Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 5c/41f with a predicted high of 11c/ 52f and mostly sunny. Weather app says “It’s clear and fucking sunny. I promise, none of this fucking matters. In fact, nothing fucking matters.” That’s a bit bleak for such a lovely sunny day!
I went for a walk through our local park today, we have a fair amount of wildlife in there. Squirrels, birds, swans, Canada geese, moorhens, coots and the occasional visiting heron. Haven’t seen any rabbits, or a Mad March Hare either.
first?
ETA: I started first, but Hippie slipped in ahead of me. Curses!
Morning all - It’s a bit after 6am here at home, twilight is now at peak colo(u)r and sunrise is 30 minutes in the future. Presently 61/16 with the high predicted to be a perfect 78/25. We have a few clouds here and there.
My arctic adventure ended with our return home on Thu a couple days ago. It was not at all the adventure we had planned, but was nice enough. The weather in the far north of the Norwegian sea was going to be far too bad for cruise ships. So shortly after departing from Bergen, the Captain announced we’d spend the next 10 days doing / going something completely different. Instead of visiting far northern Alta, Tromsø, and Narvik for a combined 5 days ashore in the real arctic, we’d stay in southern Norway visiting Trondheim, Oslo 2 days, Kristainsand, Stavanger, and Einfjord. Then head south to Amsterdam & finally London as orignally planned.
That meant a) we’d never cross the arctic circle, and b) have almost no chance to see the northern lights, being too far south. The ~1000 passengers were really, really upset. Many, many bucket list items were not to be.
The morale of the journey was saved by unusually southern northern lights being spotted on the first two nights while we were at sea heading to Trondheim. It was warmer (= just barely freezing) this far south than it would have been way up north, but instead of sitting still on land we had to endure the 20mph breeze from the ship’s motion on the open ocean. Still and all it was an amazing sight and many great pictures were taken. The two nights’ displays had rather different characteristics to boot. Yaay!!!
Overall the weather was sometimes clear, often gray, and occasionally snowy or rainy. With temps either a bit below freezing or up to about 10F/5C above freezing. Which meant all of our serious cold weather gear went unused.
In general though I cannot greatly recommend touristing in Southern Norway in Feb. A lovely place, wonderful people, English is spoken by all, and it would be so beautiful and outdoorsy almost any time except Dec-Feb. OTOH if you like touristing in semi-freezing weather, now’s a great time. Most things are open, and there are no crowds of foreigners nor of locals.
The shipboard experience was great, and unchanged by the itinerary swap. Considering the price, it darn well ought to have been.
Many people were still quite upset about not getting the planned-for shore experiences. Made even more so by the fact that apparently the itinerary runs as planned only ~10% of the attempts. IOW, the cruise line knew before we departed that we were not going to get the thing they advertised and we paid for. The term “bait and switch” was heard a LOT amongst the grumblers.
On a much happier note, BB and I had a great time together. Being no more than ~5 feet apart for 16 days straight was no strain; in fact it was heaven. Now home, she’s at her place and I’m at mine and the withdrawal is palpable and painful. I’ll see her this upcoming weekend, so 7 days after our last togetherness. Which weekend will be the opening salvo on her transitioning to living at my place. We both can hardly wait. How practical this will prove to be vis-a-vis her job is the sole fly in our joint ointment (jointment? 
).
Switching gears …
Since returning home I’ve attended two spring training major league baseball games (ATL vs MIA & MIA vs STL) enjoying the glorious weather that brings the snowbirds & tourists flocking here. The bad news is that unlike our minor league ball during the regular season, this costs a fair few bux both to park & to attend. OTOH, these guys can actually play quality baseball and since the crowds are much larger, the variety of concessions available in the park is much increased. COVID of course slaughtered regular attendance, and it has not greatly recovered since. Shame the park is a ~45 minute drive from home; I’d attend a lot more games if it was closer.
That’s about it in my world. Sunrise is in a couple minutes and I must take my pix thereof.
Cheers all!!
No Mad March Hares around here as far as I know, but the moles are on the move. As we walk across the yard, we see/step on numerous mounded tunnels. I don’t intend to set out poison, but I wish they’d go away. Even when we had Higgs, the moles tunneled. I suppose I’d be more upset if I cared about a perfect lawn. But I don’t, so I’m not. Stoopit moles.
Pilot - our cruise in June/July is scheduled to cross the Arctic Circle 4 times and Alta is on the list. I’m hoping the summer weather is kinder to us than winter was to you so our route doesn’t need to be altered. But I guess we’ll find out. And we’re not expecting a light show.
Last MMP ended with several comments about eating mega-servings of stuff. Competitive eating is something I’ll never understand. Maybe I’m missing something, but stuffing 5# of spuds down your gullet doesn’t strike me as an enviable accomplishment. I can see the fun in pie-eating contests - not being able to use your hands and getting stuff all over yourself - that seems silly and harmless enough. But the hot dog eating contest? Sorry, I think it’s disgusting.
Moving on…
Tonight is family dinner night. I need to work out the timing of the roast and the veggies, so I’ll be looking at a couple of pot roast recipes to remind myself. And I’ll do a bit of a tidying, including rollsuck, before the grands come here and trash the place. 
I may even (brace yourselves) dust!
My outdoor thermometer appears to need a new battery - so I have no idea how cold it is out there, but it was in the low 30s when I went to bed, so I’m guessing it’s a tad nippy out. Can’t we be done with this winter stuff and have a nice, long spring? Is that too much to ask?
Probably.
I started my day trying to give my replacement credit card # to the hotel at Heathrow, and the credit union’s Fraud Alert stopped it going thru. Before I try again, I need to call them and work something out so they don’t keep flagging my card. I understand why they do it, but it really screws things up for me.
FCD is off to the fabricators with a few more parts to be welded to the tanks. I’ll hit the shower shortly, then start my day of fun.
Happy Moanday!!
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 39 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 63 and cloudy. We will spend the day in RDOS inactivities just cause we can. There’s nowhere either of us wants or needs to be. Sup shall be hamburger steaks in onion gravy, field peas with snaps, rice, cause gravy, and bizkits.
No hares here either March or mad.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.
Happy Moanday Y’all!
Morning all. Got the requisite 7+ hours of sleep so should be ready to face the start of a new week. Not much on the agenda this week, have to make a 6-month visit to the ENT office regarding my hearing aids (doesn’t seems to have been than long) tomorrow and may help out on some soccer stuff and of course gym working, but otherwise it should be quiet. Temperature is 43F heading to 64F later in the day and may make it to 70F on Tuesday.
My cruise in June won’t make it to the Arctic Circle, we’ll only get as far as 63 degrees North, but since the cruise is designed that way should be no complaints. We missed a couple stops when I took my Antarctica cruise a couple years ago, but since it was -5F with 60mph winds and 5-ft waves, nobody objected to much…
Pilot, hope you did enjoy the alternate stops (once you got past the disappointment). Sounds like some interesting places they visited as alternates.
boo fae, haven’t seen that much wildlife here, we’ll know the weather has changed when the gaggle of geese return to the park here.
Who!
FCM, never been one for competitive eating either, did watch a cable TV program called Man vs Food for a bit, some guy taking on various eating challenges at differnet places. Except for my one foray (and the place did make good burgers), never have been tempted. Enjoy the family get-together. And one of my cards makes it easy to tell them I am going to a foreign country and the other one doesn’t seem to care much. Go figure.
Happy RDOS-time, swampy
And now on with the usual Moanday morning internettin’ Have a good week all.
Did you feel it? The strange shudder that lasted the briefest of moments? Yep, that was me. I dusted. And rollsucked. And cleaned a mirror and the glass on several framed pictures. And now I’m beat.
In an hour or so, I’ll assemble what I need for the pot roast and get it started. I’m allowing 5-ish hours start to finish, with the veggies going in for the last 2 hours or so. I was going to do it in the oven, but I don’t have a proper dutch oven. I do have a big stove-top pot (its handles are plastic, so not oven-safe.) Anyway, I have a little time to chill before I make a mess of my kitchen.
I do not like the whole Happy Homemaker schtick. 
I generally get restless around five ayem, so I was quasi-awake when the earthquake rolled through at 05:02 this morning. It was a magnitude 4.5 off of Orcas Island, which is about 20 miles south of here.
Oh dear - did my dusting trigger an earthquake?!?!? 
Good morning, y’all! It’s 31 right now with an anticipated high of 41 Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Spring is starting to peek around the corner, so I’m hopeful the cold will end sooner rather than later. I haven’t seen any March hares but saw a groundhog last night.
I got an award last night at Scouts for doing the training I was supposed to do and for filling out the paperirk and getting it turned in. It was a nice surprise because I wasn’t expecting it; paperirk tends to get lost in a big black hole at our council office. Two people hunted it down to get it processed so I could get the award at our Court of Honor. I love my troop!
Good morning all. I took off work today and was actually able to sleep in - it’s going to be cloudy all day and that kept the bedroom from getting too bright for me to sleep. I think today will be a nice lazy day, with maybe only an errand or two at most.
Catching up a bit from yesterday…
Coppertone congrats on the new job, and I hope it works out! When do you start?
Northern_Piper good luck on getting the article published
Missred I can’t believe out of all the phrases I could come up with for that acronym, FB Marketplace wasn’t one of them 
Pilot Glad to hear the cruise went well overall, and that plans for BB to move in are still going forward! Also, is it just that cruise line in particular that has such a low success rate for that itinerary this time of year, or is that industry-wide?
FCM sounds like you need to permanently retire from dusting…
A busy but short sort today. Well, I was there longer, because somebody has to clerk Next Day Air letters with hand written labels, and drag 80lbs Next Day Air irregs down the belt and into the package car. I did my Aldi run, didn’t need much, but I did grab the porter cheddar cheese block, because the only, thing better than cheese is cheese with beer in it. Now it’s just naptime, and waiting to hear from the dealership. I hope it costs less than 5 eggs.
Sounds like a Nihilistic Arby’s Tweet.
My childhood dog, Cindy the Great Brown Hunter was death to moles. Every pet since then(cats and dogs), has been unable to hunt anything below medium rare.
There’s a Participation Merit Badge? 
But congrats on getting recognized.
Glad you had a good time, Pilot
Terrific!
YUCK!!!
(Nothing personal of course 
Don’t forget the ominous ‘shop charge.’ That might be at least an egg white or two more…
We just came home from some errands and now I am stupid tired. Fortunately, I have nothing planned between now and my appointment with my therapist late this afternoon.
So now I’ll just go finish my bowl of chicken noodle soup and take a nap.
ETA: Just curious what you might consider a serving size of the Lipton’s Extra Noodle soup. For instance, the package says that 1 envelope makes 3 servings with 70 calories each. I think that 1 envelope makes maybe two servings, but definitely not three. What say you fellow noodle soup eaters??
On the way to 50F today. Gotta hit the grocery for fixin’s for red beans and rice and cornbread for Mardi Gras. Ahhh-heeee! Really missing our favorite food cart in Portland right now. Authentic Cajun food by a Cajun fella and his wife. The shrimp po’boys were to die for. In fact, I’m really missing Portland’s food scene in general lately. You may have read the hype and thought “yeah, right”, but it’s true. Best pizza I’ve ever had, best Cajun, best cheesesteak, and that’s just a few. Compare that to MSP, where the best pizza is Costco, there is no such thing as a good cheesesteak, and as far as I know, there is no Cajun food that isn’t fried. There are good restaurants, but one has to be prepared to spend at least $75/person.
Exercise completed (with weights), cat fed and skritched, dishwasher running. Have a good week, all.
If I may toss my 2¢ in - sometimes stuff happens, mostly weather-related. Sometimes it’s too rough or too windy for a ship to get into a port safely. I’ve had it happen twice - once in Iceland, once in the Bahamas. And my sister was on a cruise last month that couldn’t get into Bimini because of winds. The captain’s primary responsibility is the safety of his ship and its crew/passengers. He knows the limits and he must act accordingly. Passengers my whine about not getting to a port they looked forward to, but they’d whine more if the ship went aground or smashed into a pier and the cruise ended there.
That’s what I think, too, but the dust keeps settling on the furniture, despite my orders!
I have yet to see a serving size that seems reasonable. Like 1/2 cup of cereal - really? Or two cookies? In what parallel universe?
Pot roast is started and simmering. I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make that I keep putting off because I hate talking on the phone. But I’ll get to it. Then in a few more hours, I’ll toss some spud chunks in with the roast. And I should set the table. Sheesh, it never ends!!
They were good for what they were. But instead of more rural pursuits like snowmobiling or dog-sledding or seeing glaciers it was urban pursuits of riding around town looking at buildings where something happened 200 700 years ago or museums or parks.
And we only had one short interval in daylight that was what we all think of as a fjord: deep water adjacent to tall cliffs.
But overall my appetite is whetted to see a lot more of Norway. And probably not from a ship; more time in each place is a better program. Their national rail service is good and much less affected by weather.
Huh? Who are you and what have you done with the real FCM, the one of infinite energy and restless industriousness? The one who does (and reports on) more productive shit by noon Monday than I do all week?
This was Viking and as best I can tell, nobody else tries to run cruises on a northern Norwegian coastal itinerary in winter. There have been 6 sailings on the roughly 2-week cruise since early Dec. The final sailing of the season is in progress now. Through and including my cruise zero of them made it to the far North. Supposedly the same thing was true last winter. One of the cruises earlier this year pressed into poor conditions, encountered 35 foot seas and 100mph wind gusts and did minor damage to the ship during their hasty retreat. “Hasty” taking about 24 hours in beastly conditions.
In our case they chose to not even bother to try. Based on my own professional interpretation of the weather forecasts, that was a wise decision with which I totally agree. My and the other passengers’ complaint is if the cruise line knows this itinerary almost never works, quit selling it! I’m reminded of the Rocky and Bullwinkle bit with the “rabbit” and hat. Which is funny in itself.
But what’s not funny is that I would not have bought a February tour of southern Norwegian cities, nor would most of my shipmates. But ~$20k/couple later they got their money and we got our boat ride to relative mundanity. Because they advertised something they had substantially no practical expectation of actually delivering.
Yeah. It’s all about coming up with calorie, carb, and fat counts that make the food seem tolerably safe / healthy to eat.
The reality of the single serving 1 pound bag of Doritos or 1 quart serving of Ben and Jerry’s would result in very different numbers on those labels. 
Started Typing: 11:19 AM ET
Clicked Reply: 12:47 PM ET
I almost forgot about it being Monday/there being a new thread again! 
I went to catch up on the last thread and thought “huh, there aren’t nearly as many posts as I would have expected” – and then I remembered. This work thing really isn’t going to help my awareness of what day of the week it is! LOL! The good news is that I have a lot more time to stalk the MMP… the bad news is also that I have a lot more time to stalk the MMP. 
In my almost 30 years of being a federal contractor I’ve been lucky enough to never experience a stop-work or furlough before: it is so weird to involuntarily not be working. It definitely doesn’t feel like a vacation or a day “off.” The invitation for the 3pm meeting with HR went out yesterday afternoon, and I’ve confirmed that my direct reports received it. Waiting for that meeting – the not knowing – is harder than I expected.
I’m actually logged into work at the moment: I want to catch any messages that need a response sooner rather than later (I’ve already replied to a couple), and I want my Microsoft Teams status to be “active” in case the boss needs to reach me/all of the program leads. I could accomplish both via my corporate phone, but my work setup is right next to me and as long as I’m putzing around on my personal computer I’d rather just be logged in and able to type on a full-sized keyboard when needed. Except for a lunch break, I’ll probably hang out in my home office through the HR meeting.
I’ve disconnected my government laptop and put it and all of my other customer stuff in the backpack they issued when I joined the program. A very weird silver lining is that now I can use both monitors with my corporate laptop…heh. Of course I’m not doing any work right now, but having the second monitor connected and displaying helps me remember that there’s no government laptop to try to turn on (a reflex when that monitor is black). Whenever I start working on contract close-out activities, the second monitor will be very helpful for the various lists and spreadsheets.
My stress level hasn’t changed since the announcement came out Friday afternoon: it’s moderate, but constant. I will allow myself to indulge in some feelings-eating, but am determined to not let this be an excuse to revert to my pre-surgery eating habits (or as close as I’d be able to get these days). I’ve even looked at my gym’s class schedule: I haven’t gone since my last personal training session in mid-November but I’m still a member, and most classes are included with my membership. It could be good to take advantage of one or two of the easier classes that are only available during the day. I definitely wouldn’t mind being in, say, a “gentle yoga” class with a bunch of older folks!
I picked up the Bricks 'n Brews custom stone cottage Lego kit from the event venue yesterday at around 12:30, and found that the organizers (who I know) didn’t have shareable instructions prepared. They gave me a handout with pictures of a completed model, and I also took some photos myself of the model they had on their table, but I’m going to have to try to figure out how to put it together just from that – though they said I shouldn’t hesitate to let either of them know if I get stuck. I’m intrigued by the challenge, but I definitely wasn’t up for it yesterday…I might wait until disassembly of the Batwing is finished before I tackle it.
After I left there, I took advantage of being less than 3 miles away from a recently-opened Lego reseller and finally visited that store. I was underwhelmed, but I did pick up a tiny little upright piano kit that was designed by the same guy who made the tiny little grand piano kit my BFFs gave me for Thanksgiving. 
It’s something I can put together at my coffee table in ~15 minutes; I’m not sure yet when I’ll assemble it.
I wound up napping in the late afternoon. I’d registered to attend a Zoom jazz performance at 6pm, and I set an alarm for 5:50 but woke up at 5:40. Woot! The show was great: my most recent voice teacher sang, accompanied by a guitarist she’s worked with for a long time.
Time to write some replies, then have lunch!
Such a ruff life!
(I truly cannot believe that doggio didn’t beat me to this! )
Yay! 
Also yay!
Sometimes you make it hard for me to love you. 
Ain’t that often the way…
Good luck! 
Aww, he’s Bailey-sized!
OMG…of course he would already have a name!
Hooray!!
ISWYDT 
! But I have no concept of what Richter scale numbers mean in actuality: how strong was it for you? Enough for things to fall off the walls? If you’d been upright, could you have been knocked down?
1 envelope = 1 serving.
If they meant for that amount to be multiple servings, they should have provided it in multiple envelopes!
I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to tolerate long flights, but if I could, I’d go to Norway. That’s where my great-great-grandfather said “Screw it! You can’t eat gorgeous scenery!” and hightailed it to the U.S. with my G-G-grandmother and G-grandfather in tow. He homesteaded a farm in Minnesota, which must have been a big change from the mountains and oceans back home. I’ve dropped the Google street view guy at the place where his village of origin used to be, and it’s in a lovely wooded farm valley running between two fjords. Nothing remains of the village except two or three farmhouses and a barn or two. The potato blight wasn’t limited to Ireland; I believe it wiped out a lot of communities in Scandinavia, too.
I would never have guessed it was a 4.5. It felt very mild to me, and it was only 20 miles away. If I hadn’t already been semi-awake, I’d probably have slept through it. Nothing fell; and if I’d been standing, I wouldn’t have been knocked down – even with my rubbish knees. The morning news did share texts from people who felt the earthquake, and there was one photo of stuff that was knocked to the floor. I didn’t catch where that was, but I’m guessing it was from someone on Orcas Island or one of the other ones.
Here’s a map from USGS. It’s interactive so that you can zoom in and move around. If you look at the Canadian border, we live on the second bay down from White Rock, BC – 4 miles straight-line distance south.
Afternoon all. Shopping was easy (Gala apples, milk and newspaper) and the Jersey Mike’s sammich was good as usual, so will head out to the swimmin’ place in a little bit. Also need to get my personal training (which I signed up for right before I had the hernia surgery) confirmed to start on Monday the 10th. Otherwise I’ll just enjoy the 60F weather…sort of…
FCM, might run the vacuum here today, which may cause further tremblers. I also checked the light I though was dead and both bulbs are working so must have been my perception that was bad.
Rockin’, conga-rats on the award.
Sticky Buns, can’t help on the Lipton servings, but I just count the calories and eat as much as I figure I am allowed.
Cookie, I’m sure the Minneapolis area has many good foods to try–can’t think of any at the moment but I’m sure they’re there..
I’ve found I have become the same way; years ago I would be on the phone both at home and work quite a bit, but with the almost universal use of e-mail I find making a call to be less and less a priority.
Pilot, I took a bus tour (4-5 days) in Norway and the countryside is worth seeing; if you want something different but also spectacular, try the South Island of New Zealand. And yeah, that was pretty B.S. of the cruise line, albeit I bet that they have disclaimers (in very small type) warming of possible itinerary changes.
Oopsie, hang in there. Lego and Jazz are your safe havens.
Lucky, I am fortunate enough to afford (maybe once every other year) a Business Class (First Class) seat for a 6-8 hour flight. I still remember those 12-14 hour flights in coach…not fun. And as I mentioned above, Norway is worth seeing.
And need to put the bathing suit on and head out to do my laps. Take care all.