A Lack of Motivation

It has been just over five months since I last posted here. Between struggles with health and not a whole lot to say, there hasn't been a lot of motivation to put together content for the blog. However, there has been an additional demotivating factor affecting my attitude.

The death of Open Live Writer's ability to work with images. Since the built in Blogger editor has always been twitchy, not to mention inconvenient to work with by comparison, it has made posting difficult.

One of the things that has made aging a melancholy process for me is the ruination of so many things I enjoyed or used faithfully over many years. From movie franchises to books to stores to tremendously helpful software, the downward spiral has been unavoidable. Here and there a replacement has been found that works, yet all too many have fallen prey to creative destruction -- minus the creative part.

So rethinking the blog is in order. Movie and anime reviews will not continue, though the old ones will stay. I had enjoyed the process of composing them but formatting has become an onerous task. A return to the more journal like aspect of the blog is probably in order with the added complication of my disliking writing about the unhappy things in my life.  Living through them is enough pain in the first place. The human desire to dwell endlessly on unhappiness is not something I approve of -- especially where I'm concerned.

Since my other blog, Mamie's Life is permanently discontinued I have to wonder if this is an end to an era on the Net for me. Output steadily decreased over the years has dropped the blog in priority to somewhere in the negative numbers on my To-Do list. Earlier in the year I posted about a lot of other factors souring me on blogging including the decline of civilized behavior in general.

All in all, I can't find any motivation to continue From the Sidelines.

Not a Tornado or Even a Thunderstorm

Earlier this morning minor storms passed through leaving more rain than fury. However, after they had vacated I noticed the freshly repaired flagpole bending in the wind which kept escalating. Nothing was on weather radar, so this caught us by surprise.

Dad went out to retrieve the flag despite my warning him, as it was not looking safe and I’d had a dream of being crushed under a falling object the night before. Moving faster than his elderly body normally does, my father successfully retrieved Old Glory while the wind continued to blow east to west which is the exact opposite of normal.

Discussing how strange all this was, I looked out the windows and as I watched, my beloved if unhealthy willow tree tore out of the ground dramatically keeling over in slow motion. A mere couple of minutes later the power went out at which I said the dead cottonwood planted by my late mother had fallen.

Sure enough, it had taking the power line with it.



Been a hard May so far. The Subaru had the power steering pump start failing Sunday and we only got the replacement part yesterday. We’ll see how long it will take to get it in and repaired. Power steering fluid boiling over its reservoir is something new for me, but so are random winds blowing over trees.

Weather reports state wind gusts from 45 mph to 54 mph in the area. This was closer to a sustained wind in my opinion that was more powerful since I’ve seen winds in that range before. Given the shape of the valleys intersecting here, it may well have been higher than 54 mph in our little corner of Yucatan Valley.

Thankfully the power utility crews did a great job very quickly in getting things rigged up again.

Which is more than I can say for Open Live Writer, which no longer can post images. Sigh.

The Long Winter

With an unsubstantial winter storm last week that failed to live up to predictions of nine inches of snow (the snow melted the moment it hit the ground), spring has been elusive here in the upper Midwest. Only today are seasonal temperatures arriving, though we did have a few tantalizing previews that flitted in and out again to make the wait more torturous.

38 Degrees Below Zero

The title says it all, we hit –38 F overnight with windchill taking it down another ten degrees below the base temperature. I thought thirty below the night before was bad enough, but this was impressive – however it still was topped by 1996 when our property crossed the forty below line.

Our new used 2006 Subaru Outback refused to start yesterday until some hours of having a space heater in the engine compartment took effect in the late afternoon. The car ran well for a short jaunt to check on a neighbor but a puddle of transmission or power steering fluid was apparent when we parked again. I’m hoping that it is simply shrunken seals due to the cold, but a mechanic will have to check it out once the thaw comes.

We’ve kept ahead of the cold and done fine with the only casualty being the plastic grill over the speaker in the driver’s side door. A tap with a booted foot instantly cracked the frozen plastic. Frustrating since we’ve only had the car for just over a week.

Final thought: Modern thermal longjohns are the best invention since sliced bread.