Archive for the ‘Bitch & Complain’ Category
Last Wednesday was a day we don’t often have. My better-half and I were able to combine some semi-decent weather with one of her rare days off. We decided to start our day in Portsmouth, NH where we could shop a little, enjoy people watching, and take a few updated photographs of the waterfront and harbor.
Even though the weather wasn’t perfect (cloudy and chilly) we still enjoyed roaming around Old Town. The shops there are as diverse as they can possibly be making the visits much more interesting. Jewelry, clothing, trinkets, and of course food. We did our best to sample and purchase a little of everything.
The older part of town is filled with many interesting buildings that have been repurposed many times over the years. Lots of college and high school students filling the streets to make things even more interesting. I have to say that the new fad of coloring one’s hair a vibrant blue doesn’t do much for me but I’m acquiring a real appreciation for the women’s new obsession with tights. OMFG!
‘What’s a day without music?
‘Lady Blue’
After walking around town for a few hours I found something interesting. It was a building decoration which captured completely the message my feet were sending to me.
We ended the day with a stop at the Red Hook Brewery for a light lunch and then a tour of the facility. It never hurts to learn a little more about beer making and those free beer samples didn’t hurt either. While I’m not much of a beer drinker it’s nice to have an occasional beer buzz that early in the day. We departed the Portsmouth area for a leisurely ride up the coast to one of out favorite places, Kennebunkport. I’ll save that part of the trip for my next posting.
All in all we had a very nice day.
‘Rear Yard Water Feature’
Today I’m celebrating my release from two days of captivity in "computer hell". All of my network connected items are finally working once again and all is right in my world.
I spent four hours yesterday digging into the software on my main computer in an attempt to find that one little thing that would fix all of my networking problems. It was a mentally exhausting exercise that really didn’t make me much smarter just more frustrated.
As I peeled away the layers of this damn computer onion I discovered a lot of settings that are automatically set by the Windows program when working with local networks. After four hours of searching I discovered a small screen that I’d never seen before. I clicked on a small box on that screen which initiated some sort of BS setting, and miracle of miracles, everything began working properly. I read the small descriptive blurb near that switch but understood none of it …… but it worked.
‘It’s amazing what a little rain can do.’
Today is a day of much needed rain and I’m relaxing with the cat in front of the television. As you can see by the photo’s the rain is quickly turning our property into a jungle. I just finished watching for the umpteenth time, season one of Sherlock. It’s a modernized version of Sherlock Holmes produced by the BBC. It’s my all time favorite recreation of Holmes and believe me I’ve read and seen everything ever made or written about the great detective. It’s just a great way to spend a lazy and rainy day.
Earlier I prepared an appetizer for our dinner tonight which I hope will be spectacular. I hollowed out eight fairly large jalapeños, stuffed them with a mixture of cream cheese and spices, and wrapped them in bacon. I’ll toss them on the grill and crisp them up to start off our meal of roasted chicken. Add a small salad and we’ll should have an excellent meal. I may even throw in a few tortilla chips and a jar of my home made black bean/corn salsa. That’s hot enough to spice up any meal and to keep your mouth burning for quite a while.
I’m also spending some time planning our two day vacation for next week. It may involve a day of shopping and walking through the Old Town section of Portsmouth, NH, and also visits to a few local wineries and breweries. It should be a relaxing couple of days if the weather doesn’t screw it up.
Gardening and other outdoor pursuits have taken a spot much lower on my priorities list today. Yesterday we had a very short thunderstorm (badly needed) but with it came many problems. Some sort of power surge crashed my home network and fried my router. I spent most of yesterday attempting to repair and correct the problems. What a pain in the butt.
My home network is quite comprehensive (when working) and an absolute nightmare when it isn’t. Losing the router shut down our alarm system, the telephone system, the Xbox, the DVD player, the MyCloud, the Internet, and all printing capabilities. It’s times like these that force me to realize just how much our household relies on this damn technology.
After doing a lot of testing I determined the router had truly been destroyed. Since it was rather old replacing it wasn’t that big of a deal. Unfortunately that old router had been attached to the Time Warner modem on the Internet feed which was also badly damaged. It was off to my home-away-from-home, Best Buy, to begin the rebuilding process. I upgraded to a newer model of router and also purchased a network battery backup system. Then I stopped off at Time Warner on the way home and traded in the old modem for a new data modem.
I returned home and installed the new equipment which turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. Good news, right? No effing way. As I began the process of making sure all of our devices were reprogrammed to the new system I found a new problem caused by the upgrade. My “Old Faithful” of a desktop computer refused to connect to the new and improved network. Unfortunately this desktop is four years old and is my main storage device for over five thousand music files and an additional twenty-five thousand photographs. Please, just shoot me now.
The desktop also has my only working copy of Windows Live Writer which is one of the best programs ever created for posting blogs. Microsoft in it’s infinite wisdom has discontinued the product and that puts me in a serious bind. If I can’t resolve the network issues with this computer I’ll be totally and truly screwed. The repair work will continue today and this posting will probably be handled through the WordPress system.
I love computers but OMFG can they be frustrating. Between virus protection, firewalls, hackers, and network requirements, it can make a person crazy. Hopefully I’ll figure things out quickly but as always with computers I expect the worst. I’ll keep you posted ( no pun intended).
Now that the vegetable garden has been planted I can relax and enjoy my summer a little. Since I’ve been boring everyone with a continuous stream of vegetable garden information I thought it was time to change things up just a little. I’d like to talk about flower gardens.
My better-half and I decided a long time ago to split the responsibilities when it came to yard work. I was responsible for the vegetable garden and yard maintenance and she would take care of the many flower beds on the property as well as her container garden on the deck. Her results over the last few years have been more than a little spectacular.
It’s still May and we are only a few weeks away from that cold and miserable weather of April. Her early plantings and seedlings that she started weeks ago are already beginning to bloom. We both love as much vivid color as we can get and that’s reflected in the many containers on our deck. All of these photographs were taken yesterday and will give you some idea of the variety of colors we’re hoping to have all Summer long.
In another month these deck containers will turn the deck into a wonderland of color. Late in the Summer it’s like walking through an arboretum. A wide variety of colors combined with unusual herbs help to make it a fun place to sit, relax, and enjoy a good book. It’s a win/win because the deck is on the second floor which translates to no mosquitos, bugs, or other annoying creatures except for the occasional wasp.
I’ll update these photo’s as the season progresses. It’ll be getting positively Mother Naturish (my made-up word) around here by July.
The final plants are being planted and within a week the garden will be left to grow and bloom on it’s own. It may require fertilizer one more time in mid-summer and steady watering but the hard work is mostly over for me. I’ll be back at it sometime in October for the final harvesting, cleanup, and soil preparation for next year.
Even though we had a frost scare the other night the plants are doing fine. A few of them were nipped by the cold but should survive without a problem. Feeling a little motivated this morning I was in the garden early to do some final plantings. It was another chilly night last night and the winds haven’t lessened in the least.
The better-half recently purchased a spaghetti squash plant and I planted it today. We love spaghetti squash but have had no luck growing our own. Maybe this year will be different.
I decided to plant another basil because our original plantings look terrible. They may ultimately recover but I thought another large plant should be planted just in case. If they all take off like I hope they will, we’ll have more than enough to dry and store this Fall.
I planted another dozen marigolds around the perimeter of the garden which will hopefully keep those annoying critters away. It’s a win/win because they also add a nice touch of color to the garden.
We’re also trying to grow leeks for the first time. I don’t anticipate them growing too large due to our short growing season. We’ll probably be eating them half-grown like scallions for use in soups or salads. I may even be able to freeze some for our winter meals. I’m crossing my fingers on this one because I love the flavor of leeks.
So we have another garden almost completed and the waiting can then begin. Barring any unforeseen catastrophes we should have great results in the Fall.
‘Remember’
With the Memorial Day weekend looming we can all sit back and watch the television programming meant to honor those service men and women who have paid the ultimate price. Being an Army veteran I hesitate to participate in the required litany of praise, sorrow, and remembrances that seem to be mandatory these days. As a vet I never expected praise for my service because it was the right thing to do, for me. I wanted to pay back a little to the country that kept me free. It’s more comfortable for me to celebrate the holiday in a private manner without all of the hoopla.
I had a number of friends who proudly served their country but never made it home and I remember them all too often. I have no need for making some sort of holy pilgrimage to "The Wall" in DC to stand and sob and leave tokens. I’ll fly my flag with pride in silence, remember my lost friends in silence, and try to live my life in a way to make them proud.
So there’ll be no sad stories here because I prefer to celebrate this day my way. It takes special people to voluntarily place themselves in harms way with the fear of dying a real possibility, especially these days. Nothing saddens me as much as the people in this country that have never served and criticize those who do. Waving a flag and watching fire-works displays twice a year leaves me flat.
I’m looking forward as most people do to the Summer months but using Memorial Day as a spring board for that seems a little disrespectful, to me. Make a contribution to the Wounded Warrior Project, quietly remember the fallen, kiss your children, and live your life to the fullest. That’s the best way to remember them because they died so you could.
Let’s make flying the American flag the only dignified display required for celebrating this day.
IS YOUR FLAG FLYING?
It appears that the weather will finally permit me to get back into the garden. I’ve been monitoring the long-range weather forecast for a week and it looks as if the chances of a hard frost are behind us. Most of the night time temperatures for the next two weeks are in the high forties and low to mid-fifties. Today is the day that the majority of the garden will be planted.
I’ve had a lot of plants in my cold frames for more than a week letting them get accustomed to the weather and cooler temperatures. I collected my three dozen hard boiled eggs, a bag of fertilizer, and headed to the garden.
Dig a five inch deep hole, drop in an egg, crush the top, drop in a little fertilizer, and set the plant in place. Do it about ten more times and you have a nice patch of jalapenos peppers to harvest later in the Summer.
Next came the cherry tomato plants. I decided to double the number of plants from last year because we eat so much salad during the Summer months. We came up a little short last year and I don’t want that happening again. What good is a salad without tomatoes.
I planted the zucchini, yellow squash, and kohlrabi’s next but ran out of eggs. I plan on picking up more eggs tonight and tomorrow I can plant all of the remaining cucumber plants. Twenty minutes of sprinkling completes the planting for today. Hopefully we’ll get some rain in the next few days or I’ll be running the sprinklers again.
I was a little surprised to find that I had two areas in the frames where I could add some miscellaneous plants. The better-half and I will decide what else we need and have them planted over the weekend. My goal was to have everything planted before the end of the Memorial Day weekend and we’re right on schedule for a change.
I’m happy to announce that a peace treaty has been reached in my eight year struggle with the squirrels. Every place I’ve lived and gardened over the years I’ve been forced to deal with those little delinquents who insist on driving me insane. I’ve tried just about everything but I’ve never gotten the upper hand.
Seven years ago we were inundated with a population surge of red squirrels. They’re much more aggressive than the grays and caused a great deal of damage to my deck and feeders. I spent some money for ammunition and was able to thin the herd a little. After tons of research and the expenditure of more money than I care to think about, I found feeders the little bastards couldn’t get into. They continued to visit my deck and tried over and over again to piss me off without much success.
One side of our property faces a wooded area where gray squirrels dominate and on the other side of the property the trees are filled with reds. I was beginning to feel overrun like the last guy at the Alamo. I hated shooting them so I continued looking for a way to make peace.
Earlier this year I decided to try misdirection on them by installing a squirrel feeder behind the house. It’s easily in reach by both factions but it also keeps all of them away from my house and deck. Now they can battle amongst themselves for the food I supply and I get to sit back and watch the fun.
Finally I have a little piece of mind. I had to buy the feeder and the corn to put in it but I can live with that. As you can see from these photos these little guys have no fear of humans, especially this human. I walked around taking these photo’s and he never blinked an eye.
His new routine begins every morning around 7:30 am. He shows up for his breakfast and then climbs back into the trees. I’ve made peace with the reds but the grays have yet to attempt a visit to the new feeder. The war will continue between them but for a change I won’t be stuck in the middle. It’s worth every penny.
I think it’s time for another installment of what this blog is all about, everyuselessthing. It’s a few of those less than important facts you’ve never known you wanted to know. I have a lot more free time this week since my better-half left Maine for vacation in Delaware. Why Delaware? Who knows, maybe she’s attracted to the second-rate beaches and the throngs of uninteresting people. Things are beautifully quiet here and my time is my own at least for the next four days. The cat and I have settled in rather easily as two lone bachelors.
So lets kick this off right now with a load of these odd, weird, and true facts.
Enjoy.
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Dean Martin, born Dino Crocetti, boxed under the name Kid Crochet as a teenager.
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A fully mature oak tree sheds around seven hundred thousand leaves every year.
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Banging your head against the wall burns 150 calories an hour.
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The storage capacity of the human brain exceeds four terrabytes.
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The average talker sprays about three hundred microscopic saliva drops per minute – about two and a half droplets per word.
Not bored yet? Keep reading, I’m not nearly finished.
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Societies in ancient Rome, Germany, and China used urine as a mouthwash.
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It takes only seven pounds of pressure to rip off your ear.
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The world’s termites outweigh the world’s humans by ten to one.
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An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
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The par for the world’s largest golf hole – the 909 yard seventh hole on Japan’s Sano golf course – is seven.
Now lets look into the wonderful and delicious world of food.
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Miss Piggy once said, “Never eat more than you can lift.”
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Almonds are members of the peach family.
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Pepper is the top selling spice in the world. The second is mustard.
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Bombay Duck is actually dry, salted fish.
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Tic Tac’s contain carnauba wax. The same ingredient found in car polishes.
And last but not least a few sexual tidbits.
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Humans spend two years of their lives making love.
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Four pope’s died while participating in sexual acts.
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Every year more than eleven thousand Americans hurt themselves trying out bizarre sexual positions.
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A real orgasm is said to burn 112 calories. A fake orgasm is said to burn off 315 calories.
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On average it takes two tablespoons of blood to make a man’s penis erect.
Do you feel any smarter than you did a few minutes ago? If you do then I suspect you’re delusional or just kidding yourself. It’s called useless information for a reason and it will have no redeeming social value whatsoever.
I’m almost sorry about that but not quite.
The excellent weather will be ending tonight if the forecasters are accurate so I’ve been scrambling to get a few things done before the rains arrive. The second wave of plantings were finished yesterday. I spent some time removing a few dead plants from the herb garden and then replanted twelve others. I put in extra parsley and basil plants and after drying in the Fall we should have enough to last the winter.
‘Lots of Oregano’
I replanted all of my Sage plants because for some unknown reason they all died. I hate losing plants that I’ve had for years but there isn’t much I can do about it. I really thought the heavy snow cover for most of last winter would’ve helped keep them healthy and happy. As usual it appears the apple-mint, spearmint, peppermint, catnip, and oregano will be huge. In just the last few weeks those plants have grown four inches and are spreading everywhere.
‘More Basil’
The new mower arrived last evening and I spent this morning going over all of the equipment and controls. I finally fired it up and spent an hour learning to operate the machine. It’s much smaller than my last tractor but it cuts very well and is easy to steer around the many obstacles on the property. Next week I’ll pass the older tractor over to my step daughter’s husband. They should with a little TLC be able to use it for a few more years and possibly even longer.
‘We Always Need Rosemary’
Next week with the better-half out of town I’ll begin purchasing the next batch of plants and place them into the cold frames. Cherry tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, cucumbers, and pea pods lead the list. Just after Memorial Day I’ll get everything else planted as quickly as possible. Then it’ll be time to retire to the deck to relax and watch things grow for a month or two.
‘There Are Chives Everywhere’
I’ll stock up on some good brandy and a case of Chardonnay and that’ll be my contribution in helping Mother Nature in getting my garden to flourish.
The sunshine and deck beckon.
everyuselessthing.com 