Abby does go out first shell wait at the top of the patio until Zoe actually makes it outside.  ■  TFB.

It’s cold outside .. . . . . . ….

 

I started this post early this morning.

I know it’s winter, but it’s cold outside.  Got down to -11° last night.  It’s now a balmy -3°.  Burrrrrrr.  Have a couple of places I need to go, but no rush.  I think I can put them off until tomorrow when it’ll be a little warmer.  ■ 

Now I’m picking it up here = much later at night.  ■  Watched Young Guns I and II tonight.  Didn’t finish YG II.  They were/are good movies.  Of course I’m partial to westerns.  That’s what we watched when we were kids.  Do you remember “Wanted Dead, or Alive”, “Bonanza”, “Gunsmoke”, “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid”, etc.  That’s what we grew up on.  “The Rifleman”, “The Lone Ranger”, “Roy Rodgers”, “Fury”, “Circus Boy” (ok, who remembers Circus Boy?)  I do.  And the list goes on and on.  “The Cisco Kid”, “Rawhide”, “Sky King” – ok, Sky King wasn’t  a western, but it did take place out west.  ■  I can hear Abby snoring in our room next door.  It is time-for-bed (TFB).  ‘Night.  ■

Interesting stuff . . . . .

I’m a big reader of Reddit.  Lots of interesting stuff on there and a great site to search for information on things.  Today I happened to read a post on on their askreddit subdirectory and found out things like (shortening things up here):  Neutrogena Facial Soap out of the pump container cleans out stains on everything.  Works better than most laundry products.  Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are just melamine sponges.  Peanut butter gets gum out of your hair.  Hydrogen peroxide will clean bloodstains out of fabric. 

More snow . . . . .

More snow . . . . well, what do expect in February in Cary?

Yup, more snow, but it is February in Cary.  ■  Making some progress on my office – at last.  Still quite a bit to go.  ■  I ordered car mats for my CRV from WeatherTech and they arrived today.  Got to put ‘em in my car, but first I want to vacuum the front of the car where they’re going.  Pretty fast service – ordered on Saturday, Jan 31st and they arrived this afternoon – February 3rd.  It appears that they don’t make the mats until you order them.  Yeah, pretty fast service.  ■  And one more picture for Roxanne and Bob.  I know you two miss this!  ■

A lot of snow . . . . .

As you can tell, we got a lot of snow.  Not sure how many inches, but quite a few.  They closed the schools today and garbage pickup either.  ■  Our across-the-street neighbor, Jac, has tirelessly used his snow-blower to clear not only his driveway, but also ours and our next door neighbor’s driveway as well.  Thanks, Jac.  ■  And Holly just told me that O'Hare airport reported 19” of the white stuff.  ■  It’s rather cold out ----  7 ° (not –7), but cold enough.  It looks like a cold spell for a few days and then starting to warm up by the weekend.  ■  I’ve been in the process of updating a few pieces of software that I use to new versions.  Takes time to download and install the programs.  ■  Still working on getting my office organized, but I think I’ve lost ground over the past few days.  Not good.  It’s hard to throw things away.  ■  Need to organize my stuff for taxes. Should be pretty simple this year as I’ve had few orders.  I haven’t worked on my website for probably 3 years and my rankings in search engines have gone down.  That’s yet another think on my plate that needs to be done – update my website.  ■  Just about time for bed.  ‘Night.  ■

Super Bowl Party

Due to the 16 inches of snow (that’s a guess), one super bowl party was cancelled and we hosted one.  Ours was small.  Our son at 6’1’ or ‘2 was the tallest person.  Holly, maybe the smallest – no, wait – the smallest was Michael at about 22” (yet another guess.)  ■  The picture you see here is of the snack football field that Jac made.  Unbeliveable.  Goal posts out of slim jims, grass done with guacomole, yard lines with some kind of cheese, and two rows of spectators done with chips.  It was really cool.  ■  We think the Seahawks blew it with their lame pass attempt.  Why not run it?  Pass attempt opens possible interception.  Which happened.  Blame the loss on the manager.  It was not the play any of us in our family room would have called.  Bummer.  We were rooting for the Seahawks.  ■  All of our local schools are closed tomorrow.  Too much snow.  Probably a good idea as the busses on the country routes could have major problems with snow drifts.  Better safe than sorry.  ■ 

Snow, wind, and guitars …..

Nice map of the wind in the USA.  Would have loved to have had this when I took a meteorology course in college.  40 years too late.  ■  I’m in the process of cleaning and organizing my office.  It’s taking longer than I had thought.  One of the steps was to see if I could get all of my guitars, basses, ukes, etc in my office closet.  Nope, but close.  ■  It’s snowing out, but it appears that we’ll only get about an inch.  That’ll be nice.  I really don’t want to have to get out my neighbor’s snow blower.  If it’s only an inch and not heavy then I can do it with a shovel.  ■  Got to go for a blood test tomorrow for the doctor.  So fasting is the order for the rest of the night.  ■ 

Last attempt at people . . . .

This is my last attempt at painting people.  It was a cute photo of our neighbor feeding her grandson, so I thought I’d give it a shot.  ■  It’s almost 4:00 am and I’m up; on my pc blogging with Zoe in my office wanting more biscuits.  And she’s vocal about it…making noises to get my attention; looking at me with pleading eyes.  Ok, I just gave her another biscuit.  ■  The upcoming new version of Windows (Windows 10) along with holography is sounding pretty neat.  Technology moves very quickly.  I wish I were going to be around for the next 50 years to see it.  ■  Band practice was cancelled last night due to illness of one of our members.  ■  Today will be office cleaning/organization day.  I’m going to try and get all of my guitars to fit in my office closet.  I don’t think it’s going to work, but I’m going to try.  I’m also setting up a space to do music recording.  ■  Time either to get back to bed, or feed the dogs and then get back to bed.  ■  Goodnight/good morning . . .. .

Yet another attempt at painting people . . .

Getting proportions right is always difficult – maybe impossible for me. Or at least impossible at this point.  Practice, practice, practice.  ■  Band practice tonight.  I’ve got to attempt to organize the basement practice area.  To say it’s a disaster is understating its condition.  ■ 

Maggie Byrd & I playing lapsteel . . . . .

This is my third painting.  It’s Maggie Byrd and I playing lapsteel in our dining room turned into a temporary relaxing reading/playing lapsteel room.  I worked for hours and hours on this.  A true labor of love.  ■  Took my car and dropped it off to get a whole new exhaust system put on.  $1200 for it, but at least it’s cheaper than a car payment.  ■  Tomorrow the band gets together again for another go at it.  I’ve got massive cleaning/organizing to do down the basement before we can practice.  ■ 

Rosemary . . . . .

My attempt at drawing Rosemary out in the snow.  This is probably the best face I’ve done.  Faces are hard to do and get right.  ■  My car is having $1200 worth of work done on it tomorrow.  At least it’s less expensive than having a car payment.  ■ 

Digital painting . . . . .

I thought this year – ok, last year (Christmas, 2014) that I’d attempt some digital painting.  I’ve done my Abby & Zoe cards, but never tried to do something serious.  I’m terrible at people/faces, etc., but painting something digitally gives one the opportunity to erase, or paint over areas with ease.  Even though you’re painting over ‘mistakes’, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to make mistakes with your ‘corrections’.  Kudos to the folks that can really paint and have the painting of the person actually look like that person.  That’s really tough.  At any rate I did a total of five paintings.  The one above is the first one and it’s of Rosemary and Maggie Byrd – their first time in snow.  The green tennis ball (yes, it’s a tennis ball) is for Beau, their dog who has a never ending game of “throw the ball and I’ll bring it back.”  ■  I’ll post the other four in my posts here over the next few days.  ■

Headaches . . . . .

I still get headaches everyday.  Not bad, but they’re there everyday.  I’m reading a blog post about someone who gets HEADACHES every day, but really bad headaches.  Mine are not even noticeable compared to his.  Here’s the link to the article:  http://blog.longreads.com/2015/01/13/a-meditation-on-pain/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

First post of the new year - 2015

First post of the new year is one of the grandchildren and Grandma taken a few days after Christmas, 2014.  It’s a tad blurry – sorry for the potatoe-quality.  ■  It’s coooold out.  6 ° right now.  Wednesday and Thursday it’ll hit –10 and –14 degrees.  Burrrrr.  ■  Trying to get my office back  in some kind of organized shape.  It needs help.  ■  Short post, but it’s late and it’s time for bed.  ‘Night.  ■