College Football

 

 

Enjoyed following the Texas Longhorns all season.  They had some exciting ups and downs.  They started out unranked, but finished up number 21.  Tried following CU, but that wasn’t quite so engaging.  Maybe next year with Deion Sanders as coach though.  He’s already landed some top players to bring with him.

 

Texas got a bowl game, the Alamo Bowl, but their two super stud running backs, Bijon Robinson and Roschon Johnson, didn’t suit up because both have declared for the NFL draft and didn’t want to risk injury.  The game felt a little flat without them.  A win for the Washington Huskies.

 

Bowl games can be ho-hum if the teams aren’t that good, or we don’t have a vested interest.  It’s always interesting to watch the four best teams play each other for the National Championships though.  We got to root on an underdog team from Texas in the Fiesta Bowl tonight.  That was a heckofa game.  We felt bad when the Longhorns lost to TCU during the year, but the Horned Frogs sure are the right team to be in the National Championships!

 

Well, still more time to football on.

 

Happy New Year!

 

In a sudden burst

 

 

Like an explosion, all the little birds scatter and disappear in an instant.

 

One bigger bird lands in the tree.

 

 

Coopers Hawk.  It eats birds. 

 

There’ll be no sign of the little ones again for quite a while.

 

One of these things is not like the others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hint:

 

One of these forecasts looks a lot more like summer.

😊

 

Other crazy shit from the 1950s

 

 

We had candy cigarettes we could pretend to smoke before we ate them.

 

Fake cigarettes that would puff smoke so we could practice smoking and look cool.

 

And bubble gum cigarettes we could pretend to smoke before we chewed them.

 

“Grooming” is the word that comes to mind.  We were children being groomed to be future tobacco consumers.

 

Satisfaction Guarantee

 

 

That’s what we offer at our company.  It reads like this:

 

If you ever feel Taylor, Roth and Company’s price exceeds the value of the services we have provided, pay only the value you perceive for that service.

 

We maintain that we are very good at what we do, our fees make sense, and the value will be apparent.  If you don’t agree, we won’t protest.  We won’t litigate.  We don’t need, or want, to be paid if we don’t perform.

 

I submit that every superstar-athlete contract should include that same language.

 

 

Is it real?

 

 

 

 

Or is it wax candy from 1950?

 

 

Merry Christmas

 

 

Remote get-togethers with Matt and his family; and Becky and her family, including Taylor from England.

 

 

 

Last week we decided on a ham for Christmas dinner.  We placed our order online.  We specified a small ham.

 

Cute, right?  The potato was bigger than the ham!    😊

 

Turned out that was plenty of ham for just we two.

 

Merry Christmas everybody!

 

Christmas Eve

 

 

…and the presents are piled high under the tree.

 

Courtesy of USPS, UPS, Amazon, Fedex, and REI.

 

According to Judy this morning

 

 

“It’s amazing how good bad can feel, when it’s better than the day before.”

 

That was this morning.  We had coffee and breakfast.  Then she went back to bed for the rest of the day.  Maybe tomorrow.

 

Still warm and nice here

 

 

We got up to a morning temperature of 56 degrees.  At Becky’s house, it was 70 degrees colder than that.  They’re having a degree deficit.  They’re looking to a high today that doesn’t break zero, and a low of -18 tonight.  Brr.  I think that’s good for the climate in Colorado though.  That whole biosystem has evolved with occasional bursts of deep cold, like 20 or 30 below.  The native plants and animals will be just fine.

 

Here, our high in the 70s today will plummet to below freezing.  We expect highs in the 30s and 40s, but below freezing every night for four nights.  Again, native plants and animals will be just fine, but our ornamentals, like the big poinsettia,

 

will need some protection.

 

It can be an indoor plant for a few days.

 

Happy Winter everybody!

 

All the ingredients

 

 

 

Can you see the finished product?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken fried rice.

 

Eating fresh is like edible art.

 

Bug spray

 

 

We’re going to need some insect repellent for a trip.  Don’t have enough on hand.  We could go to the store for some more, but hey, look what we have left over from our Alaska trip.

 

If this will knock down a bear just try to imagine what it will do to a few puny mosquitoes.

 

Bam!

 

Happy Birthday to me

 

 

One might think I would be 77 years old today, and they could be excused for that because, after all, I was born in 1945.

 

That aside, we’ve selected a different reporting method under which I am currently 56 and a half.  We’re now only counting from the day we got married.

 

 

Happy Holidays

 

 

We’re led to believe the holidays are a stressful time of year.  I thought I’d better check on the dogs to see how they’re doing.

 

Henry.

 

He seems to be hanging in there.

 

Jesse.

 

Yeah.  I think she’s dealing with the challenges.

 

And me, woke up this morning after nine hours of sleep.  On my back, mouth open, couldn’t close it because my lips were stuck to my teeth.  So far so good.  Judy’s doing the best she can on Nyquil.

 

Nothing new at our house today

 

 

Well, except for the weather.  It changed again.  No more 80 degree days for a while.  Now we’re in the 50s and 60s.  A little damp.  Not camping weather for sure.  Not for us anyway.

 

Didn’t get out today, so no new bird pictures.  I’ll send out a dinner picture instead.

 

My (should be) world famous grilled wings!

 

 

We need to get out more

 

 

I don’t have any new bird pictures to send out.  Maybe I can get out tomorrow and find a picture of something.

 

In the meantime, there has been an unexpected feature of covid for us.  We started distancing three years ago at the start of the pandemic.  We haven’t gotten covid yet, and we haven’t gotten any other sort of respiratory malady either.  No flu.  No crud.  No bronchitis.  Neither one of us has been sick for three years!

 

It’s safe to say this now, we’re not inviting the end of a streak, because the streak has just broken.  Judy feels crummy.  Cough.  Sore throat.  No fever though.  We did the covid test and happily it’s negative.  Probably just a cold.

 

Neither one of us has had covid, but most everyone else we know has.  We’ll hope this not-covid that Judy has now will pass quickly and we’ll be back to our energetic selves soon.  Not really any practical way to isolate in this small house.  We’ll just stay together, away from everybody else, and whatever one of us gets, we’ll both get.  Besides, how’s she going to get better if somebody isn’t rubbing her feet every night!

 

Quantum Entanglement

 

 

Got some pretty good emails back from that opening statement yesterday.

 

It’s not like I totally understand what’s going on, but I’m fascinated by the concept that two subatomic particles can get inexorably bound (entangled).  When there are multiple possible states for two entangled particles, if you determine the condition of one, you know with certainty the condition of the other.  They’re probably not in the same condition, they’re probably opposite.  If we’re looking at entangled photons, they can have two different states, State A and State B.  (Left spin, right spin.)  Once these two particles are entangled, they will always be in opposite states.  If we change the state of one of these particles, the other will instantly change too.  They could be side by side or far away from each other, but the change will be instant, and instantly is even faster than the speed of light, which is not supposed to be possible.  Einstein called it “Spooky action at a distance.”

 

Action at a distance itself is not all that big a deal.  A magnet pulling iron filings across a sheet of paper without actually touching them is action at a distance.  Gravitational force between massive objects, like stars, planets, and galaxies.  That counts.  But these actions are explained by known classical physics magnetic and gravitation forces.  Quantum entanglement of subatomic particles is different.  With no known other force acting on it, you can instantly change the condition of a single particle by changing the condition of its entangled partner, wherever it is, whether they are right next to each other or on opposite sides of the Universe!

 

 

Quantum Mechanics

 

 

Let’s talk about quantum entanglement.

 

Okay.  You go first.

 

 

Remember how Annie and Judy used to do all those volunteer hours?

 

 

Well, Henry has taken up the volunteer comfort-dog mantle.

 

At the Memory Care facility in Edinburg, Judy and Henry, visiting with a friend from Sandpipers who is there.

 

 

Henry had on his Santa suit earlier, but they took it off so Carol could pet him better.  He’s about the same size and shape as Hooter, the dog she had.  Henry was a hit with all the staff.

 

Along the way

 

I don’t think I ever got around to sending out pictures from Veterans Oasis Park in Chandler, AZ.  Nice place for a hike every time we’re out there to visit Matt and family.

 

 

 

 

 

Freddy!

 

 

Haven’t seen him since the first of November.

 

Opened the hose holder this bright sunny morning

 

and there he was, a little brown lump, hanging out in the shade.

 

We could see him better as he peeked out the side, from underneath.

 

 

We thought he might be dug into the ground back in the thicket for the winter, but not so in this current nice warm weather.  We may not see him back in his puddle until the hot weather of next summer, but it’s sure nice to see he is still in the neighborhood.

 

Speaking of food

 

 

To be able to get everything in the car for camping, and still have room for the dogs, we have to be careful how much stuff we bring.  To keep it manageable, we’re not doing any cooking at camp.  We can boil water in an electric teapot, but no stove, no pots and pans, and no dishes.  No big ice chest.  This is not wilderness camping.  Most days we’re out in the car at least once.  Morning coffee at camp.  A breakfast taco later.  Stop somewhere in the afternoon for an early dinner, or do a packaged camping meal back at camp.

 

So, let’s talk about packaged camping meals.  Bill and I used to carry freeze dried food on our backpacking trips.  Bill was creative with cooking things from lightweight ingredients and pretty much avoiding the prepared meals, because they weren’t all that good.  Judy found some modern-day freeze-dried meals that looked pretty good though, so we took along some to try.  They look like this.

 

Mountain House Adventure Meals.  One pouch, rehydrated, feeds two.  We ate them several nights.  They are surprisingly better than terrible!  Filling.  Satisfying.  We didn’t go to bed hungry.  No worries about buying them and not using them in time before they age-out either.  The sell-by dates are in the 2050s!

 

Pork

 

 

The other white meat. We hear it’s a healthier alternative to red meat.  A lean pork roast just doesn’t do it for me though.  No matter how much I eat, it just doesn’t feel like I’m done.  I need something with a little more fat to balance it out; to feel like complete nutrition.  Ribs seem to provide the right combination.  Something that satisfies.

 

Pork Ribs.  The other white meat.  But after I’ve done my thing with pork ribs, they don’t look so white anymore.

 

But it doesn’t take much of them to make me feel good!

 

Happy Birthday Judy

 

 

We got to start our day by getting up early and going to her ear doctor appointment.  The first social media “Happy Birthdays” came from Africa and England before we even got up.  That was cool.  From the doctor’s appointment we stopped by the storage locker to drop off and pick up stuff.  Then we went to Lowes, and I bought her a broom and dustpan!  Happy Birthday!  (The small broom and dustpan set will be perfect for keeping the tent swept out while we’re camping.)

 

We picked up an oversize poinsettia and got it situated on the outside table.

 

We were all set to go out for a nice dinner at Pappadeaux.  The food is excellent there, but it’s so loud inside that all we can do is look at each other and try to converse with hand signals.  Judy asked if I really wanted to go out, or would I rather have a big pot of homemade spaghetti.  Well.  Yeah.  We’re having a quiet spaghetti dinner tonight!

 

I thought to make her a traditional birthday cake, but that’s not actually a good thing for a person watching their blood sugar, so I’ll be particularly nice and not make her one.

 

Happy Birthday Judy!  (The spaghetti was wonderful.)