pshaw_raven: (Iceland)
Huzzah, I finally feel normal again. I didn't even think about it when I got up, I just realized as I was drinking some coffee ... nothing hurts. So I guess I'll go for a run today.

We finally got some trees cut down and split, since we had a little break with nice weather before this monster cold front moves in. The dead bay laurel turned out to be too spongy to burn - it actually burst when it hit the ground. Going a little further back, Fox found a sick and damaged pine, but we ended up having to cut down a healthy one as well. We normally don't like to do that but it made felling the sick tree super easy, and now we have twice the firewood. We managed to get all that cut up and split before rain moved in. We're not super-human, we just have a hydraulic log splitter that mounts on the tractor.

I haven't been writing or doing anything much creative this week. I've got a friend's character card I need to play around with, and I want to finish up a day in Over The Mountain. I've spent more time just reading and letting my brain soak up things. I ought to be able to do some of that today, considering I've gotten a lot of major chores finished up and I feel physically and mentally well again. Not to jinx myself, but I don't even have any back aches from dealing with all those logs.

This thunderstorm is nice. I love a good storm.

The lady whose wallet we found? The package came back marked return to sender - unable to forward. I guess we did everything we can do. It's weird the stuff like that you find. I'm keeping a running count of iPhones we've found (3) and I say this because the stretch of highway where Fox picked that up is going to officially be ours soon. The county accepted our "adopt a highway" application! We were requesting the stretch of 315 heading to SR21 where we most often run, but that was taken, and we got the section just to the south that goes towards McRae. We run that too, or I do more often that Fox does. I pick it because it has some hills, and if I go far enough south, there's a small church with an outdoor water fountain. Anyway, I'm going to be picking up trash by the highway, just like my guidance counselor said I would! I should call her! :D
pshaw_raven: (All Work No Play)


The extra-stupid part is that the road is fine. It's been worked on since the hurricanes and is looking good. This dipshit went out of his way to go into the ditch and fucked himself up. Of course, now that section of road is going to get torn up as they drag the truck out. Nice job, dumbass.
pshaw_raven: (Iceland)
Holy cow, it's going to be 36 tonight.

It'll be a great morning to go run :D

Actually, my long run is on Sunday. I'm getting into a pattern of running three and four days in a row, with increasing miles each day, so as to get accustomed to the Dopey Challenge's increasing distances. Tomorrow is a six-miler, and Sunday is sixteen.

It's not always that cold at Disney in January, though it can be. The first year I did it, there was actually frost on the ground. I was huddled up with some strangers in the starting corral, all bunched up like baby penguins in a creche. And in the Epcot parking lot, there's nothing to break up the wind gusts.

So while I could replicate the conditions out there by getting up and starting my run at around 5:30 am, it's still very dark here at that time, and there's one major complication about running in the dark here that Disney doesn't have. Bears. I would really prefer not to surprise a bear in the dark. At WDW this is not likely to happen, though they do have bears. And just to explain this very simply, I even have a handy illustration.



We didn't do much for Thanksgiving here, but Fox and I tend to keep the holidays pretty low-key. I'm sort of itching to get out and do something today, but I think I'm going to wait until Monday or Tuesday. I'd like to go to Chamblin Book Mine. I mean, maybe tomorrow, especially if I have some things I could pick up at the Asian grocer.

And my vintage-pen-friendly ink should be here today. Time to print off some practice sheets.
pshaw_raven: (Sushi Cat)
I don't know how much bitching and moaning I've done on here about it, but some of you might know that I hate my neighbor's dogs. She had three pit bulls or pit mixes, one of which is now a senior dog and stays indoors most of the time. The other two are just awful, and the female had puppies a couple of months ago and got exponentially worse as a result. (WHY ISN'T SHE SPAYED) The male wound up being confined to a run, since he'd routinely break his lead to chase cars and people. The female is allowed to roam at large, and has decided that my front yard, mailbox, and the road to the north of her own yard is all hers, and will charge me whenever she sees me.

They're both pretty reactive and will start barking at the slightest provocation. The male would boredom bark for HOURS at night. I worried about our ability to leave the windows open this winter with all the nighttime noise, and I worried about what might happen if one of the cats escaped again, since Nana likes to go out and will try to slip out the door.

But the good news is that my neighbor stopped me this morning at the end of my run. Her dog had just spotted me and come running, so she came out to get it and let me know that the male was already gone, and the female is being rehomed today. HALLELUJAH! I can't tell you what a relief it is to not have to deal with them.

I did wonder if she was going to get rid of them, because she's mentioned a couple of times to me that she doesn't even like them that much, and hasn't been able to train them. I thought perhaps her boyfriend liked the dogs and maybe he was pressuring her to keep them.

Anyway, my life just got a whole lot better and I'm grateful for it. And I wanted to share that here.

It's not that I hate dogs that much, though I'm not a fan of canines. A lot of people have well-behaved dogs, and they take steps to make sure their pets aren't a bother to other people. If your dog is behind its own fence and stays in its yard, I have zero problems with it. I'm not thrilled by barking, but I guess no one is. I know people might think it's weird how much I like cats, but then, my cats don't attack the mail carrier.

I also don't think it was just me, though she said she didn't like how her dogs chased me. I'm pretty sure the mail carriers, Amazon drivers, garbage collectors, and some of the other folks who're out here on business don't appreciate it either.

My birthday's tomorrow, and while we're not doing anything specifically on Sunday, I may do a special dinner on Monday after I go shopping. Since I share a birthday with Julia Child, I like preparing one of her dishes to celebrate. One of these days I'm going to get a copy of her cookbook, preferably an old one. I often pick her justly famous beouf bourguignon but this year I'm looking at chicken in mushroom cream sauce. I know there's a ton of recipes for that, but people seem to rave about Julia's version.
pshaw_raven: (Stormy Weather)
It's once again been an interesting couple of days. I think this the right timeline, let's see.

Saturday we had some pretty severe storms come through. Fox and I have started using a site called Windy.com that primarily shows wind speed & direction along with lightning strikes, in almost real time. It was designed primarily for people in aviation but obviously weather nerds like it, too. There was a LOT of lightning with this system, to the point that we unplugged and utilized the physical disconnect that removes the radio tower from the house system. Basically the last two catastrophic lightning strikes we took hit the tower, then came into the house and fried our shit that way. We didn't suffer any problems, but a tower at Cherokee Hill did.

Since lightning does whatever it wants, it hit something near the tower, traveled through the earth, then went UP the grounding pins and blew the utility box that way. Because why not. So they got that back online Sunday. Around that time I lost my cell connection to Sprint. Normally when the wifi and internet are out I can still get online with my phone using my data plan, but nope. Not sure what was going on there, but it didn't come back until late yesterday.

Then Sunday and Monday afternoon, the power went out. No clue as to why, though it looked from the outage map that a transfer station down in Florahome was the problem. But one day the lights flickered and went out for about 90 minutes. Yesterday the flickering and surges went on for almost three minutes - as you might imagine that's not good for computers and such. It FINALLY went out and stayed off for again, about 90 minutes. I'm planning my day today around losing power again by three, but we'll see what happens.

So the last few days have been full of WTF-ery.

I did manage to get online long enough to hit the Steam sale and picked up "In Between" and "The Messenger." I need a break from Blasphemous - I'm at the end of my last penance and I'm for some reason stuck on Escribar. I don't remember him being this difficult to beat before. After getting through this, though, I have one more achievement in the game - the three hour speedrun, which I feel reasonable confident about. I also want to finish up Demetrios, which I might do tomorrow evening.

My tendons and calf muscle have felt well enough to get out and run, so I try to get up early and get out before it's too miserable outside. If I'm up at 5:30 that's plenty of time for a cup of coffee, "dropping weight" *ahem*, and getting outside while the sun is just starting to rise. Today I did speed intervals - 6 half-milers at my desired race pace, with short jogs and walks in between to bring my heart rate back down. I was able to sustain race pace, but I noticed a few times I started pushing hard and going well above that speed, and I felt it. I sometimes have trouble moderating my pace, so interval work is something I try to schedule once a week. I need to keep reminding myself that while having a little time cushion is good, I don't have to bust a lung. Moderate your pace, give yourself a little extra time for walk breaks if you need them, and don't get so hung up on a PR that you hurt yourself.
pshaw_raven: (Flying Raven)
Hey everyone! Sorry to keep falling silent over here but there's honestly not much going on in my part of the world. We're currently enjoying a late cold snap, so the house windows are still open and I'm still doing my runs outdoors. I'm currently debating with myself whether to keep running outside and just get out a lot earlier to beat the heat, or treadmill it for the summer.

Pros of outside include scenery, variety, uneven terrain that forces small muscles in my feet and legs to adjust and strengthen, and it feels more mentally/emotionally healing.

Cons of outside include dogs, humans, and insects.

Yesterday I had to unload a can of mace on a couple of toy-to-small size terriers of some sort. They were aggro enough to push under their gate and come after me, and smart enough not to get in kicking range. I don't know why people don't work on aggression problems in small dogs - it's not cute or funny. A lucky bite could damage my ankle muscles and even tendons. My neighbor's pit bull is also getting off his chain more routinely and he is seriously aggressive. He's come at me a couple of times and he clearly means business, but I also routinely carry a large stick when I go to the mailbox or to take the trash out. I had to break my stick the other day but now I have a new one. She says she's buying one of those electric fences, but I was kind of hoping she'd say she was rehoming the dog. He dislikes babies, cats, other dogs, and strangers. Why the fuck would you keep a dog like that.

On top of everything else, my long run got cut short when some dude in a truck decided he was going to holler at me about how he wanted to "check me out," then started making u-turns to try to cut me off. It was kind of scary and I spent a lot of yesterday's longer run examining oncoming vehicles because I was just paranoid. Any run over 3.5 miles takes me to the hardtop, which aside from those stupid terriers, is blissfully dog-free. But anyway, scary guy kept laying on the horn and trying to turn to get ahead of me when I'd change direction and run away from him. It was early enough that there wasn't much traffic out so he had the room to do this shit. It's also very weird, like, what did I do to attract attention?

So - pros of the treadmill - it's in my house. Cons - it's boring.

Although at this point "boring" is sounding like more of a pro than a con.

Should I learn to run with a 9 mil? Learn to be bored? Maybe buy an Audible subscription, I dunno. Today's run is 3.5 miles, so I turn around at the hardtop, it takes a little over half an hour. I'll probably get out as soon as Fox is up and moving around.

In another part of my Agony Column, I get my second Moderna jab next week and I'm a little anxious about it. I definitely going to get it, I just have heard that the second one is worse.

And now for something completely unrelated. Have you guys tried butter coffee? I was deeply skeptical but this stuff is terrific. I'm making it with just regular Publix unsalted butter and Folgers 1850 (or whatever year it's meant to be) Pioneer blend and I'm really sold on it now. Next up, gonna try adding MCT oil. It's supposed to be good for your brain and heaven knows my brain needs all the help it can get.
pshaw_raven: (Putin on a Kit)


That's one of the flyovers from yesterday. They don't look quite as impressive from the top of the tower as I thought they would but there it is!

We had even more "fun" last night. I'm used to Camp Blanding having night maneuvers, I mean, it is a training facility so you expect some levels of noise and activity. The helicopters woke me up last night around 10:30, and then there was a lot of gun fire, none of which was unusual. Just annoying. Then there was ... four or five times, this sound. This sort of reverberating, deep, incredibly loud metallic sound, like the long mountain horns Tibetan monks play, but louder and deeper. This isn't the first time I've heard it, but I still haven't found out what it is. And whatever it is, they don't do it very often. Finally, by eleven they were done.

I've been enjoying outdoor runs lately while the weather is good. Yesterday was pretty cold (for here) but I reminded myself I'll be dreaming about runs like this in six months when the heat index says it feels like the surface of the sun. But today it looks like I'm supposed to run hills, and since we don't really have any of those, I'll be running on the treadmill. I can make my own hills. I've also started to get more consistent with my strength training, mainly by telling Fox when I want to do it, so then I feel more compelled to, even when I really want to slack off. And it's starting to pay off, as I knew it would. My scale weight's going up, but I'm not seeing much change in how my clothes fit, and lifting is getting a little easier, so I'm happy. I still can't do a chin up, but I can do more inverted rows now. I'll get to chin ups eventually.

I'm also going to revisit making deep dish pizza tonight. I'm getting pretty good at regular flat pizzas using our pizza steel but a change now and then is good.

WHOOSH

Feb. 2nd, 2021 10:23 am
pshaw_raven: (Flying Raven)
It's already been an interesting morning. About an hour ago, a C-130 Hercules started buzzing our house. I'm used to low-flying aircraft from Camp Blanding, which is usually helicopters or the occasional Forestry Service fire spotting plane, but this was exceptional.

This isn't a small plane and its altitude showed on FlightAware as 400 feet, so it was insanely low for a plane of its size. And it kept circling around and coming back which was the weird thing. From the flight path, it looked like he literally took off at NAS-JAX on a mission to come annoy me, since he flew directly here, then started flying in circles. (Well, loops, anyway.)

Realistically, he was probably using a nearby stretch of Highway 315 as an east-west vector, and at his altitude, he was probably also looking at a neighbor's internet-radio tower about a mile away, as he's got this bigass American flag at the top. (why would you put that kind of wind load on your radio tower) and not, specifically, me.

I went outside to wait for him to go over because I just wanted to see, and it was impressive. I even had this primal, gut reaction of wanting to duck down, because I'm simply not used to seeing big planes that low. Anyway, I think he's done for now. I've heard the engines a few more times, but further away. We also couldn't find any more info on the flight other than a call sign.

Kind of making me wonder if we shouldn't put a red light on top of our tower. It's not required by law right now, but they are thinking about changing it to any tower over 100 feet.

In a Haze

Jan. 23rd, 2021 12:32 pm
pshaw_raven: (Raven with Coffee Mug)
I normally take Garmin's sleep reports with a grain or two of salt, but the last few nights I have gotten less than an hour of deep sleep, and I feel like someone who is not getting a lot of deep sleep. I was a zombie yesterday and went to bed early - early even for me - and this morning I saw I'd gotten over nine hours of sleep ... with about 40 minutes of the deep kind. So, great. I don't know what's changed this week that I'm suddenly doing this but if it continues I'm going to look at starting a magnesium supplement and see if that helps.

The dealer who sold us our tractor has offered a pretty good deal on a winter maintenance job, so we took that in today. They'll replace the filters, change the oil, and do a once-over to check for any problems, make sure nothing is likely to fall off or explode. And they're going to wash it, LOL. We typically hose it off and clean it after using it extensively but that will be nice. I mean, if Fox just drags the road one afternoon we don't bother, but for things like our recent drainage ditch project it needs to have the stinky swamp mud cleaned off.

Feisal is going to be a sad kitty. I'm getting a wireless gaming mouse today. If you plug it in, it will charge, but unplugged it will run for about 60 hours. This has become an issue lately because he's decided the Most Fun Thing Ever is to jump on the desk and try to chew on my mouse cord. The fabric cover is torn and pulled in places because of this. The most recent version of this game is grabbing the cord and trying to take the entire mouse. Now, happily he only does this when I'm gaming or attempting to work, so it's not like he gets up there and chews on it when I'm gone. But it's still annoying as hell and he killed me a few times in Hollow Knight with his shenanigans.

Do any of you crochet or sew or something, or know someone who does? I kind of want a coffee cup sleeve but my sewing skills mainly apply to repairing things and sewing on buttons. In this, Year Two of the Pandemic, our Wawa is still asking that we not bring reusable cups, and I used to always bring my own cups. It's a small thing, but if I could at least not have to get a sleeve for the cup it would make me feel slightly better. I'll probably just find something on Etsy.
pshaw_raven: (Buddha)
On the very local, just me & Fox level, not much is going on lately. We never really stopped social distancing and lockdown behavior. We did actually make a brief trip into town today for some plumbing stuff - we're having some ongoing issues with the garage sink. That was a fun find this morning. I went to get my clippers so I could harvest more calamondins (another five pounds!) and found a big-ish puddle. He thinks he's got it fixed now, we're just letting everything set up before turning the water back on.

Eta wasn't much of an event on our side of the state. It rained and was a little windy, followed by some drizzly weather this morning. The weather station on the tower recorded the highest wind gust at 40 mph.

I'm still slowly working on Inktober pieces alongside stuff for Lora. All last week I was also able to run regularly without muscle pain, so I think my calf is healed. I'm not going to push it too much, just stick to my normal schedule for now, but next week if it's nice in the mornings, I do want to go run outside more. Except for the dogs - not sure if the ultrasonic thingie will do or if I need to buy a fresh can of mace. The black pit mix that's always been a problem is still stupid enough to get close and get a faceful of sneaker, and someone got a swarm of little ankle biters that are at least bright enough to stand on the other side of the road and bark. Other than that it's great running out here in the morning. Quiet. Cool. I've even seen a Kestrel recently.

Tonight I'm going to try to finish up the pub in Untitled Goose Game, then decide if I want to attempt speedrunning it or just go on to something else. I scrolled through some of the older games I haven't finished and found a couple I'd like to complete before starting anything new. I was about halfway through Broken Age four years ago and never completed it, and I remember enjoying that one. I'm still side questing in Hollow Knight, taking it at a somewhat easier pace since you can only play a game for the first time once, so I might as well enjoy myself instead of frantically trying to slaughter everything in Hallownest.

I've been slacking off on my Japanese learning lately so I need to re-commit to that.

The usual deer visitors come around in the mornings and evenings. I haven't seen much of the bear since we finished building the trash shed, though over the weekend I did see some bear tracks around it. Needless to say I haven't had to go pick up garbage since the shed was done. I just wish other people out here would follow suit - the bear is clearly accustomed to wandering down our road stopping at a few places where s/he knows there's an easy snack. That bear's going to get shot sooner or later.

Something was attacking my pumpkins recently, boring into the shells of the young fruit and turning the insides to brown mush. Since it's rained so heavily I need to re-apply pesticide tomorrow. I went with Sevin. Skip the "safer" stuff, let's kill some damn bugs. I sprayed it close to the ground and around on the grass, trying to avoid spraying the vines themselves, so I still have pollinators showing up. I even saw some kind of huge brown-black moth recently. I have several small pumpkins forming, so cross your fingers for me!
pshaw_raven: (Flash)
 Tomorrow it's likely to be hot enough to compel us to shut the house back up and turn the AC on. Right now it's pleasant - about 60 or so. The cats have been bouncing around all morning, probably from a combination of cool weather friskiness and possibly seeing the neighbor cat out in the yard. 

Yesterday's shopping trip was successful again. We got out early, and while there were still empty shelves for some items, there were small amounts of things to be had, including toilet paper! There were only three small packs left and Publix is enforcing a "one package per customer" rule. They also had their store brand of pasta in stock - it's been out for a couple of weeks, and some large bags of rice. Produce was a bit sparse, but I was still able to get what I wanted. I feel pretty fortunate so far. 

Nerd Fitness is back! Okay, it never actually went anywhere, but for a couple of years it's felt as if Steve Kamb had developed a Google-like ADHD problem. I enrolled in Nerd Fitness Academy in 2016 when I was just starting trying to get in shape and it was incredibly helpful. But recently I've felt like I had already done everything I could with that platform as it was, and I was just using their character system to create my own goals and leveling but kind of drifting. I don't feel like one-on-one coaching is something I particularly need unless they take on an endurance-focused coach at some point. Most of their coaches seem to be more focused on helping people who aren't in shape get fit, lose weight, and establish good habits, which is a good thing! I enjoyed their Rising Heroes program, but I ended up with the same problem of feeling like I'd outgrown things. So they've got what they call "Prime" now, which has been rolled out to everyone who ever bought a NF program and while it's only been live for a couple of days, I can see more potential.

Now I have access to some of their other programs, like Rings and Handstands. I also have NF Yoga, though again that might end up be too beginner-ish but I plan to at least try it out. Today's already scheduled as a strength training day but I'm going to go through the initial segments of Handstands, since doing head- and handstands is a goal of mine. 

But anyway - Nerd Fitness feels less scattered and more usable now, making me a happy person. Heck, I think they've even finally developed a mobile app. 

Early this morning I heard woodpeckers again, both calling and knocking. Then while I was eating breakfast I heard geese honking close by. Turns out they were flying at just above treetop level, and flew right across our yard, so close! It's also nice to hear far less engine noises. Yes, even way out here we can often hear trucks on the highway, airplanes, and other sounds of so-called civilization. I know a lot of people are going stir-crazy these days but I feel like my nervous system is actually relaxing after probably literal decades of tension, and I'm able to slow down, breathe, and just enjoy being here.
pshaw_raven: (Barn Owl)
 After finishing up the deck projects, there was one other really major yard thing I wanted to tackle, and we got 90% of it done today. Along the road-facing side of the garage is where Fox stows the larger tractor implements, and the things he doesn't use as often had some major weeds growing up around them, and then along that same side of the driveway was getting junky. We cleared all that out and ran the mower, tore up the weed-trees (still don't know what they are, so weed trees for now) and dumped the old wood on the burn pile, and took the cement blocks, old pavers, and chunks of rock into the Wayback to fill in some holes. It looks SO much better, I'm really pleased with us. Next up I'd like to repair the garden fence, but that can be done next month.

The bao I made yesterday were excellent, and there was enough left over that we just warmed everything up and finished them off tonight. The buns themselves could probably have gone in the steamer to warm, as their texture suffered a little in the fridge. And the tofu nuggets always warm up better in the toaster oven, but when you're tired and hungry, nuking works just as well. 

I recently "finished" B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga, by which I mean I read the intro and his commentary in the front. The majority of the book is  descriptions and guides for the various asanas. One of the appendices is his suggested course of practice, which I've decided I'm going to work through. I don't exactly consider myself a high-level yogi, but I'm no beginner, and these "easy" poses kicked my ass. I had no idea my leg muscles were that comparatively weak. It's high time I went back to strength training. I'm also making it a flexibility goal to be able to touch my head to my knees, so I'm working more on forward bends. I've also stuck to my routine of doing the Five Tibetans in the mornings, missing only on average once a week.

I'd sort of like to go practice now, except I have cats snoozing on me and I hate to disturb them. They have absolutely no problems disturbing me when I'm asleep, so maybe I should pay them back in kind. I think they're also staking out spots for tonight, as it's supposed to get cold again - as in building a fire when I get up cold.

pshaw_raven: (Noodles)
So as most of you know, I live in the middle of nowhere. I like it out here - I like the peace and general quiet, the fact that I don't have a ton of physically close neighbors, and how much of the natural pine forest has been left in place. Having lived in urban and suburban areas, I'm not sure I'd deal well with living cheek to jowl with humans again.

The only actual problem I have is that sometimes the logistics of doing normal errands are tricky. For example, I needed a bag of hemp hearts. (I know that hemp hearts aren't something anyone "needs," but bear with me.) I ordered a bag from Amazon, and found it was now a Prime Pantry item, so I also grabbed some of the vegan protein powder I use to get free shipping on a pantry box. I also picked up some black lentils and stuff like that. Today as I'm making my weekly grocery list, I realize that not only am I low on shiro miso, but that a recipe I wanted to make next week calls for aka (red) miso and toban-jan, which is a Japanese bean and chili paste. These are things I know I will use - I routinely use the white miso in making seitan, and I make a lot of Japanese dishes, so these ingredients never sit around going bad.

Problem is, Middleburg ain't a miso kind of town. I'll need to either take a chance on driving out to Flemming Island to the Fresh Market or going all the way into Jacksonville to Jax Oriental Market. Jax Oriental is an hour each way but I know they'll have what I want, and it'll be cheap. But it's also two hours of travel, so figure in gas and my time. The Fresh Market ... miiiiiight have it, but the whole reason I ordered hemp and shit online was to save myself going there - it's about a thirty minute drive. It'll be more costly because it's The Fresh Market, and they may or may not have both kinds of miso and the chili paste. I mean, I can probably substitute smaller amounts of gochujang but I think we'd miss the earthy flavor broad beans add.

Or I could order all this crap from Amazon, it'll be here Monday, and then I don't have to personally drive any further than the Publix in town. I justify this last choice to myself thusly - I'm not personally having to drive thirty minutes to an hour for a few small items, and the Amazon delivery driver is going to be out here anyway. If she or he is already delivering packages in this area, then it's not like a special trip (gas, time, engine wear) is being made just for me. 

I dunno y'all. I really feel strongly about reducing my consumption of resources, but I also feel strongly about tofu stewed in spicy miso broth. With noodles. And I figure if I select the larger amounts - one pound packages of each kind of miso - I can store it in the fridge and have enough to last me six months or so. If you keep miso in an airtight container, it'll last basically forever. And even if air gets to it, it mainly just dried out and you can still use it, though it's hard to carve chunks off the dried block. 

UGH #^&**(#&*&*#@##&$ I'm just going to order it. I don't want to spend all that time out driving.

LOL@me

Jun. 11th, 2019 09:29 am
pshaw_raven: (Raven with Coffee Mug)
 After all that about television, we went out and bought a TV set. I'll pause here so you can laugh. ;D

Anyway, the one in the rec room got blown out about two years ago in a lightning strike. We had it plugged into a surge protector, but the strike came in through the POE cables. Fox out off buying a new one, then decided he could happily live without it, then recently decided he'd like a new one, so he settled on one he liked and we went to Best Buy. 

Which reminds me - I need to start carrying my blue earbuds when I go out. Best Buy grates on my nerves pretty badly - it's always SO noisy. I don't have any active noise cancelling buds or earphones, but even a basic set of in-ear buds will damp down a lot of ambient noise, and these are bright, sky blue so people know I'm wearing them, meaning they hopefully won't think I'm rude if I don't respond. 

Speaking of which, here's an article. How Silence Makes Life Less Superficial - I think we'll all agree that modern life is incredibly noisy. One of the tremendous benefits to living where I do is that it's usually very quiet. Barring Camp Blanding shelling us, or holiday weekends when some area kids like to get out and ride their ATVs, it's very peaceful. I have lived in some really noisy places, too. When I lived in the French Quarter I used to get up around six-thirty or seven whether I liked it or not because that's when the calliope at the riverfront started up. It woke me up and then I'd be unable to go back to sleep with the ridiculous thing hooting constantly. Houma was slightly quieter but living near the main road meant semi trucks shifting gears, sirens, and boom cars. 

This morning's smoothie bowl made my Blendtec turn over 1000 uses! I think I may like my blender a little. I mean hey, why go to Smoothie King and endure racist insults when you can stay home and have a healthy, delicious smoothie by yourself? Insults optional, depending on how you and your family and housemates relate to one another. Besides, chewing is overrated. 


pshaw_raven: (X-Ray Forest)
Today I'm planning to set up a Japan photo album on Google and share it with you here - I want to make sure everything's set to public and that it's in chronological order. It looks like all the photos have geotags and such. I'm still a bit miffed at my phone dying halfway through but Fox did a good job picking up the slack.

I was up early this morning, as usual. The moon's a thin crescent right now, waning towards a new moon in a couple of days, so it's much darker when I get up than during the full moon, which out here can light things up like a lamp. It's also a lot cooler today - yesterday was miserable, anyway. I normally check the front yard out the window before going to the garage to get the bird feeder. (Bird feeders go inside at night so that deer and raccoons don't destroy them trying to get at the food) I'm not much of an astronomer so when I saw a bright light near the tops of the trees at first I thought someone had gotten a small drone stuck in the branches.

Outside I could see it was a star - an incredibly bright star. Bright enough that I stood outside for a while just looking at it, admiring its proximity to the thumbnail-clipping moon. Then I started getting chilled and got my ass in gear. Turns out that's Venus!

I don't know about other areas, so Florida and Southeastern US folks, if you're up before dawn this will be easy. Look for the moon. Nearby you're going to see a star that is super duper bright. It's Venus, and I looked it up, and it looks like we'll be able to enjoy the sight of her for at least a couple of weeks if not longer. Like I said, I'm no astronomer so I have to rely on star maps and astronomy blogs to tell me these things.

I love that I can actually SEE things like this. Yes, we have some light pollution out here, but obviously it's not that bad. You can even see the Milky Way sometimes. Mainly if the power's out in Jacksonville, so post-hurricane is your best bet for star gazing.
pshaw_raven: (Antlered Owl)
It's been a very interesting couple of days at Chez P'shaw. My close neighbors on Monday had their house (technically trailer) torn down. We'd seen them working on the back part of their property lately, and a lot of crap being put to the road, which annoys me to no end because the trash pickup won't take it and it just sits there being a trashy eyesore. But I'd just finished a run on the treadmill and was making a smoothie when I started hearing loud crunching and crashing, and went to go see what was up. Then yesterday they sorted the wood, metal, and I-beams and hauled a lot of stuff off.

They still have their garden and a shed, so I'm tentatively assuming they plan to build something new. The old place was really in serious disrepair so it might have become easier and less expensive to just start over than to try to fix up the existing structure.

Anyway the loss of their hummingbird feeders means it's Hummer City at my place! YAY HUMMINGBIRDS. We have three feeders up and could probably support a fourth. The feeder on the back deck is very interesting, as we get to see the behavior of mated pairs because it offers more spots to perch. Yesterday afternoon I got to watch the male displaying for the female, which was really cool. When it comes to the front yard feeders I normally just see territorial battles where this one male tries to defend both of them from other birds.

It's also rained a lot - did any other Florida peeps get drenched? It rained over two inches here in the last 72 hours. Just over an inch of that fell yesterday and last night. My garden's pretty happy about it though.

The major problem is the road. Between all the rain and the big trucks coming to work next door the road is a nightmare. There's a washout about half a mile up from us that's a "car eater." The road is completely gone and the culvert is caved in, it's probably three feet deep and hard to see unless you're used to this place and are watching for things to dodge. I went around it yesterday but unless the neighborhood agrees on something and moves pretty fast it's just going to get worse, and it'll do it quickly. Since the location effects six families we might be able to agree on something and get it done soon before getting in and out of here is an Indiana Jones thing.
pshaw_raven: (Hannibal with Skull)
 I'm pretty pleased with the RedBubble sticker I got. I'm considering cleaning up a few drawings and posting them as stickers. But the one I bought has good color, good printing, and the sticker itself is heavy vinyl. 

This weekend, my training starts shaping up to look more and more like the actual RunDisney weekend. I did two (a whole two!) miles yesterday, seven today, and seventeen scheduled for tomorrow. The races are the first weekend in January, and the plan is to head down Wednesday - because I have to go to the stupid race expo to get my packet. FFS. Then after the marathon Sunday head back home. The cats will be fine with a weekend feeder set up and an extra litter box, though they may get a bit weird without their humans around. I wish I could have my packet sent registered mail or something, I don't want to have to go to the expo and shit. I'm also grouchy because Disneyland has canceled their races so my opportunity to get both the Coast To Coast and Dopey challenges in one year is gone. But that frees me to run some local races later in the year, like the St. Augustine half, Donna's Booby Trap, and the Gate 15k. 

It's supposed to be 86 here Wednesday. WTF Florida.

Monday I get to go to the doctor to see about my bum shoulder. My left shoulder has been hurting badly the last six months or so, going from a low-level dull ache most of the time to searing pain if I try to reach backwards or do anything over my head. I injured it over ten years ago by falling on it a couple of times, hard, but it never bothered me a whole lot until now. I'm hopeful that there's some physical therapy or something that can be done, but she's also likely to say, "Congratulations, you're old, have some Tylenol." 

I found that if I go make a loop starting at my road and the road to the hardtop, around by 315C, back down to my road and around, it's a four mile loop. So the plan for tomorrow is three times around the loop, and one diversion down to Mark Allan Road to do that one-mile loop, and I'm done. I'm taking one of Fox's big-ass 60 ounce travel mugs full of ice and water and leaving it at the telephone switches where my start-finish is. Each time around the loop I get to stop for a drink and a breather. I can walk there and back as a warm up and cool down. The time changes, of course, so I gain an hour in that it won't be hard for me to get up early. I'd like to be stretched and ready to roll by first light, but I really want to get up even earlier so that I'll have time for some coffee first. Since that's something I do anyway, I think I will. It's my routine now. Oh yeah, gotta take goo packets too. Mmmm, energy goo. 

Oh, and there are two - count 'em, two! - road kill deer on 315C. One is older and the coyotes have dragged it into the tree line, but the other looks like it was just hit last night so it'll be nice and juicy tomorrow. (barfing emoji) That's okay, I don't need to breathe for a couple hundred yards anyway. 

June 2025

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