My dream houses

Yes I bought a Megabucks ticket yesterday. No, I didn't win but if I did, I might have built myself a hobbit house. Probably not one as fancy as this first picture. You can take a tour of it here. A little highbrow for my tastes.

But this one is just my style.

If the link works, there's a whole gallery of cool houses and hobbit furniture that I would love to own someday.

Live cam: For the birds

A new addition to my live cam collection. Decided not to embed the player because it will probably screw up the page load, but here's the links. Both work for me but I understand some people can only access one or the other.

Great Blue Heron Nest or Great Blue Heron Nest. They have a new egg and it appears from a quick check this morning, they also already have one baby heron. Or maybe that's the mom whose butt end I saw.

I've added them to the sidebar links.

Smoking

Lots of art links crossing the radar today. Like this guy's digital smoke photos. Interesting technique. This is one of my favorites.

Much more at the link.

Happy Blogiversary to me

I don't think I've ever remembered to celebrate, but yesterday was the anniversary of the day this blog started. In fact, it would be the anniversary of the day I started blogging that has since morphed into a nine year odyssey of spilling words onto the internets.

I've come a long way since then. When I started, I blogged under a silly pseudonym and Blogger was a primitive format that required a certain knowledge of html that I didn't have. I didn't know how to embed links or graphics. I didn't even know how to change fonts.

Learned a bit since then. Started another blog of my own, guest blogged and co-blogged in so many places I can't remember them all, and mastered a lot of blogging platforms, which became a whole lot easier to use over time as the technology and storage space on computers improved.

Of course, this little blog is now just a tiny hideaway, a sort of on-going letter to my friends and family, but it's still the one I love the best, because you still stop by to see what I have to say, even after all these years. Love you all and thanks for sticking with me.

Peaceable Kingdom

Well this is so cool. Reminds me of my Dad, who could tame any wild thing and my brother and sis-in-law who live in Alaska. Wonder if this stuff ever happens to them.



Another video of the cats and the eagle and the backstory on this woman's wildlife visitors at this link.

Want to be a part of it, NY, NY

Been a while since I posted a NYC picture. Something about this one I really liked. Somebody's view of the Empire State Building from their new apartment. Made me wish I had a reason to go there. Love that city and it's been a long time...

RT @TheGrooveRadioEmpire State Building from my bedroom. instagr.am/p/IsdJLWyZEG/

— Katie's ESB Project(@ESB_lights) March 28, 2012

[Original photo]

I'm looking over my four leaf clover

Things have been quiet in the little city lately. Big excitement of the month happened yesterday. I've been diligently searching for four leaf clovers here for almost three years now. I was convinced they just didn't grow around here. Then yesterday, I was trying to cross the street with the intention of buying a lottery ticket for the Megabucks, what with the prize being about a quarter of billion.

There was so much traffic, I had to wait a while, so I idly scanned the patch of clover at my feet. A patch, I might add that I've searched before. And damn if I didn't see a big fat four leaf clover staring right at me. Of course, if there's one, there's more. I found six of them. Gave one to the guy who sold me the ticket. He kissed it and put it on the cash register.

Of course, it didn't help. At least not right away. I only won a buck back. But then again, no one won the big prize so it's now up to almost half a billion. Hoping that means my lucky clover just decided to hold out for the bigger prize.

Meanwhile, haven't posted a picture in a while. Thinking this is probably a digitially enhanced photo, if not a photoshop, but nice, no? Sunset through a wave...

[Original photo]

Galumph went the little green frog one day

I would have hated this video except that the frog gets his revenge at the end.



[See larger version here]

On a completely note, can't figure out how to embed this video, but it's a such a feel good story about a sweet pup. The music is a little annoying, but the boffo ending made it all worthwhile.

Working in the salt mines

This was a fairly common expression when I was young but I never really thought about what the salt mines were. Actually didn't even know there were salt mines. Thought it might be a metaphor. But they're real, and they're beautiful in weird way.

Lots more photos here.

Fly like an eagle

I don't care if this is faked. I really want it to be true. I've been dreaming about flying like a bird since I was about 7 years old and read the story of Icarus.



I built my own wings at the time. Of course, my attempt at flying off the porch was not nearly this successful.

The Most Astounding Thing

Don't like to embed Vimeo vids because they are so slow to load, especially for those who don't have high speed internet. But this one was so good, I'm going to post the link and encourage you to click over to watch it. Very inspiring and not that long.

The Most Astounding Fact from Max Schlickenmeyer on Vimeo.

From my niece, who I call my sister because she feels like a sister than a kid.

Happy Birthday Mr. Horton

The narrator of my lifelong favorite cartoon series Edward Everett Horton, is having a birthday today. I love everything about the original Rocky and Bullwinkle, but Fractured Fairy Tales was always my most favorite segment in the show. They still hold up pretty well over time.



Oh heck. It's a birthday party. Have another one.



Excited to find there's so many of them on the youtube.

Things that aren't on my bucket list

You'll recall that crazy bike race I posted last week. Think this might be even crazier, but without the crowds and the noise, it looks less dramatic until you think about it.



That looks like a really sheer drop on the right to me. The price for going off track would be literally falling off the face of the earth. And there's not even a crowd to appreciate the insane risk.

Starry night

I've been really enjoying the Venus/Jupiter conjunction for the last couple of weeks. This photo doesn't capture how large and bright it looks in person, but does evoke the magic I think.

It's still happening. I've had the best views early evening, sort of low in the western sky. Check it out if you haven't seen it yet. [original photo]

Blame it on the planets

If your electronic communications have been garbled lately, it's entirely possible it's because of the solar flares.

Original photo. Scary but beautiful. Or you can watch the animation which is very cool.

I'm also told by reliable sources that Mercury just went into retrograde again for I think about three weeks. That also is supposed to thwart progress, so if you're having bad days, you can blame it on cosmos.

That always make me feel better anyway. I mean, if it's because of the planets, it means it's going to end when the planets move again. So there's that...

True companions

Heartbreaking and heartwarming at once. Wish I knew the back story for this photo.

[original here]

Crazy people

This is literally insane. I honest to God screamed at loud at some of those jumps. I thought it would never end.



You might want to watch this in the larger format to get the full effect.

Hope there's a million dollar prize for the winner, because I'd hate to believe anybody would do this for less. Also, wondering if any rider took the option of going through that big concrete pipe. Glad this guy didn't do it. Don't think my heart would have taken the strain.

Fire and water

Whoa. If I ever manage to get a little house of my own and settle down in one spot someday, I most definitely want one of these in my yard.

Pretty in Pink

I've had a love/hate relationship with the color pink for all my life. There was a long time I wouldn't wear it because, you know, sexist connotation and it was all about the feminism then. But I don't care much about identity politics anymore and the truth is I look great in certain shades of it. Especially hot pink. Lately, fully half my wardrobe is pink.

Which brings me to this 50s era pink kitchen. Don't know if I love it because of the color or because it looks like the toy kitchen I played in as a kid. But if I owned a house, I'd think about having one just like this.

Off the twitter machine, from this great tumblr page, Nifty Fifites that has easy to navigate archive pages. I had to force myself to stop digging down. Some fabulous shots of 50s movie stars and fashion shoots. Think I'll put it on the sidebar for future reference.

Dick Clark's house

You can buy it for only $3.5 million. And it really is a near replica of Fred and Wilma Flintstone's stone age home.

Tiny too. Only one bedroom, but two baths. Who knows what the deal with that is. But a helluva view and 23 acres. Couple of more photos here. If I was rich, I would probably buy it. A little home on a lot of land near the sea sounds good to me.

Creepy but oddly beautiful - updated

Well there's no way you would get me to walk out of this house into those fields, but what a photo.

Apparently the spiders were trying to escape a flood.

Update: Yikes. The spiders have been busy. The webs are so thick now, they look like snow.

There's no place like home

Sadly, the good elves didn't come and stock my refrigerator with fresh food while I was gone. On the bright side, there's no mold or melted stuff in there. But everything is expired. Praise be to canned soup. I was too tired to get take out.

Not so nice to come home to the new driver's license. Good Lord, but I am so unphotogenic. Winter hair is not my best look. But on the bright side, it's not quite so bad as the last one, so there's that...

Last leg of this route is always the toughest. What should have been a easy 4 1/2 hour pleasure trip turned into a 5 1/2 hour nightmare. You wouldn't think there would be so many bad drivers on a Sunday. And the last two highways were shut down with accidents.

First one was the worst. They routed us off the highway entirely and I had no idea where I was. Six cop cars, not one giving directions or information on how far up it was closed. GPS is no help. She wants to get me back on the same exit. Had to guess at the direction until she figured out I needed an alternate route. Second not so bad. I knew where I was, so I ditched before the jam and took the slow road home for the last ten miles.

Fearless

Long day. Digging into the archives for something quick to post. Just love this photo.

Click to embiggen. It's even better in a larger format. No idea on the context. From the Seattle Times via the twitter machine.

Busy busy

Sorry about the no posting. Been very busy. Trying to get home. Hope to post something when I land for the night. Thanks for not giving up on this little blog.