Catching up (and other random musings): Part 2

You'd never know it, but I had intended to send this post out into the world about a week after the last one. Obviously that didn't happen. Apparently, I blinked and missed February. Even with an extra day this year the month seems to have come and gone before I could even register that it was here. I guess it's a good thing that I didn't have any hot plans for the month then, otherwise I might've been disappointed.

Originally, this post was probably gonna be about as long, if not longer, than the first one. But, for reasons that I'll get to in a second, it'll most likely now be more of an abbreviated version of what had been planned (lucky you!). I might've even skipped it altogether had I not already said that I'd be doing a second part, but I did, so here we are...

• I don't want to spend too much time on it, especially since I just touched on it in the last post on my card blog, but I did start off part 1 with some health talk so I might as well provide an update on that. The good news is that my suspected occipital neuralgia seems to have gone away. Unfortunately I'm still having trouble with my equilibrium. I don't know if the neuralgia triggered something else, or if this is just something that decided to get going about the same time as the neuralgia. And before anyone says anything, yes, I'll be going to see a doctor. This issue is really effecting how much time I can spend on the computer, as the act of typing seems to be causing the most problems as far as the vertigo is concerned; which I'm assuming has something to do with my eyes trying to follow the rapid movement of my fingers. At the moment, I can do about an hour's worth of typing in the morning -- which does cause problems, but nothing I can't deal with -- and maybe thirty more minutes at night. This has made it difficult to get very many posts out, and/or keep up with the posts from my blogging friends. And on top of that, a few of my normal issues have decided to act up all at the same time, which is a bit unusual, and that's made things a bit more difficult as of late too. But, as I just said in an email the other day, a lot of people out there are much worse off, so with that in mind I try not to complain too much. I'm sure that all of this will pass, I just need to continue to weather the storm in the meantime.

• A couple of days ago I opened up the patio curtain around dawn just in time to see a coyote cutting across the backyard, which isn't an unusual site, but it did remind me of a mildly funny encounter that occurred last summer. Most summer nights I go out and walk around the house sometime around an hour or so before it gets dark. Sometimes I have a reason to, like if something needs to be picked up and put away for the night, or in last summer's case it was often to just go out and talk to pair of friendly bucks (and by friendly I mean, didn't wig out when they saw/heard me) that were out there most nights, but sometimes too it's just to go out and get a few more minutes of fresh air. Anyway, on one particular night I was going to lock up the shed and about halfway there I turned my head to the right only to see a coyote approaching on a course that was sort of parallel to mine, sort of like we were working are way up both sides of an inverted "V". The funny thing though was that the coyote had been looking away from me, and didn't see me until the exact same time that I saw it. We both stopped when we saw each other. I'd say too that we were about 25 feet apart at that point, but would've been meeting at the top of our "V" pretty quickly had we both continued to be looking in the opposite directions. Right after we stopped, and my brain could process this odd encounter, I said "Where are you going?", which prompted the coyote to turn, go back about 10 feet and crouch down behind some slightly higher grass. I then said "I can still see you", the coyote then, after about five seconds, stood back up, and then turned and ran back into the woods. Aside from the unexpectedness of the brief encounter, I was most surprised by the size of this particular coyote, it was noticeably larger than the average coyotes around here. 

It's strange too, because when I first moved here, I'd hear large groups around the house almost every night. Now I only hear them maybe once every couple of weeks or so. On the flipside though, I've seen more of them, especially during the day, in the last 2-3 years than I had in the previous 6-7. I suspect I know why I've been seeing more of them, but don't have any solid proof; which leads me to my next bullet point...

• People are moving here in droves! It's been happening for the last few years now, but I've really only been noticing it since last summer. It's not good. My quiet rural setting is getting considerably less quiet, and seemingly more so on a near daily basis. You don't have to go far either to see this boom, just drive down any road, or the local highway, and you'll see multiple properties being built on. Of course too, even if you couldn't see where the homes are being built, you'd know that the population is increasing just by the amount of traffic that there now is. It's had to have increased ten-fold since I got there. Of course too, when it's just a steady stream of dump trucks, log trucks, and flatbeds carrying large earth movers of various kinds, that's a pretty big indicator as well. Supposedly Californians and New Yorkers make up the largest majority of these recent immigrants (I can't imagine why anyone would want to leave those states 😵), but former Floridians, Texans, and Virginians are amassing as well. I don't think it would bother me as much as it has been if it weren't for the already mentioned additional noise and traffic. Although, considering a lot of these people are coming from places that are all in on the global warming/reducing your carbon footprint thing, they don't seem to be practicing what they've been preaching once they get here, as it seems like the first thing these people do after buying acreage is to clear cut it and put up a big ugly house that people can see from miles around in all directions. Seriously, these houses are fucking ugly, and do not blend in with their surroundings in the least. To me, they're abominations. And I think my soul dies a little bit more every time I see a large wooded area being cleared. Of course too, this is obviously having a very negative impact on all of the animals as well, as they're being forced to move or adapt to areas that they normally wouldn't be found in. I know that none of these people care about that, but I do. It getting so bad, and apparently will not be slowing down anytime soon, that I've even been thinking of potentially moving. I moved here to get away from people, and their noise (and their craziness), and it was great for a few years, but now it's considerably less so.

I realize too that this might come off as a "only I should be allowed to move here" sort of thing, which it isn't, it's just me lamenting about all the wrong kind of people ruining my little slice of solitude.

• I've decided somewhat recently that I'd like to learn how to play the banjo. I couldn't tell you why exactly other than that I just like the way they sound. And supposedly, the banjo is easier to learn than the guitar. So, if I ever wanted to take up guitar afterwards, I'd already have a bit of a head start. I've also kind of been jonesing to try my hand at the violin. That would require considerably more practice, and the given the cost of even a slightly decent violin, I'm not sure how doable this particular interest will be to try. I do feel like I should give both of them a go though. And with the violin I wouldn't even care if I never got very good (ala Jack Benny the character, not the real person, who was quite accomplished) just the act of playing it would probably be enough. One of my great regrets is not taking up piano as a kid. I suspect that I might've been pretty good at it, but am not sure that I would've been able to stick with it, especially if it meant giving any playing time outdoors with friends. That was pretty important to me at the time, and looking back, the memories are even more so now.

• Here's a not-so-hot-take: I hate politics. I hated them before I was of voting age, and hate them even more since. I know a lot of people say this these days, but still end up playing the game, if you will. I on the other hand have never let myself get caught up in it, this being evidenced by the fact that I've never voted in any election, local or national. I know that some people would lose their mind over reading that, blah blah civic duty and so forth, but for me it's simple, I've just never been one to buy what politicians are selling. I bring this up because, while I try to steer clear of all things "news", I do occasionally listen to an FM station (music) that does a news update at the top of each hour; which I do, unfortunately, hear from time to time. Not surprisingly, most of that since the beginning of the year, has just been sound bites from the current president, as well as all of the various hopefuls. And every time I hear one of these all I can think is "I really dislike all of these people" and "Is this really the best we have to offer?". Now, to be fair, the latter is something that I've thought since reaching voting age. It just seems mind boggling to me that we can never get any better options, and from I've observed, are options continue to worsen every four years. This isn't a new thought, I realize that, but often times people who espouse such things will also say that they're voting for so-and-so because they're the lesser of two evils. Well, I don't cotton to that way of thinking. Give me someone worth a damn, or don't give me anyone at all. I have no interest in supporting less evil, even less so when I no longer even see a "lesser evil". I'm often quite thankful that my mom didn't give much creed to politics, and that after his time in Vietnam, my dad didn't trust anything that came out of a politicians mouth, so I was able to grow up in a politic-free environment. Of course, back then politics hadn't permeated everything like they do now. I feel very sorry for today's kids. I've got plenty more to say on this, but I know that you're all gone get a shit-ton of this kind of talk by year's end, so I'll spare you any more (for now).

• My mom mentioned the other day that my oldest cousin would be turning 35 today. I haven't seen him in probably 25 years, and it just doesn't seem like he could be that old already. I still remember when he was born (there's plenty of photos of us together when he was a baby), which to me, does not seem like that could've been 35 years ago already. I don't think I'm ever gonna get comfortable with aging, and hearing things like this just makes it worse.

I had a few more things that I wanted to get to, but I think that I'll save them for another time. It's taken me a few days just to get this far, and I'm really running out of gas. I went to McKay's about a month ago, and I think I'll cover that stuff in the next post. After these last two posts, it'll be nice to get back to one that's a bit more picture oriented.

Catching up (and other random musings): Part 1

Apparently it's been over two months since I last posted on here. Time flies, and so forth...

I'm sure that everyone else feels the same too, but there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything that I'd like to do. And lately, blogging, and just internetting in general, have really taken a back seat to a bunch of other things; some of which I'm planning on discussing here today.

There's much that I'd like to talk about, and zero chance of me getting to all of it in one sitting, so I think I'll try to piecemeal the post over the next few days. Hopefully no more than three. 

I expect today's offering to be stupid-long; apologies in advance.

• As I sit here to start this post on Sunday morning, I find myself coming off of the best night's sleep I've had in at least six months. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I'm awfully grateful. I got about 7 1/2 hours, and didn't wake up once. I usually have to wake up, for whatever reason, at least 5-8 times every night, which ends up yielding maybe 5 to 6 - if I'm lucky - hours of sleep. I guess it's because it's been so long, but I'm just amazed at the clarity of mind that I feel. As opposed to the fog that I'm usually operating under. My energy level seems to be quite a bit higher as well. I almost feel like I've got the strength of 10 Grinches, plus 2. Needless to say, I will not be wasting much of this inevitably brief vigor on this post, or any other computer related thing today. A few more bullet points, and then I'm gonna bounce...

• I haven't done much posting (on any of my blogs) in recent weeks, and I haven't very active in my commenting either. This is mostly because I've been dealing with a bit of an issue as of late, which, going by all of the symptoms, I've self-diagnosed as occipital neuralgia. Trying to figure out what's ailing one via the internet is often iffy at best, but in this instance, I've got every single symptom of this thing, and am fairly confident that that's what it is. And let me tell you, if I'm right, and this is what I've got, you don't ever want it. It is the shits! If it continues to persist too much longer, I think I might actually have to break down and go see a doctor, as nothing I've tried to do to relieve it as worked thus far. I've never had this before, but one of the things that supposedly brings it on for some people is colder weather. And thinking back, I suspect that that might've been what did it.

A few days of Christmas, which is right around the time that the cold weather showed up, I spent a couple of hours working outside one afternoon, and it's been all downhill ever since. Now, me doing shit outside in the cold ain't nothing new, but on this particular day I was woefully under dressed. It didn't seem like it was gonna be so cold before I got out there, and I'm sure that some of you know how it is, you go out, find that's colder than you though, but don't want to go through the trouble of going back inside to put more layers on. Well, that was me. I ended up being outside much longer than planned, and despite the physical activity, never did warm up. I guess that's how you know it's cold. Anyway, later that night a specific spot on both sides of my neck (apparently where the occipital nerves are located) started to hurt. I didn't think much of it and went to bed. I then woke up about 3am with the king of all migraines, and the back of my neck going up into my head was incredibly achy (I don't get migraines in the back of my head, so that neck ache wasn't because of that). It took a while for the migraine to start to subside that day, but the side and back of the neck aches never did. It's a few weeks later now, and I've had even more headaches and migraines than normal, many brief instances of vertigo, nausea galore, two days of pulsatile tinnitus, and whole host of lesser, but not less fun, symptoms. Like I said, it's the shits. I just hope that this isn't another byproduct of my getting older, because while I hate the cold, I hate being stuck inside the house even more. I have started thinking about moving again (more on that later), but I don't think that I can get anywhere warmer for a few more years.

• It's Monday morning now. As expected, my great night of sleep was just an anomaly. I'm making do with five hours... and a headache to start the day. I'm also starting off a bit bummed too. There was an item ending on eBay last night that I really wanted, and didn't get. I was even went above my comfort zone when it came time to bid, but as usual, there's always someone who can, and will, go higher. It wasn't a one of a kind item, so it's not the end of the world -- but still, I'm a bit down over not getting it. Probably will be for another day or two as well.

• Like a lot of other folks, we got our first real bit of winter last week. 

We ended up with around 6-7" of snow, and a bit more in the driftier spots. I don't know if that was the official number, but considering it snowed almost all day Saturday, when the local weather was saying that it wasn't (and wasn't supposed to), I'm not sure that the official numbers would be very accurate. Along with the couple of days of snow, we also had some butt-cold thrown in for good measure:

I know that a lot of people had it worse, but I think I've officially had my fill of winter now. I think the thing that made this stretch so bad here, is that the (back) roads were not being cleared as much as they have been in years past. A couple of days were just brutal out there. I suspect that this is yet another example of the "new normal", in that plow drivers probably just weren't even showing up to work; knowing of course that no one gets fired for such things anymore, because employers are so afraid of not being able to find someone else to replace them. It's a fun new world that we live in, isn't it? Anyway, as of this typing, there's a blue car still sitting across the street from the driveway where it slid off the road sometime during the night a few days ago. I can't remember what night it was, but one of the days the road started to melt and then refroze something fierce that night. From the sounds I heard, it sounded like a couple of trucks went off the road and got stuck too, but none were still there in the morning. Hopefully someone comes and gets their car out at some point. I'm tired of looking at it.

It's funny too because in the days leading up to snowmageadon we had torrential rain that led to minor flooding, along with big winds to keep it company, and even local tornado warnings. And now this week, it's gonna warm up a bit and start dumping rain again, which will undoubtedly lead to more potential flooding.

Oh, and I think I mentioned it last year, but this whole naming of winter storms thing needs to go away. It's dumbfuckery of the highest degree. Whichever behind-the-scenes network psychologist came up with this idea needs to be hunted down and publically shot. And any civilian who goes around referring to a winter storm by name needs to be swatted with a rolled up newspaper. We've gotta stop this before it goes too much further.

• Despite whatever's been wrong with me, I've been outside for at least an hour each of these recent cold days, mostly to put food out for all of the various forest folk that get fed each day. Birds and squirrels are the primary recipient of these offerings, but deer get a bit during the winter too. Probably not nearly as much as they would want, but I figure it's better than nothing. I watched one fellow come out of the woods the other day who had a magnificent antler, that's singular; he only had one. I know the odds will be slim, because he could've lost the other one anywhere, but I decided upon seeing him that once all of this snow melts off in a few days, I'm gonna go spend an hour or two seeing if I can find that other antler. Despite all of my years of wandering around in the woods, I've yet to come upon any antlers. Fingers crossed that this'll be the time that I do. I've been interested in trying my hand at flintknapping, and really need a bit of antler to use for that.

Another recipient has been a lovely little raccoon, though she isn't all that little anymore. This little raccoon started showing up last summer, during the day no less, scrounging around where the doves get fed. After a bunch of days of this, the decision was made to get a bag of dog food and start putting a bowl out for it, as that would be more hardy than birdseed. Not surprisingly, the dog food was a hit. So much so, that it started coming around more than once a day. Cute as it may've been, only one bowl was still being put out. Fast forward about a month, and one day this little raccoon, the same raccoon, showed up with two very small babies in tow. Turns out she was a little mama. Nature's version of babies having babies. Anyway, the babies were adorable beyond belief, as raccoon babies always are. Fast forward even further, and she's been here pretty much every day since, though not so much during the anymore.

I've also developed a bit of a relationship with young squirrel in recent months. The younger ones are always more pleasant to interact with, as they're too young to realize that there supposed to be skittish. I've been on good terms with a few over the last year or so, but they inevitably reach the point where they realize that they're supposed to run away when a larger creature approaches. This most recent gal is different though, as she doesn't seem to be hitting the run-away stage. Of course, I knew that she was a bit different from the start, as she was already missing part of her tail by the first time I saw her. It seemed like a lot of the other squirrels were picking on her too, and actively trying to prevent her from getting any food. This didn't work out very well for them though, as every time I saw this, I went out, knowing that my doing so would scare the rest away, and made sure that she got her own pile of food. Things weren't looking so good a few weeks ago though, as she showed up one day with an eye issue of some sort. I couldn't tell if it was an infection, or an injury. Either way, she was obviously ailing. She didn't come back again for two days after that, and not only did it look worse, but she was moving very slowly too. After that it would be three more days before she came back, and sure seemed like her end was coming sooner than it ought to. I really thought that that was gonna be the last time I saw her, but she came back after another three-day stretch, and wonder of all wonders, not only was her eye looking better, but she seemed to have more pep to her step again. It's since healed completely, and I can now see that she had gotten scratched right above her eye, as there's a small scar that's now visible. She definitely isn't little anymore either; she's more like a baby Buddha. I know that I shouldn't get so attached to wild animals, but it's awfully hard not to when they run up to you every time you walk towards them. As I recently said to my mom, it's been a long time since anyone has been that excited to see me.

• An unplanned day off sees me back here working on this post during the afternoon on Tuesday. One of my other ailments, not related to the one mentioned earlier, got the better of me this morning. Some days it really feels like my body is breaking down earlier than it should be. Ironically, I've received at least a dozen life insurance offers in the mail in recent months, after having never received a single one previously. Is that normal? Is 41 1/2 years old the time when people usually start being flooded by these? Or, as I'm starting to think, do they know something that I don't?

• The snow is melting off pretty quickly now, it's funny how after just a few days of it coating everything, it can start to feel like it's never gonna go away. And someone, or someone's, came and got the blue card during the wee hours of the morning. It was a fairly nice car; I'm surprised that they left there for so long. Makes me wish too that I had less scruples, and could've gone over and seen if there was anything that I could salvage.

• I don't spend a lot of time on the YouTube (thankfully), but a few weeks ago I watched a video on Henri Metisse, the artist, and became quite interested in the collage work that he was doing while mostly confined to bed during his later years. Collage is not something that I've ever been that enamoured with, but I did some looking around after watching the video, and happened upon a form of collage that I had never seen before (very different from what Metisse was doing), and found quite appealing. I've just started playing around with it myself, and while I'm sucking big time at it so far, it's been fun. I have some thoughts on trying to change it a bit more to my liking, but I think I need to get the basics down first before I can start trying to reinvent the wheel. In a similar vein, I've also been spending some of my nights trying out a new (to me) style of drawing, which has been very different from what I usually do.

I can't say that I'll ever show any of this stuff on here, but who knows. I don't why it is, I don't consider myself to be an artist or a writer, but I write stuff for public consumption all the time; without any fear of public criticism, but can't seem to bring myself to do the same with art stuffs. I mean, if someone were to tell me that my writings are the worst thing since unsliced bread, I'd just say "yes, I know", and then move on. But, if someone were to say that one of my drawings looked like the after effects of eating a bad burrito, well, I'd probably up and leave the internet for good. It's nonsensical; this I know, too. I guess art things feel more personal. I really admire, and envy, those that are brave enough to publically share their artwork. And you know, I never envied anyone, for any reason, during the first half of my life. This latter half though, I find my self envying people all the time, and for many different reasons. I think I liked the first half better.

• I had planned for this to be just one long post, but I've still got five more topics written down to get to, and I think I'm already stretching the limits of people's possible interest in me-centric happenings; so I think I'll just retroactively add a "Part 1" to the title, and try to get everything else into a Part 2 sometime in the next week or two. If you made it through this whole post, thank you. If not, I understand.

Free Access to Fold3

[Note: This may be of zero interest to anyone reading, but I still thought it would be worth sharing; just in case...]

I got an email late last night from Fold3 letting me know that they're doing a free access weekend in honor of Veteran's Day. 

Fold3, for those that may not know, is a site dedicated to military records; of all kinds. It's primary use is for genealogical research, but I suppose it could be used for just general military research as well.

I used it a bit earlier this year when I had access to it through a free-trial on Ancestry. I didn't find a lot for me at the time, but like all of these kinds of sites, they're always adding new records, so I'll be looking for anything new that might apply to my family's past.

The free-trial lasts until Sunday at midnight, which isn't a lot of time, but if you find yourself needing more time, they do offer a 7-day free trial as well.

And it case anyone is wondering, no, this wasn't a paid advertisement.

I guess this is all I do now

I hadn't intended to go so long in-between posts on here, but you know what they say about shit... it happens!

The original "next post" on here was supposed to be about an outing I took this past summer, but thanks to some really bad glare, and even worse, a whole host of gnats that were extremely intent on getting into every one of my facial openings, almost all of my pictures from that day turned out completely washed or blurred. Since it would basically be pointless for me to do a recap of the day without photos to accompany the post, I've just decided to scrap it for now. I'll try to go back in the spring and redo some of the photos, hopefully the gnats won't be out in full force that early.

Aside from work, work, and work some more, I haven't done much since my last post on here. The one exception, was two stops at the Book Cellar during October. And while I never planned for this to be an all book blog, they're pretty much all I've got going on right now. So, if the five of you can bear with me for just one more book post (and I'm totally not crossing my fingers behind my back as I type that), I'll try to do something a little different next time.

I never keep track of dates, but I believe the first stop last month was just a few days in, and despite not having as much time to look around as I would've liked, I think I did pretty well...

I don't spend nearly as much time on the YouTube as most people seem to, and if I'm being honest, I've never really been a big fan of the site; and that dislike has only continued to increase with each passing year. That being said, there are a few channels (mostly history based) on there that I do enjoy. One in particular has mentioned/referenced Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series multiple times over the last few years, enough so that I finally decided to give it a go; and boy-howdy have I been missing out on something that I should've been reading for the last couple of decades. In what would hardly be a revelation to millions of other people out there, this book was absolutely fantastic. The interaction between the main characters, the use of historical events/places/people, the archaic (but authentic) language, all come together for a tour-de-force of a book. It may have taken me a ridiculously long-time to try this series, but I'm very glad that I did.

I think it was just in the last post that I mentioned that all of my genealogy research has renewed my interest in American history. So that, combined with the biography kick that I've recently been on, led to the purchase of these. When it comes to biographies, I usually prefer those written in decades past; if only because I don't want them being skewed by modern ideologies.

A few months back, right on the eve of my $1/a month Ancestry membership running out, I found out that a great (times a lot) grandfather on my dad's side hosted General Washington on two separate occasions, so I thought that it might be a good idea to learn a bit more about this old "family friend"; or as I call him, Uncle George 😄

Not much to say about this one, it is next up on my reading list though.

Given it's condition, I went back and forth over whether this would be worth a buck to me or not. After reading it, I'm still not sure. I appreciate what Fields' grandson was trying to do here, that being to clear up the many misconceptions that are/were in the public zeitgeist, and I did like the content; but the layout was brutal, for me. It was a slog to get through this book, so much so that I had to stop halfway through, start and finish another book, then come back and finish this one. 

Here's a good one that some of my card/baseball fan friends might enjoy. Personally, this is now my favorite baseball reference book. I love the way this was done. It's hard to tell, but it's as thick as an old phone book, and probably twice as heavy. Some might say that a book like this is obsolete in the internet age, but I still looking things up in books whenever possible. Besides, there's also a small part of me that's starting to think/plan of a life sans internet, but that's a topic for another time though. Not containing anything past 1990 might be a deterrent for some as well. It doesn't bother me at all. I actually kind of prefer it. I'd be much more into baseball these days if the MLB had never progressed any further than where they were in 1990, and I'm probably not alone in that sentiment.

I did pick up one DVD too. This looked terribly familiar, but I couldn't remember if I had seen it or not. I still wasn't completely sure that I had seen it until the end, as I recognized some of the scenes, but others felt brand new. It was the end though, that made me realize that I must've seen it a long, long time ago. Apparently I disliked it so much that I was able to block most of it out. And you know what, I still dislike it. The only saving graces for me were the presence of Mario Brega as the familiar (but always good) spaghetti western heavy, and the cabin (and it's location) at the end. That cabin is probably where I'd end up if I ever won a large lottery. 

Moving on to the second stop, which was about two weeks later. In years past, I wouldn't have gone again so soon, but for some strange and wonderful reason, their inventory has really picked up this year. I suppose it has something to do with Crossville continuing to grow so much (too much if you ask me), but the store is now almost bursting at the seams with books. The shelves are so fully that books are now ending up on the floor, on top the shelves, etc. It's really great. Every time I go in there it's like a whole new inventory. And what's more, despite the increased business, prices still haven't gone up. I know they will at some point, but in the meantime I'm gonna continue to take advantage of this new found bounty.

This is the third book in the Aubrey-Maturin series. It was on the shelf two weeks earlier, but I wasn't gonna buy a bunch of books in the series until I found out if I'd like the first one or not. As already mentioned, I did, so I had to get this one too. I'm not sure if this series needs to be read in chronological order, but that's how I read things anyway, so this'll have to wait until I find the second book. 

This was a wonderful book, not that I thought it wouldn't be mind you, but you never know. I don't recall reading a book faster than this one in a while either; for me it was one of those "can't put it down" kind of books. This is another one that, were I the sort to review books, I would. I'm not though, so I'll just highly recommend it instead.

I went through a bit of a frontier phase during my late teens, so I don't know how much new material this book will contain for me, but $2 is probably worth it just for a refresher alone.

I can remember quite vividly checking out Florescu and McNally's first two Dracula books from the Library when I was like 12 or 13. I enjoyed both of them quite a bit, but whatever reason, have never gone out of my way to acquire, or even reread them again. Well, now one of the two is out of the way.

Given all of my new found connections to New England, I've been trying to familiarize myself a bit more with that area as well. This probably isn't gonna be the best book for straight-up history, but did it look interesting, so, here we are. I haven't read it yet, but I am already quite familiar with the molasses disaster. It's pretty famous incident.

As an extra added bonus, my mom picked up a few books for me throughout the month as well...

This one came from an estate sale. She said there had been a couple of shelves of old books in one of the photos for the listing, but this was one of the only ones left by the time she was able to get there. It would've been interesting to find out what else had been there (for me and her), but this one works well for me; especially for a leavin'.

I don't usually have any luck finding books at Goodwill, but my mom seems much better luck in that regard. I forgot take a picture of the synopsis, but I think you can figure out what the book is about.

My mom has been volunteering at a thrift store for a few months, and as such has had access to things before they get put out on the shelves. I've gotten a few texts during this time asking if I'm interested in certain things, and while most of it has been a bit overpriced (in my opinion), there have been a few books and videos that have made their way to me; including this one.

I suspect that the couple who wrote this might be a "tad" biased, but for a buck I figured that it would still be worth a try. As an aside, Andrew Jackson's estate and final resting place aren't too far away somewhere around Nashville. The public is allowed to wander the grounds and take a tour of his house. I've been meaning to go for years, but just haven't gotten there yet.

Last two from the thrift store. I almost never mention it anymore, but I still have an interest in old bottles, and while I'm not big on old price guides, I do appreciate any help I can get in trying to identifying the origins of certain bottles. 

Since I now know that I'll be reading this entire series, I figured I might need this. I have no idea how long it might've taken me to find a copy in person, so I just went ahead and bought this one on eBay for less than $4 (w/free shipping). I'm currently going back through the first book and looking up some of the terms in here. A few things are making a bit more sense now.

Well, that's it! Not a bad month for books. I'm certainly not in need of anything to read at the moment, but will probably be adding more to the pile in the next few weeks. If I get enough, or anything really interesting, the odds are pretty good that you'll be hearing about it at some later date.

Two new (to me) books

This has been an odd year for me. Mostly in ways that I can't even put into words. If I wanted to be overly dramatic I'd say that it's been transformative, but that's a fit too flowery for me, so I'll just stick with 'odd'.

Old interests have been falling by the wayside, new interests have emerged to take the place of the old, and a couple of long dormant interests have risen from the ashes to become new once again. 

Most of this change is due in large part to my ongoing genealogical research (I can hear the collective groan now). Though, some of it has also been influenced by what I'd describe as my year-long (so far) attempt at self-improvement. I don't think I've talked about the latter on here yet, and since it'll probably be long-winded when I do, I'll save it for another day. In the meantime, I will say that I sort of feel like, that after "39" years, I've finally found the path that I'm supposed to be on (that sounds pretty dramatic too - sorry!).

One area that's been changing very quickly is in the kind of books that I've been seeking out. A small example of this can be seen in the two books I got at the Book Cellar last week...

We moved to Gresham (OR) when I was 12, and not too long after that I started to develop an interest in coin collecting. I can no longer recall what brought on this new interest, but I do remember being all in from the get-go. This was aided greatly by finding out (via the phone book) that there was a wonderful little shop, Oregon Trail Coin & Stamp, located about two miles from our house (duplex). A lot of my memories from this era are gone, but I can still remember exactly what this place looked like. The left side of the store was dedicated to coins, and the right, stamps. And though it would probably be considered unpleasant to the modern nose, the shop smelt of all things old, which I say in the sincerest form possible. It was a delightful smell, and one that I was already quite accustomed to. You can still find that smell in certain places, but it's not nearly as common as it used to be.

The shop was run by husband and wife duo, and while the guy had a bit of a reputation for being a curmudgeon, he was always nice to me. Of course, I never saw any other kids in there, so maybe he was just forcing himself to be pleasant so that he wouldn't scare off a future caretaker of his preferred hobby. But either way, I never had a problem with him.

The first two or three times I went there, my mom drove me, but every time after that I rode my bike. I don't what the peak hours were for the shop, but I can remember being in there many a summer afternoon, and I was the only customer there. My two primary hobbies at this time were sports cards and coin, and between the two I did not have a lot of money to spend. This was never a deterrent though, as I can remember riding there with all of a dollar (or less) in my pocket on more than a few occasions. Though, in retrospect, this wasn't quite as bad as it seemed, because unbeknownst to me, silver was dipping to an all-time low around this time (I wanna say that was in '95); so my dollar went a lot further towards trying to complete a run of Mercury dimes, which were my favorites at that time. That's another reason too why I have such fond memories of that guy there (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember!), I could, and would, spend an hour or two going through all of the trays of "junk silver", any and all of the Whitman folders, and even some of the binders of pricier things - getting a history lesson all the while - end up spending a dollar or two, and never see any signs of frustration from either of the couple at my taking up so much of there time and then spending so little. 

Like most kids, my interests started to change once the teenage years began. My trips to the store became a lot less frequent, and I think they ended up closing the shop around 1999 or 2000. I still saw them once a year for a few years after that, as they would have a couple of tables at the yearly antique and collectibles show that was held out at the Expo Center. My interest in coins was almost non-existent by that point, but I usually bought a couple of things from them there, mostly just for old-times sake. I don't remember ever seeing them again after about 2005, and I could swear that someone mentioned that the guy had been diagnosed with alzheimer's; which of course would explain why they stopped setting up at the show.

I never did start to actively collect coins again, but unlike a lot of other things, I never sold my collection, and have thought off and on about trying to pick it up again, if only to complete that run of Mercury dimes that I never finished (I probably could've finished way back when, but I was always being sidetracked by other shiny/silver objects). Recently though, I've also started to develop an interest in all things related to colonial coinage; this being a direct result of finding out that certain branches of my family have been here (in the U.S.) for much longer than I would've ever imagined. It just seemed like a good way to try and connect a little more with some of those folks.

Given how extensive the subject matter is, and me being the sort that prefers to read things in printed form, I knew that I'd have to try to find a book, preferably of the cheaper variety, to give me some sense of what was what, and something that I could go back and use for reference when needed as well.

 

There a couple of highly rated $30+ books on colonial coins on Amazon, but I'm not gonna be spending that much on something that I can't flip through before purchasing, and since they appear to be the kind of books that are near impossible to find in the wild, I knew I'd have to look for something else, and I did... in the form of this $1 Whitman guide from 1974 (which also still has the original $2.50 price on the cover).

Obviously the prices are a bit outdated, but since I wasn't buying it for that, it didn't matter. This ended up being exactly what I was looking for, heck, the introduction alone, which is an overview (and then some) of the history of coinage in the United States, was well worth the dollar. I had no idea that pretty much any and all foreign coins were accepted for goods here during the colonial days.

It looks like I'm a bit late to start thinking about acquiring anything from this era though, as from what I've read on a couple of message boards, it seems that, like just about everything else, colonial coins have jumped up considerably in price since the rona got going. And after comparing quite a few of the mostly cheaper (at the time) things in this book against the current going rate on eBay, well, I think I'm just gonna have to be content to learn about the coins; because aside from one particular coin, everything else is way out of my range.

I've always been interested in history, but for the most part that interest has been focused on much further back than colonial (and post colonial) America. But again, thanks to all of my genealogical findings, that interest, or lack thereof, has been changing. I had a pretty good working knowledge of all things Ben Franklin going into this book; but even so, I still learned quite a bit from reading this book (I paused the Shipwrecks book to get to this one sooner), and also now have a bunch of other books written down that'll need to be looked for. If I were the sort who was capable of writing a book review, I'd be very inclined to do so for this one, but alas, that's beyond my abilities -- so in lieu of that, I will just say that this was an immensely enjoyable book, and one that I would highly recommend to anyone who's interested in this era of American history, or it's personalities.

I don't know if all of the copies were printed this way, but as an extra added bonus, mine was of the deckle edge variety; which is something that I absolutely adore. In fact, if I were in charge, all books would have deckled pages. World peace be damned, I want more deckling!

I'm sure that the topics on here will continue to evolve (as I do?), probably becoming even more me-centric, which may not be everyone's cup of tea, so even though I don't mind posting for myself; just know that I do appreciate the few of you that do continue to come around here.

I was surprised to be able to get out and go somewhere else other than the Book Cellar last week as well. I failed miserably at what I went to this other place to try and do, but I did get a lot of pictures while there, so next week's post is gonna be VERY heavy on the pictures.

My most expensive CD

Earlier this year I teased doing some music countdowns, which, at the time, I had fully anticipated getting to much sooner than I have. And while a combination of general busyness and other interests have delayed my list making, I still intend to do said countdowns at some point; though I won't be making the mistake of saying when that might be again. I'll just play it safe and say that they'll start showing up at some later date.

To my surprise, I actually had some time, and the desire, to work on my music lists a couple of days ago. I only put in about an hour, which just saw me going through CD's and adding my favorite songs to the decade appropriate paper lists that I've got going. It was while doing so that an old memory decided to resurface about a particular CD, which then in turn inspired this post.

[Note: I couldn't get a picture of my CD without really bad glare, so I swiped this blurry image from the Google.] 

I've never been much of an impulse buyer/shopper, as I'm usually one to shop around and make sure I get whatever it is I want for the best available price. That being said, I'm not totally immune to making impulse purchases. If I had to guess I'd say that I falter about once every a couple of years or so; and probably haven't made more than ten total impulse purchases in my lifetime. 

Music Millennium is the longest running record store in Portland (OR), and while they've always had a great selection, their prices were usually the highest in town, and thus not a place that I frequented very often when I was growing up. My mom's friend, Bob, had a record store that was much easier on the wallet (plus he was really nice and had a solid inventory), and I was also partial to Jackpot Records as well. But we, and then later, I, did go into Music Millennium once or twice a year. It was on one such yearly visit, back around 2000, that I purchased the above CD there. I had already had a couple of Link Wray records for many years by that point, but didn't own any CD's of his, and when I saw this one on that particular day, I, for whatever reason, was not gonna be leaving without it.

[Note #2: This is the back of my CD, glare and all.]

I can't remember the exact price, but it was either $24 or $26 (brand new), which was by far the most that I had ever paid for a CD, and to this day is still the most that I have ever paid for a CD. The sticker price did give me pause, albeit very briefly, but again, in that moment, I had to have it; and nothing, including the price, was gonna stop me from getting it! And while it was a lot of money at the time, I still own it all of these years later, and I'm sure if I factored in how many times I've listened to it over the years, the price really wouldn't seem that unreasonable. 

This is still the only Link Wray CD that I own. I did at one time have a bootleg live CD, which I can't even remember how I got, but the audio was the shits, so I ended up passing it along to someone else.

Having established the most I've ever paid for a CD, I thought for this post's sake that I'd try to remember what was the highest price I paid for music in other formats, namely on record and cassette.

Probably like 99.9% of my records were acquired long before vinyl became trendy, and were therefor still reasonably priced. I wouldn't put money on it, but I'm pretty sure the most I ever paid for a record was $1.99, and that was from the Value Village that's no longer in Vancouver, WA. There was a stretch there about 10-15 years ago where I'd go in once a week, and pretty much never left without a couple of records (and videos). I'll talk more about that though when I get around to the music countdown (probably during the 80's list).

As far as cassette prices go, that's actually much easier for me to remember, despite the fact that it's going further into my past. Fred Meyer, which if you're not familiar with, is the PNW branch of Kroger (though it was it's own entity way back when), but unlike Kroger, Freddy's has clothes, electronics, toys, etc. Think Target supermarkets long before there were such things. Anyway, when I was a kid they had a killer electronics section (and they had an even better toy section), which included one, sometimes two, depending on which location you were at, whole wall of cassettes (oh, what I wouldn't give to go back and see that again). This was the late 80's and early 90's when cassettes were still king. Not counting singles, which they also had a great selection of, pretty much all of the cassettes were $9.99, and I can recall using much birthday money on getting whatever the latest must have tape was at the time. Unlike most things that used to be expensive that now aren't, I don't regret buying any of my $9.99 tapes, as they brought me a great deal of joy back then, with some of them still doing so to this day (yes, I still listen to cassettes).

I've never been one to solicit comments, but if any of the four people reading this can remember the highest price that they've paid for a piece of music, in any format, and are inclined to share -- well then, consider me interested in hearing about it.

It was nice to get out for a bit

Me trying to get out and do something fun this summer, at least to this point, has not been working out very well. Last week the stars decided to align though, on my birthday no less, and I was able to spend the better part of the morning/early afternoon in Knoxville; and more specifically, at McKay's.

It's been many months since I was last there, and given some of my newer interests (thanks to all of the genealogical research that I've been doing), I had a lot more than normal that I wanted to look for. 

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot for me on this particular day, but I did find a few things (which is always better than none), and since I haven't done one of these kinds of posts in a while, I'm gonna pad it out with some older purchases at the end.

Since they add continually add it to it throughout the day, I always check the free bins before I go in, and then again when I'm leaving. The store hasn't sold VHS tapes since I've been going there, but people must still bring them in from time to time (and then don't want them back after being told that videos aren't accepted), because I have seen a few in the free bins, but I had never seen a group like this in there before. And considering that the store had been open for over an hour before I got there, I'm amazed that these, and the Power Rangers video that I didn't grab, were still there.

The Adventures of Batman & Robin wasn't as good as Batman: The Animated Series, but it was similar enough to still be pretty good. I already tried the Riddler tape, it was in very sad shape, and has since been tossed. Remembering these episodes, that would've been the better of the two.

Despite their ultra modern looking covers, both of these feature a compilation of episodes from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which I can't believe still hasn't been released on DVD or Blu-Ray. As an extra added bonus, both tapes include an episode from the original cartoon, which I haven't seen too many episodes from over the years.

Back to the 90's animated series, this one being in a period box though. I really liked this series during it's original run, but hadn't seen any full episodes since it ended. What a treat it was to watch a few again (both of these tapes worked great); now I want more! As an aside this box had an old McKay's sticker on the front, which is kind of neat, and will be left on.

On to the purchases...

One of my favorite sections is the 'Misc. World History', and both of my books this time came from it. This is a fairly chunky book, and was priced very right (for me) at $2. I started reading this the other day and am enjoying it quite a bit; though it is a bit dense.

At well over 800 pages, this one's pretty chunk too. I really like these kind of speculations, and probably would've bought this one online much sooner had I known that it existed. I don't think that I could've gotten online for $1.50 though, so I guess it's a good thing that I hadn't been aware of it. I don't know if anyone else cares about such things, but just in case, here's a bonus sample of some of the essays:

That was it for books, everything else was DVD's...

For 95¢ I was able to upgrade the video I've had of this for decades to DVD. The only one left to upgrade now is #3. How does everyone feel about the Die Hard franchise? Personally, I enjoy 1-4 quite a bit (#5 doesn't exist in my world). My favorites in order would probably shock some (and possibly break the Twitter), and even though no one asked, they'd go 4, 3, 1, 2. I always enjoyed #3 the most (this despite my not being a fan of Sam Jackson), that is until #4 came out.

I've watched V once a year for decades now, and even though my copy was recorded from the Sci-Fi channel back in the 90's, the many viewings have not degraded the tape in the least. That being said, I have wanted to upgrade it for a while now, and for $2.95 I was finally able to do so.

My final purchase of the day was a mini-splurge on my part. It's hard to tell from the photos, but this set was still sealed. It was also cheaper than the going rate on eBay. Of the great detective series', Poirot is the one that I own the least from. I'm trying to change that though.

Like I said at the beginning, I didn't get much, but it was still really nice to get out and do something that wasn't work related. It was even nicer to be able to go out and do something mildly fun on my birthday, as I can't even recall the last time that I did; I know that I at least hadn't done so in the previous seven birthdays that I've had since moving to Tennessee.

Seeing as how that was kind of a short post, and knowing that I've had some other purchases to show from an afternoon spent hitting up a bunch of places in Crossville a couple of months ago, I figured I might as well finally get to those as well. I thought that this afternoon out might've been from April or May, but the photo folder on my computer says that it was created on 2-21-23. Geez, this year is going quick!

Despite my not realizing just how long ago all of this stuff is from, I do remember the day fairly well -- or at least I remember getting the stuff fairly well. These first couple of books were from the Book Cellar. Every time I think that there can't possibly be any more Alfred Hitchcock collections out there that I don't already own, I find another! This one was really good.

I just finished reading this one a couple of weeks ago, it too was really good. It ended up going in a completely different direction than I had thought it would. And I was talking about V a bit ago, I now know what inspired that series. This was written in 1953 (if I remember correctly), and it's first two chapters are basically how V starts out. They couldn't be more different from each other after that though.

This book ended up being a terrible disappointment. I had really high hopes for it, but struggled mightily to even get past like the 40th page. The copy I bought did have this wonderful inscription though:

I hope that Brandon is dead, otherwise he's a colossal heel for getting rid of this (and the book sucking would not be a good enough reason for parting with it).

They opened a Goodwill in Crossville last September or October, despite there already being four other thrift stores within a mile radius of it. I've been there a few times since, and haven't really been all that impressed thus far. I'm pretty sure that most of the inventory is being brought in from elsewhere (people in that area are very loyal to the pre-existing non-corporate thrift stores), and it's gotta be one of the smallest Goodwill's out there (it's in an old Rite-Aid). I haven't bought much from it yet, but on this day back in February I did find two DVD's (and a puzzle that'll be shown when it gets finished). In all of my years of looking through video's and DVD's at places, I had never once come across High Noon in any format. I had seen it a bunch of times on TCM back when I had cable/satellite, but it was cool to finally be able to get a physical copy of it.

There are a lot of John Wayne collections out there on DVD, but this was one of the nicer ones that I had come across. All of the pictures were cleaned up, and the sound has been brought up as well.

Up until the corona got going, the Dollar Tree that's closest to me had been a good source for cheap books, but has now kind of been the shits for the last few years. The store in Crossville is fairly large as far as DT's go, but for reasons that I can't put my finger on, I really don't like it, and therefor almost never go in. The only reason I went in on this particular day was because my mom had asked me to look for something (which I don't recall finding). I don't know about you, but when I think of Dollar Tree, I don't think of "Hamlet", and yet, they had a big 'ol pile of Hamlet's that day. In fact, this was the only thing I bought there. It felt kind of weird going through the checkout out Dollar Tree with just a copy of "Hamlet" in hand. I had never read the book before, but ended up enjoying it quite a bit more than I thought I would. I really like the way this edition was laid out too.

I don't think that they've officially come out and said it or anything, but judging by the ever dwindling selection, I'm pretty sure that the Hilltoppers thrift store is trying to cut out VHS from their inventory; which is one of the reasons why I rarely ever go in there anymore. To my surprise though, I actually found two pretty solid tapes while there that day.

I never watched Sesame Street when I was a kid, but did like all things Muppets. I've also heard/seen a bunch of Jim Henson interviews over the years, and am generally a fan of him as a person too. This video was a good overview of his career, but like most things of this nature, it could've been longer.

I hadn't seen this picture since probably '95 or '96, so I was a tad bit excited to find a copy of it; which by the way is yet another one that I don't think that I've come across, on any format, in the wild before. I'd be lying if I said that it was one of my favorite films, but it has held up better than I had expected.

Well, I guess I'm now all caught up on my physical media purchases since February(!). I don't know when I'll get back to McKay's again, but it's looking like I'll have a morning to spend in Crossville later this week, and am planning on hitting up at least a few of the places mentioned in this post. I suppose if I hit the motherlode, they'll be another recap in the very near future. If only a couple of items are found though, I'll probably just photograph them and save 'em for another time when I find myself needing some filler again.