Blog Clog

I guess it's been more than a week since my last post. I don't have a reasonable reason for not posting except all of my great "Blogworthy" ideas took off for Spring Break. Sure we took a quick trip to Chicago to visit my mom, daughter Elaine and my new Grandnephew Gavin, and we got together with Derek, Jeanna and Saffron a few times, and Elaine and grandaughters Catherine and Elizabeth ventured into Wisconsin to see Saffron and family, and Jo and I drove down The River to Savannah Illinois for a picnic at The Palisades. Just nothing overly Blogable. In Mother Nature's world it's a time of change. Things are shifting around. Eagles heading farther north, Vultures taking over their "hunting grounds". The big migrations haven't gotten this far up the river yet. Although I did see a small flock of Pelicans a couple of days ago and the Blue Herons are nesting (at least down Chicago way). And I did manage to get a few photos of them while driving back from Chicago two weekends ago. The biggest event (actually there are two) was that I discovered that by reading the instruction book for my camera, I found out how to increase my zoom to 48x. Now all I have to do is find out how to hold the camera still long enough to get a sharp image. Big event 2 is that I bought a film/transparancey scanner. This means that when I dig out my old negatives and slides I can start scanning them and bore you to death with thousands of old pictures. Wow a whole new supply of stuff that I can make up lies about. For now I only have a couple of shots of "Heron Town" on the AT&T campus outside Chicago.

These were taken before my giant zoom discovery.
Next time you'll be able to read the logos on these guys caps

Damn Kids!!!

Recently Microsoft has been running TV ads featuring little kids doing wonderful things with their new photo program. And these are really smart a_ _ kids, bragging about how clever they are AND how young they are. I've been struggling with my "old" version of PhotoShop (the original program came to me on a 78 rpm record) for more years than these kids have been alive. I'd like to see those little smarties walk barefoot, uphill, in 12 foot deep snow for seventy two miles just to get to the outhouse. Well I'm not giving in to these miniature manipulators without a fight. I've put together a few before and after examples that I'd like to see those keyboard krawlers equal.

Try this short fingers!

Before

After

Before

After

And, top this one, you little creeps!

Before
After

3.14159265358979323846…

Tomorrow = March 14 = 3.14 = π.

No matter what you call it, it's PIE day! This is great. Two pie days in one year. I'd really prefer about 365 pie days a year. You may recall (you should have it circled on your calender) January 23rd is officially "National Pie Day" but to the mathemaniacs out there March 14th takes the honor. No matter how you slice it, (preferably in very large slabs) every day is a better day when there's a pie cooling in the kitchen, or in a restaurant, or in the bakery, or at a grocery store or even (although they don't make very good pies) at WalMart. In short, there's no excuse not to celebrate Pie Day either mathematically or gastronomically. Now get out there bake, buy or steal a big piece of pie. Start today! You never know when the bottom may fall out of the pie market.

Here's a reminder of how Sally and Uncas

celebrated back in January

All Done!!!

Mission accomplished. Operation "Kitchen Project" (code named KP) has been completed. Jo and I added the final touches Saturday carefully placing an edited down version of our collection of tins atop the cabinets. It took great restraint but we managed cut back the number of treasures (junk) we had on display here there and almost everywhere in the "old" kitchen. For some reason I didn't have the foresight to take any "before" pictures. One I took at the "2008 Cookie Baking Day" will have to suffice. So, let's let the pictures do their thousand words job...

I used a picture with a lot of clutter
so that the revise will look even better

Finally Jo and I get to sit down, relax
and watch that new fangled HDTV

How Big is Big?

I saw an ad recently for Kelloggs Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies. As if the old Snap Krackle and Pop wasn't enough distraction while trying to enjoy a nice quiet breakfast now we've got the little elfs (or is it elves?) on steroids. It might be the fumes from my recent kitchen paint job or just anticipation of the completion of "Project Kitchen" (formerly code named KP) only three valances away, but my mind wandered off to "BIG" cereal land. Now that Kelloggs got the ball (or kernel) rolling will the other breakfast biggies be far behind?

Cheerios big enough for emergencies

Even the snack industry is getting into the act

A full report on "KP" is only a day or two away. And then . . . we'll get back to reporting more exotic "Hystorical Wisconsin" facts and locations.