#AtoZChallenge - Calligraphy

My theme this year is basically things that I’m interested in.  This could be things that I’m currently involved in and would maybe like to increase my knowledge… or things that I’m not involved in but still fascinate me in some degree anyway. 

Calligraphy. 

It amazes me the control these people have when writing like this.  And in the video below, there are many different types of pen they're using.

Please note that I can have nice handwriting for a short time, but as my hand gets tired, my writing gets sloppier.   And if I'm taking notes in a class or something, literal chick scratches.  And my mind will move faster than my hand, so I miss letters or misspell things. 

#AtoZChallenge - Birdwatching

My theme this year is basically things that I’m interested in.  This could be things that I’m currently involved in and would maybe like to increase my knowledge… or things that I’m not involved in but still fascinate me in some degree anyway. 

Today it's birds.   I like to watch them! 

I snagged these photos off the "Birds of Michigan" wiki page because it's tough to get decent pics thru the windows/screens in my house.  

Of course, there are many other kinds of birds in Michigan, but these are the ones I see most often on / under the feeder in my backyard.  I'm very sad that I've never seen an owl!  Other than the one at the nearby nature center and at the zoo, that is.   There's a nature preserve a mile or two up the road from us that's been designated a Blue Heron Rookery - they're neat to watch.  And a couple years ago, an eagle pair built their nest there, too.  Weird that they're so close and I've never seen them flying around!  

Blue Jay

Cedar Waxwing - these guys are the sole purpose we replanted a cherry tree in our yard after the old one died! 

Some years I'll actually get a cherry or two before they clean them out. 

Chicadee

Mourning Doves

I love watching these guys toodle around. 

Woodpecker

Grackle

Sparrow

Mallard ducks 

we're not conveniently close to water, so I was really surprised to see these guys one day!

They're so pretty!

I'm always happy to see the first robins of the year!

Starling

Going in a different direction - on YouTube I like to watch @geckoemmy and @greenbirdbrigade who both talk about bird/parrot care and have large personal flocks that are very interesting & entertaining.  You might have seen GBB on Facebook with her little blue bird who sings & dances to a "bacon pancakes" song.  So fun! 

I also have an app on my phone called BirdNET that you can record a birdcall and it tells you what is making that sound. 

 

#AtoZChallenge - Amateur Radio

My theme this year is basically things that I’m interested in. This could be things that I’m currently involved in and would (maybe / maybe not) like to increase my knowledge or things that just fascinate me to some degree.  

This sums my brain up pretty well! 

So yeah - I'm an amateur radio operator (ham). My callsign is the url of this blog!  I've been licensed since 2009.  

So this is going to fall into the category of something I'm involved in but would like to have more knowledge.  There's no way I can explain everything in a single brief post, so I won't try.  Besides definitely not knowing as much as I'd like, there's a LOT of info out there.  It's sort of overwhelming.  And the acronyms are enough to make anyone crazy.   

If you're a knowledgeable ham, don't come at me! 

There are 3 classes of operators (you have to be licensed thru the FCC).  This higher you go, the more radio frequencies and "modes" you can use.  

So there's a Technician class - or entry level operator.  

General class - sort of mid-level operator.  This is what I am.  

Amateur Extra - these operators can operate on all radio frequencies & modes. 

There are all sorts of cool things you can do with radio...

Contests of all sorts, emergency communications, you can contact the International Space Station, contact people using signals that are bounced off the moon, go to conventions.  You can chat with random people "on the air" or with Morse Code or digitally on the computer, etc, etc, etc.

I should toss this out there that the Spouse has been an active ham since the mid 80s so there's not much that he doesn't know.  And I couldn't even begin to guess how many radios he owns.  And worse yet - he's crazy smart so it's hard for him to explain things in a manner that an average person can understand. 

 

Currently - I personally only have a pair of handheld radios.  The search & rescue team that I volunteer on requires that everyone have at least a technician license.  The main reason for that is that we're based out of a county that is mostly rural and sometimes we might be called out onto a search where there's no phone signals.  With radio, we can set up relay points and get communications set up with Incident Command.  It's pretty useful.  I'm pretty proficient with comms, so that's often my assignment for drills and training.  

But give me a radio otherwise and tell me make a random contact?  I suddenly forget how to speak, I can't remember my name, let alone my callsign, and I just sound like a dork.  I need to get over that fear! 

It's almost April!!

Which means the A to Z Blogging Challenge begins tomorrow!  I better make sure my posts are good to go - at least I've kept them saved as drafts this time instead of pre-scheduled so if I don't actually have the post done, it won't go live!  That's happened to me before.  It's pretty embarrassing.  

Oh crap - Did I actually go sign up at the AtoZ April Challenge page???   BRB.....  

OK.  Done!

My theme this year is basically topics I'm interested in and may / may not want to increase my knowledge about said topic. 

Anyhooo.  

OMG - I occasionally get texts for someone named Vijaya and I can't resist messing with them....

If the pic is hard to see, it's a tent up underneath a highway overpass.....

I've also gotten offers from a realtor to sell my house, so I replied back with a pic of a pile of cardboard boxes under a huge "for sale" sign and I told them that I wasn't having any luck with my current realtor and hoped they could do better.

I've also been asked if my house at X address was still for sale - first of all, it wasn't my house or even in the city where I live (although it was a very nice house in a nice neighborhood), and 2, it wasn't for sale!  So I replied back & told them no, I traded it to the guy next door to turn into a house "of ill repute" in return for a few grams of Coke but I got gypped since he only gave me a single red can (as in Coca Cola).....

I've also been asked who I was voting for and sent them a picture of my googly-eyed skeleton Chuck and told them I was voting for Nunya Bizness.  AND THEY PROCEEDED TO ASK QUESTIONS about his views on different subjects!!   I was at dinner with Mom & Sis1 and we were falling over laughing.   

Rusty is confused about how a pillow works...

So last weekend I road-tripped down to Ohio with Mom & the sisters to visit the brother.  Much less eventful than the last time when Mom (who is 91 years old) slipped in the hotel bathroom and fell, ending up with a lot of bruises & a goose-egg on her forehead.  We took her to the ER to make sure she was OK.  She's now getting around pretty good, holding onto someone's arm but she's a lot quicker using a walker for extra support. 

We went a different way so we could stop in this town called Berlin and visit a year-round Christmas store called 'Tis the Season" and wouldn't you know be got stopped by a slow train?  And Berlin is also in the middle of Amish / Mennonite country so we also got stuck behind a couple different horse/carriages.  It's very hilly & twisty (very pretty, too) in that part of Ohio so we couldn't safely pass them, either! 

We're already making plans to go back, since the town had all sorts of antique stores and interesting looking shops & places to eat.  And there were tons of people walking around, so it's definitely not a hidden treasure! 

The hotel we always try to stay at is across the street from a Pilot truck plaza - my Mom will happily sit in front of the window for hours and watch semi trucks pull in & out.  So she was overjoyed to discover that there was a Love's truck stop getting ready to open right next door to the hotel.  You can't see anything from the hotel itself, but she'll be able to see them going in & out of the driveway, so she should be twice as happy the next time we go down there! 

Thought this was pretty entertaining! 

I had a couple hours to myself Sunday morning before we came home.  Of course I found a couple nearby cemeteries to explore.  I realized that I hadn't told anyone where I was going to be and my GPS was taking me literally miles from nowhere, onto a dirt road, then a smaller dirt road, etc.  I texted the Spouse, back here in Michigan, and let him know I was running APRS on my phone so at least *someone* knew where I was! 

As I pulled up to the first cemetery, I saw this bird - at first I wasn't sure what it was, but it was really pretty!  So I rolled my window down and talked to it and wouldn't you know, this Ruffed Grouse followed me all over the cemetery?  I got out to change my shoes into hiking boots and it came around the back of the car and got within 4-5 feet of me.  I was tempted to give it some potato chips.  I have a couple videos and it was making a soft clucking sound that sounded similar to a chicken!    

 

OMG - ya'll! 

The grandkids had school pics last week!  

And in early June, the grandson will have his graduation from Pre-K!!!  

I am so not ready to see him in a cap & gown - the thought of him starting kindergarten in the fall at a real elementary school is bad enough!

We won't get into the fact that they're having the graduation ceremony at an event hall!  An actual fancy place where people have weddings & stuff!   Crazy.

What's up with the weather lately??  There were horrendous ice storms up in northern Michigan, but it was close to 70 down here closer to Detroit.  It's actually cooled off today, it was in the upper 40s when I left for work this morning and now at 3pm, it's 40.  We had a wave of nasty storms come thru last night - thankfully we'd already gotten home.  But the time it got to my house, we heard one rumble of thunder, had a brief 5-minute downpour and I don't even know if we had any serious wind or not.   The next county over set off their outdoor warning sirens because of the wind, we could hear them.  

I have a few things I need to finish here at work (I'm so busy, as you can tell!!) then I have a planning meeting at the VFW tonight, the post's 80th anniversary is in November, so we'll be having a celebration for that.  Then I need to upload all the cemetery pics I took this weekend to my home PC.  I'll eventually post them over on my other blog.  I like to do some research on the cemeteries I post about.  Which in turn leads me down various rabbit-holes, etc. 

Later!

A thought to ponder....

Thoughts to ponder....

 For the longest time, we had a bottle of Softsoap at each sink in the restroom at work, but recently one boring bottle disappeared, and this pretty flowery porcelain soap dispenser appeared in its place.  

Most of the ladies in my department are of a similar age - adult kids & young grandkids.  

Of course, we always cross paths in the restroom.  One day, the accounts receivable lady was in there at the same time as me.  She commented that this dispenser reminded her of being at her grandmother's house.  Which led to the discussion of WHEN do we reach the point where we start decorating our houses in stereotypical "grandma" fashion?  Fake flowers & doilies & such?   We decided we probably wouldn't ever reach that stage because we grew up listening to rock & roll.  

Hell, I have random skeletons & skulls in my house and office, and I can't ever imagine them going away!!

Speaking of.....

The holiday skeleton in my office finally got a name!

Chad. 

I took his leprechaun gear off right after I took the pic and he'll just be naked until closer to Easter. 

My SAR team conducts optional K9 training every weekend - yesterday the guy in charge posted this picture on our group chat from the park they were training at.  I promise all of my skeletons are accounted for and none of them are unclothed and hanging from the rafters of a park pavilion! 

 

Skywatch Friday 032125

Hooray for Spring!

This is the sunrise as I see it from my office every morning.

Troy, Michigan

Linking up at Skywatch Friday

 

Last Day of Winter!!!

Altho we've had several nice days recently - it'll be nice to officially be spring tomorrow! 

However, this is very pleasant! 

Normally I try to be positive in my posts, but I'm going to stray from that a little bit in this one.  I'm just feeling some sort of way and need to get it off my chest. 

I fell off the WW bandwagon a long time ago and put all the weight back on that I lost back in 2009, plus some.  At one point, I had made it down to 204 lbs, but never crossed over into "One-derland".  

The scale last night said 274.2.

I used to post weekly weight loss updates.  Weight Watchers studios are few & far between now, but mine still has a Tuesday evening workshop so I'll be going back to doing Weigh-in Wednesday posts.  You've been warned!   

And of course, we can't forget all the various random aches & pains that go along with it.  

 

Let's look at a pic that someone took during Wilderness First Aid training last Saturday...

OMG.

That's me over on the left. 

In my defense, this is part of a panoramic photo and I was on the end, so it's distorted somewhat. 

But it makes me look rather elephant-like. 

I was horrified when I saw that. 

Here's a pic from a different angle.  

Still large but not quite as awful. 

Let's look at some more.  

Bear with me - this is my incentive to get back to actually following the Weight Watcher's plan and not coasting along like I've been doing for too long. 

February 2025

Last summer at the VFW picnic.  

The granddaughter still isn't big enough to hide those rolls. 

September 2024

February 2024

Even in my winter search gear I look huge! 

(center)

I was wearing fluffy snow pants, tho.

My shadow is even unforgiving. 

So yeah,  That's where I'm at.  

I sure don't FEEL as big as I look in pictures! 

Even in the mirror I acknowledge that I'm by no means thin, but pictures show no mercy at all! 

And you know what - seeing other people (like the Spouse or other acquaintances) who are larger doesn't bother me at all.  I don't make snide remarks to myself about them, but I sure do about myself!

Happy St. Gertrude's Day!

Happy St Patrick's (and Gertrude's) Day!

Hope everyone has a great day, no matter how you celebrate.  

I'm not in the slightest bit Irish, but I'm still wearing green. 

 

Also on this date in history - 1992, to be exact....

I stood in a room with a bunch of other kids at a place called MEPS in downtown Detroit, faced the Flag and raised my right hand and repeated these words.  

Thus began my 8 years of adventure called the US Navy. 

This is honestly the only time that like a pang went thru my heart and I asked myself what I was doing.

  But that moment passed.  

Oooo, guess what! 

 I got my new buggy!! 

 

The Spouse and I drove around to a bunch of dealerships to look at possibilities, but by then I'd looked at so many cars online that I couldn't remember what cars were where.  I thought for sure I was going to end up with a Ford Escape since that seemed to check all the boxes of what I was looking for.  Then we stopped at this place and there happened to be this 2014 Buick Enclave that seemed nice.  But we decided to take it for a test drive and decided it was very nice.  

And in my price range. Low miles, etc.  Lots of fancy features.   

We had our mechanic check it out and between what he found under the hood and we saw ourselves - there were a few things that needed to be fixed, which they did at the dealership.  We picked it up last Monday, had to take it back Thursday morning for a part that they'd been waiting on, then got it back Friday evening. 

My neighbors were probably wondering what was going on.  I had my Terrain.  Then I had the little white Nissan rental car for like 2 weeks.  Then I had the Enclave for a few days, then I had a big shiny red Silverado loaner for 2 days, then went back to the Enclave! 

The extent of my St Pat's decorations at home. 

She definitely got a workout this past weekend, tho!  Saturday, I had a Wilderness First Aid refresher course, and wouldn't you know as soon as we all got to the camp, we had an actual call out for a missing child?  There was a degree of panic all around, since K9 handlers were there without their K9s, most people didn't have appropriate gear with them, etc.  Sis1 rode with me, so I had my gear (but an uncharged radio) and she had very little with her, so we went back to her house first.  Before I could even look up the location, the kid was found, sitting in the neighbor's trampoline with his iPad. 

Personally, I think he had the right idea - it was a beautiful day Saturday! 

Anyhow.  We switched back to training mode - and just like most every other refresher class we do - learned something new!    One of the scenarios my little group went thru was coming upon someone who was slumped in a chair, unresponsive, with pills on the table next to him.  Learned more than I ever thought I'd ever need about Narcan and that most of the K9 handlers carry it on them all the time.  I mean, I also have some in my gear, but I didn't actually know like how quickly to administer it or if there were times I ~ shouldn't ~ use it.  

Watch out for the wind!! 

Glad we were out in the open, since we heard a tree fall in the woods.

On the way back to Sis1's house, we passed a ranch that we knew had bison, but we'd never seen them - until then!!

They were right up along the road, so we stopped to watch for a while.  

They had little ones with tiny horns and everything!  

Sunday, the Spawn and I took the grandkids to Toledo to see the Monster Trucks.  I personally prefer to go there, since it's a smaller venue (hockey arena vs football) than the one in Detroit, and we didn't have to wait for souvenirs, snacks or the bathrooms!  But the Grandson was asking about them crushing cars and they don't have room to put cars in this arena.  Whoops.  

We had awesome seats

.  That wall behind us is a suite. 

Ooo, my car got Christened in a bad way on the way there!  Something didn't agree with the Grandson's tummy at breakfast.  We'd just gotten off the highway, just minutes from the arena.... and he threw up.  All over himself, the floor in front of him and it ran down thru his carseat onto the seat.   We stopped at a McDonald's so the Spawn could take him into the bathroom to clean him up while I attempted to clean up his seat (using all my first aid bandages & stuff!)  Then we stopped at Meijer's and got him some new clothes (and a towel for him to sit on - and some air freshener).  Needless to say, we only missed the first half hour or so.  

The Spawn & Grandson's favorite - Gravedigger

Surprisingly the granddaughter doesn't care for the sparkly unicorn truck - she likes Zombie.

More fun memes. 

This looks to be an uneventful week with nothing on the calendar.  I'm thinking about maybe going to K9 training this weekend, but I'm not sure.  For some reason I have mysterious injuries happening, so I'll have to see how able I am.  Like out of the blue, my outside right ankle bone hurts & was swollen for several days.  No idea what I did to it.  It's been a week now and still hurts.  I try not to limp because my left knee is my bad one!   Then about a week & a half ago, I felt like I had a pinched nerve in my left hand. I rubbed it for a while, then it was time to go home and I proceeded to forget about it.  Like 5 days later I was at work and the sun shining thru the window made me realize that I had a huge ugly yellowy brown bruise on my hand!  WTF!    

So -