Archive for February, 2009

Toadily Roto

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

jeepGlarg… Am I too old for this stuff? I don’t usually feel old. My usual modus operandi is to bounce around like a silly old rabbit. An overgrown, ungainly one. Hoppity hoppity. Er, that is, when I am not slugging around. On the beach watching the boats go by. On the Green Couch watching the dogs go by. Wherever.

I dunno. A gazillion years ago, we would get off work and drive up to Houghton Lake in the dark and it was fun and kind of exciting and when it was winter, we’d get up here and have to pump water and the whole works. And I might feel kind of tired when I got here but it was a happy kind of tired and I’d still stay up late and party or whatever. Now, whenever I am faced with taking the night train to the Great White North, all I can think of is what a looooonnnng day it is. I got home this afternoon and all I wanted to do was change out of my work clothes. But. Not. And so. Here we are and I am toadily roto, not to mention incoherent. And it wasn’t even that bad a drive because it didn’t start to snow until we were on our last five miles of the I75 SUV Speedway and the speedway itself wasn’t too bad once we got past about Flint because it is a Thursday night and there weren’t too many of the usual mad speedway drivers. Did I say something about incoherent?

And, as you can see, the Indefatigable lives on, even though it doesn’t live in front of the Landfill any more.

Good night!!!
KW!

P.S. Hey, Mrs. Commander, where do you wanna have lunch tomorrow?

In the library…

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

rocksMy favorite place. That’s where I keep all my magazines too. New Yorkers? Yeah. Two or three of them. I’m behind as usual but I am not as behind as I used to be. Lake Superior Magazine? Yes, I get that magazine. It is great except for when the house-type section features some mbillionaire’s beautiful mansion on Gitchee Gumee. Sorry but some of us who have been there forever or since the 1920s just don’t understand all this big building stuff. Back in the day, running water meant that Grandroobly and his siblings would grab a bucket, run down to the lake, fill up the bucket, and run back up. He used to tell about this in his later years. Back in those days, they weren’t worried too much about lake pollution and I am still not, despite all kinds of warnings hither and yon. In my life, I think I have drunk a lot of water out of our bay. Has it ever made me sick? I don’t think so. How many quadrillion gallons of water?

We all have our own wells now. For many, many years, our Uncle Don shared his well water with us via a garden hose. Yes, a garden hose. In the beginning, we had an outhouse and cold running water in a kitchen sink. The hose worked wonderfully in those days. And then we all moved our bathrooms indoors and added hot water and whatever. Eventually, the garden hose model succumbed to individual wells. I could talk about when we got our well but it’s a whole ‘nother story and I think I’ll do it another day.

For now, the rocks in the pic are under ice. I am not even sure where they are. Maybe I’ll figger it out come spring. Or not…

A slice of spring before we all head down the escalator to the deep freeze again

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

fieldsIt was a beautiful spring-like day today and we all enjoyed it to the extent that we were outside. This is February and there is plenty of potential for us to drop back down into the deep freeze multiple times. And this blahg entry is really for Grandroobly, who always enjoyed hearing about my encounters with aminals on my walks. He had enough of those encounters of his own during his long life that he usually carried a stick. So bro’, if y’all aren’t partying on the decks of the Edmund Fitz or whatever, maybe you could tune the old coot into my blahg.

We have been in the deep freeze here for months and there have been snowbanks everywhere and I see very few aminals on my 0-dark-30 walks. Squirrels aren’t even out at that time of day. The last few days, we’ve been going through a thaw-freeze cycle and a lot of the snow has melted and folks are getting outside again.

First, I was about 50 yards away from a storm sewer this morning in the dark and an aminal was hanging around in front of it. Cat? No. Raccoon. Of course. That’s where they hang out. He was watching me. He kept kind of moving back into the storm sewer and stopping and as I got within very close range, he did dive into it. I thought. As I got past him, I looked back and he was peeking out at me! Raccoons are very cute but they are not cute when they are on the other side of a rickety screen from your 18-month-old daughter thinking, “dinner has been served!” It’s okay, the kiddo survived and grew up and took my heart to San Francisco. (just kidding, Lizard 🙂 )

Later on in my walk, when it was still black as pitch, I was walking nonchalantly along. Or not. Actually, I was watching for skunks. I know that a skunk encounter might be interesting to write about but I still don’t want to have one. All of a sudden! Fllllrrrrrpppp! It was dark and I could not see what kind of bird it was but whatever it was, I FLUSHED it! I have flushed about a gazillion partridges walking along in the woods. They startled me at first. Grandroobly would just laugh, “you flushed a partridge!” And I got used to it. Today? I was not in the woods. It was pitch black. I don’t usually even *see* birds at that hour. Scared me out of my skin!

The pic? A beautiful but seasonally dormant garden tended by The Botanist and the field beyond. Mid-southern Michigan from a couple weekends ago.

Nuce and green

Monday, February 9th, 2009

silhouettesYeah, I think green is nuce too. I am not as wild about good old Microsoft Word. At least not today. Evil? Yes. And I am not a novice user of word/text processing software. Lemme see, there was the Wang of course and 9891L-WRITER (you don’t wanna know) and *FORMAT* and the good old MTS mainframe editor, accessible by typing “$EDIT file”, “file” being whatever file you wanted to edit, of course. It was pretty cool with all kinds of what I’m gonna guess were regex-based pattern things you could do to find/change things. I was a pro with those in that environment, at least. Somewhere after that, the old blue screen of WordPerfect came along and I can still remember tabbing along through documents like nobody’s business. Is WordPerfect around any more?

Anyway, I switched over to MS Word sometime back in the dark ages, maybe 1992 or whatever? I don’t even remember. It is a love-hate relationship, lemme tell you! On one hand, computerized word processors just can’t be beat. You can SAVE YOUR WORK! When I was in college, I had to write papers on an old manual typewriter. I am fast at typing but I absolutely rely on backspace and spellcheck and I love to just get a good old outline and/or stream of consciousness going when I have to write something. Just get it out there and edit it later. Typewriter? Can’t do it. And Word can do just about ANYTHING! On the other hand, I was ready to kill Word today. I was trying desperately to publish a document by the end of this afternoon. First, I somehow managed to switch from insert to overstrike mode. I NEVER use overstrike mode! I KNOW there’s an option (and a keystroke) that switches back and forth. I must’ve hit that key because I did NOT go into the options to change that! And I couldn’t remember/find the key. THEN! Word got REALLY CUTE and swapped all of my Figures for Tables. And vice versa. I don’t know HOW I did that! And we won’t even talk about bullets. Yes, I know you can control them via styles. I even know how. I just don’t think the average user should have to dredge down into that stuff. Document published? Not. 99% done though. Tomorrow morning, if no more hornet’s nests are opened up.

And there is NO baking powder in this house. What does that say about my baking skills?

I suppose all this is due to the fact that Comet Lulin is near the star Zubinelgenubi. Nuce and green and whatnot.

G’night and good word processing,
KW

If you go out on the ice today, I hope you come back alive.

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

waterfall[sing it to the tune of the Teddy Bears’ Picnic] There are probably a lot of news stories out there on them thar tubes about the fishermen that got stranded on a gigantic ice floe in Lake Erie. This one has links to video coverage, which is worth checking out just to hear the sheriff say how stupid those folks were. I dunno. I am not an expert on lake ice but I’ve lived on lakes in the Great Lake State all my life. Those folks were probably safe enough from falling *through* the ice out there. It was a couple feet thick after all. But I’m not sure how they figgered on getting back to shore with 100 yards (or whatever) of open water between their floe and the ice that was attached to the shore. Honestly, if you are on a great lake and there is a crack that is a foot wide and stretches as far as the eye can see, it is not a smart thing to make a bridge out of a pallet or whatever and drive your snowmo across it. Kee-reist. That is open water, folks. Wind? It’s a *lake*. A *great* lake. It gets windy! Yes. A lot of those people left expensive snow-mos, ATVs and other stuff out there on that ice floe. A mining opportunity?

I’m sure I’ve blathered a time or two or three about rather cavalierly going out on the ice on various lakes, usually Houghton Lake because I possess a key to a heated building right there on its shore. You have to know that we are careful about ice. Houghton Lake is — usually — a known quantity for us. You can use an ice auger to measure how thick the ice is and you can — usually — trust the old-timers up there to tell you where there might be thin or soft spots. When the ice is a couple feet thick and the temperature has been in the deep freeze for a couple of months, the ice is really pretty safe. Usually.

Why does she keep saying, “usually”, y’all are wondering (if y’all have gotten this far through the blather). Winter 2003. MLK Weekend? I think? It was a cold winter a lot like this one has been, maybe a little less snow. Mouse drove us into the yard at Houghton Lake on Friday night and we found ourselves squinting at a large poster or something plastered onto the garage. What was this? Well. In spite of the fact that the ice should have been thick over the entire surface of the lake, there were large holes of OPEN WATER! Two snowmobilers had hit one of those and drowned… The GG went in and turned on the furnace and we took a little ride down to the end of the point while the furnace warmed up. Emergency lights everywhere! The ice boat was just returning from an unsuccessful attempt at searching for those snowmobilers. Our wonderful neighbors had plastered that large poster on our garage to warn us.

I’m not sure if an official explanation was ever offered for the open water. One theory I remember hearing was that it could have been caused by an herbicide for the invasive species Eurasian milfoil. I dunno. This year has been a wonderful year for snowmobiling and ice-fishing on our lakes, both the great lakes and inland. But you can *never* be too careful!!!

We walked down at our favorite urban hiking site, Barton Dam, today. The walking was really pretty bad. A thin layer of ice topping snow trodden by many human and dog feet. We managed but we didn’t quite do our usual entire walk. A few pics here or click on the pic. WE DID NOT GO OUT ON THE ICE!!!

Moom alone. In the Dungeon. With a Bad Aminal.

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

mudYou know. The kind of Bad Aminal that glues little kids into their beds and won’t let them get up and get dressed even when their moom and big sis are waiting for them so they can go do something fun. Er, shopping, roight.

I got a lot done in my chaotically cluttered basement today (not that anyone could tell) and I wasn’t one bit a-skeered, despite the presence of the Bad Aminal (which I found in a pile of terribly important papers, 98% of which I threw out). As horrifying as my basement is, it is not as bad as the Michigan Basement that was in the old house I grew up in on Superior Street up dere in Yooperland. That place featured an unfinished basement with an old octopus of an oil furnace with arms reaching everywhere and a cracked (?) cement floor and a washer and dryer and some shelves with tools and other junk on them. And a room over in one corner around the other side of the furnace that was always a little scary without an adult, although I can’t remember that there was ever much of anything in that room. Somehow now, that room makes me think of that movie The Blair Witch Project. Which I don’t like to watch because it’s too scary for an old bag like me.

My cat Twinkle had her first litter of kittens in that basement. There were four. A stillborn “monster” that my parents disposed of before us kids got up that morning. A sweet little calico kitten that died soon after birth. And two healthy ones, grey striped and black with a white spot? What did I name those kittens? I fergit. I was thinking Spot and Puff but aren’t those the aminals in the old Dick and Jane readers? I got to actually watch Twinkle have her second litter of kittens but that’s a whole ‘nother story, I think.

My basement isn’t as scary, at least not to me, others may have differing opinions. I mean, I am a-skeered of all the junk in my basement, one thing that we did NOT have in that old Michigan basement all those years ago, at least not the tonnage that I’m keeping in mine. Oh, occasionally if I’m home alone at night my always overactive imagination gets into overdrive and I get a little skittish. And I was terrified to go down there the day Comcast sent the serial killer out to replace our aging cable modem but that’s also a whole ‘nother story.

Maybe basements are scariest to little kids? And certain ultra-perceptive dog-type beasties? Once about a billion years ago, our usually brave little Mouse was about 10 and she was home alone for about an hour. I was picking up Lizard Breath from a friend’s house on the other side of town and the GG was at a technology meeting at the elementary school behind our woods. When I got home, I found Mouse standing at the top of the basement stairs with Froggy. They were debating about whether they should go down there or not. I forget what it was that she wanted from the basement but I was glad they didn’t talk themselves into it because there were UNWRAPPED BIRTHDAY PRESENTS down there!!!

Oh, by the way, that loverly scene in the pic today is a stretch of sidewalk on the way to school. Elementary school, that is. That puddle forms at just about any teensy little drop or two of rain (or melting snow or whatever) and it is an absolutely loverly puddle for a 2-year-old to splash joyously through as she and her moom walk her sister to kindergarten. It was much less fun for me to pick my way through in my Chaco sandals this afternoon.

Fashion (or whatever) in the Great White North

Friday, February 6th, 2009

beachkwI dunno if I can do this or not because “people” keep TALKING!!!! GRRRR. The Marquis was talking about snowpants today, among other things of course. I bet his snowpants are better looking than mine. Mine make me look like a purple Pillsbury Doughboy. I don’t care. I wear ’em anyway!

Okay, we’re talking about absolute temperature here, not windchill. I have a few issues with windchill reports but we’ll get to those. Maybe. Until then. Layers. I have this wonderful Columbia jacket that I bought maybe 15 years ago. It has two layers. The outer layer is a windbreaker, the inner is insulated. You can zip them together or not. When the temperature is in the 30s, I wear the outer shell with a polartech vest underneath. And my ugly cotton-spandex pants. With no tights underneath. If it’s dry, I wear my Chaco sandals with polartech socks. If not, I succumb to my winter tennies. I wear a ski band and scarf and one layer of those little 50-cent KMart-type gloves.

Under 30. The inner layer goes into the jacket. Usually. Depends on criteria I can’t put into words. Tights go under the ugly pants. Feet? Hmmm. If it’s dry, sandals with polartech socks work down to about 25. Ski band and one layer of gloves.

15 degrees down to about 10. Two layers of jacket. Boots. Balaclava (i.e. big warm ugly hood). Two layers of gloves.

10 degrees down to about, oh, three or so. Two layers of jacket. Boots. Balaclava. SNOWPANTS!!! Two layers of gloves.

Three above down to about 10 below. Same stuff plus POLARTECH VEST. Same thing as above 30.

Below 10 below? I *usually* give myself a pass. Unless I am feeling really roto.

Veeeeend Cheeeelll? Depends on what you’re going to do. Walking around my neighborhood at zero-dark-30? Very rarely much wind and almost never as cold as they say on the radio. Shores of Gitchee Gumee? Whole ‘nother story.

The winter of 1979 was very cold.

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

winterwavesThis is a guest post from my wonderful accomplice in life, the GG, aka The Grumpy Growler, one half of the Twins of Terror. Father of Lizard Breath and Mouse. He is recounting the anniversary of his first professional type job. It happened on this date, February 5, back in 1979, and he is still employed in the computer science industry nowadays. Er, actually he *is* one of “those screw-balls at the EPA.”

The GG sez:

First day of work after college.

Drove my dad nuts because I screwed around for six months before looking for a job.

First day of work at Computer Sciences Corporation working on contract for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Rich Fuderich (con man) was the boss.

Working with
Anne Regenstreif (connector of me with the Garbage Woman)
Doug Woodring (erudite limnologist and perfesser).
Dick Snyder (over the hill computer guy of much interesting early computer software history).
Jim Black (from another planet (Zefron?) and wonderful guy).
Ginny Kimball (I liked Ginny – we attended her wedding and I think she still lives in Ann Arbor).
Carol Schultz (too complicated and eventually became a lawyer)
Mike Swigert (big old nice guy from San Fran who took a great photo of sister Susie at a fair in Pennsylvania)
Bev the secretary (she had herpes!)
Alden Bost (a “control engineer” and general lunkhead).
The Chinese guy. (gimme time – I’ll remember)
The Black guy. (gimme time – I’ll remember)

EPA was a real piece of work – what a bunch of screw-balls!).

Working for EPA has been interesting and nothing like anything else YOU know

Girls just wanna have fun!

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

winterbeachSooo…. A co-worker came by today. He loves automotive vee-hickles and is known for being very particular about what he buys. He has apparently been wondering for some time now who the Ninja vee-hickle in the parking lot belongs to. Not sure if he has ever wondered about the Dogha, which is parked out there just about as often as the Ninja but whatever.

Yes, it’s mine (and the GG’s, of course). This co-worker is a wonderful guy and he was honestly amazed when he figured out that this baggy old kayak woman belonged to the Ninja (er, 6-speed manual Honda Civic SI). A younger co-worker perhaps, he might’ve been thinking? Actually, most of us are not terribly young where I work but that might be a whole ‘nother story. And this co-worker is somewhere around my age.

I love to drive. I’ve been fascinated by driving my whole life. I remember watching The Commander shift that jeep thing that my grandfather bought and parked at my dad’s house (who remembers what kind of vee-hickle that is? I should but I don’t and The Engineer is on the other side). I could do that too! Roight! When my feet could reach the pedals maybe. Back in the day, I got my driver’s license on an automatic transmission Pontiac Tempest. Power steering? I think not, but I may be wrong. We also owned a VW Bug but I was not taught to drive a stick then.

So. I was 19. It was summer. I was home between college years. I asked Grandroobly to teach me how to drive a stick. Not good. He kept making me stop and start again, et al, ad nauseam. I couldn’t follow his directions and it didn’t end well. To be fair, he was accustomed to teaching pilots and there’s a lot less room for error there. I finally convinced The Commander to let me take the VW to town on my own. And I stalled in the middle of the Ashmun/Easterday intersection, the biggest intersection in town at that time. And *that’s* when I learned to drive a stick. I can’t say that I haven’t stalled a stick vee-hickle since then. I’ve even (yeek) stalled the Ninja. But I am pretty goddamn smooth 99% of the time.

Yes, you guys, girls can drive sticks. Love y’all anyway!

My Grammer is better than yer Grammer

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

hlghdaySo today, Agategal posted a link to an article about grammar nazis on Twitter. And I had been thinking about the whole grammar nazi thing today because, once again, my otherwise wonderful iPhone was autocorrecting words that I didn’t WANT to be autocorrected. You guys, I *know* I can change the settings but sometimes I *want* the autocorrect to work. But yaknow, USB instead of EST (Eastern Standard Time) is a bit crazy.

In the linked article, people are apparently getting stressed out and correcting everybody and his brother for every little teensy error and the author is [apparently but go read it for yourself] trying to tie that to stress about the, you know, the financial meltdown. I dunno. I grew up with a grammar nazi right there in my house. The Commander not only corrected my grammar, she corrected any kid who happened to be within about five blocks of our house. If I felt the need to say something like, “I ain’t got none”, I had to make sure I was over in the schoolyard or some other place that was out of earshot. But yaknow, a lot of kids I grew up with in Yooperland (not all) had *terrible* grammar and I was just trying to fit in! Kee-reist.

I grew up and went to college down south and here I am in southeast Michigan, if you want to call southeast Michigan “south” ’cause it shore don’t feel like that right now with 15 degree temperatures. I encounter signs with inappropriately placed apostrophes and people who confuse lay and lie and occasionally I even run into someone who says “whaddya youse guys want?” Those are the things that bother me the most. But the people who make those grammar mistakes are not bad people, so who am I to call them on it.

A large part of my job these days is writing. I have to explain explicitly and clearly what each web page in our application does and how it is laid out, etc., etc. I don’t have to deal with lay/lie and I can manage apostrophes on a good day (but that’s a whole ‘nother story) and nobody there ever bugs me about the blasted subjunctive.

What’re y’alls grammer bugaboos? What drives you nuts? What do you have trouble remembering?

How much ground could a ground hog grind if a ground hog could grind ground?

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

groundhogdayCall it what you want, this cross-quarter day, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Ground Hog Day, Candlemas, Sausage Invention Day (get it? get it? No, I didn’t make it up). Folklore says that if the weather in February is gorgeous and warm and sunny, like it was today, i.e., the Groundhog could see his shadow, we’ll have a long winter. Myself, I kind of like Candlemas but I prefer to call it Groundhog Day after one of the many aminals we see in our back yard. And we have long winters most years, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is. I can still remember being a junior in high school and it was April and I was hanging out the window up in my parents’ room in the front of the old house on Superior. The street, not the lake, in this case and I was definitely hanging *out* the window. I had it open. Hey, I wasn’t in much danger. That house was the antithesis of our modern McMansions and it was really not that far down to the ground, plus the roof of the entryway was right below me. Anyway. It was pretty warm out but there was an absolute ton of snow and I remember seriously wondering if it was ever gonna go away! I will say that the warmth and sunshine of the last couple days, first days above freezing (I mean 32 F., not 0 F.), bring hope for spring for those who need it. I’m on the fence. I get sick of slodging around in my snowpants but I do like the cold and the dark. Anyway, we’re supposed to go back into the deep freeze tomorrow. Hang in there, y’all.

Head west to the end of Gitchee Gumee Yooperland and hang a left

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

salem

Oops. Original title had the intended geography a bit wrong. Woke me up at night! I.e., what did I write?

Sometimes half-assed planning is the best thing. My buddy Sam (archaeologist, not dog) and I have learned in these last few years of octo-parents, et al, that we never really *make* plans. At least not without a lot of tentative this and that and the other thing and big-time knocking on wood. She lives in Hotlanta but her parents are not too far away from the Planet Ann Arbor and we both have Yooper cabins, so sometimes we try. Then there was March 2006, when we tried to plan to meet up at her parents’ house and, uh, my dad (aka Grandroobly) died (long story and not totally unexpected). Ever since then, well, I can’t exactly explain how we handle plans but tentative is the word and no-guilt is an important corollary.

And then there’s a day like today. The tentative plan was for Sam to arrive here yesterday, spend the night, and then we would drive her over to her parents’ today. And guess what? That actually happened. And, not only that, after a couple months of slodging along through cold and dark and ice and snow and cold and dark and did I mention snow? Today. It was warm (over 32 F) and brilliantly sunny. And so, we drove the beautiful back roads over from our planet to the Haehnle Audubon Sanctuary and then north to her parents’ Lansing area home. No cranes at Haehnle today and we didn’t expect them. It was just a destination.

You get this picture of Salem because I didn’t really take pictures today. Why? I was occupied with driving. Just for the sheer joy of driving the Ninja! Apparently, it is a “performance” vee-hickle and I didn’t even know “what eeez that” when we bought it but the taarrrrs are not that great in snow, so we’ve been taking the old*, reliable Dogha on our winter trips this year. Today? I had great fun navigating the twisty old roads through the ancient glacial hills out in western Washtenaw County and beyond with my 6-speed manual tranny civic. It was gorgeous everywhere today. And then lunch at the Tsunami Toilet Panera and a visit with Sam’s wonderful nonagenarian parental units. Conversation covered many topics and these folks always have maps and books at the ready for checking up on specific points of possible confusion. And books and maps can sometimes be faster than using the iPhone. Hmm…

Home via a faster route with the sunset at our backs. Wonderful day. Wish all the days could be like today. Love.

* 2001 top dolla Honda Accord, 122K