Monday, February 28, 2022

A French Country Bread

Earlier today Becky made a French country bread while I was in bed recovering from a 24 hour virus. I was sleeping most of the day and she was in the kitchen making another wonderful loaf of bread.

The bread was actually called Pain de Campagne which is a traditional round country bread that is a mealtime staple in French homes. The recipe was in one of Becky's recent additions to her collection of cookbooks America's Test Kitchen Bread Illustrated. It is a wonderful book full of amazing recipes. We regularly watch their show on one of the several cooking shows we get on Sling TV. 

It was also a wonderful bread that I had this morning. I first had a piece plain and then one toasted with fruit jam. It was very good and I'm looking forward to having more of it over the next several days.





Sunday, February 27, 2022

Brit Box... Crime Shows

In mid-January we began a subscription to Brit Box that was part of our recently changing up our streaming services. Becky has always loved the British crime dramas and watched a lot of them on PBS but now she had a whole channel focused on them.

There are quite a few shows that I'm interested in watching when I have the time.

She has been watching several crime series on Brit Box including and probably a few more.

  • Shetland
  • McDonald & Dobbs
  • Crime
  • The Bay

She also watched the Bleak House series from 1985

Here It Comes - Songs 1972 FV

This is the last of the mixes of songs from albums in my collection released in 1972... well, at least for now. An hour and a half as usual. This is part of my Final Version series of mixes. 

Some rock, some funk, some progressive rock, some folk rock, etc. A nice varied collection of music from 1972.

The Strawbs in the photo.

Here It Comes - Songs 1972 FV

  1. Here It Comes - Strawbs       
  2. Kiev - Renaissance      
  3. Jack Diamond - String Driven Thing  
  4. You Don't Even Know Me - Al Stewart        
  5. Back in Bahia - Gilberto Gil    
  6. Suavecito - Malo
  7. Way Queen - Jade Warrior
  8. September 13 - Deodato        
  9. Song Of The Wind - Santana 
  10. You've Got To Change (You've Got To Reform) - The Meters    
  11. Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard - Paul Simon      
  12. Dialogue (Part I & III) - Chicago        
  13. Baby Strange - T.Rex  
  14. I Got A Bag Of My Own - James Brown      
  15. Loose Booty - Funkadelic       
  16. Little Child Runnin' Wild - Curtis Mayfield    
  17. Wanaoh - Black Heat   
  18. Slippin' Into Darkness - Ramsey Lewis Trio 
  19. Git It All - Mandrill 
  20. Pop That Thing - The Isley Brothers        

The Backs of the Family

Sometime in the mid 1980's I took some pictures at a family gathering at my sister Betsy's house. Everyone was there but when the pictures came back from processing a lot of people around the house had their backs to the camera. I probably just walked through the house snapping photos with my camera. When that role of film was processed that envelope of photos became a joke. The amusement over those pictures turned into a family practical joke... on me.

Later that year I received a gift package with a little book of photos. It was a collection of family portraits but of all our family members besides me posed in Betsy's house with their backs to the camera.

The first was Rita and Scott, then Betsy, Joe, Sara and Chris, followed by Cathy, Phil, Eric and Brian. Then there were two single photos. One of Tom wearing his Oklahoma jacket and then one of Dan. The last one was my favorite. Mom-Mom and Mom.

I came across the little photo book while clearing out a book shelf. I certainly hadn't looked at those back pictures in decades. I then posted them to our sibling phone text chat group with lots of funny responses including some "back" puns.















Saturday, February 26, 2022

Rhino's Postpunk Chronicles

I was always a big fan of Rhino Records and I especially loved their many reissue albums and box sets that they released in the 1990's on CD. I collected a lot of them over the years. 

The other day I was enjoying listening to their Post Punk Chronicles CD collection. I hadn't played those CDs in many years although most of the songs on them I have scattered around on various mixes. The series of three volumes was released in 1999. I picked them up one after another right after they came out. I knew most of the songs on the albums but each volume had a few things for me to discover.

Going Underground contained a lot of songs with distortion and pop melody with some Teardrop Explodes, The Smiths, The Lyres, Iggy Pop, Billy Bragg, Gang of Four, The Soft Boys, Rain Parade, Swell Maps, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth, The Three O'Clock, The Go-Betweens, Green On Red, Throbbing Gristle, The Jam and Pere Ubu.

Scared to Dance felt a lot like early 80's underground college rock and included song by Heaven 17, Ultravox, Simple Minds, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Stranglers, Iggy Pop, The Cult, Skids, Killing Joke, Medium Medium, The Pop Group, Magazine, Tuxedomoon, Japan, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark and Pigbag.

Left of the Dial was probably a good introduction to the era of music for someone who was experiencing it for the first time and included music from R.E.M., Joy Division, Wire, Modern English, Comstat Angels, Thomas Dolby, Mission of Burma, New Order, The Chills, The Church, The Raincoats, The Dream Syndicate, The Passions, The Chameleons, Bill Nelson and The Cocteau Twins.

The series:

  • Various Artists - Postpunk Chronicles: Going Underground, 1999
  • Various Artists - Postpunk Chronicles: Scared to Dance, 1999
  • Various Artists - Postpunk Chronicles: Left of the Dial, 1999

A Couple of Old Cook Books

I've been clearing out some bookshelves this week. Rearranging some books and moving others between different shelves. Consolidated all the children's books on one shelf upstairs. We've also been pulling out books for Becky to sell on eBay or others to give away in the neighborhood Little Libraries. 

These two very old and falling apart cookbooks belonged to my mother-in-law Catherine Catanzaro Koenig, Becky remembers her mother using them when she was growing up. She can even remember her mom taping the book together.

The Italian Cookbook has a 1943 copyright and publishing date. The French Cookbook has a 1956 publishing date.

We certainly did have any cookbooks like this growing up in our house.

Friday, February 25, 2022

Climbing Trees (and rocks and bridges)

Climbing trees was one of my favorite pastimes growing up in Germantown. I climbed a lot of them. Most of them were down the street in Logan Park which was a big influence in my childhood. Not only was it close to our house but it was practically in the backyard of Nana Emery's house too. Our early babysitter Aunt Dot would often take us into the park when we were toddlers. That park was in our blood. I also climbed trees in Fernhill Park and up at the Wissahickon Park.

Logan Park was the closest and the place with the most opportunities. There were lots of the right kinds of trees with lots of low hanging strong branches. There was one area of the park where we spent a lot of time in the trees. I was probably in the age range of 9 to 13 at my prime tree climbing time. It was also a social thing with groups of us doing it together. A bunch of kids would climb the same tree and hang out for hours talking. It was mostly guys but a few girls too. One of the trees we spent a lot of time in was near a park fence and on the other side of the fence were people's backyards. I wonder what they thought of the group of kids in the tree all the time near their backyard and back of their house. Sometimes we sat there in the tree watching all the activities going on in the various backyards.

Another park activity we were doing at the time was rock climbing. I certainly don't mean what is considered "rock climbing" today but there were a lot of large rocks in our parks which we also loved to climb and hang our on. We often climbed the rocks at the Happy Hollow playground which was created out of an old quarry. There were some very steep rock climbing there... well, for kids. We spent a lot of time on those rocks overlooking the playing fields and basketball courts.

We climbed a lot of rocks at the Wissahickon too. Those were some serious rocks often overlooking the gorge with the creek running along the bottom. I spent a lot of time hanging out at the Wissy and sitting around on the rocks with a group of teens. Some of the kids did a little more risking activities by climbing the foundations of some of the bridges going across the Wissahickon and I mean very high and dangerous climbing. The Walnut Lane Bridge, the McCallum Street Bridge and of course the Henry Ave Bridge. They were all very high and massive.

Last fall while Becky and I were visiting Katie and the kids in Mt Airy Todd, Henry and I went for a hike in the Wissahickon near their neighborhood. I described watching other kids climb the bridge we were passing under. I only climbed around the base a little. Henry was getting worried.

We also climbed the buttresses of the expressway bridge down in Fernhill Park near Roberts Ave and Wayne Junction. That was a little scary too.

HBO Max

We have had HBO Max now for about six weeks now. Do we need it? Are we watching shows or movies?

Becky has been watching The Great British Pottery Throw Down and is well into the third season. She is also watching the Gilded Age series.

I've been watching more Sci-Fi type shows. I started out with Station Eleven which was one season and then Snowpiercer which was two seasons. I finished them both and looking forward to the series to continue. I recently started watching the new Ridley Scott series Raised by Wolves.

I would like to get back to finishing up Westworld and Lovecraft Country.

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Stocks and Bonds and War

We had scheduled a phone meeting with our TIAA retirement advisor a week or so ago. Then Putin invaded Ukraine and the world's stock markets started going crazy. It was then pretty weird to be talking about our financial security, investments and stock options at this particular time. 

We have spoken with our financial advisor enough that we could actually joke about what we were doing but in reality it was all very serious as we discussed selling some of our mutual funds in particular Roth IRAs that we needed to do in order to get an income stream. Some people who spend a lot of time worrying about the stock market would have been freaking out to be doing the process and procedure that we needed to do at this particular time.

Well, we got it done and now we have some more money coming into our checking account monthly from one of the many funds associated with our retirement accounts. It's amazing that they create a financial plan that allows us to have money coming in monthly that should last us until the age of 95 each. If we pass before it's all gone then the money goes to our kids.

I'm happy to have made it to 70 so far as years ago I would have never expected to have lived this long yet alone into my 90's but now I have some hope that came with the grandchildren.

Now we just need to forget about the war and the potential effects on our retirement portfolio and live life.

Only In Your Heart - Songs 1972 FV

Another mix of songs from albums in my collection released in 1972. Some hits and some deep cuts. Some rock and some folk. Lots of big names. All wonderful songs. Nothing obscure.

America in the photo.



Only In Your Heart - Songs 1972 FV

  1. Only in Your Heart - America 
  2. Midnight Cruiser - Steely Dan 
  3. Honky Cat - Elton John
  4. Torn And Frayed - The Rolling Stones        
  5. Lightning Bar Blues - Arlo Guthrie    
  6. She Thinks I Still Care - Michael Nesmith   
  7. Operator (That's Not The Way I Feel) - Jim Croce 
  8. Bird On The Wire - Rita Coolidge      
  9. It Takes Time - Kim Carnes    
  10. The Great Compromise - John Prine
  11. One Way Sunday - Mark-Almond
  12. Jump Baby Jump - Pentangle
  13. One Hundred Thousand Smiles Out - Barclay James Harvest    
  14. Redwood Tree - Van Morrison
  15. Mother Earth - Tracy Nelson        
  16. Six Hours Ahead Of The Sun - Steve Goodman    
  17. Dead Skunk - Loudon Wainwright III
  18. Jesus Was A Capricorn - Kris Kristofferson 
  19. King Henry - Steeleye Span   
  20. Spare Some Love - Renaissance      


New Boots

Earlier in this season I was struggling to get my winter boots on. I have had a couple of pairs of winter boots but they were both very old now. One was Timberlands and the other was Sketchers. They were both around twenty years old and had worn out some. It was time to replace them. I also have had a pair of big snow boots that I've continued to use just for shoveling snow. They slip on easy and work great in deep snow but I don't ever wear them going out.

I needed a good pair of boots for walking around the neighborhood in winter and for the occasional times we have gone somewhere the past couple of pandemic years. Maybe I'm thinking we will start going out again soon. Just idle speculation.

Becky ordered me a pair of boots online. It took two attempts. The first one arrived from Macy's (I think) and I tried them on. They were 8 1/2, my usual size, but tight and I felt squeezed in. We sent them back.

This was the first time I had ever got new boots by mail. I've always went to a store and took my time trying on different boots to find something that fit me well. They were usually 8 1/2 but occasionally I would need a size 9. Next Becky ordered me a pair of size 9 black Timberlands from Zappos. They came and fit perfectly and comfortably. They looked great too. I wore them around the house a couple of times to make sure they were the ones to keep and then wore them on our walks.

Last night I wore the boots when we went out to Halwalls for Becky's art show closing reception. The black boots looked good with the black jeans and black leather jacket. They were also very comfortable standing around in a gallery for a couple of hours.

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Hallwalls Show Closing Reception

Becky and I went to Hallwalls tonight for the closing reception of the group show that she was in. We had a great time talking with many people throughout the evening. Our vaccination status was checked when we entered the building and then we were allowed to remove our masks. Nearly everyone in the gallery was without a mask. It felt weird at first but everyone seemed to enjoy interacting with people without wearing masks.

Becky met a lot of the other artists for the first time. I spent a lot of time talking with people I hadn't seen or had conversations with in seemingly a couple of years. People that I used to regularly see at art openings. It felt good to be our socializing with a couple of beers but it was exhausting too.








The Snowmelt

The snow is finally melting. This morning most of the snow is gone after two days of 50 degree weather that included lots of rain. We can see lots of green grass in the backyard. There are still some piles of snow in the far way back of the yard in sheltered places and alongside the shed but most of the snow is gone.

Out front there are still some snow banks where the snow has been piled there from weeks of shoveling but overall it looks good.

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

The Olympics are Over

The 2022 Winter Olympics and I'm relieved. I almost didn't realize it was over for a day or so. It certainly wasn't one of the better ones and it had it's share of controversy including the usual Russian cheating. I really didn't care for the coverage this year. The games were very strange and unwelcoming. Something about it was off. Maybe it was all the Chinese censorship and restrictions. Maybe it was all the curling which I thought was excessive. Every evening when we turned on the Olympics it was curling again and again. Some of the channels we watched in the extended coverage did not include commentary. You just saw the competition without anyone saying anything at all. No descriptions. No explanations. No comments. Turn the station.

This was also the first time I had no desire to watch any of the opening or closing ceremonies. I just didn't want to watch all the Chinese propaganda. Norway won the most medals followed by Germany and China. I never got to see any of the men's hockey games. Covid-19 hung over the games and caused many restrictions. The figure skating controversies cast a dark cloud over the Olympics.

The television ratings for this Olympics were the lowest in the history of televising the Olympics. Ever. I was not surprised. 

The next Summer Games will be in Paris in 2024 and the next Winter Games will be in Milan in 2026. Hopefully things will be better.

Glass of Beer - That IPA

It was once again time for That IPA, a session India pale ale from Community Beer Works in Buffalo. This is a very nice local beer that I've had many times in many places around town. It's always good and especially on tap.

This can came from the Community Pack variety collection that Becky brought home for me recently. 

Also in the photo there are also three CDs from the Rhino Postpunk Chronicles collection released in 1999. I'm looking forward to giving them a spin.

Winter Loaf

Becky has baked some wonderful breads over the past several years and she has especially has increased her baking during these past two pandemic years. I wrote about her pandemic joy of baking and the problem with getting yeast. She has come to understand that baking bread is a science and a good cookbook with great recipes is essential.

Today she baked a wonderful winter loaf from a recipe out of A Bake for All Seasons from the Great British Baking Show that Sean and Ashley gave her for Christmas. It was a Paul Hollywood recipe from the show and in the book is called Winter No-Knead Loaf.

Baking this particular bread was something new for her. It was an artisan bread similar to a sour dough bread and the unkneaded dough had to sit overnight under a towel to rise. The recipe called for baking the bread in a Dutch oven but Becky decided to use a pizza stone instead. There needed to be water in the Dutch oven to create steam in the oven so she placed a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to get the steam. Everything went well and we had a wonderfully baked bread for dinner tonight.

This was a recipe from one of the hosts Paul Hollywood. We had a laugh that he was looking over her shoulder, critiquing the bake and exclaiming it was a little bit stodgy.

I think in the end he would have shook her hand.




Monday, February 21, 2022

Covid and The Queen

It was on the news this week that the Queen Elizabeth of England has tested positive for the coronavirus on February 20th at the age of 95 and apparently she is doing fine with just mild symptoms. They say she would miss some ceremonies but some of that is because of other mobility issues rather than illness.

It's amazing that the most protected woman in the world can come down with Covid and at the age of 95 too. If she can survive than anyone without major health issues can seemingly get the disease and recover. Other members of the royal family have tested positive for the virus in recent days.

Although Becky and I are certainly not watchers of the English royals we have enjoyed watching the television series The Crown and have admired Queen Elizabeth. Hopefully she can get through this.

Holiday?

Several days ago I heard someone on TV talking about the upcoming holiday. I thought to myself what holiday? I actually had to check the calendar and saw... oh, Presidents' Day. I then said something to Becky about the upcoming holiday weekend and she replied what holiday? This is what it is like being retired.

It's been a little over five years now that we have both been retired and there are times when it is hard to imagine what our lives were like before the big change. In the past we would have been avidly looking forward to a three day weekend because of a holiday on Monday like today. The kids would be off from school and we would need to have some plans for the day or at least be prepared. Not anymore. 

It has been especially different not only being retired but also this ongoing pandemic experience where everything seems mixed up and out of sorts. Even something simple like planning to go out to dinner doesn't seem to work now. 

Presidents' Day has always seemed like somewhat contrived. I always remembered it growing up as George Washington's Birthday and it used to be always on February 22nd. Then in 1971, long after I was out of school, when it was moved to the third Monday in February and thus it was always to be a long holiday weekend.

Somewhere along the way the holiday became a celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday which was February 12th. Then it became a holiday for all presidents.

The photo here of Mount Rushmore reminds me that trump wanted his face carved into the mountain which he thought was "a good idea".

Auto-Tune - Pop Music Gimmick

I've always hated the gimmicky pitch correction technology of the Auto-Tune software used in so much pop music these days. To me it's like raising a red flag of mediocrity. I've read somewhere that the first use of auto-tune was in 1998 in a Cher recording because she didn't have the vocal chops that the producer desired for that particular song. It didn't take long for auto-tuned vocals to appear all over the pop charts. It became a fad at the time but it had a freakish staying power.

There was a great article in Pitchfork that explained the development of the Auto-Tune software and it's inventor. It was a software package that would enable anyone to sing in tune and math was used to create vocal pitch correction to overcome bad singing. Over the years the software has become a voice processing plug-in for digital music products.

Somewhere along the way there were some artists who embraced Auto-Tune as a creative tool for voice manipulation. There have been some times over the years when I was OK with some sound effects applied to vocals that enhance the song in a very specific way but most of the time it seems to be used as a vocal style or correction to bad singing. It seemed to play out most in rap use where the artist becomes some kind of a vocal cyborg using Auto-Tune right from the start. The software is now used by most pop stars and has become the standard in the industry.

I cringe when I here that vocal effect in a song by almost anyone. I stopped listening to Top 40 pop music long ago and the auto-tuning of music has certainly increased my distain for the sound of radio. All vocals on today's radio are complex processed manipulations of the human voice with the soul completely wiped out. It would be nice for people going back to actually singing. At one point in 2010 Time magazine listed Auto-Tune as one of the top 50 worst inventions of the modern era. LOL. Auto-tune use is not real singing. It also sounds very dated.

There has been manipulation of sound ever since recording music was created and one could argue that double tracking, reverb, phasing, echo, and amplification is not really different from using Auto-Tune. Well, they can argue all they want but for me I'll pass on singers using that music software and would love to see someone just sing into a mic without all that fake voice processing.

With all that said... I do think there is a time and place in the music creative process for using Auto-Tune judiciously to create certain effects but overall it has been used to the extreme to eliminate the soul and blues elements out of popular music. I may be showing my age here but to me it's not rock 'n' roll. 

Pitchfork article from 2018... How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music. Very pro Auto-Tune. 

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio

I've never tired of hearing something new and exciting in music. I especially like a great Hammond B3 organ player. I read about the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio and listened to his two most recent albums today while enjoying Becky's pot roast Sunday dinner and the dinner prep where the funky organ soul jazz of this band really made our day. It's gritty and greasy vintage r&b jazz with plenty of interesting improvisation along with the funk. Kitchen dancin'. Highly recommended. 

I've always loved the classic organ based soul jazz of Jimmy Smith, Booker T., Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Richard Holmes, etc. but it does have a harder funkier newer edge. It's great to see some contemporary jazz carrying the torch. This new band does an amazing cover of Wham!'s Careless Whisper.

I'm looking forward to listening to his other two earlier albums tomorrow.

The Whale Brown Ale

This is a very tasty brown ale with some chocolate and just a hint of coffee that I generally avoid like the plague in beers but this brew is subtle, smooth and refreshing. I did balk a little bit at that little bit of coffee taste but it quickly faded into the background of all the other flavors going on in this brown ale. It grew on me.

But it also made me want to wash it down with a nice pilsner or lager.

Death of an iPod

Last night I was riding my exercise bike while wearing headphones and listening to music on my iPod when suddenly there was a screech, followed by a pop and then silence. My iPod was dead. 

I've worked with computers long enough to know the sound of a hard drive and that was certainly it. Actually I had been expecting it for some time because I've had that iPod since 1995. Twenty-six years is a long time to have a working electronic device and I knew I was on borrowed time.

I really did love this iPod and it has always been reliable. It was a 80 GB classic. I used it all the time for many different situations. I always had it full of music to full capacity and usually with a mix of albums and playlists. Recently I had it loaded only with my mega mixes. I was playing those mixes every evening in the basement while riding the exercise bike. I would also sometimes attach the iPod to the main first floor stereo to play throughout the house. Plenty of times I would attach it to the stereo boombox CD player in the backyard sunroom. Late summer I bought a Bluetooth speaker with an aux input that I used with the iPod. I had a couple of portable speaker systems that charged and played my iPod. I would take one of them on vacation every year. Of course I had earplugs and would play my iPod when out taking walks by myself over the years. That was a lot of use for more than 25 years. 

I've already started looking for something to replace it. I liked a high capacity 128GB Sony MP3 player but it was about $300. There seem to be a lot more inexpensive options available from a lot of no-name electronic companies. New players seem to have more options these days including Bluetooth compatibility. They all have expandable storage. I think that in a few days I will have a new MP3 player.

Update: 1/27/22

I plugged the iPod into a charger and let it sit for about a week while I researched alternative mp3 players and behold it resurrected itself. Suddenly it was working fine. We'll see how that goes.

Update: 1/27/23

My iPod is still working fine and I'm using it several times a week.

The Joy of Cooking

Becky took this book off the bookshelf the other day and put it in the recycle bin. I got that book for her in 1976. It was the 5th edition paperback of the Joy of Cooking that was published the previous year. It originally came out in 1931.

In 1976 Becky moved in with me on Seymour Street and I think I picked up that book later that year or maybe early 77. She used it a lot over the years and her copy was well worn and falling apart with pages going everywhere.

A new updated and expanded edition was published in 1997 and I got a hardbound copy of it for Becky's birthday in 2002. I inscribed a happy birthday to her on the inside cover.

Some of Becky's favorite recipes over the years from the book included the hot and sour soup and applesauce cake.








Saturday, February 19, 2022

Love and Happiness - Songs 1972 FV

Love and happiness brings us back to some soul music from albums in my collection released in 1972 and there are some great ones here. This mix includes some big hits and some deep cuts and they all sound good together. Some of these songs define the year in music.


Al Green in the photo.


Love and Happiness - Songs 1972 FV

  1. Love and Happiness - Al Green       
  2. Use Me - Bill Withers   
  3. Rock Steady - Aretha Franklin
  4. There It Is - James Brown      
  5. Superstition - Stevie Wonder  
  6. Back Stabbers - The O'Jays   
  7. Trouble Man - Marvin Gaye
  8. The World Is A Ghetto - War  
  9. Superfly - Curtis Mayfield       
  10. The Harder They Come - Jimmy Cliff
  11. I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash        
  12. Soul Island - The Meters        
  13. Goin' Down - Allen Toussaint 
  14. Why Can't We Live Together - Timmy Thomas      
  15. Respect Yourself - The Staple Singers       
  16. You Said A Bad Word - Joe Tex       
  17. Wake Up - Funkadelic  
  18. Playing On Me - Albert King   
  19. Work To Do - The Isley Brothers      
  20. In And Out Of My Life - Martha & The Vandellas   
  21. Papa Was A Rollin' Stone - The Temptations        
  22. I Wanna Be Where You Are - The Jackson 5         


The Coldest Spot in WNY

For years Becky and I have joked that the coldest spot in Western New York was the side alleyway next to our home on Crescent Ave. Maybe it was because of the strong wind that often blows through our backyard coming from Delaware Park and right by our side door. Those same breezes cool us off in the summer and bring us the sounds of sports games in the park and the animals in the zoo.

Sometimes those winds whip past our door as we're leaving the house in winter and stuns us with the cold while blowing the storm door against the side of the house. That is what is was like today. I was out front and also in the back and it was cold but sunny. It didn't feel too bad but when I walked back to the side door it suddenly got much colder and windier. It was intense.

The cold wind there also freezes the melting ice and snow from the roof that drips down in the alley between the houses. We often get gigantic icicles on the roof that drip down into the walkway which gets covered with ice. I use a lot of ice melt along that path and this year I've used much more than normal. It can be dangerous to walk on the ice there sometimes but I work hard to keep it clear.

The Wind Was Loud

I woke up this morning at four a.m. and the wind was loud. Very loud. It was a roar. The house rattled. I grabbed my tablet to check the time and then took a look at my weather app. It said Windy. A cold front was coming in.

Then it started to snow. And then there was some thundersnow this morning which I hadn't heard in a long time.

By eight this morning the snow had stopped and we had a couple of more inches on the ground. It's still windy and now we have blue skies and blowing snow.

And the birds are enjoying the feeder. The juncos, finches and chickadees are particularly having a great time with the cardinals looking on. We really do enjoy watching the birds at the feeder and it's a beautiful Saturday morning.

Friday, February 18, 2022

Harsh Afternoon Crash

The Harsh Afternoon Crash comes after the Pleasant Morning Buzz brought on by coffee. I guess you can get that from tea too.

Backyard Visitor

I took this photo from the kitchen window of our backyard visiting hawk who has been coming around regularly. I zoomed in a little but the hawk was amazingly close to the house and sat on that branch overlooking our bird feeder and shed. Everything was quiet back there while that beautiful hawk was perched above.

After awhile the hawk flew off and everything went back to normal.

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Reacher

I recently finished watching the Reacher TV series on Amazon Prime. There were eight episodes and I watched them fairly quickly around the second and third week of February. I was hooked right from the get go because of the seriously intense crime thriller style that included a serious amount of violence too. It was quite the setup. It was also very well written and acted. Good cast too. 

I've never seen either of the Tom Cruise starring Reacher films. I just was never interested in them. I've also never read any of Lee Child's novels. This first season of the series is based on Child's debut novel Killing Floor from 1997. I briefly thought about reading it but there was quite a waiting list for access to the library's e-book. 

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Good Neighbor IPA

Enjoying a Good Neighbor American IPA from Community Beer Works, Buffalo. Very tasty and drinkable. 

The book is Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne which I just started reading again.