Is there anyone left who doesn't think Hannah is a BIG star?

One last video from Fallon to get to the end.

On this go ahead and answer these questions:

Can she sing? Can she dance? Can she make you look? Can she make you not look away?

Is there anyone left who doesn't accept the obvious fact that Miley is a BIG STAR?

Cleaning up the leftovers?

I suppose most people probably are.

Time passes so, so quickly.  There were some young moderns at Thanksgiving who had never even heard of Bob and Doug McKenzie and their epic ground breaking Canadian content television series, The Great White North.  To be fair, in checking into this I read the Wikipedia article that says they were popular in 1982 and 1983.  Which was, of course, before they were born.

We were explaining to them about the party game popularized by this show, "Beer Hunter".  It turns out that "Beer Hunter" was not a bit on the show, it is a cut on the comedy record album released at the height of the faux brothers popularity.

They also had a movie, Strange Brew.

I already knew the song (and the capitol city) but most of my Canadian accent and slang came from Bob and Doug.

So, take off, eh.  Nice toque hoser.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

The meal was very fine, the stories were entertaining, a good time was had by all.

Meanwhile it appears to me that the Fallon series probably continues right to the end of the month.

For this one you can watch Bruce after if you want to, lots of people love Bruce.  And at a certain point in history who is going to deny that Bruce doing Born to Run was a classic signature moment.

But time passes, Bruce starts to show his age and then he does that really embarrassing too old to do my slide moves Super Bowl half time show.  And after all, Born to Run IS about being young.

So after a while.

Jimmy leads a really good send up.

Are there pants for this?

Just one of Bruce's many versions.

Jimmy saves again

With the POTUS, person on top . . . what is it?

Anyone who can slow jam the news is probably way too cool to be President of the United States.

And by the way, that goes for you too, Chris Christie.

We had turkey day prep here this afternoon/evening (when it is dark by shortly past 5 afternoon/evening seems an appropriate moniker).  Here are the architects/builders of cranberry bread cleaning up after spaghetti squared getting ready to finish the whole bread process.

I tried a couple on the no-flash setting.  The flash worked better this time.

Saved by Jimmy Fallon

So for this first one you might enjoy it more if you have already seen the Harvard baseball team parody.  But don't watch the Harvard boys if you have already seen them.  Just go ahead and jump directly to Jimmy and the original artist.

Harvard baseball.

Jimmy and Carly Rae put the baseball boys to complete shame.

I missed you so, so bad.

That's a real band playing toy instruments.  I particularly like the two guys on kazoo at the end.

A different take on going to the archives

This is my very first blog post on Blogger.  Back when I published this on March 21, 2007, I called it "Vernal Equinox".   The only change I made is that in line with current practice I went to extra large with the photo.  As a result focus seems to be an issue.

Darn cheap pocket camera.

No flood control ditch in 2007, that spruce across the street is a LOT larger now, there is now a varsity softball field including fence down at the far end of the field.

"VERNAL EQUINOX"

The first ride of the year is a long ride, no matter the actual distance.

There is still a fair amount of snow hanging around the end of my driveway but the field in the background is more indicative of the incipient springtime. It is warm enough to ride and has been for a while but the state of the roads has kept me from actually heading out. I hate riding in the slush and as evidenced by the still receding puddle on the cul-de-sac, the snow melt isn't quite over yet.

This is my former winter bike but as I did not ride this winter (or last), it is now my early spring, late fall, bad road conditions bike. It is a Bianchi Axis, a cyclocross bike featuring a higher bottom bracket, aluminum frame, and wider tires, qualities which make it more appropriate for riding on roads still covered with the sand put down for traction purposes during the heart of winter.

On the road again.

EDIT:  I still have that photo on my computer (in a folder called Bicycle07).  I went back and uploaded the photo from original and voila:  focus issues disappear.  The message is beware of relying on image quality of images stored on Blogger.

Scoreboard video intro

Completely out of material.

Weekend sweep of Yale, 15-1.

Next weekend, Princeton at home.

The true north, strong and free

I follow a hockey message board to try to keep up to snuff on information about our favorite hockey team. I don't know if it was actually on that board or on something related but I am sure that it was during hockey related surfing that I came upon this.

I knew that one.  So did the young woman from Canada.

France 3, Ukraine 0 on Tuesday at Stade de France in a European playoff game for qualification for the World Cup Brazil 2014. France advances 3-2 on aggregate.

Sunday night football feature tomorrow is AS Monaco at FC Nantes.

Hot spot

I was looking out the window this morning.  There was a car parked in the cul-de-sac, not outrageously out of the ordinary in the big scheme of things but usually on a Friday morning when a car parks in front of my house I know who it is.

A person got out of the car, produced what at this distance appeared to be a tablet device, fired up a heater and then . . . well, and then just sorta stood there gazing at the screen and having a smoke.

Curious is what I says to myself.

By the way I may have been premature with yesterday's declaration of winter.  The precipitation let up and we really didn't get anything like snow cover.  On the other hand, it was most definitely winter cold out there today.

Also by the way, Friday is trash day.

So we contemplated the scene for a bit and here is what I decided.  She was using my not password protected wireless internet.

We are a hot spot.

That's it for today.

Paradigm shift

It isn't sticking on the street or the driveway yet but the top of the picnic table may be in the process of disappearing from view for the next several months.  It is night out there now, the temperatures are descending, the precipitation is continuing.  It has been cold enough long enough now that the residual summer heat of the ground has dissipated meaning that the only way this stuff leaves now is if the sun can somehow muster the energy to melt it.

November.

This is when it usually happens anyway so no surprise but the seasons are a'changin'.  Welcome to winter.

Technical notes: just standard no flash mode with the outdoor lights on.

If it's Wednesday it must be pot roast

Well, not actually.

We really do not do it every Wednesday.  But, on the other hand, it is definitely the season of the year for pot roast.  The weather gets cold, pot roast comes around several times before it gets warm again. It must be pot roast.

In something of an upset, considering the exigencies of blogging every day for a month, I do not have a photo of the pot roast.  However, I suspect that something about the pot roast may appear elsewhere on the internet in due course.

About yesterday's photo, I am now totally prepared for very low light photography with the fancy camera.  The first option for just ordinarily low light is the no flash mode and hold the camera really steady.  I have done that plenty of times before.  The camera goes to pretty much full automatic mode but there can be a significant delay between the sound indicating that the sensor has begun gathering details until the sound indicating conclusion of data intake.  If you don't hold the camera steady you get blurry.

Yesterday's attempt was in light so low that no flash mode declined to participate.

So here's what you do.

Go to "M" mode.  "M" for manual.  In manual you first rotate the command dial to set the shutter speed.  This can be for anything from 1/4000 of a second to 30 seconds to "bulb" which is indefinite.  In "bulb" you press the button and the sensor continues to gather data until you release the button.

After setting shutter speed you set the aperture by rotating the command dial while holding down the aperture button.

Nothing to it.

But today was pot roast day so I got this photo in regular no flash mode to commemorate the occasion.

First off, as a by the way, I have decided to follow the lead of today's Cautionary Tale and go with the extra large photo format.  I mean, why not?  Especially considering that I am already paying Google $2.50 per month for essentially unlimited storage.  Bigger.  Definitely bigger.

The photo seems unrelated to pot roast but as I said earlier something is probably going to appear elsewhere on the internet soon enough.  And she did eat some of the pot roast.

The picture is of an important step in the replacement of her broken phone.  The replacement got mailed here, she is going through the SIM card, memory card, battery blah blah blah before deciding which of those five cases she will be using to safeguard the new phone.  There was a slight glitch in the set up which meant she had to go to the nearby phone store to get either the SIM or the memory or the battery deal cleared up (SIM I am pretty sure).

The pot roast was good, the phone works, all systems return to go.

And on with the show.

Experimental photography

I tried with my good camera but the circuitry just would NOT operate at these light conditions.  At least not until I read another part of the manual.

So I tried my cheap pocket camera and voila:

My story is that I took that at quarter after five.

OK, that's hyperbole.  But it DOES feel that dark at about quarter after five.

*sigh*  November is long.  And cruel.

Streak ends at 62.

I was at the last one they lost before the streak, I was at 39 of the 62 games of the streak, and Sunday I was there when they finally lost.

The team captain said, it's not that we are now 62-1, all that counts is what we are trying to accomplish this year and this year we are 13-1 and that's pretty good.

Here's some photos taken in France before the streak started.

We have eaten at this Greek place at least four or five times.

Alternative elevator photographer.

The head and hand sculpture at Saint Eustache.

Only in the lower 30s today, too cold for bicycle cycling, plenty OK for a walk to the library.

Ride photos

It was dusk by noon yesterday, not quite as early today, but a couple of November days in the middle of November reinforces my pleasure with my November bicycle ride.

It was a great day on Friday and I hadn't ridden for a while.  Probably things that in mid-season wouldn't have seemed as photo worthy seemed pretty darn photogenic on this late season ride.

So here's the clean-up, the rest of the pictures I took that day.

I had already toured the Fairgrounds and mindful of the end of the season wanted to revisit at least one lake on my bicycle.  The one easily within range was Lake Como.

It is late in the season for pedestrians too which meant that the whole dual path thing at Como actually seemed to be working pretty well, something which it most assuredly does not do during, oh, for example, late April, May, June, July, August, September or early October.  The pedestrian path is closer to the lake and therefore nominally more scenic.  On this day there were few enough pedestrians (and zero bladers) so that the only person on the bike path was moi.  I did something I do not believe I have ever been able to accomplish before.  I rode completely around the lake on the bike path.

So I got down to the far (south) end and I was looking for that bicycle tool station.  Instead I found this nice view of the lake looking north over the fishing dock.

That certainly looks like fall to me.  Like late fall in fact.

I was looking for a spot to photograph my bicycle near the lake when I was able to sneak around a rock and get a relative close up of the wildlife.

Wildlife photography can be pretty tricky.  You try to line something up and the wildlife just won't cooperate.  But then every once in a while you find yourself standing there with your cheap pocket camera instead of your nice camera and the wildlife decides to put on a show.

I had found a nice spot for the bicycle photograph.  I was taking multiple exposures, fooling a bit with the zoom and the settings, on the theory that it isn't film, it is just memory and I would later on submit whatever exposures I had to a rigorous selection process to decide on the best one for publication.  At that moment without any advance warning whatsoever the wildlife decided to put on a show.

I tried and succeeded I think in getting one with both my bicycle and the wildlife in the shot.  They look pretty good just rising off the lake in silhouette against the lake.  I got another shot that fails aesthetically as they had bare trees as a backdrop.  But as they came by my photo spot and started to put the startling sky behind them I had to leave the bicycle mostly out of the shot.

There is still just a hook of a drop bar down there in the corner but the geese are starting to fly.

It was a fun moment on a day of very nice bicycle cycling.

It really seems like fall over there but the light seemed like the best I have had for a long time to get an across the lake shot of the pavilion.

So, that's that.  I am out of photos from Friday's ride.  The weather forecast for tomorrow indicates walking but upper 40s for Tuesday and Wednesday.  I am hoping for at least one more, two would be nice.

Three would be outstanding.

Despite my prolonged abandonment of the bicycle exercise form, I am pleasantly surprised to discover that the season may not be over.

The real reason

It wasn't so much the weather.  There was another reason why I was pretty certain there would be at least one more bicycle ride this year.  I knew that at the end of one more ride that I would come to this:

That photo and the next were taken at the bottom of the driveway.  A couple of clicks on the bicycle computer selector switch produces a reading on a display that only goes up to 1,000.

About seven revolutions of the front tire later at the top of the driveway just before entering the garage I got to this:

It only comes around about once every 1,000 miles, it is worth taking note of.

Three bicycles with at least 9,000 miles, two LOOK brand bicycles with a combined total mileage of  29,202.

And counting.

A day nice enough for bicycle cycling

I was pretty sure I would get at least one more ride this year, I just didn't know it would be on a day as nice as today was.

I have ridden very little for the last month so I was pretty uncertain about my bicycle fitness.  I decided to keep the ride pretty close to home, just in case.  Good pavement close to home always includes a thorough examination of the Fairgrounds.

It is amazing the stuff that goes on over there without me knowing about it if I just let my attention wander for a month.  Earth movers, construction fences, torn up pavement and a horde of men are currently quite busy over there.  A former door prize winner at Teen Age Danceland might be surprised to see that the successor attraction at that location, Heritage Square, has been razed.

The construction project extends all the way around that northwest quadrant of the grounds including complete removal of the last vestiges of the race track.

The signs warning bicyclists and others to stay out of the construction areas refer to the construction project by name as the "West Gate" project.  That makes it my guess that there will be some sort of new entrance portal over there.

I was in the neighborhood and I wanted a photo of my bicycle so I rode up to where I knew there would be a tree I could lean the bicycle against.

My bicycle fitness was not excellent but it was still pretty good and I can report that riding to that location on my bicycle was considerably less taxing than walking over there.  Something to do with chain drives and mechanical advantage, I think.

Actually, I have several more photos from today but November is a long month and with the infrequency of actual rides in my current schedule I think I am going to embargo a few and publish probably a three day report of this November ride.

So, more on all of that later.

1932 Ford Coupe

Widely known by another name, the 32 Ford occurred instantly to me when I looked out into the field this morning.  And it wasn't because I saw John Milner driving around in what the Harrison Ford character in American Graffiti refers to as a "piss yellow deuce coupe".

Nope, what I saw out there was this.

I don't think anyone should plan on any activities out there until at least spring.

Those cows are about two miles from here on the route I followed.  Two miles is well within my range, I was fine on the way out.  Four miles is slightly beyond my range, I started to bog down on the way home.

Cows on foot

It was a really, really nice day for November today, nearly 50 with the sun doing the best that it could from that oblique angle caused by its location down towards the Tropic of Capricorn.  I almost rode my bicycle but it seemed too windy while that was still a possibility.

But I set out to walk into that brisk south wind.  That led me over towards the farm campus and I ended up deciding to try for the first time ever to visit the cows on foot.

My walking fitness is pretty good but . . .

The cows are probably just a teensy bit outside my comfort zone.  I mean I want the exercise but . . .

So there they are, the cows as viewed from out in the middle of the mall, a place I have never been on my bicycle.

It DOES look like a nice day though, doesn't it?

Water solid form

We've had some snow so this isn't like the first appearance of the season of water in a solid form.  Snow, as most of us know, is water falling from the sky in a solid form.

 *pause*

Most of us DO know that, right?

*pause*

OK then, on with the show.

This is the first time this season for me when a little splish of water along the edge of the street has been transformed by the conditions at ground level into something more solid.

*sigh*

Oh, well, on with show.

I thought I might be able to help with this quest but on closer examination I find that I have launched off in a completely new direction.

The new direction is plastic decorations left on the door step long after the holiday season is over.  I believe that I may be able to expand further in this direction with relative ease because I cannot help but notice that there are plenty of people around about here who never take down all of the Christmas lights.

On a related note, considering the first photo and the condition of water at ground level, I wonder if that household is going to regret not having taken that hose in yet.  That hose and whatever residual water it contains is probably every bit as solid as those fake jacks up on the porch.

Walking around money

I am old enough to remember when one cent pieces were still money instead of whatever it is they are now.  I always stoop down to pick up those or any of the other coins representing portions of a dollar whenever I spot them on the ground.  I can remember when doing so could result in a gumball.

Today I was out walking on Eldridge near Hamline when I was confronted with this.

The wind blew so hard the last couple of days that that dollar could have been just about anywhere west of there by at least a couple of miles the last time it was in the custody of a human being.  So I have absolutely no idea where it came from but I stooped over and picked up some walking around money.

I might be able to buy a gumball.

Actually, about pennies, I am pretty sure that they are now pocket chaff best left behind in that tray next to the merchant's cash register.

Here's another take on my relationship with a dollar.  This is from 2010 in France.

That year I took a bunch of dollar coins with me to Paris.  There frequently are buskers in the Metro and less frequently on the streets.  Instead of the Euro or half Euro which most of the other music appreciators were leaving behind, I left dollars.

Canadian content

Okay then, it is periodically necessary to update my license to comment on all things north of the border by including content which if broadcast by CBC would qualify as "Canadian content".  This post is going to qualify as that even though, as most of us know, the Wilson sisters are actually from (south) of the border.

Doesn't matter, Ann and Nancy are officially Canadian content.

And here they are at the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors.  Honorees for 2012 included Led Zeppelin.

So with the three surviving members of the band, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in attendance and with Jason Bonham, son of the deceased original drummer John Bonham sitting in on drums the Wilson sisters and a cast of apparently hundreds absolutely kill the Zeppelin signature "Stairway to Heaven".

In the midst of the crowd the POTUS appears appreciative if just a tiny bit stiff (editorial comment here, that's a lot like his performance at his day job) while his wife seems to be a tiny bit more genuinely rocking it.

And in the honoree's box, both Plant, the singer (center), and Page, the guitarist (white haired gent on Page's left), appear to tear up at the quality of the tribute performance.

The original band in 1973.

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

Elevator music

Small elevator with a mirror on one wall.

Really small elevator.

Plenty of room for three.

After a while everyone had to take an item for recycling every time we left the apartment.

 This one has to be after Roland Garros.

Because the alternative was this.

I didn't take any of those pictures.  I think that is my hand on the bannister down a couple of floors which means that I am in all of them.

First Friday in November which is not November 1

We road tripped again although today's trip was only about 70 minutes, to Saint Cloud.

I tried the "P" mode again for a couple of shots during warm ups.

Work in progress.

Gophers 4, Saint Cloud 1, 60 in a row.

When we visited France in 2010 I brought along my computer.  I didn't know for sure before we went what the state of internet access would be.  It had been four years since our last previous visit.  During that visit in 2006 internet was mostly pretty much totally NOT available.  I was taking a chance.

It turned out that in 2010 we had excellent wireless internet and as a result not only did I post regular blog entries but two other members of the traveling party posted regularly as well.  I had the computer, they downloaded their pictures to my laptop to make the photos available for posting.  As a result I have ALL of the photos from France 2010.

So, I am going to the archives but I am going to archives probably not previously published by me.  These are other people's photographs.

This one is pretty familiar around here, the person foreground used it for her Facebook profile for a long time.

One of the reason she likes it so much is that the rest of her little family is standing back there in front of Esplanade St Eustache.

And so to reverse the where's Waldo find the guy who took the above photo in this photo taken by Wireless.

Expect a theme day based on these archives coming soon.

. . . drift by my window . . .

I am still resisting the idea that winter has arrived but November really isn't putting up much of a fight against it.  The sun is weak, temperatures are persisting somewhat below average, the snow isn't going away.

Meanwhile, the leaves are still falling.  We had the yard raked before the snow but something tells me that we are going to have to try to figure something out to deal with what promises to be plenty more leaves down, down now on top of the snow.

Reminder:  That yard has already been raked.

Bending branches

Some men came yesterday and did a pretty comprehensive fall yard clean up.  Just barely in time.

It was a pretty heavy snow, sticking to the trees and shrubs, easily bending them over.  Of course, I was hoping for a tree limb weakened by the early summer storm to give up the ghost and crash to the ground knocking out the power.  It was not to be.

I was out for a walk just after noon when the heat of the day was finally having some effect on the snow accumulated on the trees.  There were many trees throwing down little clumps of snow as I walked under them, producing a pretty unusual effect.  A more normal part of the scene was nearly every tree throwing down leaves at a high rate.

Those men came yesterday and the yard was pretty clear.  By this afternoon the snow in the back yard is covered with leaves.

It has been an odd year.

I needed a jack-o-lantern this morning

And didn't have one.

We dropped out of that part of the ceremony of the season when TCWUTH began to withhold her labor as the carver of said "jack".  Which is to say, when she left the house to attend college.

No kid carver, no carved pumpkin.

So I didn't have one and it was that ideal day when I could have photographed "frost on the pumpkin", a sure sign of impending seasonal change.  I did the best I could with what I had.

Handsome tree though, don't you agree?  And a seldom previously seen view of our burning bush shrub over there at the corner of the house (not the orange, that's the neighbors front yard, the red behind the purple at the edge of the house).

Election day here, I voted.  I have voted in each and every general election of my life that I have been eligible to vote in.  I am certain.  I am not as certain but I know I missed at least one school board primary and I believe that to be my ONLY miss.

Today there were only two items for voting, one was the election of three members to the school board from a field of four (vote for up to three) and a not technically a renewal or even an extension but some kind of reauthorization of some school bonding.  It is a secret ballot but I only voted for one and I am an enthusiastic supporter of the public schools.

The weather forecast here is fairly dire, mixed precipitation overnight with morning snow including possible accumulations of up to six inches.

Stay tuned.

Early for this

Only November 4 and already I am going to the archives.

Oh, well, it won't be the last time this month.

It was cold and windy today and it rained really hard at approximately noon.  A good day for a nap.

I've always liked this one.

Notice that she has three ponies, two "My Little Ponies" in her hands and her hapless Dad.

Must be Halloween

Because I know that's when his birthday is.

I took some without flash because I like the overall effect, particularly the warmness of the colors.

It is OK of the people who aren't moving about but one person present is only rarely in THAT mode and focus at that slow a shutter speed leaves a bit to be desired.

I wanted to be sure so I switched over to flash mode.

And at least the action is stopped.

The action all took place at Jim and Kim's.  This is Bud and Opal, a daughter, a grandson, a granddaughter-in-law, a granddaughter, a great grandson and a great granddaughter, all in pretty good focus.

Bud today included Opal in his annual longevity brag, he proclaimed that between the two of them they are 182.

Sprung for the day

The young moderns and I had a multi-purpose outing today.  We met up at their house and then Wireless drove us down to Saint Peter.

We had a guided by an alumna (Wireless) abbreviated campus tour including the required for GAC grads stop at what they apparently refer to as "Gus".

The main attraction on campus was the corpse flower, amorphophallus titanum.  They call it "Perry".

They call it a corpse flower because it is allegedly very foul smelling.  We are all pleased to report that in the olfactory sense, Perry was a complete success.  It smells bad.

Perry has its own live video stream.

We walked past the stadium on the way back to the car.

In something of an upset, Gustavus 23, Saint John's 20.

Lunch downtown Saint Peter.

A brewery tour at the Mankato Brewing Company, a craft brewer in North Mankato.

And some hockey.

Gophers 7, Mankato State 0.  59 in a row.

I believe it is safe to say that a good time was had by all.

Note on the photography, I am experimenting with the hockey photography, today I tried the "S" mode which allows me to set shutter speed.  This is my first foray into "S" mode shutter speed and it seems quite obvious that there is still some work to be done.  I only took a couple today and stayed with the default ISO.  Photography is at all times an ongoing experiment and I will probably keep trying but probably next time I am going to fiddle with that electronic equivalent of film speed.  On the other hand, I have had fairly good hockey results in the "P" mode.  Stay tuned.