Man loses glasses and sanity in car wash

I know everybody else is already blogging about this, but it was just too funny to pass up. I question whether it was really an "old guy"-I mean really, if he's under the age of 65, he's not old!


If anyone has a link to the original news story or police report, I sure would like to read it.

Bee Strategy Helps Servers Run More Sweetly

My husband raises honeybees, so I found this article very interesting. On a side note, I found a drone that got kicked out of the hive on my kitchen windowsill on Sunday. I guess he had outlived his usefulness. I wonder how that scenario fits into this research?

ScienceDaily (2007-11-21) -- The swarm intelligence of honeybees can be adapted to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges. A bee dance-inspired communications system helps Internet servers that would normally be devoted solely to one task move between tasks as needed, reducing the chances that a website could be overwhelmed with requests and lock out potential users and customers.

XKCD Comics - A daily dose of snarky fun

I just love this online comic!

Busy, Busy, Busy

School has started and it seems like all my time is taken up with work or making sure that the boys are on top of their homework assignments and chores. However, we have been taking the time to have some fun here and there. On the 22nd of September we attended the open barn at Shetler's Dairy, a farm that has minimally pasteurized, non-homogenized milk from grass fed cows. They also have beef and pork, and offer raw milk cheese from a downstate dairy and all natural ice cream. They also do not use any growth hormones or antibiotics on their livestock. The open barn was a chance to say thank you to their customers and offer tours of their operations. There was free food, some vendors, a petting zoo and a hay maze for the kids. It was a gorgeous afternoon and a lot of fun.
We also got to enjoy the Pere Marquette steam locomotive on October 6 and 7. It brought passengers up north to enjoy the fall colors.
November started with a trip to the Detroit area to visit Ray's grandparents and his cousin Michelle and her husband, Gary, who were visiting from Dallas. It was a quick one day trip, but it was great to see them! Plus we got to eat pizza at Buddy's!

Luciano Pavarotti dies at age 71

The greatest tenor of our time died today of pancreatic cancer. Thank you, Mr. Pavarotti for the joy you brought to my life...

Our untenable position in Iraq

All I can say is "YOU NEED TO READ THIS"!
Here is a quote from a New York Times OpEd piece by seven soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division: "A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb."
Why are we continuing to stay in Iraq when it is obvious that we cannot solve the centuries old conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites? Neither group wants us there any more, at least not as occupiers. The best idea I have heard so far is to come up with some kind of a Marshall plan like we did after World War 2, with all countries in the Middle East participating (monetarily and politically) in Iraq's recovery. I see our role as primarily a diplomatic one, and I would hope that our leadership has the political will to do what is best for the Iraqi people.

Steam powered Artificial Arm

Just read an interesting story about a new artificial arm that is being developed for the military and DARPA. It will lift and grip 30 lbs. or more and is powered by steam. The scientist who has invented it says "The amount of water involved is about the same as a person would normally sweat from their arm in a warm day," and the vapor is disposed of "in as natural a fashion as possible: by venting it through a porous cover, where it evaporates like natural perspiration". Here is the link to the article from the Register.

Upcoming fun events in my neck of the woods

This weekend (August 18 and 19th) is our Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. There will be free entertainment and all proceeds from the food concessions, silent auction, massages and dunk tank will benefit the Cancer Society in their quest for a cure and support services for cancer victims.

August 25th and 26th are Black Iron Days at Hartwick Pines State Park. Demonstrations of blacksmithing by more than 50 men and women, plus weavers, woodworkers, musicians and BASEBALL! Sounds like lots of fun!
Also, on the same weekend, Wellington Farm Park will be having their annual Tractor and Engine Show "that pays homage to the heart of the Farm".

Art Show

I recently entered some of my photos in an art show at our local library. I was really nervous, because I had never done anything like this before. However, they really liked them and have decided to make them a permanent display. If you want to have a look at them, go over to tabblo and look at "My Top Ten". The photos that I put in the show are the cat, the hibiscus blossom, the bumblebee on honeysuckle and also, "Misty Morning Fog". Oh, and give me some feedback!

Historical Artillery Competition at Camp Grayling

I created a tabblo of an historical artillery match that was held at Camp Grayling on July 28 and 29. Stop over and a have a look at it. Or better yet, come to Grayling next summer and enjoy the live action of historical artillery firing.

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FUN STUFF

My son Chip came to visit me the last 2 weeks in June and he took me flyfishing on the Au Sable river. We went in an Au Sable riverboat, which is unique to this area of Michigan. These are some pictures of our river trip and some photos of a bbq we had at our house the day before he and Jamie left to go home to Montana.

STUFF

Here is the promised update on the things that have been going on this summer. You've already seen the posts about the canoe marathon and the Au Sable River Festival. What I didn't tell you was that Ray was in the hospital at the time. Very early Thursday morning (2:15am), before the marathon, he had to go to the emergency room because he had severe abdominal pain. They told him it was constipation and sent him home with two bottles of magnesium citrate laxative. Well, it didn't work, so he called his regular doctor the next morning, and he told him to try a Fleet... Soon after that didn't work, the hospital called back and said that the Australian doctor that they had faxed his cat scan to had misread it, and that the local doctor that looked at it decided he had appendicitis. They told Ray that he needed to come back to the hospital right away. I left work around 10:15am to go to the hospital, and they finally operated on him about 5 hours later. Ray has Addison's disease, which complicates any health situation he has. He went into septic shock that night, and we almost lost him. He was in intensive care for a couple of days. He his doing fine now, but is still a little sore. He went back to work last Monday and tomorrow is his follow-up visit with the surgeon. We also found out that Ray's mom was ill, and have been dealing with that situation at the same time. She is also doing a lot better and we have high hopes that the worst of it is over with. Next post will be about the fun stuff that I did before the bad stuff happened.

Misty Morning Fog

Here is a photo I took one morning not to long ago when it was cool enough to be foggy. I used Picasa (a great free program from Google) to edit it. I highly recommend it!

AuSable River Festival Classic Car Show

Check out my photos at Tabblo-

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60th AuSable River Canoe Marathon

Just got back from the start of the 60th AuSable River Canoe Marathon
Here are some photos I took of the run to the river at the start of the race, and also some pix of the racing canoes and the crowd waiting for the race to start. What an adrenaline rush to see these supreme athletes race to to the river to start their nineteen hour all night marathon of paddling!

I haven't posted in a while because it has been just non-stop STUFF going on at my house. That's the way it is here in the summer. Well, I hope to post some photos soon of some of the activities that have been happening. Right now I am waiting on a bluetooth usb adapter to transfer pix from my new phone. Keep watching this space!

Here are a few pictures from my trip to Mackinac Island for the Lilac Festival. The lovely young lady in the first picture is my sister, Kat.
Cruise on over to Tabblo to look at my complete sets. You can access them by clicking on the Tabblo badge on the right side of my page.

I just love Mackinac!

Tonight I made Chicken Tagine for the first time- Mmmm! I modified a recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook that I bought Ray for Father's Day. I made couscous to go with and had a dirty martini since I had olives out anyway :->

I finally got the last of our garden in and have started harvesting greens. Early in May I planted butter lettuce, arugula and two kinds of mesclun mix, mild and spicy. We don't use any chemicals, so these are not the most perfect leaves, but they sure taste good.
I also planted cabbage, kale, tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), cantaloupe, zucchini, basil, oregano, leeks, onions and a dozen strawberry plants. I also have a large wildflower plot, and a small garden of wildflowers by our back door.
There are also foundation plantings that came with the house; irises, virginia creeper, rugosa roses, a mock orange bush, and some cedar and yew bushes. I added some more roses, daylilies and some grape hyacinth. I also planted some rescue plants on the north side of the house and a hosta that I got from one of my customers who was thinning out her flower beds.

For anyone that thinks global warming is a myth, here is the forecast for where I live for the next 7 days. This is near the 45th parallel where the last frost sometimes comes in mid June.

Tonight: Clear, with a low around 51. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm.

Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 86. Calm wind becoming northeast between 5 and 10 mph.

Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 54. East wind between 5 and 10 mph becoming calm.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 86. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph.

Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58. Calm wind.

Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 85.

Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 60.

Saturday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a high near 84.

Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 56.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 82.

Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 59.

Monday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a high near 85.

Monday Night: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 55.

Tuesday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a high near 75.

Here is a really delicious and fast way to cook pork loin chops. Tonight I was eating alone because Ray and one of the kids had the flu (the other two boys stayed at Grandma's). So, I had to decide what to fix myself that was quick (long day at work), easy (too tired to fuss), and delicious. It also had to fit with the South Beach diet. We had thawed pork loin chops in the fridge, so I decided to try a variation on veal piccata. I used a small cast iron skillet and got it smoking hot. I reduced the heat to medium-high and seasoned the pork loin chop with salt, pepper and lots of garlic and browned it well on both sides. I then added some oil cured olives, capers, lemon juice, oregano, white wine and a bit of olive oil (just because I like it). I cooked it until the sauce had reduced completely and served it with steamed squash and tomatoes. Yummy!

Have been looking up info on safe, environmentally friendly cleaning products that I can make myself. Decided to try making a dishwasher detergent replacement. Here is the recipe: 3 parts washing soda to 2 parts borax. This is for hard water, if you have soft water you can do 2:2 ratio. I also had a problem with a film on the dishes, so I put white vinegar in the rinse and the dishes came out perfectly clean and sparkling. Cheap and good for the environment! What's not to love?

Loving the Sunbeam

Here are some photos of my cat I took this afternoon.
The way the light looked on his fur was so ethereal that I had to capture it. I don't think he appreciated me appreciating him, though. He jumped up and stalked off to the other room right after I took the last photo. He can be so moody!

Meaty Cake

Just stumbled on this ummm, UNUSUAL cake recipe by Black Widow Bakery.
It's kind of disconcerting to look at the finished product and realize that it's not going to taste like cake at all. I'm not sure if I could get past the way it looks. My mouth would be ready for sweets, but my tongue would be tasting savory.

Here are some photos I took of things blooming in my yard. I thought I better enjoy them while I could. We have a freeze warning for tonight. The first picture is a trillium that I bought last year at the Grand Traverse Conservation District native plant sale. It was a "rescue" plant. Their native plant sale is this weekend and I plan to go pick up some more plants. Below that is one of the dozen or so lilac bushes that surround our property and the flowering crabapple tree in my front yard.

I'm all about trying to be environmentally friendly, so this new application, Local Cooling , seems like an easy way to save energy. I will install it and let you all know how it works out.

On a geeky note, I have been using Twitter occasionally, and just thought it was cool that it got a mention on Marketplace Morning Report.

You can file this next bit under religion and politics. Since the presidential races are already heating up, I found this interesting: Mitt Romney and the Mormon Church. I have a friend who is a Mormon, and while she was at my house for a Relay for Life team meeting, she happened to mention that she was wearing her Mormon Underwear. Interesting!

Here's a cool story. It's about custom made watches. The site for 121 Time is hard to get to, so I have included a link directly to one of their women's watches. From that page you can click on the different styles on the left, and then modify your watch you have chosen. At the time I am writing this, I could not get their main site to come up. I'm guessing that the article on Reuters got so many hits that their server was overwhelmed. I got interested in custom watches from an article I read on BoingBoing about a steampunk watch.

Mstislav Rostropovich, the greatest cello player of our time, was laid to rest today in Moscow. If you are unfamiliar with his music, I highly recommend his Bach suites; they are my favorite cello recordings.

Crazy fun with Microsoft Picture It! Express 7.0

Here is a peek into how my brain works. Last night I was looking at Cute Overload (which I heard about on Dawn and Drew) and decided to put a picture of my own cute kitteh on my desktop. So tonight I was trying to tweak the picture because I didn't like the way his eyes looked (there was a lot of flash light in them and they looked demonish). I was looking at all of my photo editing software and decided to try to use the redeye fix to deal with it. A while ago I downloaded the free version of Microsoft's Picture It! software (which is no longer available) and decided to try it. This is one of the crazy pictures I created. I giggled for at least an hour playing with that silly redeye tool...

Earth Day and Cougar News

In honor of Earth Day we decided to make homemade laundry soap. Ray actually did all the work, I just helped shop for the ingredients :-)

Here is a link to the recipe and a photo of our "slime". We used Kirk's Castile soap, Arm & Hammer Laundry Soda and 20 Mule Team Borax. These were all available locally in our small town, so they should be easy to find. I will let you know how well it works when I try it out this weekend.

Now for the cougar update- A few years ago I was driving down a dirt road in a pretty remote area of northern Michigan and saw a large animal crossing the road. It was a cougar! Now, I am something of an outdoorsy type and have seen many wild critters while delivering the mail, camping and fishing, so I think I know a cougar when I see one. However, the official word from the DNR at the time was that there were no cougars in Michigan. As time went on, more and more were sighted in Michigan. Well, I thought I was one of the only people to see one in my area, but on Monday a customer of mine came running out to my car to tell me that he had seen one across the road (about 200 feet) from his house! I was so excited to know that I was not a lone loony! He also told me that the corner store had a photo of a cougar, and that another local had seen one feeding on a road kill deer. I will have to make sure I have my camera with me from now on. If I get any pix I will post them.

My granddaughter, Nola Sophia Mason, Born 4-14-2007.

... See my Tabblo>

Just a quick post today... I am in Montana awaiting the birth of my first grandchild- photos to follow!

Easter Dinner

Although we don't celebrate Easter, we use any excuse to prepare a special meal. Here is the delicious leg of lamb we prepared for dinner yesterday. We cut slits in the meat and stuffed quartered garlic cloves in it, then rubbed it with olive oil and seasoned it with sprigs of fresh rosemary, coarsely ground pepper and kosher salt. We also had roasted garlic & buttermilk mashed potatoes with gravy, buttered corn and whole wheat hard rolls. For dessert we had the cake from yesterday and ice cream.

If I knew you were coming...

Yesterday we decided to try making fondant to decorate cakes. This was Ray's first time making a cake from scratch and he was pretty excited. We also enlisted David to help us, since he wants to go to culinary school after he graduates.
Here is my lemon layer cake with lemon curd filling.

Yummy lemon buttercream frosting!

Here is Ray kneading the marshmallow fondant that I worked on for about half an hour. I told him- "All of the glory with none of the work!"

The finished cakes! Notice the pacman on Ray's cake?
He made a chocolate layer cake with buttercream filling and fondant frosting. I made a lemon layer cake with lemon curd filling, lemon buttercream frosting and fondant decorations.