Busy Mornings

Yesterday morning we G.I.'d the entire kitchen table and all contents. It took all morning! We each have a tray with handy items we use everyday. His tray has paperwork, several medicine things, a police scanner and more. Mine has eyeglasses, calculator, and other assorted stuff like a handy-dandy nailclipper and a chapstick. The spinning round table holds salt, pepper, sugar, butter, meds, pens, pencils, and more. This old table is both desk and dining. Placemats, napkins, and plastic cover are other necessary and handy items for easy cleanup. It is where I set up my laptop computer between meals and paperwork. He also has his binoculars and paper towel nearby.

Today, the Mister took his empty prescription containers to the two places we use for refills. At the local hospital, he was checked for temperature and was asked questions before allowed to enter. Then he was given a face mask and admitted to the pharmacy area. After a short wait getting those refilled, from there he went to town to Rite-Aid to pick up another one that we knew was ready. They were kind enough to enclose three over-the-counter items at the drive up window as well. He didn't have to enter the store!

A trip to the bank drive-up window resulted in refilling his wallet with some cash.

We filled out and mailed our primary absentee ballots today.

We trapped our first shrew. This is a tiny little critter with a very long nose and is mouse-like. The photo below is from the internet.

One of our Nephews has had his recent picture selected for the cover of a fisherman's magazine. He didn't say how much this drum weighed when he first posted the photo. He's an avid fisherman!

I started picking at the turkey breast that I roasted for dinner yesterday. Not finished yet, but will certainly make soup with those good bones!

I balanced checkbooks and am now preparing lunch. Dessert will be strawberry shortcake. I still have several bags of strawberries in the freezer, plus Cool Whip and sliced pound cake.

Are you bored yet?

Glass Art and THANKS Brother!

I have wished for a crystal ball ever since the early 1960's. I thought maybe I could see visions of some sort by looking in the ball in a quiet place of solitude. Then I forgot about one until just lately when I see that photographers are using and experimenting them in their artistic works. Again I wished for one and even bookmarked a page to buy myself one but could never justify the expense. I wanted a high quality and large one! I mentioned it to my brother a couple of weeks ago because I knew both he and my nephew had made some in the past. I remember my nephew tried to take a picture outdoors on a sunny day and, as he was holding his reflective sphere, he experienced a burned thumb when trying to take a photo. My brother had designed a machine to make glass spheres in his "glassman" business. He told me he sold a lot of them.

Nephew's thumb burning

Several years ago, both of them visited an artist who lives about 30 miles from us. They came back excited and he had given them each some pieces of his glass to work with. Today a large ball, made by my brother of Christopher Ries's glass was given to me. It measures about 3.15" (approx. 80mm) and weighs 650g (about 22.93 oz.) Brother created it from one of the square blocks of optical glass. I was overwhelmed! I set it on a hard plastic dip cup and took 3 pictures. Now I need to make a velvet pouch for it's keep!

 I am thinking about finding a round clear rubber ring to help place it on things to shoot my pictures. Something soft so as not to scratch it. To learn more about Christopher Reis, click on the links below. He was just featured on our local tv station about a week ago.

Christopher Ries

Christopher-Ries
Christopher Ries on Local TV

Pacific Northwest in a Vans RV-9A Part Seven. Visiting the Professor

I snatched this frame from nephew's latest video and saw a shark's head. Made an imaginative creation. Just fooling around. The video is his 7th of his trip to Alaska. It is a really nice video and some parts of it, especially the trees from a downward view are amazingly beautiful. 

please click on image to view larger

The video is about 10 minutes long and wonderful.

Worth taking time to view in my opinion.

Pacific Northwest in a Vans RV-9A, Part three

Another great video of my Nephew flying over British Columbia with his friend and mentor. It is 13 minutes long but well worth watching in our opinion. Amazing scenery.

Salmon Glacier With Wade & Vlad

This is my short slide show made from screen shots taken during the time I was viewing his video. All images are by WMN.

The new video he created of his experience may be seen here.  Beautiful and grand experience.
Click on link below to view.
Actual Video

Stuart

A very small bit of background information first. My nephew, a budding student pilot, has been saving and preparing to go on a flight with his friend, an accomplished pilot in his private plane. It has been planned for a long time and this is the week to fly from NJ across the states commercially to Washington and meet his friend to then fly into Canada and then onward to ALASKA!

He has his camera and his action GoPro and will be making movies as the week goes on.  He has posted many still photos and this is the first video with both of their voices recorded. To me it is a daring, scary, exciting, amazing and wonderful adventure.  Though the video seems to be long, the landing at the end had me on pins and needles.

Enjoy the ride! If you can view on computer via YouTube it is even more spectacular!

Experimenting with Art

Today I created two images and am learning how to do more than photos. The sunny picture was a fun-to-do project.

The picture of a great nephew on a winter city street was transformed to a nephew in a different location.

   to view larger click on image   

 

New Year News...

Out of the old and into the cold! It even went down to -10° for a short while  as the sun came up. This was taken at 7:15 am. Brrrrrr!

Now for the bad news....My brother is in the hospital with a sudden problem. He drove himself there last night and left his water in the kitchen trickling as we all do when extreme cold temperatures prevail. He has called several family members to have his dog let out today and to feed both the cat and the dog. My brother-in-law drove out there this morning and found the water NOT trickling. Pipes are frozen. Dog has been let out. Another of his friends nearby is going to care for his chickens which are kept at a different location.  My brother-in-law will return later this afternoon to again tend to the dog and cat's needs as brother will probably stay in hospital for a couple of days. If his son, who does plumbing, gets his girlfriend's frozen water situation problems fixed in NJ he may drive up here and see what he can do about these circumstances.  

And, my brother-in-law's daughter, who lives in Delaware, has a furnace failure. It is good that there are two wood stoves in her home. It's hard to get furnace repair help on a holiday.

The Mister simply cannot tolerate this cold air with his COPD and, even though we want to help, we cannot. What a predicament! 

I guess we all forgot to hang a lemon in the doorway to keep the GOOD energy flowing. Is it too late?

P.S. (please click on an image to view them larger)

Sadie's First Flight HD 1080p

My nephew is a student pilot. He wasn't taking a lesson in this slide show video. He was taking his beloved Sadie, on her first airplane ride with his pilot friend. I played his actual GoPro movie and took desktop pictures here and there when the movie was running and put together my version with his film. It is about 120 still frames. My idea was to fully focus on the dog.  It might have been fun to see what she did when they exited the plane. He didn't film that part of her final reaction.

The Plane

 The Owner and Pilot

Sandy in North New Jersey

Pork 'n Beans

 Venison Chili

Creamed Chicken with Rice

Propane Stove Stew

"Why is there a blender in the middle of your kitchen floor plugged into an extension cord? Were you making soup in a blackout again?" ~The Blackout Chef, Wade.

Wade's Words of Wisdom. Blackout Edition

by Wade M. Nulton on Saturday, November 10, 2012 at 6:33pm 

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness”  Truer words have never been spoken.

My ordeal with Hurricane Sandy started at exactly nine pm on Monday when the storm hit. It ended ten days later.  I knew it was going to be bad because I was watching the weather all evening. I knew that we wouldn’t have a significant “water event” but I was prepared for it all.  In case of flooding, I have three sump pumps, and a gasoline powered water pump, a generator to keep it all working, and I had a fifteen gallon reserve of gasoline.  I was set.  I had a chainsaw ready and fueled in case a wind event brought trees down. The usual format of WWOW was always nine funny points, and one serious.  That ain’t gonna happen here.  Too much info to relay to people so for the first time in history, that format will be broken. There also won’t be as much humor as usual. I took notes during the storm and resulting aftermath and there are points I want to cover.

1.  Know your equipment. Know your generator, how to use it and how much run time there is to a tank of gas. With that in mind you can prepare to have the right amount of gas on hand. In my case, having fifteen gallons on hand was not enough for the whole event, but it was enough to keep me from sitting in gas lines for hours on end.

2. This one might be slightly controversial, but bear with me here as I reason it out.  Do not brag about what you have stored and ready to go. I don’t care if it’s food, water, gasoline or anything else.  Keep it low key. The reason being, is that if YOU are prepared, but someone you know is NOT they will remember what you have stored and EXPECT you to share it with them. If you choose to help someone out with your supplies, that is your choice, but under no circumstances should you share supplies if it will affect you and your family. On the flip side, if you DO have ample supplies, and CAN spare some, by all means do so. That is the compassion that makes us human. But if someone asks how much gas you have for your generator, there is nothing wrong with telling them “I have enough to keep my house running and warm. If you find some extra gas cans, I’d be happy to take them with me when I go to fill mine.”

3. Have easily preparable food on hand for the initial onset of the incident. For example, the first day of having no power, making a quick pot of spaghetti will free you up to do more important things.  If you want to eat like a king that’s great, but keep simple things on hand.

4. I’m probably going to harp on this one for a while, but KEEP A POSITIVE ATTITUDE. Yes, it IS POSSIBLE to say to yourself I WILL keep a good attitude and I will NOT let this get me down.  Once your needs are taken care of, start checking with other people to see if their needs are satisfied. Go help them. It helps keep your attitude positive and gives you a good feeling when you can help out, and quite often, your calm, positive attitude will be contagious.  You have to say to yourself “Yeah, I got this covered” and smile and take care of business.  During this event, I came across two people who were in various stages of panic.  One person had no generator or anything in place for preparation and the other had a generator capable of running his entire house, but was woefully unprepared in the gasoline department. Both were in a panic and it was evidenced by their voices. People can over react drastically, and your calmness can help keeping stupid things from happening. (Like the one person transporting almost 200 gallons of gasoline in one giant tank in the back of a pickup and almost getting arrested for improperly transporting gasoline.)

5. Back to attitude: A negative attitude is TOXIC, contagious and dangerous. The only one who will help you in a severe situation is YOU, so get off your ASS and DO something about it! Sitting around saying “Oh woe is me”…. does nothing to help you.  If you were caught in a flash flood, would you just float down the river and complain about how miserable your life has become or would you try to swim to dry land?  DO SOMETHING. ANYTHING. But don’t sit there and pity yourself.

6. There are three things that are key:  Attitude, Mindset and Morale.  With the proper Attitude towards the situation, you can keep the proper Mindset towards the situation to keep moving forward and make your situation which in turn will keep Morale up, in you and the people surrounding you. When you approach it this way it will help you keep a sense of normalcy. Me personally, I would get up every morning, Make my coffee, check the weather and go about my day.  A loss of power wasn’t going to make me sit on the couch and do nothing.  I personally think that in an adverse situation it is the loss of “normalcy” that screws people up the most. Adapt, make the most out of it. Heck, make it a FUN event by picking something and doing it even better than usual.  In my case it was cooking that kept me sane. Bake a loaf of bread on the asphalt in your driveway:?  SURE.  I got it covered!  (I didn’t however KEEP it covered when it was cooling off on the rack on the counter, and the dog wanted a snack,  but that’s a different situation entirely.)

7.  In a blackout condition, if you have a generator, gasoline is like gold.  Think “Mad Max” and you start to get the picture.  I heard all sorts of stories about people stealing gas cans from other people, even stealing generators. I saw gas lines almost two miles long. I developed a rhythm.  Get up, start generator, make coffee, let house warm up and fridge cool down. Shut generator off to conserve fuel. A house will hold heat surprisingly well for many hours and you don’t need it 68 degrees 24 hours a day. You do NOT need to run your generator 24 hours a day unless it is keeping your sump pumps working.

8. Electricity is a modern convenience, and it is NOT necessary for survival. I repeat it is a Convenience. Humans have existed on this planet for thousands of years and it is only in the last hundred or so that we have had electricity. Did all those humans live in a state of panic until electricity was invented?  I don’t think so.

9. Prioritize your actions. If you have one gallon of gasoline left for your generator and you have been hearing reports of gas stations with long lines, the sticks that are lying in your yard can wait.  Really…. They CAN wait.

10.  If you are using a (homemade) double male adapter to backfeed circuits in your house (which is not exactly UL approved…) be aware that the male end (with the two prongs sticking OUT) that is plugged into the cord… DOES have power in it and you WILL get a nifty little shock from it.

11. Certain people, very well intentioned, will call you once a day to check on you.  It will be nice at first that they are concerned about your well being, but when you have things to get done before it gets dark…. It gets to be annoying.  You don’t need to call EVERY day.  Really you don’t.

12. On the flip side…. When you are stuck in an adverse situation, there are certain special people, who when they DO reach out to you, will make your day, put a smile on your face, and give you the mental power to take on any and every situation. (And even give you something to look forward to.)

Miscellaneous notes..................

"Sandy update. Power out for 24 hr. now. No big deal. Have generator to keep fridge cool and furnace warm. Sincere thank you to all who checked in via text from as far away as Mass. This is short message typed on an old fashioned flip phone." October 29, 2012 

"Four days into the blackout and beef burgundy for dinner. From scratch thank you. Yeah. It's all good."  November 1, 2012

"The blackout gourmet proudly presents for tonight's dinner: (dutch oven baked) herbed lemon chicken with a side of yellow rice and bacon balsamic green beans. There ain't no suffering going on at this house." November 2, 2012

"Hopefully by the grace of god this is the last installment of the blackout chef. On tonight's menu is a new twist on an ancient recipe and I call it Jersey Jumbalbya. It is made with ingredients commonly available in freezers during blackout situations. Ingredients include hot Italian sausage, pork, and chicken, with rice and assorted seasonings. Anyone desiring any of the blackout chef's recipes can arrange a barter method of payment." November 4, 2012

"The blackout chef has decided since it is a chilly night, to prepare an old favorite - Wisconsin cheddar, potato and bacon soup. Perfect for a chilly evening. The chef has also decided that upon restoration of power, he will write a cook book, containing as many recipes as nights he cooked without power. The book will contain helpful hints about things to make blackout cooking easier and things to prepare in advance. Cookbooks will be available at a minimal ten dollars each to help offset the cost of researching the book. (running the generator for over a week) and yes. I really will write a cook book." November 7, 2012

"Now that I have power back, does this mean I can't use the blender in the middle of the kitchen floor?"  November 9, 2012

Wade is my very special nephew. Oh, so young (38) and so wise. He has given me permission to share his writings. GMR