The Patio

[James48843]

Well, it's 2:30 in the afternoon, and most of the staff in the office are already gone.

There are only about 5 of us left out of the normal 100 or so in the office right now.

The on-duty supervisor is, at this moment, walking around, wearing antlers and a red nose.



Another year has gone by.

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy New Year (and various Holiday season, whatever it is you celebrate).

Wishing 2018 will be a better blessing for all.

Merry Chrsitmas!

 

[konakathy]

It’s 10am here on the Islands and our cold front has passed over us leaving us with some snow on Mauna Kea and warm gentle breezes on the beaches.
The tourists are arriving for their winter getaway which means more
cars on the road, crowded beaches and happy cheerful sunburnt faces grateful to be celebrating the holidays in paradise. The merchants have big smiles too.
I did have plans with some friends visiting from the mainland but I just came down with bronchitis again (just had it in October) so I’ll be on the couch watching all those Hallmark Christmas movies that have been on a 24 hour loop
since Halloween. Yay!!

Mele Kalikimaka! Have a safe and joyous holiday!

Snowfall on Mauna Kea this week.



Santa arriving at Waikiki Beach.

 

[Scout333]

Get well soon! No fun to be sick during the holidays!

 

[nasa1974]

Here on the North Coast it is 12 degrees with a wind chill of -3 and we added another 1 1/2" of snow today.

 

[ravensfan]

Here on the North Coast it is 12 degrees with a wind chill of -3 and we added another 1 1/2" of snow today.

So what was your total snowfall? News is reporting Erie PA got slammed with 62". Yuck! :grumble:

 

[nasa1974]

So what was your total snowfall? News is reporting Erie PA got slammed with 62". Yuck! :grumble:

No where near Erie. Just 7 1/4" since the 23rd.

 

[James48843]

I’m getting hit in Michigan with lots of lake effect snow. Temp below zero.

View from space


Sent from my iPhone using TSP Talk Forums

 

[alevin]

We have about 8-10 here since the 24th. deep enough to make it interesting

 

[ravensfan]

No where near Erie. Just 7 1/4" since the 23rd.

Well at least that is manageable. We had two snowfalls before Christmas but not enough to cancel school and nothing since.

 

[PessOptimist]

Happy March Madness everyone!

Got chores done and SO ready for her trip and sitting on the patio listening to the air show. Mid 60s and windy so a bit chilly in the shade.

SO bought a new tree to replace one blown over a few months ago. I think it is a plantus expensivus. It came with a page of instructions about watering. Checked out the drip lines around the new tree and in general. Lot's of gushers. How do those regulators just disappear like they do? So I got soaked fixing them. If I turn it off, I can't see where it is gushing.

The air show is Luke Day's at Luke AFB. The top attraction this year is the Blue Angels. Go figure. Luke was the Thunderbirds first home.

PO

 

[RazorCat]

Mid-70s all week here. Yard duty today and tomorrow. Last of the leaves from the Shumard Oaks which don't drop until March or April when the new growth hits (dammit). Dogwoods, Jonquils, and Azaleas are in full bloom. Planted a "Garnet" Japanese Maple last week, and have a Murasaki Kiyohime this week. My wife always picks the largest specimen they have, so I know what you mean about "plantus expensivus". Fishing on Wednesday, horse races at Oaklawn on Saturday with old friends. Not much time to sit and relax, but I'll pop a squat at some point and have a cold beer. We had a decorative concrete overlay done on our patio last week. Turned out great. And I'm having a long overdue French drain installed along the back of the house this week.
Who was it that said "Anyone who owns his own a home, deserves it"? Alan King?

 

[PessOptimist]

Random thoughts about random things.

At one of my European locations where TV was 1" video tapes, we started getting Hill Street Blues. Apparently it took the audio visual sensors some time to approve that show lest it corrupt the minds of those serving in the US armed forces. What sticks in my mind is a coworker stating he would "eat a mile of Joyce Davenport's (Veronica Hamel) excrement just to see where it came from, why is Furrillo still screwing around with/under control of Fay when he has that?, what does amazing Grace see in Esterhaus?, I think I've been stopped by Mick Belker".

Please keep in mind this was a less PC era, 25 males isolated from everything to keep lines of communication open until "no longer practicable".

Plantus Expensivus is still alive so I guess I have been watering it OK. Now that the 90s are here and 100s+ soon coming we will see.

Old projects at work finally getting some traction. Not sure where the money is from under the CR but I have learned not to question such directives. I figure about 145 work days left until retirement. Meetings about things beyond Q1 FY 19 bore me but I am really trying to keep on top of them for my successor. Why am I the only one from my section at these meetings since I am a blue collar technician?

About 80 degrees here at 1922 hours. Life has been pretty good so far this week.

The last two Saturdays a pair of ducks has landed in my yard and floated in my pool. I took photos and discovered my old camera will no longer communicate with any PC or it's own memory card so I can't download the pics.

Then the desktop I built a few years ago stopped working. I think it is a power supply problem but it came to life again long enough to get docs and photos to the laptop. Plus I have a "toaster" type USB hard drive appliance so no worries about the data. Just one more annoyance.

Like I said, life is pretty good.

PO

 

[PessOptimist]

f it

View attachment 43025

Thoughts about posts elsewhere concerning 1969 Dodge Chargers known as “General Lee”. They destroyed or at least messed up a lot of Chargers/Coronets for that show. Coronets??? You say aghast. Yeah some of them were Coronet hardtops fixed up to look like a 69 charger wearing Corvette paint. Some even had 225ci slant sixes and a three on the tree transmission. Great show but I know of some younger (than me) people thinking they could do stuff like that with their personal vehicles or more likely parent’s or borrowed vehicles. That never turned out well.

Market sucks pretty much and I am looking up at the G fund but not yet negative for the year. Retiring at the end of the year so need to be content with the TSP balance and try not to reduce it. So far all my payroll allocations are negated by my 13% in the C fund. Time to move it all to G and take the loss? Let it ride and see what happens? Try to actively trade?

Other patio stuff, windy here and dropping to the 70s the next few days. I-10 south of here closed due to dust storms and accidents. Air tastes gritty.

Ducks came back. Looking forward to my weekend.


PO

 

[nasa1974]

We finally hit 70+ here on the north coast. Been 15 to 20 degrees below average for March and April. The average for April is almost 60. Forecast for the next two weeks is upper 40's to low 50"s and wet.

I like the Mallards. We have a pair swimming around in the neighbor's back yard for the last two weeks. Their back yard floods this time of year and the Mallard's come back every year. Last night they walked into my yard and camped under my bird feeders. That upset the squirrels. :nuts: The wife spotted a turkey the other day in the back yard.

Have a great weekend.

 

[burrocrat]

aaay chico, sometimes you just got to chill with the ducks and try your lucks, low and slow, it's all good man.

yes, a great song and a great performance, but watch the soul train dancers in the background. can you spot it? they invented twerking like 30 years before twerking was invented (even before miley cyrus was born).

 

[RazorCat]

80s yesterday and today in SW Arkansas. The fishing was exceptional yesterday. Bass were biting a jig and pig, and the gators (I counted 11 total in the area I fished) were out sunning on the banks.
Storms rolling through tonight, and we're back in the 50s for the weekend. ;swear Apparently, it's going to be a "bad weather event" because Jim Cantore is in town. Someone posted on FB that Jim Cantore is sort of like an ex-wife. When they show up, there's a chance you might lose everything.
We're ready to put the pontoon in at the lakehouse, but going to be too cool with 20-30 MPH winds tomorrow, so I guess it'll wait until next week when it returns to the 70s. MY road dog, Oscar, is ready to hit the water for some light rafting, and frothy beverages. Sorry for the photo orientation. Won't let me correct the rotation in iPhoto.

 

[konakathy]

The weather here in Hawaii hasn’t exactly been all sunshine and rainbows these past few months,in fact, I’m beginning to forget what the sun looks like. I feel like I’m back in WA with the the rain and gray clouds only with warmer temps. The humidity is bad without the trade winds and I’m hoping they come back soon; next week according to our local weather man. It is what it is. Just an observation, not complaining. I’ll still take this weather over the weather they’re having in MN and surrounding area. Snow?!! WTH?
I have ducks, NeNe’s (Hawaiian State bird) turkeys, cardinals, finches and those noisey miner birds around my complex and the golf course pond. I do love listening to the chorus of songs they sing at morning and night when everything is so quiet. Last night we had a grand thunder and lightning show and the turkeys roosting in the trees would freak out and start gobbling like crazy. It must have set off the testosterone in the males because they were strutting around this morning after one female (who could care less.)

* I can’t figure out how to adjust these pictures, either. i’m screwing it up even more. sorry. iphoto doesn’t jive with this websites software.




NeNe’s on the move.


Cardinals on my lanai feeding.

 

[alevin]

cool! I didn't know cardinals in HI, only ever seen them in east and midwest.

 

[RazorCat]

I’ll have to snap some pics of the bird sanctuary my wife has created in our backyard since she retired a few weeks ago.
Cardinals, Doves, hummingbirds, red and yellow finches, and the occasional Red Tailed Hawk looking for a fat sparrow meal deal.
3 new bird feeders (6 total), and 2 new bird baths to go with the hummingbird feeders we already had. Hey, I’m glad she’s enjoying the show. And glad she’s got a cheap source for all the birdseed. A fiend of ours owns a feed store, and sells it to her in bulk (thank you Lord). My new job title is “Squirrel Terminator”. The little rats with fuzzy tails have proven to be unable, and unwilling, to coexist peacefully. And as if growing morbidly obese consuming acorns off the 6 oak trees weren’t enough, now they’re gorging on birdseed. So, my wife ordered “boots on the ground”. I have 12 confirmed kills in 5 days, but alas, the commander isn’t satisfied. When I returned to home base from fishing I was notified that 2 more hostile were spotted in the region. So, back to sniper duty tomorrow. Shoot ‘em, skin ‘em, freeze ‘em. An older gentleman I know comes by and gets them to use in squirrel mulligan. A southern delicacy.

 

[alevin]

A lot of southern influence in south-central Ill. Grew up eating squirrel stew, among other wild game dishes. It was ok, better than the whitetail stew I didn't much care for. Dad's skill with rifle and shotgun, gained as a boy, probably helped a bit with family food budget, raising 3 kids in the 60s. He inherited his grandpa's 12-gauge shotgun, extra long compared to today's norms, won't fit in your average shotgun case, too long a barrel.