A week of Saturdays

It is a damp and dreary Saturday which began with an overnight snow and rain event. A couple of inches of the white stuff topped with a wet drizzle. Got out the snowthrower and cleaned up the mess in the driveway. I've been on vacation this week and after reflecting on that this morning I realized that each day except Christmas seemed like a Saturday. I think that applies to when you spend a vacation at home. So far my main goal of the week is to finish reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As of now, two chapters to go. I'm also working on my biggest blog yet - I'll probably post it in several parts, stay tuned. Since we planned on watching the Patriots game tonight we watched this week's Nexflix movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, last night. Definitely the most non-stop action of the three Bourne movies.

Christmas unwrapped

A fine Christmas indeed, stayed home, went outside briefly, Carol, Ian and I had some lunch as Taylor arrived with a loaf of freshly made pumpkin bread, very tasty. Carol laid out some spiral ham, bread slices and olive oil dipping sauce, chips and dip. After that we settled down in the living room to open gifts. Dogs and cat got their's also. One gift was a family type that "Santa" himself chose, a game called RummiKub which we played that evening. Obviously based on rummy, which we never played but this is played with tiles with colored numbers on them. Each player has a 3-row rack to view and arrange chosen tiles to make plays with. We all thought it was a fun game and we'll be playing it regularly for awhile anyway.

As far as Patches (and E'owyn for that matter) is
concerned the sound of things being unwrapped
must mean food.

Taylor and Ian taking care of business.

Techno Carol unwraps her new wireless
headset for her cellphone.

Sometimes E'owyn can't get close enough?!?

Sometimes Scotia can't get far enough away...

Me wandering around, what else is new :-)

Merry Christmas

Welcome to my Holiday Greetings blog. Christmas Eve is finally upon us, the shopping is done, the tree is up and decorated, presents are wrapped. Ian is spending the evening with Taylor at her father's for their Christmas get together. Here all is quiet not counting a canine raid on a gift basket that had food goodies we left out while Carol and I went for a walk leaving Patches and E'owyn in. I should have known better. Some chocolate was involved so I'm just hoping they don't get sick from it. So far so good. They could expect some doggie goodies in their stockings on Christmas morning that shouldn't make them sick. Carol and I made separate trips out for a few last minute items this morning. We both have the week off for vacation so expect a couple more blogs as the week rolls along.

We already had a Christmas get together at Lois and Jim's a week ago Sunday as Margaret was leaving the next day to spent the holidays with Greg's Family in Texas. This coming Sunday my side of the family will get together at Mom's for our holiday gathering. Tomorrow will be a quiet day at home as we exchange gifts, munch on a variety of goodies that Carol picked up. Things are good here with the weather, time off with family, Ian home on school break before he leaves for a semester in New Zealand, I'm very thankful for what we have.

Elaine and Lois.

Mark and Margaret.

Carol

Steve, Elaine and Lois with the gift Carol made for them,
lake photos from the camp set in a shadow box frame.

Ian models his new knitted Swedish ski cap.

Margaret looks over the memories notebook Lois
gave her with the expectation she'll fill in the blanks.

Elaine has a good laugh.

Back at our house a week later, Ian and Taylor
decorate our Christmas tree.

So, I hope this blog finds you in good cheer,
count your blessings and have a very

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Shopping Thrills

Did my annual solo Christmas shopping tonight. Started with a quick walk through of the Maine Mall which took me to where I could walk out to Borders. Found several of the items I was looking for. There was a long line snaking to the checkout but with so many cashiers it was like taking a stroll in slow motion. Then it was back across the parking lot to the Mall. Snow was starting to fall, the beginning of a 24 hour storm. Could end up with another 10". Once inside I hit a succession of stores gathering mostly what I intended to pick up. It wasn't really very crowded, maybe the weather forecast kept the numbers down. Stopped at the food court and picked up a southwest chicken wrap at Arby's, watched the other shoppers while eating then grabbed a coffee on the way out. Made one more stop at a nearby shopping plaza then hit the highway home. That went well. Oh yeah, Patches was out of the pen when Carol got home. Maybe we should just get him drunk before we leave for the day.

My Chemical Pet - revisited

Patches has returned to his wayward ways over the last month. Grand escapes from the dog pen and some destructive behaviors when left in the house while we're away to work. I had restructured the kennel to secure it better but he is still finding ways to escape. Once he's out he stays around the house and is happy to see us when we return home but I'm concerned he'll hurt himself in the escapes and/or have some sort of incident waiting for us to return. So it was back to the vet yesterday. The diagnosis has been "separation anxiety". He increased the dosage of the twice daily pills and prescribed another type of drug to be given to Patches about an hour before we leave for work. In addition I'm suppose to give him a hollow chew toy with peanut butter and dog treat bits inside to keep him occupied for the first hour or so after we leave which the vet said is the time of highest anxiety so working the chew toy to get the PB out should distract him through that period. When we came home tonight he was in front of the garage to greet us. To be continued...

Last night's movie

Transformers - scifi action flick based on the line of toys and cartoons. Nothing special about the story, it served its purpose which was to show the Transformers changing back and forth from being cars, trucks, tanks and aircraft to the giant robots from across the galaxy. There are the good guy and bad guys. The real star of the show was the computer graphics and effects. The fast pace and seamless transformations are top notch. On the lame side a couple of the persona's of the good guy transformers were takeoffs of street-wise talk though some of the chatter overall was humorous. Carol was not impressed, Its not a DVD I'd want for my collection but I thought it was fun to watch. I'll rate it a 3 out of 5 on Netflix. This movie was 2 hours and 23 minutes.

Latest movie rental

Last Saturday's Netflix movie was "Next" starring Nicholas Cage and Jessica Beal. An action flick about a guy that could see two minutes into the his own future - and by seeing that future he could decide to do something else to change the outcome. Did you get that? Regardless, the FBI are trying to catch him to assist them in tracking down some terrorists with a nuclear bomb who plan on blowing up Los Angeles. You know the story, guy meets future, future tells him what's going on, guy changes future and lives happily ever after or something like that. It was an interesting movie in that while he is using the knowledge of his future you try to figure out how it works. Lots of action and double back twists in the story. Pretty cleaver how Cage's character uses his ability. Tougher to explain than I thought, you'll just have to watch it for yourself.

December weather and other things

We're still a couple of weeks from the official start of winter but we've had our first snowstorm. Pretty basic - here on Ledge Hill we received about 8 inches in 24 hours, no high winds or extreme cold, just plain snowing. Did a couple of cleanups with the snowthrower and Carol shoveled out the walkways and the dog pen.

Here's a picture I took on my lunchtime walk yesterday along the Eastern Promenade. That's a tanker docked in the background. This is the day after it stopped snowing. Not quite as much snow as at home. Walking is a little tricky now. I'm wearing lace up boots now instead of my walking sneakers and wearing a heavy coat. Actually the only real hassle is walking in the street where the sidewalks aren't cleared. That will get a lot worse before it gets better.


Here's a few more photos from Thanksgiving at our house.

(L-R) Back row: Me, Brothers Dennis and David.
Front: Sisters Kathy and Doreen

The nieces and nephews who were able to come.

Carol doing final food preparation.

Christmas comes a little early for the furry beasts.

With 10 or more inches of snow expected for tomorrow we decided to give one of Patches and E'owyn's Christmas gifts to them early. I new doghouse to go with the old one in which only one dog at a time would use.

This is the Dogloo Indigo with patches demostrating.

E'owyn decided she'd stay away from that
vile thing occupying space in her kennel.

Where to begin when I'm way behind

Thanksgiving Day when we had my side of the family over. Lois and Jim came too.

Shenanigans from under the dinner table before our
guest began arriving. Photos by the instigator, Ian.

E'owyn's snoot.

Scotia takes a whack at the cameraman.

And Patches takes a glance at what is going on.

Lois, Ian and Marc.

Here's everyone sitting down to the
Thanksgiving Day feast Carol prepared.

Mom, David and Carolyn.

Harris taking a break from the crowd.

Making tough choices - Melissa, Danny,
Deanna and Doreen choosing desserts.

Danny has his sights set on the double chocolate torte
that Lois made, Aunt Doreen makes the cut for Dan.

Lois, Jim and Marc talking it up during dessert.

Deanna and Danny have Ian out-flanked.

Melissa and Jen seem to be happy with their desserts.

Great job Carol, the leftovers are all mine!

After a terrific meal it's time to kick back.

Pottery 101...Harry actually

I'm picking up where I left off in August reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I had kind of fallen off the book reading track I'd been on with other of life's distractions diverting my attention - you know, work, family, TV, football. I did manage to read through one of my Asimov's magazines. I'm behind on those again, I have four left and one is a double issue. It seems they send them out in clusters, after I caught up the last time I had a stockpile a couple of months went by and I didn't receive an issue then it seemed I received one every week for a month. Between those and the books I've acquired I may have a couple of months of continuous reading, maybe longer if I stopped to eat. Back to Potter & the Bird; I've been in no hurry to keep up with the series of Harry Potter books but with the hype of the concluding volume I figure I need to pick up the pace. Also, Carol has finished reading the series and I refuse to hear any discussion of things from the ones I haven't read which I get some grief about when she wants to talk to Ian and Taylor about them while I'm around. Carol had been a bit behind me in the series when I bought the Order of the Phoenix paperback (for traveling use, the thing is still almost 2 inches thick), our other volumes are hardbound. With the movie version out I wanted to have read the book before seeing the movie on DVD when it comes out. So Carol started reading the Prisoner of Azkaban (she took it on the Brit-Swed trip) then kept on going through the rest of the books. The way things are going I'll be happy to finish the one I'm on when the DVD is out.

Hey, what happen to summer?!?

This just in - It's cooler, the trees are duller and with the end of Daylight Savings Time it's darker earlier but the good thing is the star show begins earlier too. After supper I'm out in the back yard with the dogs, I walk up to the end of the driveway away from the yard lights and look up to the sky. It's not even 7pm and I'm staring into the Milky Way, picking out airline's blinking lights and every once in awhile see a meteorite. While looking up I think about how cool it would be to actually be in space, not just this orbiting the earth stuff like the millionaires going to the International Space Station though looking back at the earth would be great. No, I want to see nebulae and star clusters with my bare eyes like the telescopes show us. That my friend would be the ultimate sight seeing trip.


Here are a few of the Earthbound views I passed on today's walk.

Down side street on Mudjoy Hill, the blue in the
distance is Portland Harbor, closer views coming up.

This is looking out to the entrance of Portland Harbor
from the top of the Eastern Promenade.

A couple of the island ferries waiting to board passengers
traveling to the nearby islands.

Some of the fancy boats and yachts moored near
Commercial Street.

Until next time - to the stars and beyond!

Not easy to be irritated when you walk

Since the beginning of the year as part of my diet I've made it a priority do extra walking everyday. It's become a sort of an addiction. If I don't get my walking in it adds to my normal level of irritability. Yeah, I'm irritable at least a couple times a day, if you're not maybe you should be. People who seem constantly happy make me irritable. The goal is 10,000 steps a day - I have a pedometer which I keep in my pocket all day. It's a nice device, keeps track of steps, distance, calories burned and keeps the time of day. I use it as my regular watch. When at work I walk at lunch time, at home I just pick a convenient time and go. I'll walk about 3 miles (±6,400 steps) always the same route at home. In town though I have three basic routes which I alternate through. The Western Promenade, the Eastern Promenade and down and around the Portland campus of USM. Now that I have a camera phone I occasionally snap a couple of pictures here and there.

Here is the shore at the East End, behind me is a beach, ahead of me the rocks increase in size so you need to walk carefully but I like it a lot. There is a trail up along here to the right which is where I usually walk but sometimes when the tide is out I'll walk the rocks. The trail takes me to the marina area and then the Portland waterfront. This is my favorite walk.

A year or so ago the YWCA went out of business, this is what's left. They'll probably put up another condo building. Lots of them being built around here.

As I head for the West Prom yesterday this was the view as I proceeded along Deering Avenue. Sunny and cool.

I have a couple of variations of where I walk, there's always something interesting to see and I haven't been bored yet which I'm sure contributes to my motivation to go for walk whenever I can.