Halloween rundown

Most creative costume tonight:

Terry from Reno 911!

The boy was like 12, so I'm thinking if I had joked about if he gives handjobs through car windows at red lights it would a) be inappropriate, and b) go right over his head.


Most uncreative costume:

Wearing your sports uniform.


~~END~~ Click for full post and comments

Toasted pumpkin seeds

For one pumpkin's worth of seeds, I put about half a cup of extra virgin olive oil (regular would be fine too) into a ziplock bag with the seeds. Blend them together and pour it out onto a baking sheet. I added about 1 tsp worth of salt at this point, with stirring. Spread the seeds out onto the tray and broil with tray on middle rack for 10 min. I tilted to tray to drain some oil, and added another 1tsp salt, with stirring. These seeds came out mostly lightly browned, with a few darker but not burned.

You can add all sort of spices, but I stuck with salt.


~~END~~ Click for full post and comments

Happy Halloween

yes, my kitchen is orange.


~~END~~ Click for full post and comments

Don't think so

Seen at the commissary tonight:

OK, so only Washingtonians would get it. Or anyone who's been inside SeaTac.


~~END~~ Click for full post and comments

Vote

I faxed my request for an absentee ballot last week. Yesterday a voter card came in the mail. So now I guess I'm waiting to see if an absentee ballot is coming, otherwise I'll vote in person for the first time ever! Actually, wait a minute. I think I went to a polling place with my mom the first election after I turned 18. Huh. That just popped into my head after having totally forgotten about it. Well anyway, at least I know where to go now, since I actually needed a voter card.

UPDATE: got the absentee ballot today. Now I should research all the local stuff. League of Women Voters has a very extensive site full of non-partisan information on candidates by state. (basically it's an online version of the voter's guide).


~~END~~ Click for full post and comments

Pottery and alcohol DO mix!

I went to a "ladies night" at the local paint pottery place last week. It was awesome, because it's BYOB!!! So I was slamming bloody marys, and my friend was sipping red wine. All very sophisticated, I tell you. I picked up my pieces today:

It's hard to tell in the picture, but there are two colors of blue: a darker regular sort of blue, and a turquoise color. I had already had at least one bloody mary by the time I was done with the teapot, and had put it away on the drying shelf when I started to cup. I forgot my color scheme and got the blues backwards. YAY alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. /Homer

Oh man, don't even get me started on the ladies who were Very Serious about their Art. I would usually be the one to get Very Serious about my Art, but I can tell when it's time to just chill and not act like a geek. Also I recognize the fact I have not painting ability whatsoever. Click for full post and comments

Oops, my mistake

I use Picasaweb for online photos, because that's where photos uploaded to a Blogger blog go. Those crazy Google folks are always tweaking things so I wasn't surprised when I couldn't for the freaking life of me find the delete button. But then I got to thinking that disabling the delete button would be a good thing for Google: your album gets totally clogged up with duplicates and other bits and pieces, and then you have to upgrade to the pay version for more space! Genius! Then I got pissed off, the more I thought about it. Then I found where they hid the delete button, so that threw my theory out the window. Sorry Google. My bad. Click for full post and comments

Eagle hunting

Hubby and I went up to the Conowingo Dam today, because our neighbor told us it was good eagle country. Mostly I wanted to see pretty trees, with only a little hope that there would be birds there. So after a short walk

and scouting out the water for birds,

(I believe the lower bird is some sort or cormorant)

I saw evidence of a very ambitious beaver. This tree is a foot diameter

and a total goner. I'm surprised it did fall own in the wind yesterday.

Then I went down to the water, to maybe get some pictures of the shore. The trees weren't doing much color-wise, but I thought it was pretty enough.

I was getting ready to pack it in when hubby pointed out raptors up in the sky (lots of seagulls, so I was looking for something more interesting).

(in one of these frames, the bird is pooping)

Why, that sure looked like a gen-you-wine bald eagle! So I was snapping like crazy. Saw a juvenile swoop in and get a fish (sorry they're overexposed, I didn't have time to check settings!)

So once a fish was caught then all the birds came out to try to steal it.

There was a heron on the beach with the eagles, trying to get in on the fish action, but there was also this guy just posing for me.

I spy with my little eye...

...an eagle swooping in to snatch some fish.

(there are actually two eagles in this picture)

Finally I decided 180 pictures was enough. The ones where I didn't use the tripod didn't come out very well, and were very shaky (even with vibration reduction turned on!). There were some serious guys showing up just as we were leaving. One guy had a lens that was seriously 6 inches across, and like a foot or more long! A 500mm lens is 10 THOUSAND dollars! So I guess that means I'll never get the pictures I have in my head, where you see a nice crisp close up of an eagle in a tree. 

But, man, it was awesome. I'll definitely be back for another chance to hunt birds.


PS. I don't know how to force a picture to get a link to the full version during the upload process. So most of these pictures have a big version if you click on them, but some don't.

Click for full post and comments

Um, overkill maybe?

(click for bigger)

Is 15 decimal accuracy really necessary? Granted, it only showed up like this on my Mac, so maybe weather dot com know Mac people like to know things down to the 17th significant figure.

Click for full post and comments

Can I fit a month's worth of blogging into a single post?

Sure I can, because not a lot has happened. Well, except for the stubbed toe that was didn't hurt (too much), but I heard the joint pop and the toenail crack. That was from chasing a damn cat.

But there were some pictures I had forgotten about. First, one last moon picture (for a while, at least) using the camera's built-in multiple exposure setting.

Next, one of a tree in my back yard. It still hasn't done much, but I'm hoping the leaves change before they fall off. (last year it was absolutely gorgeous, and I took film pictures of it.

Around the same time as the back yard pictures, I took some of the tree across the street. It doesn't look like that anymore, but a couple of weeks ago it was on fire! 

And finally some of Biscuit.

Where's Dot?

Oh! There she is!

the bubble wrap is there so I can shine the laser on it and Biscuit will go POP POP on it. It's worked pretty well, and I have laughed heartily. He, on the other hand, doesn't like his claws getting stuck in the plastic.

Click for full post and comments