CANADA

I love Canada.   I spent two years in Newfoundland back when Joey Smallwood was Premier.  I have traveled through every Province.  I have worked with Canadian Forces and been through their Winter Bush Survival School.

But; Canadian bacon  is not BACON!

The Ol'Buzzard

CRAZY WEATHER PATTERNS IN MAINE

This year in Maine was the hottest year on record, beating last year’s record, and beating the record from the year before – each the hottest.

This month the weather has been nutz.   We started this month with snow, and about three weeks with day temps in the single numbers and night temperatures dropping below zero.   That weather is more common in February than January.   

The last week or so we have had rain with temperatures in the upper thirties and forties during the day and nights dropping just below freezing.

Tonight, we are predicted to receive three to five inches of snow and tomorrow a front comes in and will drop up to one inch of rain. 

We have had ice out on the frozen rivers and lakes followed by flooding, then refreeze; and tomorrow probably ice out and flooding again.

So far, we have had twelve snowmobiles go through the ice; but no deaths.

The snow banking my house is pretty much gone; and I count on that during the winter to protect my crawl space from freezing. 

I am having to wear ice cleats on my boots whenever I go outside.    Last week I took a fall in the driveway – but had on so many clothes I just bounced. 

I am a winter person.   I love the winter; but this year is fucked up.

the Ol’Buzzard

DO IT YOURSELF ALLURE FLOORING

Back in august of 2015 I installed Allure GripStrip flooring, available at Home Depot, in my back room.  This room is joined by our back door which we use all winter.   This means that I often come in with snow on my boots and the room is a traffic area to the back porch.  

Two and a half years and this floor still looks good and I have had no trouble with the product.   

If you are looking to upgrade a floor in your house this is an easy and inexpensive fix.   I will add that it is imperative that you use a roller on the seams, other than that just preplan and follow directions.

I told my wife it would take about two hours.  She laughed.  About six hours later, and with sore knees, I finally finished.  

a good winter project
the Ol'Buzzard

DON'T VIEW THIS IF YOU PLAN TO EAT WITHIN THE NEXT FEW HOURS

See the resemblance?

I'm some sexy - and I've got big hands.

This is what Melania bought into: fried chicken in bed with fat bastard.

the Ol'Buzzard

COOKING – NOT ABOUT TRUMP

I have mentioned before that I cook most of the supper meals and for some reason my wife doesn’t mind.

About thirty years ago we bought a Revere cooking set.  One of the items I use the most is the steamer – a pan with holes in the bottom that fits on top of the regular cooking pot. 

This is a thirty-minute, one pot meal that I regularly prepare:

 

·       I clean carrots and then slice them down the middle

·       I slice Yukon Gold potatoes about a half-inch thick and then quarter the slices

·       I quarter an onion then separate the layers

·       The potatoes and carrots go in the bottom pot and are covered with water.

·       The onions go in the steamer being careful not to cover all the holes

·       I take a fresh salmon fillet and place it on top of the onions.

·       Cover the pot and bring it to a boil

·       Fifteen minutes later supper is ready

Salmon, potatoes, carrots and onions served with a crusty bread and butter and a nice white wine like Clean Slate Riesling.     

The whole meal takes thirty minutes including preparing the vegetables.

I use the pot to steam any vegetable you would normally boil.  Steaming keeps in the vitamins and minerals and the vegetables don’t taste washed out and soggy.

the Ol’Buzzard

CONSPIRACY THEORY

Trump paid off the Porn Star to keep her from going public that he wanted her to spank him with a rolled-up Forbes magazine that had his picture on the cover.

This was published by Mother Jones and the attached link to Red State.

Why do the women that Trump wants to have sex with look so much like his daughter?

I heard it on the news this morning; whether it is true or not it will make a great meme.  

He never fails to entertain. 

the Ol’Buzzard

I WOKE UP STILL NOT DEAD AGAIN TODAY

I sometimes feel like I fell asleep and was beamed up and transported by a UFO into a future that is alien to me.   It is not the technology that I choose not to be familiar with, or the new music or colloquial use of the language; it is my basic values that make me uncomfortable in today’s society.

I have a wrist watch that cost seven dollars that has more functions than I care to use and will last three years on battery life.   It will be cheaper to replace the watch then replace the battery.   Kids with a perfectly good cell phone will camp out overnight at a store to get the latest iPhone.  Wayfair has just what you need and Amazon will deliver it by drone. 

My favorite sweater, hand spun wool and hand knitted, is forty years old.  My shotgun is fifty years old.  This Solstice my wife bought me a new pair of Bean boots to replace the seventeen-year-old boots I wear every winter; she also bought me a black and white plaid Woolrich wool shirt to replace the black and white Woolrich shirt that was 35 years old and thread bare at the elbows.  My compass, knives, books, camping gear… are all forty years old or older.   There is a piece of birchbark reading Did I Run and Am I Tired that is one hundred and five years old, that hangs above my (whatever you want to call it) room.   I am comfortable with things that are aged and uncomfortable with throw away things.

There is nothing wrong with today’s societal norms; they fit the needs and wants of the people of this age – It is me that is out of step and past my sell by date.     

the Ol'Buzzard

Is it just me or is blogger responding slow as hell?

the Ol'Buzzard

HOMO SAPIENS WHO?

Susan blog Phantsythat contains some of the most wonderful water color fantasy painting I have ever seen.  She usually accompanies her paintings with a short story, though the paintings often tell a story in themselves.   If I were talented enough to write a children’s book there is no doubt who I would wish to illustrate it.  

Please check out her blog: Phantsythat

A couple of days ago Susan posted about homo sapiens ability to adjust to change.  If Darwinian Evolution posed anything: it’s not the strongest or the largest that survives, but those most adaptable to change. 

Homo sapiens have proven their ability to adapt to change; but in doing so they have brought the rest of the animal world to the edge of extinction and the earth itself on the brink of catastrophic climate change.   It now holds the power to annihilate its entire species with a push of a button.  

If we think about it, Donald Trump personifies the human race.  We are egocentric; egotistic; we make up stories and believe in them; we are impressed with our own imagined intelligence; we are gluttonous consumers; we are tribal; and we are dangerous to ourselves and others.

·       I did a timeline of the earth with six grade students that extended one hundred yards, representing the 4.7 billion years of earth:

·       One inch equaled 1,250,000 years.

·       The last six inches represented the seven-million-year existence of hominids on earth.

·       One sixth (1/6) of one inch represented the existence of homo sapiens.

We are but a brief anomaly on the face of this planet – the product of chaotic evolution - and the planet will be better off when we are no longer here.

the Ol’Buzzard

QUEEN OF THE BLUES DIES

I was raised in the Mississippi delta in a little town called Rolling Fork.   Mississippi at that time was the heart of segregation.  The only thing Rolling Fork is known for, is as the home of Muddy Waters; but Muddy Waters would have had to step into the road and look at the ground if a white woman was approaching on the sidewalk. 

I have no warm memories of living in the Mississippi delta, but I have always had a warm spot for Delta Blues singers.  

Denise LaSalle , of my generation and born in Leflore county, Mississippi , recently died.   At age thirteen she moved to Chicago and eventually got into the music business.  

She will be missed by those of us who have grown up with the blues.





If you have a headset you might want to put it on and kick up the sound.
O'B












Denise was a popular performer in the black clubs in the early days and some of her songs were sexually explicated.  Here she tells us to treat your woman like a postage stamp.












A true lady that grew up in the height of racial bigotry and discrimination; but did it her way.

The generation of the of the roots of the Delta blues and R&B is passing by.

the Ol'Buzzard

LET'S KEEP TRUMP GOLFING

Thank goodness that Trump was on the golf course during the false alert of a missile attack in Hawaii.  Had he been promptly notified of the threat, who knows what his response might have been.

We may have just dodged the nuclear bullet!
the Ol'Buzzard

LIKE?

It has been, like, the weather sucks.  It rains all the time.

Donald Trump tweeted: Through my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.

I understand that language should be fluid; and that language often modifies to fit the needs of particular groups.  But why do we need to use a word that serves no purpose?   Like like? 

What the hell is the usage of like in the above sentences.  Is it a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunction; and how would you diagram it in a sentence?   Provided people still diagram sentences.

The word like, like, bugs the fuck out of me.

the Ol’Buzzard

REPUBLICAN HEIGHT OF HYPOCRISY

Clinton and Monica

Remember when the Republican Party went absolutely ape shit over Bill Clinton getting a blow job in the Oval Office from a consenting adult?

Now we have Roy Moore, considered a serial pedophile, backed by the Republican Party in a Senate run in Alabama.

Also, perfectly fine with four convicted felons running for Congress.

Joe Arpaio

 

Greg Gianforte

Michael Grimm

Don Blankenship

And let's not forget who is President and totally backed by Republican Congress!

Just for the record, if I were President of the United States I would definitely talk my wife into having sex with me in the Oval Office; then when I had Republican law makers visit I would sit them on the couch and just smile knowingly.

the Ol'Buzzard

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS MORE AND MORE THE PARTY OF WHITE MEN.

What I feared earlier this year has come to pass.   The racist, misogynistic and psychotic ravings of Donald Trump are now just viewed in passing as a norm – just another outrageous statement done by the President today.

  

Republican lawmakers are silent, or when asked about Trump quickly switch to accomplishments over the past year: The Supreme Court nomination, the tax bill, deregulation.   We hear nothing from the leadership.

Even many Democrats are silent.   Today on Morning Joe Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, when asked about Trumps racist statements calling African nations shit holes, veered away from the question and talked about her accomplishments for the people of Minnesota – avoiding criticizing Trump for the racist he is.

This is where we are: A Republican Party that colludes with the White House administration to cover for Trump, and a Democratic party that complains; but not loud enough.

Why aren’t democratic law makers and spokespersons hitting the TV networks and screaming about Republican complicity, and calling out Trump as unfit for the office of President – the Republicans would surely be doing that if the roles were reversed.    The Democratic attitude seems to be: we will just complain if asked and wait for Mueller to do something about it.

The American public is mercurial.  I am not confident that the 2018 elections will replace Republicans.   We must remember, Trump showed who he was during the 2016 election and he still became President of the United States.    His fanatical base is still out there; and Republicans will fall in line and vote for party over country.   That along with gerrymandered voting districts and Republican enacted voter I.D. laws make a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate tentative at best.

The damage of this four years under Republican rule may be the advent of the decline of United States as a world democracy and the empowerment of Russia and China as the next world powers. 

Lennin: …

“…the last bastion of capitalism, the United States of America. We will not need to fight. It will fall as a ripe fruit into our hands.”

the Ol'Buzzard

THE DECLINE OF ANTI-TRUMPISM

David Brooks, a reporter at the New York Times just published an article worth reading.   


I am posting the link below for anyone interested.


The Decline of Anti-Trumpism

the Ol'Buzzard

TURN OFF YOUR PHONE

I was raised in the fifties and lived through the sixties and seventies – and there were no cell phones.   If you were at work and needed to call home, you went to a phone and made your call.   If you were traveling you waited until you got to your destination to make your call.   No one felt the need to have a telephone with them at all times; and people were able to do things without obsessing that they might miss a call, or a text from a friend shopping at a grocery store and posting about the price of peas.

If you are a professional on call I can understand you need; but the average person does not need to be tied to a telephone.  You are not that important.  And the idiot walking around Walmart with the cyborg phone blinking in his ear…; and anyone who has their cell phone ring during a movie or a play should have the phone shoved up their ass. 

Ok, I am antiquated, archaic, unfashionable, out-of-date, outmoded, , behind the times; but this obsession with a cell phone is really ridiculous. 

Old man yelling at clouds

the Ol’Buzzard 

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES

I have always been a big Bob Dylan fan, to my wife's chagrin.   I had Dylan playing in the background while I was doing a Boston Globe crossword puzzle and when completed decided I would scroll through YouTube and look at some of Dylan's recordings by other people.   

I ran across this by Mitch Ryder.   Kick up your sound real high, turn up your base and smoke a joint if you got on. 

This version rocks.



Besides, this makes Dylan in 1965 the original rapper. 

the Ol'Buzzard

UPDATING MY TECHNOLOGY

My wife bought me a HP Desk Jet printer as one of my solstice gifts.   The on/off switch on the old printer didn’t work and I had to plug-it-in/unplug-it when I wanted to turn it off and on.  

Also, one of the keys on my keyboard was sticking which made it tricky trying to sign-in to Windows 10.   Today I went to Walmart and bought a wireless keyboard and mouse.   It works great.  

Does this make me a nerd?

the Ol’Buzzard

THE BLIZZARD IS OVER, BUT THE WIND IS STILL HERE.

It is hard to determine the amount of snow we got yesterday: the windblown spots were about ten inches and the drifts around two feet.   Averaging it out, I would say around 17 inches.  The winds yesterday were brutal.   We had gust up to fifty miles per hour.   

Today the temperatures began in the single numbers.    The snow was gone, but we had a constant wind around twenty knots.   It took me two hours to clear my driveway, feed the birds, restock my wood pile and replace the light bulbs in the well house.  I don’t know what the wind chill factor was; but it was fucking cold – my beard was frozen when I came inside.

NOAA WIND CHILL INTERACTIVE LINK

Temps are dropping tonight.    It is now four below.   Tonight, it is forecast for fifteen below.  The wind is still howling outside. 

These temps are not normal for this early in the winter.   We have had two weeks of day temps in the single numbers and nights dropping below zero.   We have a January thaw predicted for mid next week with temps back up in the twenties and thirties – our more normal range for early January.

I must have been an arctic animal in another life

I love this

the Ol’Buzzard

  

FIRE AND FURY

Michael Wolff's new book Fire and Fury is blanketing the news networks.    The book will be available from Amazon tomorrow.  An advanced review of the book was published by the Hollywood Reporter and is available on line for review - link below

Fire and Fury review

This can't be real
maybe we will wake up tomorrow
and it will all have been a bad dream.













the Ol'Buzzard








https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-wolff-my-insane-year-inside-trumps-white-house-1071504

NERD MAGIC ?

Who the hell knows what all those buttons at the top of the computer key board means!

I'm just saying
the Ol'Buzzard

THE BLIZZARD OF 2018

Already?

We have had more than a week of below zero weather here in western Maine – I am not complaining because that is part of the package we have chosen. 

There is a weather system coming up the coast that is supposed to affect us with blizzard conditions tomorrow.

Today temps have come up reaching twenty and tomorrow is forecast at twenty-six; but with snow falls of two to three inches per hour and wind gust up to fifty miles-per-hour.     

During the heavy snow there will be whiteout conditions and large portions of the state are expected to be without power as a result of the wind.

This is a hunker-down time.  Our wood supply is in, we have plenty of food in the house, a supply of bottled water; and battery, oil and gas lamps.  We have done this before.

 

I got extra gas for the snow blower today; but probably won’t dig out until Friday.

 

This is unusual weather for this time of year.   Temperatures and storms of this nature are common in late January and February – but not this early.

Must watch out for the white walkers tomorrow!

the Ol’Buzzard

   

  

THE DEVIL DAMN THEE BLACK, THOU CREAM-FACED LOON!

WHERE GOT’ST THOU THAT GOOSE LOOK?

I was introduced to Shakespeare by my high school English teacher, Miss Long, back in the late 1950’s.   She required us to read The Comedy of Errors; and I waded my way through, though not understanding form or meter. 

For years I have had The Complete Work, with the intention of someday reading more; but so far that has amounted to two histories, three tragedies and four comedies.  (Love’s Labour’s Lost)

I recently purchased William Shakespeare without the boring bits, commentaries by Peter Ackroyd.  

It is an excellent read to refresh myself with the works I have read, and to introduce, in compact form, works I may (or may not) want to read.

and nothing is but what is not.

the Ol’Buzzard