Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Modifications

black kitten 01

I find myself in the middle of December of 2016 wondering where the year went. Of course much of the elapsed time was spent being ill, yet there was even more weirdness eating up precious seconds, hours, and days. Included in the strangeness are the subcategories of politics, sports, technology, things breaking down, and celestial events. Just how many super moons can one year have?

This is starting to read like a year end post and I’m not willing to concede 2016 just yet. In the spirit of losing time…

Thursday, November 10, 2016

President Elect Donald Trump and Other Post Election Thoughts

Well, Tuesday was some night for many of us and unfortunately for me, I overdid things making the upper respiratory infection that was nearly gone return. While I’m physically having some breathing problems, I can say that mentally, emotionally, and spiritually the atmosphere has lifted allowing me to metaphorically breathe easier. Time to ramble a bit for posterity.

President Trump. A year ago I was telling people to get used to saying this only to be greeted by laughter.

Monday, November 07, 2016

2016 Election Thoughts

A highly abridged collection of my thoughts on the 2016 election written without any real structure with the purpose of jogging my memory later on.

What a bizarre election. It reminds me of reading accounts of Italian or Greek elections more than an American one.

Normally there is more excitement surrounding local candidates around here, but the strange presidential race has sucked most of the attention away this time out. One of the consequences of the immense damage the autocratic Obama administration has wrought over two terms is this weird (by American standards) faceoff between a billionaire populist not wanted by his party leadership and the most corrupt candidate to ever run for the office. Both have high negatives so it has been a marathon to see which one will be the most disliked.

Thursday, November 03, 2016

Chicago Cubs Win the 2016 World Series!!!

108 years since their last World Series title, the Chicago Cubs are once again champions. Being a recovering Cubs fan, I wasn’t emotionally invested in it the way I once would have, but I do wish my late mother could have seen the series.

Game 7 was one for the ages, a hard fought 8 to 7 victory in extra innings. While the Cleveland Indians had to be defeated, it was the multiple managing errors of Cubs manager Joe Maddon that they really overcame. His pitching changes and an insane 3-2 safety squeeze that ended in a strike out killing a rally were the things of every Cubs fan’s nightmares.

However, the team did not give up and took advantage of a rain delay after the ninth inning to regroup in time to break a six all tie in the 10th. Cleveland narrowed the lead in the bottom of the inning to give heart attacks to many a Chicago fan, yet the Cubs managed to hold them off.

This may have been the best game sevens of a World Series ever in one of the best series I’ve seen. It really showcased what makes baseball such an amazing sport.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Russian Spam Returns

UPDATED: There has been a flood of 3 hit drive by spams out of Russia via Ukraine ever since these hit. In fact, there are too many different ones to look into so it appears that we’re under siege again.

Original Post:

It looks like I spoke too soon about Blogger having improved on blocking Russian spam referrals. Once again a flood of unwanted fake referrals showed up in Stats and of course it is all from Russia or rerouted through Ukraine. Reinstalling TOR to check out the sites was an annoyance I’d never planned on doing again, but I’m in a bad mood these days so once again it is time to inform people of the garbage being pushed out.

Remember, never click on suspicious links in your Blogger referrals. I’ve taken the precaution of running an anonymous browser system within a virtual machine to take these screenshots because you never know what kind of malware might be pushed through the code embedded on these pages.

On to the spam…

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Yet Another Cat Missing

Baron October

I was going to post a generic update with cat photos for my next post, however it looks like yet another cat has been lost. It has been a miserable week with a virus leading to bronchitis that I’m having trouble getting over, so I hadn’t noticed Baron being absent for a couple of days. His brother Top has been acting weird which isn’t a good sign.

While there is a remote chance the soon to be neutered tomcat has gone wandering, this has never turned out to be the case out here. They vanish completely, most likely consumed by the out of control coyote population or some other predator. As a result, there isn’t much hope of seeing the loud and hyper affectionate tabby tiger again.

Funny, I’d just been lamenting how I’d been unable to get any good photos of Baron and his brother because they refuse to sit still. The photo above is probably the last one to ever be taken of the sweet animal.

I’ve been expecting the worst ever since getting the brothers since nothing good ever happens to me. Still hurts though it is getting harder to care about anything other than simple survival. If it weren’t for scar tissue, I wouldn’t have a heart at all these days. I certainly don’t have any hope.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

After the Rain

Jpeg

It hasn’t been a good year, but there have been worse ones, or so I try to remind myself. The world hasn’t been filled with much in the way of good news which make it easy to forget the better moments that happened. One needs to keep an eye open in order to catch those fleeting moments of magic that make life worth living.

A sunset drive last night in search of food to break the monotony of my diet featured an unspectacular sky leading me to leave my camera behind. So of course, I saw something I’d never seen before --  a column of rainbow light coming from the middle of a cloud on the horizon. No rainbow arch, just a nearly straight shaft of prismatic color descending from the sky like a psychedelic tornado, it caught my disbelieving eye.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Yucatan Floods 2016 Edition

Torrential rain and over saturated soil combined to cause more flooding in the SE Minnesota area with Yucatan Valley being no exception. We got off light compared to nearby parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, yet it is annoying that yet another “flood of the century” has hit our township. So far we’ve had this or worse levels of unwanted water in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2013, and now 2016.

Yucatan Flood 2016 05

Having gotten out and about later than I should have, I missed out on some of the event while discovering the bumper crop of densely packed corn concealed a great deal of the damage. This year saw a change in planting methods to double yields by sowing the seeds so close together that you can’t walk through a field anymore. As a consequence, there wasn’t much in the way of dramatic photographic material.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

No Excuses

While I’ve been struggling with my health and what few activities I’ve had, having an entire month go by without posting is ridiculous. That will be rectified in the near future, as I’m going to be making some changes in my life to reduce demands on my time and energy.

At the moment, I’m too tired to write anything at the moment, however there will be more posting on a variety of topics coming after I get over a bug I picked up this weekend.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Rambling Rather than Ranting

Once again, it has been more than a month since last posting. I wish this was due to being really busy having summer fun, however it is solely due to not being up to my normal levels of subhuman energy. Every day has been a tightrope walk managing health versus activity ever since spring arrived.

Adding to the misery has been chronic problems with the new silicone hydrogel contacts and trying to figure out just what is triggering allergic reactions that make me look like Christopher Lee as Dracula. What is mystifying is how one or the other eye acts up, but rarely both at the same time. Maybe a trip to an allergist is needed since I’ve used every kind of solution and cleaning regime out there.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

A Buggy and Stormy Start of Summer

moth01

I haven’t been posting much due to ongoing issues with Dad’s health, my health, and no excess energy to speak of. My father ending up back in the hospital for two days of observation to start June which capped off a disastrous May when his removed gastric tube opening took too long to heal. A raging fever, loss of balance, and the return of the uncontrollable hiccups led to reopening that wound along with the hospital stay.

While he was in Gundersen Hospital, I had a visitor on the kitchen screen door that spooked an aquaintance delivering some electronics for me to wipe. The frightening creature turned out to be one of the large Polyphemus moths that live in the region. There is no need to fear being bitten by these gentle giants for they don’t even eat as adults. Sadly it causes them to have a short lifespan of a week or so due to starvation.

Monday, May 23, 2016

A Milestone Passed

It was an early morning to venture out, but Dad had an important appointment to make that required blood work to processed first. Not only was it the last time we’d see the fellow who treated him for cancer, Dr. Chalasni, it was the official two year checkup after finishing chemotherapy.

While we are sad to see her move on to bigger and better things in another state, the results were negative for reoccurrence which is something to celebrate. At the two year remission mark, the odds of this type of lymphoma coming back drops dramatically. Now Dad only needs to go back every six months instead of every three months.

It is amazing how much his battle with cancer along with all the complications consumed so much time and energy. Most of the past two and a half years are a blur to me, ironically confirmed when I visited the optometrist later in the morning. The last time I’d been there was before Dad wrecked the Subaru which was the beginning of the travails.

So it is nice to be able to record this good news, especially after a hard month dealing with problems associated with his vent tube being removed from his stomach. Multiple runs to the ER and clinics made it seem like the bad old days were back for awhile. Thankfully that is now healing and the old man is once again mowing the yard with a push mower.

That’s a far cry from the skeletal figure that looked a moment away from death’s door two years ago.

Thursday, April 07, 2016

Man of Steel (2013) Review

Rebooting a film franchise is always divisive, however this bold reinterpretation of Superman’s origin may qualify as one of the most controversial in cinema history. Big, brashly violent, and unabashedly emotional this is definitely not the Christopher Reeve’s superhero that so many have fond memories of. Instead it is a science fiction story about what it would be like to be a perpetual stranger in a strange land while trying to find your own unique identity.

Man of Steel Title

See the title above? You won’t see that until the movie ends. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of this freight train of a story that hurtles through the two and half hours the movie runs. Contained within is a densely packed journey of discovery alternating with loss combined with all the repercussions of finding out alien life exists and may not be friendly.

Don’t expect much comic relief in this very serious take on the first comic book superhero. It stands in stark contrast to the relatively cheery 1970’s Superman film series.

Man of Steel BirthMan of Steel Krypton

Like Richard Donner’s classic from 1978, the movie begins on the dying world of Krypton somewhere far off in space. Hans Zimmer’s masterful soundtrack thrums away before giving way to a heartbeat of a baby being born. Amidst the decay of a spent people, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) have done something not allowed in hundreds of years: they have had a baby by natural childbirth rather than artificial engineering.