Erie's Argonaut

2012-01-25T16:04:00.000-05:00

This is great! I love that we are almost having a non existent winter.

I volunteered for "Find A Grave" which is a website where volunteers take photo requests from people for photos of a relative's headstone. People that do genealogy can find these headstones full of information. You can often find birth dates, death dates, who they are married to and their children buried in the same plot by the headstone and the area and sometimes there aren't free accessible records with this info on it so it can be very helpful. Or if someone can't visit a grave for some reason or another, they can, maybe, find some kind of comfort looking at a photo. I think most are for genealogy records, though.

Some photo requests take some detective work. I tramped all over Laurel Hill the other day looking for a specific headstone. Snow covered everything and I left without a photo on my first attempt at photographing for Find A Grave. Rain melted the snow that night and I ran out again the next day. It was wet and slushy and I froze my feet off. The map they have online is hardly useful as it only shows sections, not rows or plots. There are hundreds of graves in a section. I made it my day's exercise. Find it, though, I did. I went home and immediately posted the photos and soon after got a very nice thank-you note from the person who requested it.

It will be a pleasant experience when the weather changes to summer and the birds and flowers are all out. Even in the winter it is an outing to walk and read the headstones. So much history!

Finley, He Just Fell Over Dead

2012-01-14T23:53:00.005-05:00

These ancestry entries are just something extra right now. I'll be back to posting my about other things soon.
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As I said in my last post, I was set to cancel my free 14-day free trial of Ancestry dot com. I couldn't do it. I am so hooked on it. I suppose it is just like the people playing that silly-looking farm game on Facebook that, thankfully, I never tried or those people that play for hours on end those X-box games.I love research.

Finley is the brother of my great grandfather. I couldn't find anything much but a listing in the census when he was younger. But then I found a clue. When Finley's father died only 5 of the 7 offspring were still alive to attend the funeral. The obituary listed the 5 still alive that attended. That gave me at least a smaller window of years to search for Finley as he was not listed as one that was still alive. By his birth date he had to have been under 30 years old when he died. I narrowed the newspaper search and then started scanning just the front-page headlines of the archived online newspapers. I figured if he died under 30 years old it would have been front page news in that little town. And there is was! Yeah! A 1902 headline that read,
"A Sudden Summons"
"Finley McCuaig Drops Dead at the
Home of His Parents in Greenbush
Monday Night."
"A Sudden Summons and His Untimely
Death a Shock to His Folks
and Many Friends."

The detail they go into in these old newspapers! The family gave a minute-by-minute report of his last minutes. The whole town probably wanted to hear all the details. The article goes on to tell of his trip out west where he contracted typhoid and recovered earlier and how his travel mates had died of typhoid. It was just packed with info. Finley was no longer just a name without any info with it on my family tree. Here is the article. I know this doesn't interest most people. But for people doing ancestry this may be the tidbit they are looking for.

Ancestry and Archives

2012-01-06T05:21:00.000-05:00

I took Ancestry.com up on their 14-day free trial. I have been working continuously for 12 of those days, literally all day and night, going to bed at 6 in the morning sometimes and I'll cancel tomorrow so I don't get stuck paying for a year.(editor's note: I went ahead and subscribed, I'm addicted!) I made big strides in my family tree. But there are so many dead ends because they won't release the Census after 1930. Whoever transcribes those records to digitize them has an awful job. I always look at the original record to see what I think it really says because the transcriptions are wrong about 30 percent of the time with my family. I mean, how many ways can you misspell McCuaig? There are plenty!! Man, all my life people have misspelled my name. And the records online are no better, from M'cuaig to MacQuade, to Mackeg, one record even had McCusag. Going through archived newspapers up to 1922 from Mille Lacs, Princeton and Bemidji areas in Minnesota was the most fun and I pieced the pieces together and solved a huge part of the puzzle.

My grandmother and grandfather 1915

Well, Norm, as good as he was, ran off with a young married women about 18 years later. Poor Grandma! I never knew him. He married the floozy and moved to Chicago where he was accidentally shot and killed by a bar owner showing him his gun. There may be a 1/2 sibling or two of my dad's out there but we'll never know. My sister and I tried to find out but hit dead ends. We did find her grave next to Norman's. Her name was Lillian. Thank you FindAGrave.com! I have signed up with them to take photos of gravestones when request are made in this area. I also want to take photos and records of some of the abandoned cemeteries we come across while geocaching.

But still, I so enjoyed reading about my grandmother's wedding write-up in the newspaper archive I found online and how my great-great (and maybe one more great) uncle was mayor of Bemidji for 3 terms. This photo was before that time as he was running for County Commissioner in this photo.It is funny because when I spotted this photo I knew our family still carries some of the characteristics of our ancestors. I see a resemblence. I emailed it to my sister who laughed and agreed. Something about the shape of the head.

I read he was not re-elected as mayor after 1916 because he was accused of being a prohibitionist (though he told the newspaper reporter he was not, just holding up the laws of the land, whatever they were.) Obviously, people wanted to drink and they didn't vote for him. I was so into these generations of past families of mine that I couldn't stop searching for more information about them and hours went by. One night it was 1 AM and I found some tidbit leads for more information and decided to search until 1:30 AM and call it a night and the next thing I knew a blast of wind shook the house and knocked me out of the spell and I looked at the clock and 3 hours had passed and I had no idea of it. It was like I was enthralled in a movie.

Then there was the little newspaper write-up making fun of one of my ancestors who sold his "ancient bronchos" to some poor unsuspecting guy who was clearing his land and needing a team of horses.Hmm, where they shysters?

I read about my dad at the age of 6, in 1922, taking what was probably his first ride in an automobile, a 1922 National with 10 people inside with the children. My dad's uncle bought it. What a car! I can picture them riding down the bumpy road, there were no seat belts! This would have been really a special outing because most people in those way-out towns still used horses and most roads in that area weren't paved. The newspaper used to even write about somebody visiting an aunt in another town or if someone came to town to conduct business. That was how everyone kept up with the goings-on back then. No social media needed. The guy delivering the milk often stopped and gave the newspaper the scoop of what people had told him during the day of deliveries.He knew whom was visiting whom and other gossip of the day. My 2-week journey back in time is almost over. I will miss it. My husband will be glad I'm back home.

1922 National


My relative with the National, trading it in for a Chevrolet Baby Grand. He must have told the milkman because it was put in the paper. Walter Patterson and his wife Lenora Steinmetz Patterson Walt was recruited to play professional baseball but he chose Nora instead. I don't know which team. I was very young and they were very old but I remember them. They were happy and laughed a lot.

1908

My Grandma's Crazy Quilt

2011-11-19T02:41:00.013-05:00

I was given a crazy quilt. My mom had given it to my sister who stored it for years and years but no longer had room for it. I said I would take it. It made its way from California to Erie, PA. At first glance it looked great. But upon closer inspection it does have problems. Some of the silks have deteriorated and the wool ties are coming off. My late mother was very protective of this quilt checking on it from time to time when my sister had it. But something none of us four sisters asked was whose quilt was it? My mother had said it was Grandma's quilt. Us kid's grandmother or Mom's grandmother? We don't know, we never asked. So this may be my great-grandma's quilt. The date would be more correct for that, I think. I have searched the internet over and over and looked at literally hundreds of crazy quilts and only 2 I have seen that had similar satin and silks without the fancy embroidery. They both were from the 1880s to 1890s. I'm still searching.

My grandmother lived on a soybean farm near Hector, Minnesota. She had 9 children (my mother the baby of the family) so I doubt she had time to make the fancy version of the crazy quilt with all the embroidery needle work. She was very thrifty, though. She worked from sun-up to sun-down and I never remember her talking to us kids or even sitting down relaxing. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders. I would sit quietly and watch. I would watch her make homemade dark bread, she did her laundry with a wringer washer and hung her clothes on a clothes line. The farm was stuck in the olden days with one toilet in the cold, damp, dark basement.I was afraid of it as a child. They had a pair of draft horses that still worked on the farm in the 1950s.They had lost their first house to a tornado.

REVISED!
**hold the presses!! I just found out today from my dad that the quilt was HIS grandmother's, my great-grandmother Sophia, not my grandmother on my mom's side. Because my mom loved the quilt and was protective of it we assumed it was from her side.

Sophia was from Wahkon, MN and ran a restaurant, bakery and the Rex Hotel in Wahkon after 1910 and before1925. It is no longer there. My great-grandmother Sophia (Miller or Mueller*) Patterson (Patnode or Patenaude*) was born in Wisconsin (1867) died (1959.) Her parents came over from Germany (then called Prussia.) Sophia's mother, named (Henrietta) Etty Miller (maiden name of Baustian, born Mecklenburg Germany-Prussia 1830 or 31) was a cook for Prussia's Kaiser Wilhelm 1( b1797-d1888), King of Prussia (reigned-1861-1888.)
*Immigrants in those days wanted to be Americanized and would change their names to the American version. Patnode was changed to Patterson and Mueller was changed to Miller.

They immigrated to America on a sailing ship approx Nov or Dec of 1866 and Sophia was born shortly after they arrived in Wisconsin. Sophia's father was John (Adolphus) Miller (Mueller) (-1826 Mecklenburgh Germany-Prussia.) married Etty approx 1851. Sophia had 2 brothers named Louis Miller (b 1860) and Christopher Miller(b 1862) -both born in Mecklenburgh Germany-Prussia. She had two older brothers that died on the trip over to America and were buried at sea and are not listed on the American census.Sophia also had a younger sister, Vena Miller (born Wisconsin 1869.)

Sophia learned to be a great cook (my dad said, "Boy could she cook!") from her mother (who was one of the cooks for the King of Prussia as noted above) and opened a bakery and ran the Hotel Rex with her husband, Otis Patterson (Pascode-French Canadian she married in Wisconsin.) Otis has a story of his own I'll add at the end of this post after the quilt photos. She also weaved her own fabric and made quilts and rugs as many did in those days. My grandmother and her son, my dad, lived with Sophia at the hotel for a while to help Sophia run the hotel and bakery. She spoke German a lot but also English (her husband, Otis, spoke French and English) and Sophia would tell the many stories to my dad about Germany that her mother had told her. I have vague early childhood memories of Sophia. My few memories of her were when she was in her 90s when we visited my grandmother. She lived with my grandmother. And that's who made the quilt.

Post continues below photos.
#**ancestry was included for those who may be searching the (Mueller ) Miller or (Patnode-Patenaude) Patterson family lines.

As I mentioned above, I'll add a little story about Otis Patterson. When he lived in Marshfield,Wisconsin before moving to Minnesota, he was a hoop barrel maker. He also wrestled. We had heard the story about him wrestling some champion growing up but I never knew who it was he wrestled. I finally found the information. He wrestled Friedrick Beell in Freddy's first professional wrestling debut in 1896. Otis lost but Friedrick Beell went on to become the champion lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight wrestler. He later became a police officer and was killed in the line of duty. This information was obtained off this website:

http://legacyofwrestling.com/Beell.html

So that was my great-grandpa's claim to fame. Another claim to fame was my cousin. A great-grandson of Otis Patterson, Jerry was one of 7 instructors that started Top Gun during the Vietnam war. His full name was Jerry Sawatzky. He died in 1999. His story is included in the book "Scream of Eagles" (not The Screaming Eagles, and not The Scream of Eagles, just Scream of Eagles) by Robert K Wilcox, a book about the special forces and Top Gun.I have read some excerpts from the book and it was really exciting. I'm ordering the book so I can get the whole story!

Yogurt Success

2011-10-28T02:13:00.000-05:00

I'm on my um-teenth batch of homemade yogurt. It turns out every time. Getting that yogurt maker was a great investment. I do strain my yogurt to get the as much whey out as I can because it contains lactose which I'm intolerant or sensitive to. I found that if I take a few tablespoons of my thick, strained yogurt and mix it with some dry, aged Parmesan cheese, a few bacon bits and a little aged cheddar it tastes delicious on a baked potato. There is so much you can do with the homemade yogurt! Dressing for the salad, add nutra sweet for a desert, I can even make ice cream out of it. I haven't tried that yet but will give hints that I want an ice cream/frozen yogurt maker for Christmas.

Homemade Yogurt

2011-10-15T01:36:00.002-05:00

I can't eat yogurt from the store. It has pectin (a plant-based thickener...and laxative) in it as well as artificial sweeteners that I get bloat from like sorbitol or sucralose (Splenda) or other sugar alcohols.* Plus, modern yogurt isn't cultured nearly as long as the old days. They make it more mild and add pectin to keep the whey from separating and make it artificially thicker. I want the whey gone out of my yogurt as the whey has most of the lactose in it and I'm pretty sure it bothers me. I love yogurt and used to make my own back when I had milk goats way back when. That yogurt never bothered me. It had nothing in it but milk and yogurt starter.
* I did find Foge brand yogurt that is just milk and yogurt culture but it was too expensive for me to buy regularly.

So I bought a yogurt maker. I ordered it from Amazon.com and I've had it almost 4 days now. I've made and eaten batch after batch of yogurt using 2% milk and then I bought some instant nonfat dry milk and made some from that. You almost can't tell the difference between the 2% and the instant. I make mine to incubate about 10 hours. I tried one 14 hours and it was very tart, edible but needed more nutrasweet than the other batches. Any less and I'm worried the lactose hasn't been broken down.

I strained it in cheese cloth (not the kind you get at Lowes but the kind you can find at Bed,Bath and Beyond in a small package by the kitchen timers) for a couple of hours and it becomes Greek yogurt. Nice and thick and most of the lactose is gone out of it when the whey was strained off. I beat it with a fork just before I eat it to fluff it up a bit. It has a cream cheese texture and taste after I add some nutrasweet. Just like having a cheese cake dessert. And the best part is I have no reaction at all to eating this homemade yogurt. No bloat, no stomach pain, unlike the store-bought yogurt.

There are lots of websites out there that teach you how to make your own yogurt even without a yogurt maker. They'll have great photos, etc. Google it or search YouTube. But all you need is:

Milk, (quart, half gallon or whatever) heated to 180 degrees, then cooled to 110 degrees (temps are important. Too hot and you kill the yogurt culture.)
You have to have yogurt starter. Buy a small plain yogurt from the store that has live, active culture. Add a couple of tablespoons to the 110 degree milk and mix well.
Pour milk into container(s.)
Wrap jars or containers of the warm mixture in towels to keep them warm.
Put them in an ice chest and fill any empty spaces with jugs of hot water and put the lid on to keep the heat in. Let it set in a draft-free room for 6 to 8 hours. You don't want the temp to be over 110 degrees or under 90 degrees when incubating. Don't disturb it when incubating as movement can keep it from setting properly. Just relax, it's turning into yogurt.
When done you can gently place yogurt into a colander lined with cheese cloth or coffee filters to drain the whey off. If you like the whey, just refrigerate your jars and enjoy with fruit or honey.
Before adding anything, take a couple of tablespoons out and freeze it for your starter of your next batch so you don't have to buy any more yogurt to use as the starter.
If it didn't set or turn into yogurt, the mixture was probably kept too hot or too cool and/or the starter culture wasn't live and active.

Vacation at Mt. Rainier-Crater Lake-California

2011-09-26T00:43:00.000-05:00

It's a long video. It was a long vacation, ha! We drove and drove and drove. It was great going west to see my family. I sure miss them living out here in PA. We stayed at Mt. Rainier 9 days and had gorgeous weather most of the time. We stayed at the Snowberry Cottage in Ashford, WA that was tucked away in the trees just outside the gate of Mt. Rainier National Park. This cottage was perfect for us. If you want to visit Mt. Rainier I highly recommend this cottage. Here is a link: http://www.rainiercottages.com/id59.html
It's too bad my camera was set to macro when I took photos of the cottage in the video below and most didn't turn out but the website link above has photos of the cottage.

Drive-in Movie

2011-06-04T00:22:00.000-05:00

It's been forever since I've been to a drive-in movie theater. My husband and I went to the one several years ago that used to be where Tom Ridge Center is now near Presque Isle. We went when we found out it was closing and wanted to have one last memory there. The last movie we saw there was The Perfect Storm.

Tonight we went to the Waterford drive-in just for the fun of it. I'm not really into X-men but X-men First Class was playing with the new Pirates of the Caribbean as the second feature. It was a beautiful night to have the windows down (until the mosquitoes came out) and seeing the children throwing footballs in the front area under the huge screen until it got dark enough for the movie was fun. I brought my pillow and a blanket and we leaned our car's seats back and munched ourselves full of popcorn and chocolate before the movie even started. The first movie was over just past 11PM. We didn't stay for the the Pirates of the Caribbean because it would be past 1AM before it was over! It didn't look like many cars were leaving, they were in it for the long haul.

I remember the days when you paid "per car" but this theater charged per person. I guess "per car" days are over. But I've heard tales of people hiding in the trunk of cars on the way in so they wouldn't have to pay, so maybe they did charge per person back in the "olden days."

It was nice that we could bring our own snacks and soft drinks with us. I'd like to do it again on a nice summer evening.

Hummer (short video)

2011-05-30T23:38:00.001-05:00

My husband and I spent part of the afternoon at Scott Park again looking for birds. We saw another Black and White Warbler, many American Redstarts and some Hooded Warblers. We were bothered a little for the first time this year by mosquitoes. Not bad but enough that we sprayed ourselves.

We returned to my in-laws house in the woods and had a wonderful outdoors meal prepared by my father-in-law (a wonderful chef!) and then waited for the birds to come to us. They did. A beautiful Pileated Woodpecker, Cardinal, Chick-a-dee, Phoebe, and even a Wild Turkey! A Ruby-throated Hummingbird was perched on top of a dead stick on the very top of the tree over our table. He finally came down to drink just feet from us. A perfect end to a most perfect day.

Indigo Bunting, Black and White Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Rose-breasted Grosbeak

2011-05-22T00:14:00.000-05:00

Wow, we had such a great birding day today. I was surprised to still see the Black-throated Blue Warblers still around. We saw one bouncing around the large woodpile at Fry's Landing along with many Yellow Warblers and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. We headed out to Scott Park and saw Magnolia Warblers on the Bay Trail again, hummingbirds, the usual flickers and woodpeckers and then we spotted a bunch of Indigo Buntings. They were so pretty. They were along the west edge of the ball fields where it meets the woods. We also saw a Black and White Warbler in the trees by the BMX area. It was late afternoon when we left and the Wood Thrushes were going to town with their musical fluting. Can you believe they were thinking of logging Scott Park a while back? Crazy!

I still have to work on the videos of the other birds (I didn't take my still camera and I could kick myself for it) but I got a little clip of the Bunting finished.

Birding Heaven (pics)

2011-05-10T00:35:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks has been wonderful! We finally have some warmer weather and the birds arrived pretty much on schedule. First the ducks came and then the warblers, orioles and others.

I was so enthusiastic about seeing all the different warblers I fixed us a picnic and as soon as my husband got home from work today we headed to Presque Isle for our dinner. It was great eating outside to the sound of the birds.

Tonight as I was getting ready for bed I found a tick on me! I was so upset about it as I'm so scared of Lyme disease. Deer ticks are a real concern in our area. It kind of put a damper to my "birding" enthusiasm. There is a spray out there that you use on your clothes, shoes and hats that lasts 2 weeks even if you launder the clothes item so we'll have to do that. It kills the ticks if they walk across it, not repel them. Ticks can live up to 6 months in your car or house I read, and that is even without getting a meal. Maybe we could spray some on the car seats and rugs. Every few minutes I think I feel a tick on me now.

Here are photos that I was able to get of the warblers. They are very hard to photograph because they are so quick and don't stop for a second.

Yellow-throated Warbler

2011-04-24T00:37:00.001-05:00

Our outing to the peninsula was well worth the time. We cut short the Pittsburgh Penguins game (they were losing bad)and headed out into the wonderful but short-lived sunshine. The loons were still on the bay as well as some Red Breasted Mergansers, Ruddy ducks, Buffleheads and Scaups.

We stopped off at the bird banding area not far from the office and only saw some woodpeckers. We then headed for Frys Landing and were surprised to see a butter butt and Golden-crowned Kinglets. Then we saw the Yellow Throated Warbler. This was a lifer for us. We've seen lots of different warblers in the past few years but not this one. I was pretty excited. I read that they are starting to move their range a little bit more north. The map shows them to go as far north as the Pittsburgh area. I don't have one of those great cameras with the big zoom lenses and focus but I was able to get a few pictures that you can at least tell what the bird is.

Home from California

2010-11-24T08:23:00.000-05:00

We just returned from California on Sunday. We spent a week with my dad visiting. We had a 2-1/2 week vacation just a month prior out west (Glacier, Yellowstone, Tetons) but I wanted to spend some quality time with Dad and stopping in while on vacation rushes things.

It was really nice just watching ballgames, going on some local sight-seeing drives and playing cards. Had I gone at Thanksgiving or Christmas there would have been too many people and too much going on to actually get a good visit in and there is the travel nightmare of it all.

We did let Dad have some alone time and went to the movies and drove to Calaveras Big Trees for a day trip. They never stop amazing me. How anyone could have cut down those amazing trees back over 100 years ago is beyond me. They were so taken with them that they took them. The huge ones that are left hopefully will live on. You can read about these trees and about organizations trying to save them but the best way to get that message across is for people to see them in person. They couldn't help but care about them if they see them. Pictures never do justice to the wonders in nature.

We did not get scanned or patted down while on our trip. We just walked through a metal detector both in Sacramento and Erie. In both airports they didn't even have scanners. I don't understand why they would only pat down if you set off the metal detector. The underwear bomber didn't set off any alarms did he? Anyway, I believe it is all for show. Someone will get something on that plane if they want to. Most likely it would be in some mail the plane carries or luggage. I accidentally brought my contact solution in a zipper bag in my carry-on backpack and didn't realize it until I got to California and took it out to use. It was a 4oz bottle, over their 3.4 fluid oz limit allowed. They didn't catch that. I just read that gel sole inserts are not allowed. I didn't know that and I'm glad I wore my newer shoes as my old ones does have them.

My luggage wasn't hand searched like it normally has been in previous trips. Everything was exactly as it was before. I had lots of electronics in my suitcase. They must just x-ray them and have some kind of explosive detector. I was glad they didn't search it because every time they do they break something or don't put the lid back on tight and things get broken and ruined. I've lost, due to breakage, my portable Water-Pik, hot rollers and a brand-new makeup mirror in the past couple of years. You pack it carefully and they unpack it and just throw everything back in your suitcase and you know what happens to the suitcases after that. I had all my rollers just dumped in my suitcase and the plastic lid cracked and pieces missing from it last year. I realize they are in a hurry but that just shows a lack of respect to the traveler.

Our flight was so miserable with the lack of leg room, dry air to breathe, no food (unless you pay $7 for a box lunch) and it is impossible to sleep on the planes with the constant announcements and bell dinging. We had to connect with planes on the opposite side of the airports in the middle of the night. It isn't fun anymore. You are herded like cattle and no one cares about your comfort like in the decades past. We made a decision to never fly again unless there is a family emergency. We love to drive and will just have to plan extra days to get there and back. We love to see America in the car, we can take what we want with us and stop anytime we want in the car. On the road, you are king.

Compatibility

2010-11-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

We got out of the car at the parking lot of Artist Point at Yellowstone National Park back in September and headed for the path. Purple caught our eyes. My first thought was not something I am proud of. Luckily it only lasted a second or two and my thoughts changed to admiration. Do you know how compatible those two people are that they would dress alike, in matching purple no less? And when a squirrel moved near the rocks their cameras came up in unison as they both joyed in photographing the animal each having their own camera? All I can think is that they are truly compatible, and really enjoy life together. I snapped and ran. It is one of my favorite photos of the trip.

Many Glacier Moose Family

2010-10-16T01:15:00.000-05:00

While we stayed at the Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park we'd spend time relaxing on our room's balcony and look out on Swiftcurrent Lake. The place was so gorgeous! The rooms weren't much but you pay for the view and you get a view worth more than you paid for! Below is a video sweep from our balcony of the great view. The second video is of the moose family frolicking. Toward the end of the video a baby moose appears. I love Montana!

________________________________

Vacation Photos

2010-10-02T23:05:00.000-05:00

After 16 days of a wonderful vacation we are home and reliving it through our photos. I think the prettiest place has to be Glacier National Park and the Going to the Sun Road. But my best photo (I think) was from the Grand Teton National Park. The aspens were changing colors It was gorgeous. Below is my favorite photo. I'll post more in the days to come. Click to enlarge.

Shooting Stars

2010-08-13T10:10:00.000-05:00

I read in the Erie Times News yesterday that last evening, after 10PM and before 4AM, was suppose to be a show of shooting stars. Just before bedtime my husband and I went out on the deck and peered up at our little sliver of night sky we can see between our house and all the neighbor houses. It was a small window. We looked and watched and strained our necks. Finally, after about 10 minutes, we saw ONE. We high-fived. Soon my neck couldn't take it any longer and we went inside satisfied we at least saw one. It was the first one in about 6 or more years for me. I guess I just don't look up much anymore.

I returned outside at 2AM hoping to see a big show. I sat in a chair on our deck and rested my head back on the house siding. I had my Zune playing a soft Bach into my earphones. After a hot, humid and draining day the breeze was wisping my hair away from my head and releasing the built-up heat from the day. It was awesome. But no shooting stars. Where were they? All the city lights probably made them invisible. But just as nice was the cool breeze, soft music and seeing the silhouette of a hundred pears swaying on the pear tree against the night sky.

Happenings in Early May

2010-05-12T11:44:00.001-05:00

Just some updates:

My very old Moosie cat has died. I had a hard time with it as I've been babying him for more than a year now to get him to eat. I'll miss him a lot.

My mp3 player has died. My Creative Zen worked really good, too. It just quit. I did online searches and found out how to reset it but that didn't help. I'll have to keep my eyes open for another one. I had some audio books on there that I no longer have on my computer that I was listening too. Backup everything.

I had a root canal done a few days ago and I'm finally off the antibiotics and pain killers. I feel really good today, finally. No brain fog. What a difference.

The weather has been so lousy I can't even get out to find my ferns for my hanging baskets. The wind has been terrible but the forecast is looking up by the weekend.

The Penguins are about to win or lose the series against Montreal tonight. Go Pens. I have a bad feeling, though. But if they lose, well, we can then fit in some evening walks instead of watching hockey.

I gave up artificial sweeteners about 7 weeks ago. Soon after I had no problem giving up all sweet things. It was amazing that if I didn't sip on that diet cola and drink bottled water instead, I didn't want any sweets. I do drink coffee in the mornings with powdered creamer which I may have to give up. I have lost 12 pounds in 7 weeks without exercising. However the past couple of weeks, eating the same amount of calories (I have been counting seriously) I haven't lost a pound. It's time to start exercising I guess but it could be my scale.

Yesterday, while I was still on the antibiotics and pain pills, I cheated. I was at my in-laws and they have a gumball machine with m&ms in it. I'm blaming the pain pills. I had 3 little handfuls of them. I don't even like them that much. Well, that's over with, I'm off all medication and it's time to move on.

I have found that I can weigh myself, step off and weigh myself again the scale it can weigh 6 lbs difference depending on how straight you stand, how far up on the scale you stand or if you lean at all. I went to Amazon.com and ordered a balance beam scale as our other scale is shot. It just arrived as I was typing this. The box is about 6 ft long! How am I going to get it upstairs? I'll take it up piece by piece. I think having an accurate scale will help me know if my calories counting is accurate. It weighs as small as 1/4 pound increments. It's just like the ones at the doctor's office.

The Peevish Gull and the Cute Ruddy Ducks

2010-04-14T20:02:00.000-05:00

The weekend was perfect for a trip to Pymatuning State Park, PA where we saw large numbers of the cute Ruddy ducks. We saw several immature Bald eagles and the Purple Martins were back and nesting. The calm was interupted by this terrible, nasty gull. See video.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T00:22:00.000-05:00

Wishing you all a glorious Easter.

Priced Too High

2010-03-01T03:22:00.000-05:00

Tonight I started planning our vacation for the year. We decided we'd like to take a southwest vacation this year on the way to California. I was about 1/2 hour into my researching and came across information on the Grand Canyon. I've been there before when I was a kid when my family first moved out from Minnesota to California and spent the whole summer traveling around all the western states and visiting all the scenic areas. But that was about 40 plus years ago.

To my surprise, it ain't like it used to be. Entrance to the Grand Canyon is $25 per vehicle, the cost of the Skywalk is $25 each, the cost of entering the reservation to get to the skywalk is $50. The estimate is $80 per person with additonal taxes and fees. And, get this, cameras are forbidden on the skywalk. However, they will take your photo and you can buy it from them at additional cost. This is a rip off. I wanted to see the Carlsbad Caverns, too. You can't take photos of the bat flight. Not even video without flash. Ya, you can buy the photo at the store. I long for the good old days when there weren't rules and regulations up the yahoo. Protect the enviroment? Mostly to make money. Oh, well. I saw the bat flight at Carlsbad Caverns. I heard the noise and suddenly saw the mass of bats and then fainted. Yep, missed the rest of the bat flight. Made my mom miss it, too, because she was trying to revive me. I wanted my husband to see this wonderful place.

All this commercialism really takes the wonder out of these wonders of the world. I went through this last year when I was planning our Boston trip. I wanted to see all the historic sites but the parking costs were ridiculous to the point we nixed it and went to North Carolina Blue Ridge Mts and had a low cost wonderful time.

This makes me want to change my plans and take a northern vacation. Maybe up through Montana, Washington and Oregon. I would say Canada, but I'm still mad at the Canadian Hockey team and even our (especially our)Penguin Sidney Crosby for taking the Olympic gold medal away from the USA team.

New Appreciation for Music

2010-01-11T01:56:00.000-05:00

I have always hated classical music. I couldn't help it, I just hated it, I liked country music. Then we stayed at a bed and breakfast, the Berry Manor Inn, 2006 in Rockland, Maine. It was a Victorian mansion converted to a bed and breakfast and all the rooms were appointed in Victorian splender right down to classical chamber music and turned down beds. We weren't expecting anything when we returned from a long outing for the day. We opened our door and classical music was playing softly on the radio, the bed was turned down and chocolate mints were on the pillows of the huge poster bed.

After that vacation, every time I hear soft classical music like Bach, I think of Maine and that bed and breakfast. It was one of the best places (the best!) we've ever stayed at.

I made some Smilebox slideshows for my "This Old Erie House" blog regarding art glass and had to choose the music from their selection. The only thing that fit with the slideshow was classical. I listened to it over and over and now I'm so hooked on classical music which does show you people can change. Just like that. Geniuses they were, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.

Erie's Argonaut Christmas Card

2009-12-24T13:23:00.002-05:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Christmas Light Show in HD Fairview, PA

2009-12-19T13:03:00.000-05:00

The North West Pennsylvania Geocachers group posted a gps Christmas Light Tour so my husband and I went on it last night. We didn't finish all of it but this light show set to synchronized music was the best so far. I hope you enjoy the video. If you want to see it for yourself go to these coordinates.
N 42°03.2240′
W080°15.7943′
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

The Penguins Were Whooped

2009-11-08T02:41:00.000-05:00

The San Jose Sharks gave the Penguins a good kick in the behind last night winning 5 to 0. OK, we had 5 of some of our best players out with injuries but still....I had to stop watching after the first 2 goals. It was quite obvious the Penguins weren't into this game. I checked back and it was 4 to 0 and then again at the end it was 5 to 0. I hang my head in shame. Crosby, as great as he is, can't do it all by himself.

My Photo- Heading to California

2009-11-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

I'm going through some of the photos of our trip last month. I like this one.

Our Farewell Video to California

2009-11-02T23:57:00.000-05:00

I still am processing some of the videos we took while we were in California. I'm already homesick for California but it will still be there the next time we go back for a visit. I just love the Mammoth Lakes area and Inyo National Forest.

I'm Actually Posting Again

2009-10-17T23:49:00.000-05:00

I guess it has been a while since I blogged last. My house blog hasn't been updated as much as I want either, mainly because I haven't done much!

We spent our vacation in California and filled every minute. I had a great visit with one of my sons and my Dad while there. We went to Lake Tahoe, Jackson (it was over 100 degrees the days we were there!) Calaveras Big Trees, Yosemite, and Mammoth Lakes (it snowed on us there!) before driving back. We put more than 5000 miles on the car on that trip. I'll try to put up a slideshow in the near future.

My old cat is still doing well on that Wellness Core cat food. He has quite the pot belly but it is probably because he's old and looking like an old brood mare. I figure he is getting close to the 20 year mark, give or take a year or two.

I deleted my account with Facebook as I didn't find it very interesting. People weren't blogging on there much. Mostly it was things like, "having coffee", "going to the store" and it seemed very much like Twitter. I still have my acccount on Facebook for my family members but even that has become tired. I do still visit blogs that have posted updates. My RSS reader still carries everyone's blog.

I'm almost at 150 geocaches now. My husband and I really love getting out and looking for the caches. It beats wasting time on the computer and on TV news. I can't stand to turn the news on and hear about the direction our country is going.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are doing so great! There is still a long season ahead of them but they sure look good. I have only watched one Steelers game and they were good at least for that one game. (To view all of my geocaching videos you can go to youtube and look up my channel under the name of eriegeocacher1)

My gas dryer is still broken. It doesn't heat. I've been hanging my clothes on hangers on ropes in the basement and have a fan blowing on them. It may take all day to dry, but they do dry....wrinkled. Our iron just broke, too, wouldn't you know, so I had to buy a new one and it has a vertical steam function. Maybe I can steam some of the wrinkles out of the clothes without having to actually iron them. I'll try the iron out tomorrow. At least not having a dryer should save a few buck on the gas bill.

It snowed the other night and I'm covering myself with an electric blanket on the couch as we are trying to keep our house temperature at about 66. That's chilling when there is snow outside. The cats don't like it. They want warmth, I want warmth but it costs too much. It's going to be a long winter.

Funny Place for a Bees Nest

2009-09-07T14:54:00.000-05:00

When out geocaching yesterday afternoon we stopped to look at one of the many memorials in an old cemetery. My husband called me over to look at the statue on this large civil war memorial. He saw the bees nest but I saw a knapsack. I thought it was part of the statue. The color was almost the same. I wonder why they are leaving it in place and not knocking it down. Perhaps they are waiting for winter to remove it when the bees are frozen (do they hibernate?) This nest is over 2 ft from top to bottom.

My Chuckle for the Day

2009-09-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

I had a good laugh at this article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,546540,00.html
It reminded me of that movie, I think it was called "Sweet Alabama."

Pennsylvania Man Accidentally Fires Cannonball Into Neighbor's House

Friday, September 04, 2009

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UNIONTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home.

Fifty-four-year-old William Maser fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away.

The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities say nobody was hurt.

State police charged Maser with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

No one answered the phone Friday at Maser's home. He tells WPXI-TV recreating 19th century cannons is a longtime hobby. He says he is sorry and he will stop shooting them on his property, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Only in Pennsylvania and then there is the dumb girl in Titusville that took a lit cigarette to try and burn the security camera at Walmart. What was she thinking? They were filming it. Like she wouldn't get caught? People are getting much dumber in the past couple of years.

This and That

2009-08-28T23:57:00.005-05:00

I made it to 50 geocaches found. My next goal will be 100. That's going to take awhile. When winter sets in you can kiss geocaching goodbye around here.

I took a couple of the travel bugs out of some local geocaches and will drop them off near Yosemite when we get to California. I'll photograph the geo-travel bugs at the different tourist attractions along the way. It's kind of like Flat Stanley. When they get dropped off in California, someone there will take them on to other countries or other states and will document the travels it makes when they have it. When you pick them up or drop them off you log the transactions online on geocaching.com so the owner of the travel bug can see where it is and where it has been. Someday it will be returned to the owner with many thousands of documented miles on it. It's just for fun. There is no money involved.

Catch-Up

2009-08-28T23:51:00.003-05:00

My clown cat is totally well. The fever has not returned and he has been back to his old self for a few weeks now. We don't know why he got a kidney infection but it's gone now.

The oldest cat, bless his little old heart, hasn't gained any more weight but his intestinal tract is doing well on the Wellness Core food. It has no dairy, no grain and no soy. It has salmon, blueberries, yams and other stuff instead and he likes it so that's good. He has been constipated a few times but that is better than him having it the other way and not using the litter box. He has a second chance on life. How many more years he'll live, we dont' know and we don't know his exact age but he was middle aged when we got him 10 years ago.

The third cat has a charmed life with no health problems and so he doesn't get quite the attention the "sick" cats do.

The Clown Cat

2009-08-13T00:23:00.004-05:00

Today was the last day giving our "formerly" sick cat his antibiotic. Every morning we trick him into coming and with our promise of extra caressing he comes and right in the middle of his twirling around for more he gets swooped up into my husband's arms. My fingers pry open his mouth and I drop in the formed piece containing the crushed antibiotic mixed in some soft cat food. Our hands immediately clamp down on his snout to keep him from using his tongue to spit out the terrible substance. A couple of throat movements later we let him go and he runs and hides under the chair. He fell for it every day. He's so trusting and it pains us to do it but like my mom used to say, "it's for your own good." But today, our last day, he ran out of the room when he saw the scenario unfolding. But we got it done and now he can relax. He will trust us again tomorrow and tomorrow we'll deserve his trust as there will be no more trickery.

He's back to being his old self, making us laugh, begging for food, starting fights with the other 2 cats. We saw a cat hat at the store the other day that I thought would really fit his personality but we wouldn't do that to him (unless we are taking photos of our little clown.)

Now it is a waiting game. If he has kidney stones, the infection will probably reappear. He gave us a real scare and I hope that is the end of it.

Follow-up on My Sick Cat

2009-08-04T18:22:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon my cat felt a little better but in the evening he started acting sick again. He just didn't want to move his little head. I stayed up with him until 3 AM and he seemed the same. This morning he was walking around a little but we took his temperature and it was 104. That's better than it was but still too high. I broke the antibiotic pill in half like the vet told me and crushed it. I then mixed it in this liver-flavored soft treat that the vet gave me. He wanted no part of it. I divided it into 2 parts and we forced it down his throat and held his mouth shut until he swallowed. He didn't like us very much after that but it was for his own good.

About 4 hours later he was purring and wanted to be petted. He begged for a treat. He came when I rattled a toy mouse but he didn't want to play. Still, it was a big improvement. I called the vet with the update and as long as he continues to improve, we don't need to bring him back in. I'm so relieved he's doing better and can't wait until he's back to 100 percent. But even then it may not be over. We have to watch him and if he gets sick again, it could be that kidney stones are causing infections and we'd have to have X-rays. I'm pretty hopeful it isn't as he doesn't walk funny and doesn't seem to be in any pain. I'll be able to sleep a lot better tonight.

Emergency Visit to Vet

2009-08-03T22:46:00.003-05:00

We had a terrible day today. This morning our most beloved cat was very sick. He was breathing very shallow and fast. He didn't want to move. I watched him closely for a couple of hours and determined this was an emergency and took him in to the vet.

He had an extremely high fever. They did blood tests and the HIV test came up negative but his white blood count was extremely high. He had good red blood count, though. Some tests showed that the kidneys were some how involved. I was distraught and didn't catch all the vet said, I just wanted our baby to get well. She gave him an antibiotic shot and gave him fluids under the skin. He seemed to feel a little better after that. At least he'd raise his head up and when he got home he climbed up on his favorite chair.

He looked better for a while but tonight he doesn't feel good again. If his temp isn't down tomorrow I have to bring him back in for Xrays and fluids to see if he has kidney stones causing the problem. The vet said the infection was bacterial not viral.

This is heart wrenching because we went through a similar episode with our first cat. After a week of tests and IVs and him staying at the vet hospital for a week with that tiny chance of survival we had to put him down. The vet bill was through the roof. We said we'd never do that again. I was so devastated and I cried for weeks over that cat and I still get teary eyed when I remember him. Of the three we have now, this one is the clown, the entertainer, the one I'd miss the most. He just has to get better.

Yard Sale

2009-07-20T14:19:00.003-05:00

I had a yard sale on Saturday. It was a lot of work for very little money. Not many showed up. I wrote about it on my GoErie This Old Erie House blog.

I just finished looking through my Twitter account. I don't go there much. I found some spam people following me so I blocked them. I'm not really into Twitter. But I did learn one thing today when I read a post by ErieAlerts put out by the police department. This is what one of their Tweets on July 16th said:
Self defense Tip: Keep a can of Wasp & Hornet Spray handy. Can shoot a stream more than 20 ft. into a attackers eyes. More on Eriealert.com

Maybe it would work long enough to be able to run away and get help. You better hope so or that attacker will be mad as a hornet.

Update on Cat

2009-07-08T22:57:00.003-05:00

My cat seems much better today. He's back to eating and is walking around the house like normal. He has eaten less than normal today. He doesn't seem to like the food as much today as he did in the past couple of days. I gave him some hamburger with the dry food today and he ate that, too. I'm not sure Core grain-free, diary and soy-free makes a canned version of the same food. I'll have to check into that. I'm sure he'd eat more if it was canned food. He must have been raised on canned food because he goes crazy when he hears the can opener running.

Remember My Old Cat?

2009-07-06T23:00:00.008-05:00

I wrote last year around November in my retired blog about my old cat that suddenly stopped using the the litter box. He used to throw up quite a bit, especially after eating or drinking. He had diarrhea but had no fever. For years he had a foul odor to his stools, even back when we got him from the humane society and even after being checked out and wormed. We figured every cat is different. His stools got looser over the years until he suddenly stopped using the litter box and went in dark corners, under things and even climbed up on things and went. Luckily, he did these things in the basement and not up in our living area (with only two exceptions.) Still, the cleanup was awful and I was at my wits end.

We bought him a playpen cage to keep him confined so he had to use the litter box and I'd let him out as long as I followed him around. When I couldn't watch him I put him in his playpen.

I thought maybe the cat food company had changed their recipe and something in the food bothered him. He's an indoor cat only and there was no plants he could have gotten into. We bought him different kinds of cat foods from Science Diet, Iams, Taste of the Wild and a bunch of organic brands. They were terribly expensive and still it didn't help. We decided to put him to sleep because he was obviously in discomfort with intestinal cramps all the time. But first I wanted to try just giving him meat and see how he did. I thought maybe there was something in the food he couldn't tolerate since he got old.

He wouldn't eat people food. The only thing I could get him to eat was raw ground turkey. He loved it. The problem was I couldn't leave it out. In a couple of days he got better. He started using the litter box again and his stools were no longer loose. He doesn't throw up anymore.

Our other 2 cats eat their dry cat food up on a high ledge they have to jump up to because we couldn't put the food down or my old cat would eat it. If we forgot to put the other food up on the ledge and if the old cat ate some of their food, he got sick again.

It is hard for us to leave to go anywhere because we can't leave his food out for more than just a few minutes because it is raw.

Here was a cat that had gotten so skinny and sickly when eating normal and organic cat foods but eating nothing but ground turkey and cat vitamins, he gained weight, got shiny, was active again and started cleaning himself again and used the litter box. But after several months of just meat he started to look kind of pot-bellied and I knew he needed more than just meat.

I wondered if cats could get celiac disease like people do. Or maybe just didn't have the enzymes anymore to digest something that is in cat food in his old age. I read up on it and it seems some cats and dogs do have problems digesting gluten as well as soy and dairy. I printed out a list of brands that made foods free of soy, dairy, and grains. These are the most likely ingredients that may cause his reaction.

I bought a food named Core (made by Wellness) at Petco. I bought the formula that didn't have grain, soy or dairy. It uses potatoes and other vegetables. I mixed it in a little at a time with his ground turkey meals. So far so good. It's been two days and he is still doing good. This evening he had nothing but Core. In another day if all goes well, I'll finish switching him over to all Core dry food and no more ground turkey. I'll post an update if he has a reaction to it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This particular formula does have salmon in it which is also on my suspect list but so far it seems not to be a problem.

If this works out, we'll switch to Core grain-free for the other cats, too, so we don't have to feed them separate. It's so good to see him happy, satisfied and napping in the sunshine coming through the window again. He also wants to go out and sit on the sun porch like he used to and he watches the birds through the screen. I've got my fingers crossed.
**
update: This is the following night. My cat didn't want to leave his cage today. He hasn't eaten today no matter what I offer him. When he did leave his cage he appears to be constipated as he tried to go in his litter box but there was nothing. He doesn't look distressed and it's only been a day and a half since he went so I'm confident he's not terribly backed up. If he appears to be in distress tomorrow, we'll have to take him in to the vet. It could be he is crampy from the new food and just thinks he has to go. I should have introduced the new food more slowly.

Prairie Home Companion- The Hat Fiasco

2009-06-30T13:27:00.028-05:00

We heard Garrison Keillor on NPR radio for the past year. Checked out his shows from the library in audio book form for our vacation and laughed heartily while listening. I'm from Minnesota originally so I find his Minnesota humor funny. He really can be funny. So I was looking forward to his performance at the Chautauqua Institute in New York, about an hour away.

We picked up my in-laws and headed to Chautauqua with the threat of thunderstorms overhead. We got there early and got a good seat. Just a couple of rows back from the roped off area and I was sitting second left from the end of the row. We were enjoying ourselves. I took a few photos of my in-laws and my husband and me and then put my camera away. No cameras were allowed during the performance.

It was still about 30 minutes from the starting time when a woman behind me grabbed my shoulder and told me to take my hat off. My hat had a small brim on it but was down on my head and didn't stick up higher than my hair would have. The brim on the side was pushed down so it didn't stick out any more than my hair would have before I had it cut short this past week. Other women wore much bigger hats, even some men had hats on that had brims. I wasn't blocking her view in the slightest as Garrison would be up on stage which is high enough and in the middle that everyone could see him and the seats are raised in stadium style so people behind are higher (check out the photo below) than the people in front. We were sitting on the end of the row to the left of the stage. I was horrified at her demand. I said, "No, my hat is part of my outfit plus my hair is smashed down under it and I'll have "hat head." I told her I didn't think it would block her view and I scooted over closer to my husband who was seated on the very end of the row to make sure she had a clear view. Then her husband said I was being just another a**.

My husband put him in his place. The snooty woman's husband replied that he was saying it to his wife (but he wasn't.) I could have switched places with my husband and sat on the end but my husband is over a foot taller than me so then she would have her view blocked which in retrospect I wished I had done.
:-)

Any other time I'd have taken off my hat just because someone told me to. In fact, I don't really like wearing hats. But in the anticipation of the event I went out and got my hair cut. Short in the back, longer in the front and I gave the hair dresser a photo of what I wanted it to look like which I have below.

But this is what I got.

It was so chopped and is only a 1/2 inch long up at the top where it suddenly gets long. The one side is longer than the other. It is a mess but too short to do anything about unless I want to go short all over which I look terrible with. So I'll wear a hat for a few summer months and then see if it can be fixed. I almost was thinking of not going to the performance but decided I'd wear the hat. And the one time I wear a hat I get called an a**.

I tried to put that behind me to enjoy the performance. Garrison came out and sang some sing-a-long songs which I didn't care for much. He was solo, this wasn't a recorded radio show. It was kind of boring. He mostly made Lutheran jokes which is part of his thing. I don't know if Lutherans laugh about it or not but I just don't care for it. Then he had some risque and pee jokes which I think only little boys and old men and embarrassed little old ladies would snicker at and they were. I looked around and thought man, all these old geesers are laughing their fool heads off. They must be on medication. I knew then that I must not be shaking my bad mood off from the episode with the snooty lady.

Everyone was taking photos even though they weren't suppose to. Flashes were going off left and right. Not one to be left out and trying to get to enjoying myself again, I took out my little pocket-sized camera and took two flashless photos (that were totally out of focus and blurry)

and suddenly, out of nowhere, a woman "greeter" leaned over my husband and told me there is no photography. I looked at her, then looked at about 5 people in our immediate area taking flash photos at that very moment and then back at her. She said, "I know everyone is taking them but they aren't suppose to so put yours away." I put it away. I looked at my husband for support and he shrugged his shoulders with a smile and said, "You aren't suppose to take photos." Sigh. No one else all night was told to put their camera away. Everyone else with a camera except me was taking photographs. I was singled out from thousands of people. Must have been the hat, the hat made me stand out.

Then Garrison started on a story-telling marathon which he does well. But I had heard it before or a story almost the same (a few change-ups) that was told on the audio book we listened to while on vacation just last month. I still got a few chuckles out of it but the second time around just isn't as funny as the first time you hear something. I was hoping for new material.

The program was two plus hours and on those antique wooden benches my back and butt was hurting after one. That last hour was a killer. When it was finally over and we were walking, what seems like 1/2 mile, out to the parking lot in the dark, the lightning started, thunder, and a long, long downpour that drenched us all while we were herded like cattle through the gates. We were left to stand in the downpour waiting for the crossing guards to let us pass. What power they wield with those lighted red sticks. We were packed like sardines and the lady in front of me had her umbrella positioned so the run-off landed on my stomach and legs. At that point I stopped saying to myself, "what else could go wrong." And it has rained ever since, flooding our area.

I'm not whining (but maybe I am,) I'm just saying it was one of "those" days.

Geocaching Fun (photos)

2009-06-14T23:54:00.026-05:00

What a weekend we had! Friday night the Penguins won the Stanley Cup. Saturday we got most of the garden work done and Sunday afternoon we went geocaching and fishing in Oil Creek State Park.

When we got near Titusville, I pulled out my GPSr and followed the route outside of Titusville to an old cemetery. The headstones dated back to at least 1845. We followed the arrow on my GPS until we were back in the woods. We looked and looked. I was just about ready to give up because there was so much growth that you couldn't see anything. I looked at a log. I wondered.

I took my walking stick and gave it a little push.

I was pretty proud of myself finding this one.

I logged in on the logbook and hid it back the way it was for the next geocacher. Then we headed to the next geocache and it, too, happened to be a cemetery one. These old cemeteries are way out in the woods. This next one had weird GPS readings. The arrow kept changing one way or another. The geocacher that hid the cache warned about this problem in that particular location. We were so fascinated with the fence and cemetery flowers and headstones that it wouldn't have mattered if we found it or not.

The gate was so pretty

The caches are usually hidden outside the cemeteries not right in them. After we came out of the cemetery we did a once around one more time where the GPSr was pointing and it gave me 0 feet left. I knew it had to be there. And it was!

This one happened to be in an ammo box. I like those caches the best. They are easier to find than the micro caches. Inside are lots of little trinkets. Families that geocache love these because the kids get to pick something to take out of the box.

If you take something, you are suppose to add something of equal or greater value. We haven't taken anything yet in our geocaching. We need to go buy a few little things so we can add to the boxes.

The next geocache was at a spring along the side of the road and hidden somewhere nearby was the cache. We couldn't find it. We found the spring, though and it was pretty neat but I wasn't going to go hiking up a slippery cliff looking for it with traffic whizzing by at 55 mph so we went to the next one.

Another cemetery. I didn't realize I was going to be going to 3 cemeteries today. We just were taking them in order of "the nearest to our present position." The next one was a lost cemetery in the state park. The trail was just about non-existent and we literally had to bushwack through the underbrush and growth, much which was thorny berry bushes to get to it. My husband had shorts on. :-o

We were suppose to use a certain headstone as a clue to replace a letter in the coordinates to the actual cache. Well, that didn't go too well because the coordinates were in a different format than what I had on my GPSr and I didn't know how to change it. We scouted around a bit to see if we could spot the actual cache but there was so much brush it was impossible. We came across this nearby.

When I saw the yellow pipe I knew what it meant. I had just read last week that Oil Creek State Park people were going to comb the park in grids looking for old gas and oil wells and dangerous holes from such and mark them with the yellow pipes. This old oil well (or gas) had what looked like a deep hole all around it. Without the right coordinates, we didn't know how far the cache could be from the headstone or in which direction. We left without finding the cache. It was too dangerous to just scout outside the trails until the park marks all the hazards.

It was time anyway to get decked-out in our waders and hit the creek flyfishing for trout and small-mouth bass. The weather and temperature were perfect. The hatch was good. My husband caught lots of fish. I caught 2 bass. The flute of the wood thrush was sounding for quite some time at dusk, it was beautiful. A raccoon appear near us and was hunting crayfish and two Great Blue Herons were down stream in silhouette. Several ducks flew overhead in the failing light. It was totally dark with fireflies blinking away and a light chill in the air when we slowly made our way out of the creek. It was all so much fun!

How I've Changed!

2009-06-11T10:39:00.002-05:00

I just gave up my personal blog with a host site. I refused to pay $107 for something that I could do for free. Plus the time factor just isn't there anymore to maintain a blog regularly. I have my GoErie blog This Old Erie House that will take up my time as well as Facebook. Twitter not so much but I still check it out to try and catch up.

So, I'm back to my old blog here. I checked out my blogging posts from back in June 2005. (My old posts can be seen on the side bar by month and year.)

I read some of my first entries and thought, wow, I was much more happy-go-lucky and not so negative back then. I had high hopes for Erie and my house. Now I'm a realist. My house is sooooo much work it drags me down sometimes. Erie will always stay the same no matter who is in office.

That may be why lately I took up bird watching. Watching birds give you a sense of freedom. The challenge of getting that perfect photo or video keeps you coming back. Birds are beautiful to watch. Then there is my new love. Geocaching. I'm only into my 5th successful find but it was fun. I don't like the city hides as I feel like I'm a suspect, trying not to be seen finding the geocache. I like the state park geocaches that you have to hike into the woods to find. You see all kinds of wildlife which is the "real" treasure, I think.

My old posts didn't stay in boundaries of any particular subject. I think I'll return to my roots on that.

My Cats' Pictures

2007-03-13T00:02:00.000-05:00

I took new pictures of my 3 cats today. None of them wanted to pose for me as I interrupted their nap time and they just didn't appreciate it. You, too, can have beautiful, lazy cats like these just by going down to the Humane Society. When they aren't sleeping, they are loads of fun.

Brother #1- Don't bother me!

Brother #2 - Stop looking at me!

The Old Man - I see nothing!

Tall Ship, The Lynx (pic)

2007-03-09T10:52:00.000-05:00

It never fails that when you go on vacation you get sick. I'm never sick at home!

So I'm spending a lot of time sitting on the harbor benches looking out at the Channel Island Harbor with a very bad cold. We had to cancel the whale watching adventure. But we were surprised to see a large ship with tall masts coming in from the ocean. A beautiful sight! As it got closer I was able to read the name on the flag. Lynx.

When we got back to our room, I looked it up because it reminded me a lot of the US Brig Niagara, similar but not as grand, in my opinion. It is a replica (but not an exact replica)of the Lynx (a Baltimore clipper schooner) from the war of 1812 and is an educational ship. It goes to Hawaii in the summertime teaching people how to sail.

I just wish the Niagara would stay home and go in and out of our bay in the summertime. It would draw a lot more people than being gone all the time. During the winter the Niagara is covered and wrapped up and during the summer it seems to always be gone on some tours. I've only seen the Niagara with sails up 2 times in the 7 years I've lived in Erie.

The Lynx below, unfortunately the sails have already come down before I snapped the picture.

What a Few Lights Will Do

2007-03-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

I was surprised to open my hotel room's drapes to see this view of Long Beach, CA. It was beautiful. They made a plain bridge that blocked some of the view of the city into a piece of art with just lighting, it was beautiful!

Take the Fun Out of it!! (pic)

2007-03-07T12:58:00.000-05:00

Take the fun out of it!
I shot this last week at Lake Amador, Amador County, California. BTW, the weather is perfect!!!

Casino-Big, Big Savings

2007-02-25T09:47:00.000-05:00

Now the Erie area has its own slots. We'll have to remember with astonishment the "old days" when we actually had to pay airfare and hotel bills to lose our money. Now we can do it with the convenience of a few minute drive from home. You may be flushing your paychecks down the toilet, but think of how much you saved not having to go to Vegas!

Close But No Cigar

2007-02-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

I'm one of those people that seem to get names, and for that matter,
expressions wrong. When I say them, they'll be somewhat close to the
way they are suppose to be said, and usually I'll be rescued by a
correction from the person I'm talking to.

One instance is an old expression my mom (born and raised in Minnesota) used to say. I always thought her exclamatory words were, "Atlantic Ocean!" I found out years later (after repeating the wrong words most of my childhood and part of my adult life) that, in fact, what she was saying was "Land of Goshen " which is from the
Bible and was a popular expression back when. Sometimes I'll hear an
expression in the correct version and think, "holy cow!! I've been
saying it wrong all this time."

There are referrals to Jack Nicklaus as Jack Nickloson or visa versa and there is a long list of similar errors on my part. Does anyone else have this problem?

This morning before my husband left for work we (I) was watching a show on
Style network about a house so full of clutter they couldn't walk in
it. It was one of those "clean it up" shows.

I remarked: That reminds me of that article I read about
Marjorie-Neil-Armstrong.

Husband remarks: What?

You know, how they couldn't get into her house
because it was so full of clutter, among other
things.

I don't know what article you're talking about, Neil
Armstrong?

(I'm getting a little
frustrated that he could possibly forget about that, it was such a big
deal.)

Marjorie-Neil-Armstrong, you know, the pizza bomber
case!!!

Deihl-Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong, he's the astronaut! I was wondering was there something about Neil Armstrong and his house was full of clutter that made the news?

Oh, I don't know why I said Neil Armstrong, I know who Neil Armstrong is, I wasn't even aware I said Neil, it just came out that way. (I know they have a vitamin for this)

Well, at least we have good laughs about it when it happens.

They Want To Fish Too Much

2007-01-24T00:25:00.000-05:00

Today I was trying to plan our trip out to California and took down the calendar that was hung on the office wall. It was the Trout Unlimited 2007 Official Calendar. I'm counting the days, checking departure times writing everything down on the calendar so I'll have it at a glance.

I thought that I had to be really dense because I hand counted each day we were going to be there but the count didn't seem possible. Then I noticed that February ended on a Saturday and March started on a Thursday. Hey, wait a minute, that's not right!!

I hope someone didn't lose their job over this but that calendar has February as having 31 days instead of 28. Maybe someone at Trout Unlimited wanted an extra 3 days to fish. I could use a few extra, too, but I'd like it to be in a warmer month please.

Fishing on Christmas Eve Day?

2006-12-25T11:08:00.000-05:00

I wanted to get out of the house yesterday and asked my husband if we could go get some coffee at Starbucks and drive out to Walnut Creek to see if anyone was actually fishing. Starbucks appeared closed but I got to see the downtown area. The park looked nice with it's lights, not overdone. We found coffee elsewhere and drove past numerous blow-up decorations (so tacky!) as we headed out to Walnut Creek. Only a couple of cars were there. But this was about 4 o'clock so people probably left to get back to their families. The water was up and running good and it was fairly clear. We saw a guy with a fish on above the bridge as we were leaving. The weather makes me want to go fishing. It's nice, no snow, no ice. We went out onto the deck last night with no jackets and looked out at the stars. Stars are almost a rare site in Erie.

General McLane Victory Parade Video

2006-12-18T02:25:00.000-05:00

I took this video at General McLane High School on Saturday. They were treated to a siren salute and escort from the area's finest. Way to go Lancers! Congratulations on your victory!(Video taken with my small Olympus 720SW on movie setting.)

BE WARNED, the video may need volume adjustment.

Blip.tv version (the best quality):

You can also see my video on www.YouTube.com at this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1TaaWVYro

Toddler Hockey Fight- funny video

2006-12-13T14:06:00.000-05:00

I came across this video on Youtube.com. So this is where it all starts. Give it a watch, it is pretty funny. Mommy!

"A Christmas Story" the play.

2006-12-10T11:17:00.000-05:00

My husband won some tickets to go see the play "A Christmas Story" (Ralphie wants that BB gun) at the Erie Playhouse.

The only play I have ever seen, outside the plays from back in high school, was a little "tourist trap" one-actor production in Washington DC about the assassination of Lincoln. That, actually, was a good production and I was surprised I kind of liked it. I always turn down a chance to go to live theatre, it's just not my thing. But we had free tickets and I knew it was a quality play from a classic book (and movie).

So we planned the day around being ready to see the play at 7:30 last evening. We didn't have a problem with finding parking. The inside of the theatre was nice, warm and comfortable.

The props were great! The actors were superb! The play, of course, was excellent. We both enjoyed it.

I wouldn't hesitate a second to see another quality play like this one.

Hockey Goalie Boogie( Video)

2006-12-03T13:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday afternoon we decided to go watch the NCAA Division 1, ranked #1, Mercyhurst Womens Hockey at Mercyhurst College. Because it was somewhat last minute, I didn't have my camera fully charged. Knowing I had only a few shots I decided to concentrate on the Mercyhurst Goalie. It became clear that with only 9 shots on her goal, I would have to find something else to shoot which ended up being the goalie's moves when not saving goals. It was quite interesting how different goalies are. The goalie from Princeton rarely even moved except to save a goal. But Mercyhurst's goalie, Laura Hosier from Sharon, Ontario (Toronto Jr. Aeros) has a routine she goes through at almost every pause in play which makes for an interesting watch. Mercyhurst played an awesome game. I also have to say that the goalie from Princeton, Brittany Parisi, made a lot of magnificent saves. Mercyhurst won in overtime with a shot from Canadian Olympian, Meghan Agosta.

www.blip.tv version below, under that is www.YouTube.com version.

Youtube.com version below.

Steelhead 11-18-06 music video

2006-11-20T03:29:00.000-05:00

I took and edited this video of people fishing at the Walnut Creek Access on Saturday 11-18-06. I've embedded them from www.blip.tv and www.youtube.com. If one doesn't work for you, the other one may. Just click on either one. High Speed Connections only.

High resolution version on blip.tv is fist.

blip.tv low resoltuion version

Watch the Video

Low resolution youtube.com

But Can I Sing?

2006-11-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

We decided to go out to dinner on Sunday at the Cracker Barrel on upper Peach as we hadn't tried it yet.
After ordering, an older woman that was sitting at a nearby table with her elderly husband got up and came over to our table. She said, "You look exactly like...." My brain was trying desperately to think of who she was going to say I looked like. "June Carter Cash. Your hair, you even smile exactly like her." "OH," I said. "HMM, I didn't know." I smiled but I almost died.
Now I know June Carter Cash was probably a very nice lady but I always thought she was kind of homely. I didn't understand how Johnny Cash was smitten by her. But now, I look like June Carter Cash. Well, my dinner was somewhat ruined. My husband just smiled. When the lady left and sat back down he said he didn't know if it was a compliment or not because he didn't remember what June looked like. I did.
My husband went to the restroom and when he came back he told me not to take the lady too seriously as he saw her zipping up her husband's pants outside the men's room.
When I got home I disappeared and my husband found me where he said he knew he would find me.....up here on the computer trying to find pictures of June Carter Cash. I couldn't see it. My hair was nothing like June's hair. Her's was worn mostly straight and parted in the middle with no bangs, kind of hippie-like. Her smile? Maybe a tad similar. When my husband saw the pictures of June, he said I didn't look the least bit like her. The lady was a nut. He didn't use those exact words.
Well, it was better being called a look-a-like for June Carter Cash than what I had been told before. About 10 years ago a truck driver came into the shipping office I worked at and told me I looked just like Flo, from the sitcom, Alice. Are you kidding me?

Tearful Partings

2006-10-31T13:37:00.000-05:00

After a 6 week visit my sister flew back to California today. I had so much fun while she was here. We took several trips to Pittsburgh and back while she was working on the house she is restoring there. I went with her and her real estate agent in Pittsburgh to several houses for sale. I fell in love with those Victorian beauties!

We took Debbie (who doesn't like any kind of sports) to some hockey games at Mercyhurst, mens and womens, and she got hooked on hockey. She loves it. She loves it so much she bought a Mercyhurst ballcap and a Mercyhurst Hockey shirt. We also got her hooked on popcorn we flavor with Pam and popcorn flavorings. She's returning home a different person, ha.

When I got back from the airport today to my empty house I just cried and cried. Yes, we got all our space back but it looks bare without her things in it. While Debbie was here, she befriended our cats and they befriended her. She'd let the old cat sneak upstairs into her space to sleep. He was scratching on the door today but there is no one to let him in. He's going to miss her. We'll all miss her.

Thanks, Debbie, we had such a good time while you were here.

Halloween Costumes at Mercyhurst Hockey Game

2006-10-31T13:29:00.000-05:00

The Mercyhurst Mens Hockey team lost to Connecticut saturday night (10/29/06) after a win on Friday to Connecticut. But everyone there was having such a good time anyway. The students showed up in Halloween costumes and gave us a good laugh. I caught a little of it on video.

Watch the Video

Halloween Trees -Don't Let Them Get You!!

2006-10-28T10:54:00.000-05:00

I spent a few weeks In Jackson, CA in September and took some photos of "ancient" mountain oak trees on my sister's property. I put them together and using video effects made a Halloween video card.

www.blip.tv

Watch the Video

Sunday's Mercyhurst vs Dartmouth Womens Hockey

2006-10-23T22:25:00.000-05:00

Mercyhurst Lady Lakers beat Dartmouth again!
Video highlights below.

Watch the Video

What You Missed Saturday - Womens Hockey-Videoblog

2006-10-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

Mercyhurst Lady Lakers beats Dartmouth!
Some video highlights. Click below.

Watch the Video

Scenes From Her Times 5K - videoblog

2006-10-16T09:51:00.000-05:00

I wrote about my experience on Saturday of participating in the Her Times 5K Run/Walk. You can read it if you click - HERE -.

Click below for the video. Give a minute to load.

Watch the Video

Not Competing Made Me Competitive

2006-10-16T08:10:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday was the Her Times 5K Run/Walk. I half-heartedly trained for it, mostly because I didn't want to come in last. I hate when that happens.

I entered just to do it, not to compete. I didn't list my age because "what difference does it make if you aren't competing in an age category, I just want to participate."

The night before the race I checked the weather forecast. Not good, not good at all. I decided not to go. My husband gave me a reminder that I entered and need to follow through. This is Erie, you do things regardless of the weather or you wouldn't do anything at all. Alright, then. I'll go.

Through thunder, wind, rain, sleet and snow the girls showed up in droves. I couldn't believe it. I shook so much I hardly was able to get any video to use in my videoblog. After warmups I lined up.....at the end of the line. My husband came for support and was at my side. The announcer said "go". What the heck? How long does it take everyone to get going and get out of my way? Finally the back of the line starts to go. Umbrellas swinging in the wind. Colorful and electric, actually. My competitive juices kicked in!

My husband reached down to tie his shoe or something and I looked for him but he was way back there. He waved me on. Ok, then but I wondered what I was going to think about for 5K with no one to talk to. Oh, he had my camera. No video during the race, drat.

I started out too fast. Yes, you can walk too fast. My shins were bucking. Shin bucking, a horse term..... fitting because I felt like an old horse.

I finally got to a sign on the side of the road that had a number 1 on it. I had worked out the burning shins and was feeling pretty good and started to increase my pace. I thought I had only gone 1K. Man, 4K to go? I hope I can make it.

I started passing people. I was surprised. Then I started thinking I could maybe catch the group in front of me if I jogged up to them and then slowed back to a walk. I hadn't jogged in years. I didn't know what would happen if I tried to jog. A few steps into it and I started smiling. I could jog, a few steps anyway. I suddenly was competing. My body felt good. I walked and jogged and passed several group of walkers.

Then I saw the sign that said 3. I better conserve my energy, I'm barely over half way. But I saw the finish line and the light came on that the signs were "miles" signs, not "K" signs. WhoooHooo!! I started jogging to the finish.

I saw a 48 minutes and something seconds as I crossed in front of the sign. Apparently that isn't your time until they take your tag off. I stopped after I crossed the sign and was looking under my rain gear for the tag that they rip off. A man came to my rescue and found my tag and ripped it off and took it. I now figure that the time is when they take your tag to the computer because my official result was 49: something. Now I know to keep going and get that tag off to the proper people.

Not listing my age came back to bite me. Computers being what they are has me listed as 99 years old because the computer has to have an age entered. The up side is that it lists me as first in the 98 to 99 age category, ha. No, I don't get an award but I did get my really nice Her Times T-shirt and a ribbon for completing the race.

In two weeks there is an endurance challenge where you compete against yourself put on by the Erie Runners Club. I think I'm going to try and beat my time and maybe go further, just to see what I can do. I'm overweight, old, but doggone it shopping and catching those commuter flights at the airports have put me into some kind of shape! It felt so good to compete that I think I'm hooked.

Finally, I Saw It In Person.

2006-10-10T00:42:00.000-05:00

Watch the Video

Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC.

Where's Linda? Clue one (pic)

2006-10-06T22:16:00.000-05:00

I'm having a great time these past few days and thought I would share a few photos. Here is one photo that someone may recognize that isn't far from our hotel. Can you guess where this was taken? Click picture to enlarge.

I Entered the Her Times 5k Run/Walk

2006-10-03T07:23:00.000-05:00

Today I turned in my application for the race.

My training program for the Her Times 5K Run/Walk on October 14th took a turn south and west when I went to California and hasn't got back on track yet. I mean there is no way I'm going to pass up Mel's Diner's (Jackson, CA) hamburgers. It is part of my past and one of the highlights of visiting my family in California . Sure, I did try to moderate my consumption but that pretty much consisted of leaving one or two fries on my plate just so I felt good about not eating the whole thing.

I'm going to try and walk everyday until the race. I know I'll finish the race. I'm not competing, just having fun. I'd love to have Toni Kelly join me on the walk. You don't have to worry about keeping up to me as I'm not a very fast walker! I'm hoping my sister can join me, also, but her plans for that date aren't set yet.

My Photo of the Waterspout From Presque Isle

2006-10-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

We took a late afternoon walk on Presque Isle and as we admired the beautiful clouds over the cityscape we noticed the tail of a waterspout.

Steelhead Run (shortened version) Videoblog

2006-09-26T00:49:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why my other video didn't get put on the blog roll. They (erieblogs or similar) have coded something wrong as someone else's blog is showing up under my name. FIX IT PLEASE !!! after all you are computer geeks, right?

ANYWAY......

I cut my video by a third to help those with dial up. :-) I hope it works but you'll still have to be patient as the file is 6.7 Mb. Click........HERE........for the video. or cut and paste this into your browser. http://blip.tv/file/78914

Steelhead Run - Videoblog

2006-09-24T23:31:00.000-05:00

Click.........HERE.......for video.

Skunk and a Sister - Videoblog

2006-09-22T23:04:00.000-05:00

Click ...here....to play.

A day last week at Presque Isle.

One Day In CA - VideoBlog

2006-09-15T03:15:00.000-05:00

Click here to play.
Between Channel Island Harbor, Oxnard and northern California.

Westward Bound

2006-09-07T11:23:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving for California and I'm not ready as usual. I'm packing a lot lighter this time as I'm leaving all the toiletries at home and buying the stuff when I get there. (ha, that will save from bringing one suitcase!)

I'm behind schedule because I felt I just had to finish my cabinets in the bathroom...and I did. Nothing like last minute......
To see the cabinets you can go to my project website video blog here.

Adios

Her Times - 5K Run/Walk Training Video

2006-08-31T09:35:00.000-05:00

Click to Play

Right from the shores of Lake Erie I have started training for the Her-Times 5K Run/Walk in October. 5K is 3.1 miles I was told. That gives me a little over a month to get in shape. Pet Peeve=those sweaty marathon people passing me like I was standing still (sometimes I was).

Oh, Those Redheads!!

2006-08-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

I decided to get brave and I just finished turning into a strawberry blonde (light red). I was getting into a big-time hair rut. I like it. I think my skin looks less ruddy against the red compared to the blonde. I'm going to get a haircut, too, but I thought that it would be fun to get my haircut in Jackson, CA. (then I can cry all the way home, ha). I have never come out of a hair salon happy. But I need a good hair style and my own haircuts fall pretty short of being good. It's time to catch up with the times.

Look at the box of L'Oreal superior Preference 9GR-light reddish blonde. Unfortunately, I don't look like the girl on the box. My haircolor is very similar now but not near as shiny and my face is about twice as big as hers even without the recent 5 pounds I gained back from recently losing a bunch, rats! And she has a thinner nose and fuller lips. Actually, there is no resemblance at all.

It gets expensive to keep up even when you do it yourself. I have wrecked my hair plenty of times in the past. I once very much resembled Bozo the Clown when my hair turned green and frizzy after I gave myself a perm and a color. I cried in the locked bathroom for quite a while. I had to use a curling iron and practically burn my hair to make it curl and that was to get a frizzy curl and then had to cut my long hair short because it was breaking off in my hands. I actually had an old lady tell me that day when I went out to the store that she really liked my hair. I was dumbfounded.

I bought this hair coloring on the spur of the moment and decided I needed a change. I like it and I hope I don't shock my husband too much but he called home just after I applied part of it on my hair. I told him I was going for it. He gave me encouragement and said I would probably like it and that is what he cared about. I do.

So that is the first part of my make over. I'll get the hair cut when I'm in California and then I think I would like to walk in the Her Times 5K Run/Walk. I'll be lucky to finish just walking but I would like to have something to work for. I think I can get in some kind of shape by October to at least walk it if I start now. I think it would be fun.

Here is the link for the 5K run application

I"m Splitting

2006-08-28T14:11:00.000-05:00

I'm splitting my blog into 2 blogs. My posts regarding the restoration of my house will be located at This Old Erie House. It should be on the blogroll soon. It will also be part of a houseweb ring. Most of that blog will be video using blip.tv.

My personal and travel blog will remain with this one. I'll start using more video on this one, too.

I'll be splitting for California in a week and half. I'm so excited. All my sisters, my brother and my dad will all be together at the same time. That doesn't happen very often. I wish my husband would have been able to get off work to join me but it is his busy time.

Yes, I'm concerned about the terrorist threat and the recent commuter plane crash. Flying out of Erie I'll have to take one of those type of commuter planes to get to Atlanta before the flight heads to Sacramento, CA. But I am more concerned when I have to drive up Peach Street to get to Home Depot.

The best part is that my youngest sister (from Channel Island Harbor) is coming back with me to Erie. She has never been here before and I can't wait to show her Presque Isle, Cook Forest and Oil Creek. She'll be out here for 6 weeks but will be spending the greatest portion of her time in Pittsburgh as she bought an 1860s Victorian house that she will be renovating as a vacation home. I'll be helping her when I can. Maybe she will be helping me, too. : -)

Time is flying!

Baby Beaver

2006-08-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

I came across this picture of a baby beaver on the http://www.awrc.org/ website. It was so cute I had to share.

Erie Bluffs, Why Hide It? video

2006-08-25T21:55:00.000-05:00

Click to Play

With nothing to do last Sunday, my husband drove us out to "Erie Bluffs". It is a state park that has been in the news lately because someone wants to build a lodge there. We had never been there and I had never heard of it before the newspaper article.

Before I started writing this, I went to the DCNR website to see what directions they gave to getting to this spot, I wouldn't want to steer you wrong.
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateParks/parks/eriebluffs.aspx

If you go to the website you can read these directions.: Erie Bluffs is north of PA 5 at Lake City, twelve miles west of Erie. That is all the directions they give.

You'd never find the place with those directions. Even after knowing the real directions from the newspaper article, I thought we were in the wrong place. Here are the directions. Take PA 5 (west) past the Elk Creek Access and it is the first dirt road (like a tractor path) to the right (north). Yep, it isn't a real road, there are no signs to guide you, and you will probably question whether this could really be the place. You may even argue about it like I did. This just couldn't be it, corn fields? Muddy puddled areas (but our car made it OK)to drive through? Where were we going? There aren't any signs, a state park would have signs. What if we were in a farmer's corner field? I had visions of being run off by a shot-gun toting farmer. Through the small ruts and field we went. We came to 3 weathered picnic tables but that wasn't a clue as they could be for the field workers. The road split to the right but the right was a dead end a few yards ahead. So we went left. It turned out to be the right place. At the end of the road there was a "no motorized vehicles allowed" sign. Still that was the only thing that would assure you that you are in the right place.

On the way out I filmed a small clip that shows part of the road you'll have to take.

The flies were awful, like something out of a horror movie. We were covered with them when we exited the car. I dont' know if this was a one day event or not. I suspect the farmer's use of fertilizer as the cause. A heavy application of Deet on our whole bodies finally took care of the problem. The hike was fabulous, the views awesome and the beach was rocky and interesting. We briefly saw a couple of other groups walking on the paths. It is pretty secluded.

You can see a brief video of the beach below the bluffs and what the road looks like that you have to take. Search it out, (someone please put up a sign). Bring your Deet.

Diet Coke and Mentos-Can it Kill You?

2006-08-22T08:44:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across videos at www.youtube.com that showed what happens when you combine Mentos (the mint kind) and a soft drink. Most of the videos used Diet Coke. Perhaps everyone knows not to eat those two in combination but I never heard of it or gave it a thought.

Now I did have an episode during my high school years. We were given brand new uniforms that the band boosters spent several years in fund raisers to get for our little foothill school. We were performing a Christmas concert in our high school gym and during intermission I ate a Three Muskateers bar and then drank some cola. It was like Old Faithful. I tried to hold back the increasing pressure. My cheeks bulged out, my eyes widened, yes, I ruined the brand new uniform. It has a similar reaction to mixing baking soda and vinegar. But what happens if you swallow the Coke first and then eat Mentos. Could the massive expansion in your stomach kill you?

Click here to see a list of the Coke and Mentos videos.

Slideshow of My Latest Project

2006-08-20T01:27:00.000-05:00

I have been sweating in my bathroom for the past week. I still have about a week's worth of work left but I can see the finish line.
Here is a link to the second part of my bathroom makeover. In this project I am building built-ins into the wall next to original built-ins. Why not use wasted space?

Bathroom slideshow.

Lowes, How Frustrating

2006-08-17T09:11:00.000-05:00

I go to Lowes first and if I can't find something, I drive a few hundred yards to Home Depot.

I started a bathroom built-in project and am ready to build the boxes into the wall that will be my shelving cabinets. I searched through the "top grade" pine lumber and spent a long time finding just the right boards, not split, or bowed, or flawed. It can be quite frustrating to have to paw through all the bad boards to find a good one, even when you are buying the best-quality-priced boards. I loaded up my lumber cart and headed to the back of the store to have an employee cut them in half as I can't fit 8 ft boards into my Geo. To my horror there was a sign on the machine that said "out of order". NO, NO, NO!!... I stood there a minute or two, to get my composure back (I actually broke into a sweat) and saw three guys coming through the back door where the forklifts are. I flagged one down to ask about getting the lumber cut because I can't fit the lengths into my car. He replied that I could buy a handsaw and cut them. Thanks, guy, nice. He didn't say it rudely, more like stupidly helpful without offering to help, like he had a solution for me. I told him "Thanks, I'll just be leaving this lumber here, then." And walked away from almost a hundred dollars in lumber and a good portion of my day wasted.

I found what I needed at Home Depot. Their lumber prices, for what I was looking for, was about a dollar more for each board but the quality of the board was much better and I didn't have to search through so many bad boards to find what I wanted. But I have been totally ignored by sales people there in the past so they aren't high on my list, either.

I should have gone to Kraft Lumber on Peninsula Drive for my lumber projects but it was too close to their closing time (early closing times are a drawback compared to the big box stores). I've never been disappointed by service or lumber there and I like supporting the non-big-box stores when there is a choice.

I'll be posting my progress for my built-ins via picture slideshows (how I did it and before and after)soon. It isn't that I think my bathroom is great (because it isn't, it is small and pink) but that it might help someone else thinking of ways to improve their bathroom and make it more efficient or give them some ideas, too. I like to search the internet to see others' projects and how they did them. That is how I learned to take apart our double-hung windows and restore them. I don't like replacing things instead of fixing them. I like original if I can but it is a lot of work. The old-growth wood is so worth saving. If I can't save something I want to at least stay true to the style of the house. I'm working now on my personal website. It will feature all my before and after projects. Digging up all my pictures I took along the way is time consuming. When I'm done setting it up, I'll be joining the www.houseblog.net webring.
http://www.houseblogs.net/webring/

Otters Spotted? (pics) update

2006-08-14T00:05:00.000-05:00

(In regards to the first comment below about a better resolution photo)
Here is one of the raw-data photos and if you click to enlarge it you can see the full size and maybe can enhance it a bit with a good photo program. I enlarged them and cropped them and lightened them a bit to get the close up images in the photos at the bottom, the top photo is right out of my camera. Maybe they are beavers and from the side the tails looked round and furry the way the light was coming from the side, I can't say as I didn't see the tails, just my husband did but we weren't all that close. But they didn't act like the beavers we've seen before, the way they were swimming around together, diving and coming back up. We often see beavers at Presque Isle so we know what they normally look like, these just didn't act like it but maybe they are young, frolicking beavers.
ORIGINAL POST
Sunday we headed to Presque Isle with our canoe. We launched at the lagoons and our canoe slipped quietly into the magic land that only Preque Isle can deliver. The amount of wild life that you can see up close is amazing. We fished for a while and caught some small bass and sunfish but the real show was the swallows (maybe they were purple martins). There were so many of them. Huge flocks dove into the water with splashes like dive bombers. It was an amazing sight.

We also saw a pair of what we think were otters. They didn't have a beaver tail and they dove and swam like an otter. By the time the camera turned on, they would dive again. You could see minnows and small fish jumping where they were swimming under the water. I did catch these somewhat fuzzy pictures (not unlike the bigfoot photos, ha) of the animals when I enlarged the pictures. I didn't see the tail but my husband did and said it had nice fur, not a beaver tail, plus the heads were not course like a beaver. Maybe it is common knowledge that otters live in the lagoons but I never saw them there before. I've seen them at Oil Creek but not here. See photos below.

Also amazing is a drive after dark in Presque Isle Park, you should try it. I think the road doesn't close until 11:00 pm. Drive slowly so you don't hit any of the night-time creatures. You will see raccoons, deer, rabbits and animals you probably can't identify. The park belongs to the animals after dark.
Photos taken in late afternoon/evening on the lagoons of Presque Isle State Park. Are they otters? I'd like to hear if you have seen them there or if you think they are otters.

The Blues and Jazz - Sunday Afternoon (pic)

2006-08-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

We drove by Frontier Park on Saturday but just kept driving. Too many people. I don't like crowds. We had tickets for the VIP tent and each year something comes up and we don't go. So Sunday afternoon we braved the crowds and parked at Strong Vincent High School and walked over to the festival.

The crowds weren't bad but really started thickening up by 5 pm, about the time we left. I guess the best acts were in the evening but I thought the ones we saw were good, too. We thought the girl drummer was really good.

We saw some strange sightings at the festival. One kid on a "low rider" bike was wheeling around the crowd. He looked like something out of the X-men. Some guy had a fake skunk that was drawing a crowd and some lady had a bird on her arm. Erie has its share of interesting people.

Below is a collage of the festival from just the short time we were there on Sunday.
Click to make it bigger.

LL Bean's Coastal Clogs, Happy Feet and a Klutz

2006-08-06T23:46:00.000-05:00

Above image is from Crocs similar to LL Bean's coastal clogs.

I needed sandals before I went on our vacation and when we received the LL Bean Fall catalogue in the mail I saw some sandals called "coastal clogs". I decided to wait and buy my sandals "in route" to Maine as there was a LL Bean outlet store in Freeport, ME. I found a neutral color that would match just about any outfit and it was in my size.

They are, by far, the most comfortable shoes/sandals or any footwear I have ever worn. Crocs.com sells some that look very much the same and I have read reviews that they are super comfortable, too. They come in so many colors!

I did get a couple of blisters when I first bought them but we hiked a lot and climbed over the rocky coasts of Maine. But I would have gotten blisters barefoot, too, as I'm a tenderfoot. I didn't even feel the blisters but saw them at the end of the day. No problem.

I hate wearing any kind of shoe in the house, I'm a sock person, not a slipper or shoe person. But these, well, I'd rather wear these than go stocking-footed. That is how comfortable I think they are.

A few times climbing over the rocks on the coast I stubbed by toe, but these clogs have an enclosed toe so I was saved. Phew, I'd say, that would have been painful, man I love these shoes!

All was well until I got home and went to Target. I don't know why but I became a total klutz in these coastal clogs when I was in Target. I stumbled several times making that "ugh" sound and catching myself as I'm falling forward. Total clod. I was so embarrassed! I'm just glad I didn't hurt anybody or break anything. For some reason my toe was grabbing on their floor in these shoes.

Then today we went to Quality Market and again I looked like I was some kind of spastic as I'm stumbling 4 or 5 times in there. So there is something about the floors in these kinds of buildings and these kind of clogs that make them catch.

Now most people may stop wearing something that would cause them potential harm but I'm not most people. I'm not giving up on something that has changed my life. If you are in the store and see someone "high stepping" while pushing a cart around, that'd probably be me. I found if it tilt my toes upward and lift my feet a little higher than normal, I can manage to walk in the upright position and still wear my favorite shoe. : )

Name the Painting, Artist (pic)

2006-08-05T23:52:00.000-05:00

Click here for the answer.

Can you guess what painting this house is featured in? It is a pretty famous painting from the late 1940's (hint - Cushing, ME). Click on the picture for the answer. We were lucky to have the artist's granddaughter, Victoria, be our tour guide at the William A. Farnsworth Library & Art Museum, Rockland, ME. The painting I'm referring to was not on display at the Farnsworth but many of his other paintings were. It was quite interesting.

Berry Manor Inn - Interior Slideshow

2006-08-04T14:56:00.000-05:00

The pictures don't do the bed and breakfast justice. I'm working on the rest of our vacation photos and will, in the coming days, post those, too.

For the interior slide show click here.

To read about the Berry Manor Inn and see a slideshow of the exterior, click here.

The Berry Manor Inn - Rockland, ME, Slideshow #1

2006-08-02T07:55:00.000-05:00

I think the main reason we had such a wonderful vacation was the bed and breakfast we stayed in in Rockland, ME. I fell in love with the Watson-Curtze mansion in Erie when we toured it a couple of years ago during a Christmas tour. I wanted to find a place to stay in Maine that was similar and boy did I find it. It was like stepping back in time to a place of grandeur and opulence. What I found was a Victorian mansion called The Berry Manor Inn.

The breakfasts were served with fine china in a beautiful setting. The food was exquisite and rivaled top restaurants! Ricotta stuffed french toast drizzled with fresh raspberries and raspberry juice was just one such dish. It was unbelievable!

There were common rooms that all the guests could visit and relax. The inn-keeper's mothers baked delicious homemade pies that were set out every evening for evening snacks. (I gained 5 pounds during our 7 night stay there but it was worth it!)

The bedroom's decor is gorgeous! We stayed in room #9 in the restored carriage house. It was beautifully decorated and very plush. When you enter the bathroom, however, the decor was that of Victorian times but it was outfitted with a huge body shower with 6 pulsating spray heads that relaxed every muscle in your body. The bathroom also had a nice deep jacuzzi for two. Luxury, I didn't want to leave the bathroom, ha.

It was also the little touches that the innkeepers, Cheryl and Mike, did so well. Late in the afternoon they'd come back to your room and turn on the radio to soft chamber music like you'd have heard playing during the Victorian era. The bed was turned down and a silver plate with Hershey kisses welcomed us when we returned in the evening after a long day of sightseeing. And, of course, a new freshly-baked pie graced the common-room counter.

I read the reviews from travel agents, etc about the how great the Inn was but took that with a grain of salt as many times reviewers get a "freebie" so I question the validity of some reviews. It makes a difference if you have to pay hard-earned money for something. We did and it was worth every penny we spent. Great job, Berry Manor Inn!
Click here to see slide show of the exterior.

Holy Cow!

2006-08-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

Yes, we are back from our vacation to Maine. This was one of our best vacations ever. The first night we encountered this cow parked at our hotel. That is a full-sized truck so you can imagine how big that cow is. What a spectacle it would be going down the freeway!

Wheels Falling Off Hummers?

2006-07-21T11:22:00.000-05:00

I monitor the Sacramento Bee for stories that interest me and came across this one. Something to read if you own a Hummer or want to buy one used. The models are before 2004. May require free registration.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14280393p-15088817c.html

First Pictures from New Camera

2006-07-20T13:38:00.000-05:00

I haven't had time to play much with my camera but I did take a few pictures of my flowers. I left them as raw data but reduced the size to 50%. Blogger will reduce them even more but click on them and see if they will enlarge for you. Full sized they are sharp and clear and very large and could make a good framed print (not these pictures but the size that it can enlarge to when not reduced).

The 7.1 megapixel lets me enlarge quite a bit. The bee in the flower was taken with the camera moving. I quickly brought the camera close to the flower and clicked quickly. I cropped that one. It isn't as sharp as the others but it was in the shade and I was moving the camera.

The camera is the Olympus Stylus 720 SW.

I didn't have any real problem with viewing the LCD screen in outside daylight (it doesn't have a viewfinder) so that was a relief.

The software is very hard to use at least until I study it a bit more. More instructions to go through, bummer.

Click on these to see the larger, better size.

This is my black/red hollyhock. It has a beautiful dark red color.

See the pollen grains on the bee's legs? I should have stayed back a bit and zoomed in on him and I think it would have turned out better.

This is my balloon flower. The plant is gorgeous and a real performer! I love the shape and color of the flowers.

GoErie.com Reports Mother Comes Forward!

2006-07-20T09:22:00.000-05:00

I just read the breaking news on GoErie.com that the abandoned baby's mother has come forward.! I'm glad, I'd like to see a happy ending for that darling little baby.
GoErie.com

Woohoo or is it Yippee?

2006-07-18T14:31:00.000-05:00

Regardless, the noise I'm making is similar. Last night my husband bought me a new digital camera (I have finally outgrown my beginner Cool Pix 2.1). The old camera missed too many shots with that long delay after you press down. I took many of what should have been great shots of my husband getting dunked in the dunking booth for a youth charity last weekend but instead they were pictures of just water as he had already disappeared to the bottom of the booth by the time the shutter clicked. Well, no more!

It was a tough decision on which camera I wanted but the deciding factor was the fact it was waterproof. It is also shock proof (necessary judging what my cell phone goes through) and has image stabilization (very necessary as my hand seems to move when I press down on the buttons).

We fish a lot and want to get back to using our canoe. We may take up kayaking, also. They make some great fishing kayaks now. I had a close call with my other camera when I was taking the camera out to take a picture of a fish and it fell into the water. Luckily, I hadn't taken it out of my ziplock bag yet that I carry it around in when we fish. So those things do happen. Now I won't be afraid to take it along (like in my float tube) and I'll be able to get some great shots.

The camera is the Olympus Stylus 720SW. So far I just love it. The sound video it takes is really nice and of great quality at least as compared to my cell phone's video (I haven't transferred any to my computer yet but it looks great on the camera screen). The digital is 7.1 Megapixel and has 3X optical and 5X digital zoom. It's so small! I'll be able to take it everywhere. I can take pictures of fish underwater! What may be the only drawback for what I'll be using it for is it doesn't have a viewfinder to use if it is too bright out that the LCD doesn't show up well. You can adjust the LCD screen so hopefully that won't be a problem.

Now it is time to learn how to use it. 83 pages of instructions, ouch! Luckily, most of it is appears to be similar to my old camera and my cell phone (as far as figuring out how to move around the different modes.)

Pittgirl (the burgh blog)

2006-07-17T12:50:00.000-05:00

Since my sister bought a vacation home in Pittsburgh, I have started checking that city out for things to do. My husband graduated from Pitt so he knows the area but not being from this area I really don't know it from a hole in the wall. In my research, I came across a funny, light-hearted blog put out by someone with the screen name Pittgirl. The Burgh Blog

Check out her archives, too, some great entries to make you smile.

In one of her blogs she linked to a website called the sloganizer. I put in some key words just to see what would come up. The results are below. (you can keep hitting enter to get different slogans) The first words are what I entered.

Garden......garden, where success is at home.
Erie.......Where's Erie?
Erie...Erie, your family will love you.
Erie....Always the real thing, always Erie.
Erie...Erie, we build smiles.

When I started to get repeats I found faqs that they only have 320 slogans in their data base. They could certainly use a lot more or everyone will be using the same slogans!

I used spellcheck on this post and of all the words the spellcheck says is spelled wrong, the word blog is highlighted. This is the blog's own spellchecker and blog isn't a word? I suppose it should be added to the official dictionary soon if it hasn't been already.

Don't make the mistake of getting too quick at your accepting the spellcheck's recommended words. I wrote a letter to my family that I spellchecked and caught it before I hit "send".

I must have had my pointer on the replace instead of ignore because I had an email that didn't make much sense and actually was insulting. This was with the Netscape mail program. For instance Vernon got changed to vermin. Janice got changed to Junco, Presque Isle to personae Isle, Behrend to behind. The spellcheck doesn't recognize common names like Vernon, Janice as real words? I kind of like Personae Isle, though.

Corn on the Cob for Breakfast, I Say Why Not!

2006-07-13T09:38:00.000-05:00

I'm still trying to lose weight. I gained 4 pounds over the long 4th of July weekend (my eating celebration lasted the whole week, though.) It is that delicious Romolos chocolate, it is too addicting. If I added up the cost of all the chocolate-covered strawberries and chocolate-covered cherries I bought there last week, I could have bought that light sconce I have been eyeballing. If you set that sconce (which I really want) and a plate of chocolate in front of me, the chocolate would always win out. I think a body really needs chocolate.

Soooo, here it is..I lost 34 pounds but put back on 4. I'm still not at my goal.

In the refrigerator is corn on the cob. I'm back on my "eating right" plan. I love corn on the cob but to add it to a regular meal makes me go over my target calories. So why not just forget what I usually eat for breakfast and eat something I really want in the first place? Because I know, with it sitting in the refrigerator, I'm going to eat it at some weak point in the day. So just go for it now and get it over with. I'll save calories in the long run.

It was delicious, I'm happy and satisfied and the calories are about the same as the egg white-sandwich wrap that I normally eat for breakfast. I think I'm onto something here.

Block Party

2006-07-12T08:32:00.000-05:00

This Saturday is our neighborhood's block party. We have only been able to go to 2 of them since we moved here. We live in an area of older houses and most everyone on the block has fixed up and/or restored their houses in some way or another. There seems to be a real upgrading going on with backyards, too. Good, I like to see we are in an improving neighborhood and not one that is on its way down. As different as we all are, we have the common bond and stories to tell of living in an old house.

When we first moved in and I started renovating I came across many things that were upsetting. Like all the woodwork that had the original shellac on it had been coated with poly and was peeling off. If the top coat of shellac wasn't dewaxed, poly probably won't last long (I read this in a book) and it didn't. It was peeling like dried egg whites. I tried to remove it but ended up having to strip all the woodwork downstairs. A job I'm still not totally done with. Being new to the block and with a need to talk about something, I brought up the woodwork and how the "handyman" the older ladies that owned the house before us had hired, had ruined the woodwork by using poly over it. There were many other things I complained about that the handyman had done, like just painting over chipped old paint instead of removing all the old paint first (at the time I didn't know how difficult that is to do). I was on a roll and there were hours of conversation to fill. We had fun at our first block party.

Weeks later when I happened to strike up a conversation with our very nice next-door neighbor, Cindy, she managed to nicely add that I may want to know that the person I was sitting next to at the block party was indeed, "that handyman" that the women used to fix most of the things in the house. Oooooh. Nooooo...

Can you imagine how he must have felt with the whole neighborhood listening to me babble on? He lives one house down from us and I just feel so terrible every time I think about it. Especially since I guess everyone in the neighborhood knew who the handyman was. I wave and say, "Hi" whenever he is out in his yard and he actually has always talked to us and has been friendly even after the comments I had made. What a nice person. I'm sure he helped those ladies and probably barely charged them anything for his time. Shame on me.

I'm suppose to bring pasta salad. I rarely eat pasta of any kind and I don't think I have ever made pasta salad. And I won't start now. I'm going to run to Wegmans and get their pasta salad that people rave about (I need a peace offering). Then I need to read the paper a couple of times so I can be informed and carry on an intelligent conversation that doesn't have anything to do with my house lest I stick my foot back into my mouth.

Float Tube

2006-07-10T09:53:00.000-05:00

How I love my float tube! One of the best Christmas presents I ever got. When the weather is perfect as it was on Saturday (and that means the wind isn't blowing) flyfishing in a float tube can't be beat as a way to spend the late afternoon or evening at Presque Isle.

There isn't much effort to using a float tube, especially when my husband carries the thing to the water's edge. I carry the fins. Once I'm in the water, I'm free. Free to fish anywhere I see the fish jumping. But I suspect my husband feels free, too. Free of my jabbering and bad casting.

Oh! The big ones are jumping out there, I can see them and I'm heading that way. As soon as I get there and start fishing, I see the big ones jumping back from whence I came. Hmmm.

My float tube is equipped with a pillow to lean back on, a netting in the front to lay your fishing rod onto so you can put on your lures with ease and many pockets for all your stuff. It is quite efficient and comfortable. I wear my chest high waders with a snug belt as not to fill with water. It all keeps those creepy crawler things, if there are any, off my legs. You never know.

By not paying attention, I managed to get my self tangled up in thick, strong weeds out in the middle of the bay. I kicked and tried to turn. I was thrashing. I was afraid of leaning forward in case of a flip over onto my face. I'd be a gonner had that happened, I suspect, even though I was wearing a life jacket. I was strapped into the tube (there are quick releases if you have your head about you, which I didn't, but being off the tube and tangled may have been worse.) No one else was around except my husband and he would have had no way to get out that far and rescue me especially in the weeds. So I panicked. My heart was beating so fast and I had the frightful feeling like I was being attacked by a shark. My husband yelled for me not to panic and when I settled down and leaned back and made smaller kicks I finally freed myself. A lesson learned. Stay out of the weeds and don't go out so far, and maybe bring along a cell phone in a water tight bag for those "emergencies". On windier days I have been blown to places not intended but you just get to the closest shore in the direction the wind is blowing and find some way to walk back.

The best part of using a float tube is leaning back and looking up at the sky, watching the clouds go by. Reminds me of being a kid when I'd go kite flying in the field overlooking our foothill town. I also like to watch the shoreline for the ever-spectacular bird sightings that you see only at Presque Isle. A deer came out to graze along the reeds on the far side of the bay. My blood pressure quickly dropped below normal.

There is a danger of falling into a semi-conscious state while you are relaxing with the rock of the waves. When this happens you often wake seeing dozens of little round "objects" surrounding you, almost within reach. Turtles, some of them snapping turtles. Then an "object" was spotted out of the corner of my eye right next to me and I gave out a scream. But it turned out to be the edge of my black flipper poking up through the water. This is good exercise for my blood pressure, up, down, up, down.

Needless to say, I don't get too much fishing done when I'm in my float tube. Though I did catch many panfish and a bass, when I'm in my float tube my heart is into watching nature.

I Guess I'm Bilingual.

2006-07-05T20:33:00.000-05:00

I must be speaking a second language because everyone I called today just didn't understand what the heck I was talking about. I guess it is East meets West.

I thought everyone knew what sun shade screening is. You just take these things for granted. I thought it would be nice to be able to cover the pergola with a sun shade screen or shade cloth (as it is also called in the west). They make it with 50% shade or you can pick 70% shade. It is a mesh-like tarp, usually black, that you see everywhere in the west. You hang it over the dog pens, horse paddocks, picnic areas, garden areas where you may want shade loving plants to grow. It lets some light through but it doesn't burn the plants. It makes it tolerable to sit out on the patio yet lets air through which makes it better than just an ugly tarp.

I called Lowes, Home Depot and even that Custom Patio Rooms store that I see advertised on GoErie.com. They just couldn't understand what I was talking about. I got transferred to the paint department for heaven's sakes. Then they thought they knew what I was talking about and put me through to the shades and blinds department. NO, I said, give me the garden department, which tried to transfer me back to the paint department. Then the Custom Patio place said they didn't have the shade screens but they have retractable awnings (that would be really better but I wasn't looking to spend much). Oh, well, I can buy it online and have it shipped. But our summer, as short as it is, will be over by the time it gets here. But that isn't the only thing I had trouble locating today that I will probably have to buy online.

I have several potted plants that I keep on the front porch and back deck. To leave on vacation is troublesome because my plants need water if it doesn't rain at least every third day and I have a lot of money tied up in those plants. That's when I have my in-laws water. They already take care of the cats everyday and I hate to have them spend all that time watering. When I lived out west I had drip lines. Everyone has them. You almost can't live without it out west if you have any kind of landscaping. I told my husband I'd like to get some spaghetti line for my potted plants and he hadn't a clue what I was talking about. Well, neither do the stores. I'm sure someone has them somewhere, I mean surely they do. You get the pressure regulator and hook it to your outdoor faucet, then attach the pvc 1/2 flexible hosing to the regulator. You cap the end of the hose and bury it (or you can just run it above the surface of the dirt) and attach emitters to the trunk line hose at each plant. For potted plants you get the spaghetti 1/8 inch line that attaches to the emitter and hang it over your potted plant and clamp it onto the pot. It drips at a specific rate (gallons per hour) that you control by the size of the emitter that you attach the line to. You can even put them on timers so you never have to worry. It is FREEDOM in the west.

OK, I can see there isn't a big demand for that sort of thing here where it rains a lot and the sun doesn't shine much but when it does you really could use a sun shade screen.

Monday

2006-07-03T22:38:00.000-05:00

For the past few days we have made an evening drive out to Presque Isle to watch the sunset and dusk approach, and to watch the animals come out. The first day we almost hit 2 deer driving out. It was quite a surprise to have them run out in front of you as they hide pretty well during the day. Right after the deer episode we came upon a skunk as he was scurrying over the bridge as fast as those little feet would carry him. The fireflies are thick at dusk and it really turns magical. Then we spotted a baby skunk along the road and he was cute as could be.

On Friday early evening when we drove into Presque Isle we spotted a blackbird jumping around and something was a couple of feet away. As we got close the "something" started running towards the brush. It was a mink or weasle and it had a little blackbird in his mouth. This was right past the office. Poor mother blackbird couldn't do anything to save the little one.

Yesterday afternoon we thought we would take in a movie but when we got to Tinsletown it was jammed packed with everyone thinking the same thing. We didn't even try to find a parking spot. Forget it.

Today we tried again but this time went around noon to go see Superman. Very few people were there as the weather was pretty nice outside. The movie was better than we thought it would be. I hated the Superman with Kidder and Reeve, I don't know why but I just didn't like those two even though it seemed everyone else did. But I do like the actor/actress in this movie.

Well, I don't know what tomorrow will bring. It all depends on the weather and the only way to really know what the weather will be is to wait until tomorrow and look out the window. You just go ahead and do what you want to do until you smell rain in the air and then run for cover.

I'm hoping we can do some fishing. I really love to go out in my float tube. A couple of weeks ago I used my float tube in marina bay only to have some rude (I'd like to kick their butts) guy and girl show up and decide they wanted to fish where I was fishing and cast right on top of me. Those great big lures were plunking in the water next to my flyfishing float tube. Those two won't last long in the fishing world. I had forgotten my lifejacket at home or I would possibly have attempted a grab at their line as it whizzed by my head and cut it. Imagine the absolute immense satisfaction to cut those jerk's lines........they'd have probably retrieved a shotgun from their redneck truck. So much for that idea but I can dream can't I? With so many jerks and idiots we have been encountering lately around here I dream a lot.

Gold-Medal Olympian to Play for Mercyhurst !!

2006-06-28T09:33:00.000-05:00

I just saw the GoErie.com update about the gold-medal women's hockey player from Canada. She signed a letter of intent to play for Mercyhurst. That is HUGE!!!! She led in scoring for the gold medal women's hockey team at the last Winter Olympics. Read it here. I'll probably go to every home game!

It Was Cheese, a Meeting and an Anniversary

2006-06-23T09:07:00.000-05:00

I was having problems with my "a's" when typing. For some reason they didn't show up. I'd hit it pretty hard but when I got up to speed, they stop showing up. I couldn't take it anymore. I turned over the keyboard and banged on it and threatened it with bringing in the Kirby. And there it was, a piece of cheese stuck under the button. I can't remember when I ate something with cheese on it recently and I wonder what else could be lurking under there (I suspect some pepperoni, too).

I'm in the middle of painting and wiring my bathroom and I ran out of wire nuts and pigtail wires yesterday evening . I told my husband I needed to quickly run up to Lowes so I could finish. On the way back he pulled into Barnes and Noble. Oh, good, I can thumb through the magazines. I found a nice new magazine I hadn't seen before called Arts and Crafts Homes.

While thumbing through the magazine I looked up and saw a lady thumbing through some magazines and she looked kind of familiar. I saw the magazines she was looking at were watercolor art magazines. So I looked down at her shoes. She wasn't wearing those very artistic painted shoes but I was quite certain from one of her posted photographs that it was Toni Kelly, a local blogger that I read all the time.

I debated introducing myself as I have been working all day on my projects and was a mess. My hair was pulled up and falling down, my knuckles were scraped up and full of plaster and paint that I couldn't get off before we left. I had grabbed and changed into a non-paint shirt just to run to Lowes and realized when I got there that it was missing a button and was pretty wrinkled. But hey, no one knows me. OK, I was about to make a bad first impression, ha.

I couldn't help it, I finally asked, "Are you Toni Kelly?". She looked up and replied, "yes". I said I was Linda.......eriesargonaut.

So we talked and talked and our husbands quickly exited and went their own way through the store. When my husband and I left I thought, oh no, it was their anniversary night out and I talked her ear off.

Happy anniversary!

No Service, part 5

2006-06-22T00:07:00.000-05:00

To read part 1, click here.
To read part 2, click here.
To read part 3, click here.
To read part 4, click here.

Visualize, if you will, a man, 6' 4", crammed into my Geo Metro. Visualize the movie, "The Incredibles" in which you see that superhero hunk come out of that tiny undersized little car. That is my husband in my little Geo.

Say what you will about those Geo Metros, mine hasn't given me a lick of trouble except a little windshield wiper water squirter motor gave out once and I had to replace a muffler for a safety inspection. It is a 1996 but runs great, only has 79,000 (mostly California, no salt) miles on it and it is always there when we need it, and we needed it. I call it my glorified motorcycle. We ran all over town on Sunday and went out to dinner with the family for Father's Day. I drove the Geo Metro LSI and my husband sat in the passenger seat with his head bent slightly forward to keep from hitting his head on the roof. His knees were up into his chest but he didn't complain. He was taking all of this in stride.

To our surprise we got a phone call with an estimate at 7:30 AM on Monday and they said they would have the Subaru fixed by that afternoon. Now that is service!!! It turns out that the alternator went out and it killed the almost new Sears battery while it was at it. So what is a few hundred more dollars, we almost have a rebuilt car by now. My husband said he'd come home from work early and we'd drive to Warren in the Geo, pick up the car and each drive our own cars home. On the way we passed a Subaru on the side of the road with people inside. I said we should stop and help them if they are stranded, my thoughts of repaying the kindness given to us. But just then the car pulled back onto the road.

Maybe you have to go to the country to find nice, helpful people like the ones we encountered on Saturday. Maybe it is because they haven't been corrupted by the hustle and bustle of city life. I think we all get so caught up in being in a hurry that there are few that go out of there way to help someone. It is all about US and get out of OUR way mentality of people. When someone does help it is such a big deal that the person will write a thank you letter in the newspaper (or as in this case, a blog) . We wondered if we had driven by someone sitting on the side of the road where we had been stranded, would we have stopped to help. I'm ashamed to say I don't think we would have. I always think there is too much danger in it. Those two girls took a chance on us and I hope to be able to help someone someday like they did.

We decided to go to Kinzua Reservoir in the first place because we thought it would be a nice drive and we would be back in time for game 6 and what we thought was most probably the final game of the Stanley Cup. We missed it. As luck would have it, not only did we have a great day on the day we broke down, but the Stanley Cup went to game 7 and we were back in time from picking the car up on Monday to see it.

PS. Last night we went car shopping. : -)

No Service, part 4

2006-06-21T07:40:00.000-05:00

To read part 1, click here,
To read part 2, click here,
To read part 3, click here

My husband jumped to his feet and went over to greet the driver. I stood up not quite ready to say goodbye to these nice people and this out-of-the-way place. The hour it took for the driver to get there had flown by. But we needed to get going, still unsure how we would get home.

My husband jumped up into the cab first and I followed. I struggled to put on the one passenger seatbelt in the cab leaving my husband without one. As the truck started moving and bouncing to get up onto the pavement my knuckles clinched the open window frame. I glanced at my husband who gave my leg a little pat of assurance. The truck started moving but was geared so low that the driver had to shift gears every few seconds until we started building speed. Each gear change made an obscene grinding sound.

The tow company was from Mt. Jewett which I had never heard of before but my husband knew where it was as he is a native of Erie. I tried to size up the driver. He looked like a tow-truck driver. He was a heavy-built and rustic-looking man. He wore a hat, jeans and a long shirt left hanging to the outside. My assumption was that he may be one of those redneck types. Then we all started talking and asking questions. He wasn't at all like I thought he may be. He was very sweet and seemed like a real gentle soul. He knew the area inside and out.

We headed back into the woods for miles and finally came to the spot the car gave out. Funny how our car doesn't break down closer to home. With his expertise, the driver loaded up the useless vehicle and locked it down. He took us to the town of Warren to the Subaru dealership. I was afraid it may be quite a ways out of town and we'd have no way to find something to eat but it was adjoined to the local mall. When the truck came to a halt, I had to pry my fingers off of the door frame. I had been gripping it with white knuckles the whole 20 plus miles of curvy road since picking up our car.

As the driver was unhitching our car from the flatbed tow truck my husband saw his cell phone now had service and he called his parent's house in Millcreek hoping someone would be home. He figured if his dad couldn't come then maybe his sister's husband could. Turns out his sister and husband were out of the state for a few days but his dad said he would come pick us up. Half an hour later and he would have been gone attending a party and we wouldn't have been able to get a hold of them until the next day. We felt terrible asking him to come all that way especially right after he got off work and Father's Day being the next day and making him miss out on a gala event.

We thanked our nice tow truck driver and locked up our car. We walked over to a mall restaurant and had dinner. We were gonna miss what we thought was the Stanley Cup final game. As we were eating we both commented how lucky we were to be sitting down and eating right then. How things could have turned out so much differently. And that we both had a really good time. Weird, especially with the thought of a big repair bill hanging over our heads and after just forking out over $4,000 in repairs just a few weeks before for the same car.

We returned to our car and started organizing all our belongings that we couldn't leave in the car. My husband got an envelope out of the self-service box at the repair shop at the dealership. They were already closed and wouldn't open until Monday. He wrote down the symptoms of the car failure, dropped in the keys and dropped it into the slot on the side of the building. So there the car would stay and I was quickly losing fondness for it.

Just then my father-in-law pulls in and he even has a smile on his face. He is a very special person, most always happy and always willing to lend a hand. We filled the trunk with our stuff and loaded ourselves in and headed home. I wondered how long, this time, we would be without our car.......to be continued