Sunday, March 26, 2017

I think I'm turning technophobic... I really think so

For as long as I've been using computers beginning with the emergence of Apple's graphical interface in the late 80s and for most of the time since utilizing Microsoft Windows operating systems I've managed to get along pretty well with it all. Nothing with code, something that I mostly could avoid. Always done well with email, browsers, word processing, presentations, etc and of course my core graphics and other desktop publishing programs. Over the last 5 to 10 years the exponential growth of new or updated means of handling data via cloud technology seems to completely baffle me and I end up buggering things up the further I work on fixing whatever I did wrong. Awhile back after having set up a Western Digital MyCloud drive, connected and starting backups from my computer, for some reason began not completing the weekly scheduled backups from my laptop. Finally took the time yesterday to troubleshoot and re-acquaint myself with my MyCloud drive and... seem to have buggered it up again. More or less at this time at least I have copied most of my files to it and am presently running a backup of the system. There is a online dashboard to provide control of the functions but somehow it will not load up. The madness continues.

A little fun with the title.

I really think I'm turning technophobic.


Sunday, March 19, 2017

Green holiday, make those calories count!

Nothing too convoluted for a Friday St.Patrick's Day just the flavors of the holiday. That began with lunch at my favorite diner, Marcy's. Owner/cook Darla had two StPD's specials, corned beef hash breakfast, and a corned beef boiled dinner. When I grabbed a stool at the counter Mandy, one of the best waitresses ever said the hash plate had sold out and there was just the boiled dinner which I immediately nodded the choice followed by Darla calling out it was the last plate of that as the next to last plate was delivered to the guy next to me. Seeing it I knew I'd made the right choice. The slabs of corned beef fell apart with a touch of the fork, the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots were full of the intermixture of flavors for the entire dish. Mandy is always keeping up to my coffee consumption so I wasn't too worried about falling asleep at my desk after returning to work.

So if that wasn't enough Carol and I had planned a Irish Bangers and Mash dinner. She found a place in Portland, Fresh Approach Market that made their own Irish bangers and also bought Irish bread there. From a recipe found online she previously had boiled potatoes, started cooking up the cabbage with a couple of bacon slices.assigned me to cooking the bangers with onions then started the gravy from the drippings adding a bottle of Guinness and poured myself one, While that was going on she began working on the colcannon. there were a lot of steps putting it all together but the results worked out beautifully.


For the weekend we made the rounds of several stores in Windham on the way stopping at the Good Life Market for lunch. Carol had the Hawaiian Melt panini, ham, pineapple, roasted red pepper and Monterey Jack cheese, honey mustard on sourdough bread. I the Horsin' Around panini.
Roast beef, horseradish sauce, thinly sliced onion, cheddar cheese on multigrain bread. Good stuff including their dark roasted coffee.
Afterwards we made stops at a auto parts and pet supply stores, Lowes and Walmart for a variety of general purchases. One thing we picked up was a cupboard slide out assembly for hideaway trash bins to replace the one I had cobbled together years ago. Though I'm quite proud of it, it was difficult to manage getting a full trash bag out of it not to mention cleaning it out. we spent the early evening taking out the old one and putting together the new one, The Neflix DVD for Saturday night was the Swedish film "A Man Called Ove". Loved it, subtitles no problem.

Today, hanging around, made breakfast, air pressure checks on the vehicles, filled the bird feeders, vacuumed, watching some NASCAR, St.PD leftovers for lunch, blogged. Been a nice weather weekend.

Oh, 41 days to camper out of storage.




Thursday, March 16, 2017

Another morning at the ranch - it's Déjà vu all over again

Again! - Monday morning it happened again - came into the office opened my email to see a message from our CEO telling us that another company has bought us out, much like it had happened before. Since then we had bought out another company and expanded our name to include the name of that company it being the only major move made since then. This time a company made offer to buy all our stock and the board of directors accepted, this happened last Friday!?! Not like I would have knowledge of that sort at my end of things. Actually the deal made the financial news as both companies are publicly traded. Still need to get the stockholders buy in but I guess that shouldn't be a problem due to those kind of factors that drive this type of thing. It will take awhile to shake everything out before we don the mantle of our future management and other than a name and new branding it should be business as usual. Part of the reason they made the deal is to do what we do.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Early start

The nor'easter finished up late last night, after some breakfast Carol and I were out at 5:30am. We worked together to get the end of the driveway open from the piled high snow from the overnight plowing. Generally we may have had 20 inches. That took about an hour and then Carol when to get ready to go to work. Another two hours and I had most of the major stuff taken care of. Fingers crossed that Saturday's snow doesn't amount to much.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

As advertised


In the middle of it right now, 18-22" zone, looking out the window seeing periods of sideways snow. I left the office at 1pm before the storm really ramped up

Snow Blown Birds
Expecting this to last well into the evening and clean up in the morning. More coming for the weekend – joy, joy.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Hiding out from the cold

OK, as reported earlier it's been real cold for a few days now but we're not worried about it, Ian as come home for visit. The downside of that was Ali wasn't able to come also as there was class work to be done over the weekend for one of law classes. Next time we hope she'll make it. If not we may just have go to her - road trip! Ian arrived yesterday in time for lunch and we began to find out what he's been up to and what's upcoming including possibly a couple of good things regarding his studies. More on that after verification. We played a dice game for awhile settled in for individual activities, picked up takeout for supper at the nearby Chinese restaurant. Later we started up this week's DVD from Netflix, 15 minutes I was asleep and woke when the movie was over, time for bed. Today the three of us drove to Lois and Jim's for a visit with them and Margaret, one of Ian's grandmothers. A while after we returned Ian packed up to drive to Boston to meet up with Ali.

Also this weekend I was able focus on downloading some music mp3 titles I had collected to add to and freshen my collection. Most of those were music I'd heard from Soundstorm Radio on the Tuned In app . Been meaning to spend time on this for quite awhile now. I downloaded 19 songs but I have twice as many left on the list, deal with it at a later time.

Buckle up

Tranquility is over rated. At least in the terms winter in New England allows. Other than some periods of near zero temps it has been nice and we haven't any real amounts of snow in 3 or 4 weeks. Now our intrepid weather forecasters have been jacking up their viewers for another nor'easter that has been developing for about a week now from the west and north with some help from a system in the south as well. As of now we're looking at a snow event beginning mid-day Tuesday through Wednesday, winding up on Thursday.


Subject to change. We're pretty much in the center of this smear of magenta. Enjoyed the break in the storms, now it's time to gas up the snowthrower.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Slipping but still willing

Shouldn't be surprised but I do intend to blog at least one a week. Over the last couple of weeks we've been to another RV dealer's open house, Cole Farms for lunch, had some cold and mild weather, visited my mother, had fun watching an assortment of birds dropping by, continued dealing with a lingering cold. That has been very much a drag as that every now and then I burst out with a short bit of coughing. Tiring to say the least.

The regulars, Red is looking a little grumpy today

Jay looks like he's posing, heavy competition as
there were three others swooping in and out.

Top of the morning to you says the Tufted Titmouse.

Still grumpy... should toss in some cracked coffee beans.

Nice weather we're having – Ayah.

With not much to do outside around the house or football to watch we've made time to play a round of cribbage with our afternoon coffee/snack break. The games are quite even though Carol (slight edge) and I have completely different approaches to playing. I have a more competitive attitude which so far hasn't been an advantage. Just as well and it's just plain interesting to me watching how the end stretch plays out no matter who wins.