A picture perfect day!

I like to post a few pictures of around town when I get a chance to snap a few and a perfect day came this weekend while I was running a few errands last Friday. I had the day off in observance of Veteran’s day (one of the very few holidays my company shuts down for) and when I’m going to places like the post office and a couple of the downtown stores I usually park at the parking lot by the lake and walk to the various places I need to go since they’re all situated on or near the small Main st.

The wind was coming off the water at about 25mph, the temp was a brisk 45 degree’s but felt more like around 20 what with all the wind and the air was crystal clear. When I turned around like I usually do to look at the lake I was very glad that I had brought my trusty old weather beaten Kodak digital point and shoot and I snapped off a couple of shots. This one came out real nice:

 
I kept my camera at the ready as I headed up Main Street to the natural foods store just in case I came across another opportunity  and low and behold here’s what I saw:
 
 
 
A banner day for picture taking even if all I got was two good ones. Sometimes you don’t get any for all the shootin’ going on.
 
Just a beautiful day I thought I might share with some folks.
 

 

Long Meadow Farms website is moving!

Once again, it’s moving time but instead of moving the whole household across town like we did last year or her quilting business into an honest to goodness storefront in town this year, this time it’s her long standing www.longmeadowfarms.com website to a new host (BlueHost).  Although this move may not involve a whole lot of back breaking labor, it does involve a whole lot of trepidation. This venerable website has been around for nearly ten years now (which is akin to saying the house we live in has been around for nearly 100 years now) and  thrived for several years, been lost, got found, resuscitated and is well on it’s way up the ranks once again so it may be understandable why I feel like we’re handling some very fragile collectible that you definitely don’t want to drop. That’s me of course. I’m sure my honey thinks it’s just another walk in the park. After all, it’s not the first time it’s been moved but hopefully it’s the last.

The website will be up until Monday, November 13th when the transfer will take place and the website will be down for a few days and should be back up by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. The reason for the 2-3 day wait is so her Registrar can point her domain from it’s current host to the new one.

Wish us luck all.


Moving the blog as well?

…maybe…

On another note, my wonderful lady has offered one of her add-on domains that come with her Bluehost account to me if I care to move this fascinating blog :P of mine to Bluehost as well and do the “host my own” thing like some of my fellow bloggers have. Considering I’ve wanted to do more to this blog than just post to it for awhile now (like change colors, manipulate sidebars and generally messing it right up), I just might take her up on it. We’ll see.

Oh god…that means I’ll have to learn CSS! Can my old(er) brain handle it?

Anway, think good thoughts all and her website will be back up on her new host with no hands lost. Me?…I’ll move later and then I’ll be begging for all sorts of help I’m sure.

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Old PC recycling…not really?

For those of you that might be thinking of turning your PC over to the so-called PC recyclers or think that it’s such a good idea, you might want to check out this National Geographic article on what actually is happening to some of these PC’s and other electronic equipment.

And for an overall picture of what is happening to a lot of our waste products, another National Geographic article from the same issue opens our eyes to what is happening and being done without our (the general public) knowledge. Here’s a quote from the above article but read it yourselves to be sure

Nigeria, for example, has received about 500 containers of electronic equipment within the last two years under the guise of donations.

At least 75 percent of the shipment was unusable and so was hauled to open fields and burned.

Lead used in circuit boards and monitors’ glass tubes goes into the groundwater, and the burning plastics release deadly cancer-causing fumes.

“That is the constant assault that Africa is receiving,” Puckett said. “It’s happening on a daily basis.”

Stemming the tide of such shipments must be done on the export side, especially given that developing countries often don’t have an infrastructure to enforce proper waste management, Puckett adds.

“The U.S. is a glaring renegade country in this issue,” with no controls in place over such exports, he said.

About 80 percent of the electronic material U.S. consumers take to recyclers is going almost immediately offshore to developing countries in Asia or Africa, he says.

“Every country,” he said, “should take responsibility for their waste.”

This isn’t some group of radical environmentalist jumping up and down about toxic waste and nuclear power here, this is good old National Geographic. You know, the magazine that has been bringing us quality material since the late 1800′s?

The whole thing is pretty shocking but not surprising since it (as usual) all boils down to the one thing that ultimately rules above all else…money, coupled with an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude.

What was that old joke about ignorance and apathy?

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Snow’s getting closer

The weather up here in the Kingdom has been calling for snow (flurries and shower type) for the last week but has yet to really show at all but with the bite in the air lately, it’s not too far off. Been pretty gray and rainy lately and it won’t take much to change that rain into snow. Can’t wait (or can I?).

On another note, right after I stated in a previous post that I would keep my old and trusty Jeep Cherokee until the body rusts off etc, etc I found (last week), while loading some items into the back end, that the floor of the cargo area would no longer hold my weight which was placed upon my right knee at the time and that, much to my surprise, broke half way through the cargo area floor with a sickening crunch and the only thing keeping it from going all the way through was the carpet. This would end up becoming a problem when inspection time rolled around for sure. This plus the fact that I was looking forward to doing a complete brake job including rotors and drums, replacing the rear universal joint, a few door gaskets, a wiring harness connector (wires held together with electricians tape) and a new battery was making my outlook fairly dim when it came to ol’ trusty. The truth of the matter was, my rig was getting mighty old.

I had resigned myself to the inevitable at that point that since the wallet was still suffering from the repercussions of surgery and the recovery thereof, that I would have to tackle one of repair at a time and since I can longer place myself under cars/trucks anymore due to a previous back injury (service related) my mechanic would have the pleasure of tackling it for me one bill at a time.

Then, while I was rolling around the countryside last weekend, I happened to pass the auto dealership (little dirt parking lot type) that I had bought a vehicle from previously and there to my wondering eyes, sat another Cherokee of the same year (I like the ’95′s…best year Jeep made) and looking in great shape too. Seems that the Jeep had been in an accident and the dealership had bought it at the auction and completely rebuilt it. The dealership may look small but they are actually fairly large and have several of these small lots in and around two States so they have the means to do this.

So, to make a fairly short story even shorter…I traded in my old rusty old beater for one in much better shape complete with new brakes, tight drive train, a good floorboard and a new paint job as well. Like any old beast, it has it’s quirks but so do new vehicles that you pay a lot more for and for a much longer time. Hopefully, it will run as well as my previous Cherokee did.

As far as work goes these late Autumn days, I’m feeling much better (knock on wood) and increasing my hours from my current 32 (part time you know) to 36 per week. We’ll see how the old backside takes it. My back was “crunched” during my time in the service and although I can still get around fairly well, it has gotten worse with age.

All in a days work ya’ know. We shall see.

A good day to all.

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G’morning

Ah…tis the morning and  here I am bright tailed and bushy eyed. In fact, I was so full of lethargy energy this way too early AM, I practically fell leapt out of bed and staggered ran to the kitchen to put on the badly needed coffee. My eyes felt like they were filled with coffee grinds clear and open wide as I squinted looked out at the cold, gray, dreary, rainy bright, sunny morning thinking that all I wanted at that moment was to crawl back into bed and stay there until Spring rolled around again get to work and have a productive day.

Speaking of work…it’s getting late (as usual) and I must be off. Then again, I’m fairly “off” most of the time anyway but I still have to get to work. :-p

Everyone have a good day now.

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