Long time no blog

Wow, has it really been over three months since I last posted anything here? According to Blogger, it has. It looks like I completely bypassed the Summer, as my last post dropped during the last week of Spring, and this one's being done a couple of weeks into Fall. I think I've officially reached that point in adulthood where months seem to pass by in-between blinks. It's not cool. It's not cool, at all.

This Summer was another busy one, as they always are. No vacations, again. Not a lot of outings in general. It seems like when you live on acreage there's always something, or rather multiple something's, that need to be done. I regret that, sometimes, but more often than not, I'm grateful for where I've been able to end up in life. Besides, all the physical activity keeps me staying in good shape, and also keeps me from having to be out amongst the masses; and all of the crazy that comes with that.

I know that some folks in the past have expressed an interest in hearing about my various animal encounters. The powers that be spent most of the Summer saying that we were having drought, which was probably technically correct, but as someone who loves warm weather, hates rain/snow, it sure was nice. I'm sure that it did negatively effect most of the animals/insects though, as pretty much all of the smaller waterways and ponds were dried up by mid-Summer. Water got put out in various receptacles around the house though, so between that and the couple of deeper creek pools that resisted drying up until just a week or so before the rain came from the recent hurricane, the forest folk were kept hydrated as best as possible. Aside from the warmth, which was much appreciated, another benefit from the so-called drought was that the ticks weren't very bad this year. Normally they show up in the Spring, then dehydrate themselves during the hottest part of the Summer before returning for a second wave near the end of the season. This year though, we only got the first wave, and even that seemed light. 

Despite being outside quite a bit, as usual, my encounters with wee ones were considerably fewer than normal this year. Probably the most exciting, but also briefest, was my finally getting to see a black bear in the yard on my birthday (back in July). As far as birthdays go, this year's wasn't one of the best (certainly not the worst though), as I had to spend the day doing boring adult stuff, which included multiple errands ran to boring adult businesses (and no, not those kind of adult businesses). However, the day was salvaged when, as I was preparing my dinner, I happened to glance out the kitchen window just in time to see the bear in the front yard. I only got to see it for about thirty seconds because it was already across most of the yard. Even from a couple of hundred feet away, I could tell that it was full size, and very healthy looking. From the yearly piles of poop that are found near the house, I knew that we had bears around, it only took ten years to finally see one though. Of course, the way people are so kill-happy around here, it's amazing that there are even any around. I do wish that I would've had more time to get outside and try to talk to it, or at the very least, try to get a photo or two, but I guess just seeing one for a few seconds was good enough for the time being. The funny thing too is, I think I might've been very close to it just two days earlier when I was walking through the creek near the house and heard something large in the woods about thirty to forty feet ahead of me. Whatever it was sounded like it was tearing open a log (it's a very distinct sound) and there were a bunch of blue jays overhead losing their minds. I was traveling via the water in order avoid the dense vegetation along the shore (possible snakes), and would've had to have ventured onto land and go through the woods a bit to get to where the sound was coming from. I have to admit, even though I thought at the time that it might've been a boar (which can be extremely dangerous), I was tempted to get closer, but the mosquitoes were so bad that day, that they forced me to turn back. Was it the bear that I heard? I'll never know.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a very good modern human, in that oftentimes I don't carry a phone/camera on my person, so if something interesting happens I can't always relay the experience via pictures. And even when I do have the phone with me, I'm usually more focused on experiencing the moment than I am thinking that I need to take photos of it. One of the few times that I regret this mindset occurred a couple of months ago while I was helping my mom sort through a pile of building materials. The pile had only been there for a few weeks by that point, but apparently every toad within a square mile radius had decided to move in to the pile during that time. I've never seen so many in one place before. It was like a toad orgy under there. There was also one black widow in there as well, which, while they aren't that uncommon around here (I come across their old webs in the woods during the Winter on a regular basis - they're unmistakable thanks to their messiness), this was the only one I've seen so far this year. Since this pile had been in an area that was about to see more human activity, we ended up relocating all of the toads (not fun trying to catch them all), and the spider, to a safer spot.

One of my least favorite things to do is pull-up/cut unwanted saplings, but it's something that needs to be done a couple of times a year. It was while doing so a few months ago that I got tagged by a saddleback caterpillar. I was cutting one tree, when another sprung back and hit my arm, which produced an almost needle-ish sensation. I thought at first that it was a sticker vine that I didn't see, but after not finding one and then looking around more carefully, I found this little fucker hidden upside down under a leaf...

I actually had my phone with me for once!

Now, there's no shortage of stinging caterpillars around here, and I have seen these before, but didn't know that they were one of the stinging variety. Thankfully, I was wearing a long sleeved shirt, so the effect wasn't too bad. All that was needed was a bit of alcohol (of the rubbing kind), and a strip of duct tape to pull out any of the remaining spines (and arm hair). It ended up being just a minor irritation for a couple of hours, so not the end of the world. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, no, I didn't kill the caterpillar. I did move it to a different area though.

And the only other notable animal thing that I can think of happened just last week while I was doing the yearly cutting back of the grass around the pond. It took me about an hour to do so, as this is done by hand, so as not to have too much of the debris end up in the pond. Anyway, I had just finished when my mom came over to see the final results (it's very transformative), and while I was raking back some of the grass from the water's edge when I heard a small plop and my mom said "Oh". Without looking up, I said "another frog?", to which she replied "no, copperhead". All I could say was "what?". I had just been where she was, and I didn't see it, nor did it apparently care about what I was doing so close by. I've still not seen one since getting here, so this wasn't cool. And of course, rather swim across the top of the water like most snakes would've, this one had to go under the surface. I waited a few minutes too see if it would reemerge (they can only hold their breath for a couple of minutes), but I didn't see it, and there's so many places that it could've come up unnoticed that I just went about doing what I was doing. I finally saw my bear, but obviously the copperhead is gonna have to wait until another time.

Aside from the busyness that comes with Summer, one of the other things that kept me from blogging was another cheap subscription to Ancestry. It was one of those flash sales for previous members, $5 a month for three months. This also happened to coincide with another very cheap subscription to Genealogy Bank, and a slightly less cheap, but still affordable, Newspapers.com subscription. I hadn't ever had all three together at one time before, so I was trying to make the most of it. With me only being able to do about 45 minutes per day of real computering (so as not to trigger my vertigo), it's awfully difficult to take full advantage of those three sites, and try to churn out blog posts at the same time. My Ancestry subscription ran out a little over a week ago, but I was able to get quite a bit done. This post is already running long, and I still have a few things that I'd like to get to, but I have much genealogy stuff I want to talk about, so I'm probably gonna do yet another post on the subject in the very near future (lucky you!).

Oh, but on a quick semi-related note, I was reading somewhere in recent months that there are a number of genealogy groups on the Facebook, most of whom focus on specific countries or peoples. Since I find myself being able to go back very far with certain familial branches, I thought that a few of these groups might be a way to further said branches along; so I did the unthinkable... I joined the Facebook! Being busy trying to do so many other things, I've not done anything with the account since creating it, but will start trying to give it a go in the very near future. I've never done the Facebook before, but I'm hoping it'll be better than the Twitter, as I didn't care for that site one bit.

My mom told me somewhat recently that one of her friends wanted to meet me. Apparently she's talked about me enough that he thinks I'm worth being introduced to. My reply to this request was "why?". Not only have my conversational skills eroded quite a bit over the years (isolation will do that to a person), but as I've come to recently realize, I've turned into a fairly boring person. Pretty much the only topics that I want to discuss anymore are genealogy (mine and yours), hundred year-old amateur baseball teams, 18th and 19th century sailing, and what books I've recently read, or am currently reading (or what you've read, or are currently reading). And maybe postcards too, as those have been my primary collecting interest for much of this past year. My interests have changed so much over the last few years, and I can tell that they're not doing so yet. I feel, dare I say, like I'm beginning to transition into middle age. It's a bit odd, but not all together unpleasant. 

And speaking of recently read books, here's my last three in order:

Crazy '08 is ostensibly about the 1908 Major League baseball season, with a bit more of a lean to, as advertised, the Cubs season in particular. It's pretty good, though the author does let her political leanings start to seep through in a few areas, but ends up corralling them before they get as insufferable as they do in a lot of other modern releases. 

I probably wouldn't have even noticed The Historian as Detective had it not been sitting with the cover facing outwards on an overcrowded shelf at the Book Cellar. It looked very promising, and for a buck I thought it was worth the chance. I'm very glad I took that chance. The editor opens up the book by comparing historians and researchers to fictional detectives, as apparently many of the more prominent folks in these fields were big fans of detective fiction, or at least at the time of this book;s writing they were. The essays focus primarily on research and discoveries/frauds uncovered by historians. The articles themselves were culled from many different sources, and have been edited down to make for more concise reading. There's also a small recommended list of further reading within each chapter that's made up of similar nonfiction, as well as fictional detective stories that are in a similar vein. This part alone was worth the purchase. This book was far better than I could've imagined, and what's more, it introduced me to Richard Altick (more on him in a moment). And as an extra added bonus, my copy was signed by the editor, Robin Winks.

The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England was an absolute joy to read. Highly recommended if you're into this sort of thing. Ian Mortimer breath of knowledge, and ability to write about it, really is quite something. I hadn't been aware of him, or his extensive catalogue, but am now in the process of rectifying that (I just recently got The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England as well).

For the longest time I've been one of those people who holds off buying certain things online in the hopes that maybe someday I'll find it cheaper in person. Meanwhile, years go by, and I never get to experience whatever that thing is because I inevitably never find out in the wild; at any price. I decided at the beginning of the year to try and change this mindset, if only because A). I'm not getting any younger, and B). I truly do believe that many tangible things are gonna start getting even harder to find (in person and online) in the coming years than some of them already are. One of the areas that this, dare I say, toxic, mindset, has negatively impacted me the most is with books. I have a big 'ol wantlist of books that I come across anywhere (at any price), and that aren't available through the local libraries, and yet, many of them are just collecting virtual dust in various online stores while they wait for me to get over my silly hang-up of not wanting to "overpay" the couple of dollars that it would take to get them.

With this in mind, I recently ordered a couple of books from Thrift Books. If you've ever bought anything from them before, than you know that their packaging is less than ideal, but the books themselves tend to be in better shape than described; as was the case with this order.

Both of these have been on my list for a while. Much too long of a while

See, I told you that I'd come back to Richard Altick. I don't know how it was even possible, but Professor Altick has been flying under my radar for far too long. The Scholar Adventurers, has been known to everyone but me. Part of his chapter from this book about James Boswell's papers ("The Secret of the Ebony Cabinet") was featured in the just mentioned The Historian as Detective, and that article was enough alone to make me want to read its original source material. I'm currently reading two books, a George Washington biography and a collection of stories from E.F. Benson, and even though both should be finished with the next couple of days, I couldn't resist starting in on Scholar as well. Even after just a couple of chapters, I can't recommend this book enough, it's so good! Though I should probably caution those that feel like they were born in a later time than they should've been, that this book may intensify those feelings, possibly even causing minor depression, as the kind of research and/or discoveries that are covered in this book are, unfortunately, a thing of the distant past. It also sure makes "researching' via the internet seem a lot less interesting/important than it already is.

Almost all of Mr. Altick's catalogue looks appealing to me, and I have no doubt that I'll own the majority of it at some point. In the meantime though, Victorian People was the only other cheap one that Thrift Books had at the moment. And despite my transitioning into a boring old man I couldn't help but grab a little slice of childhood with Hans Holzer's book.

I've only been to McKay's (the bookstore and so much more in Knoxville) three times this year so far, which is a low since I found it some years ago. Those recap posts are usually one of my favorite things to write about, but even so, I just haven't felt like doing any this year (it probably doesn't help that I'm gonna have to rant about something there that I'm not ready to type out yet). I've done really well in my three trips, and the last one a few weeks ago was no exception. One or two of you might remember how much I enjoy finding things (ephemera) hidden and/or forgotten in books, so while I won't be showing my entire haul, I did want to share one quick book, and the interesting thing that was found between its pages.

I've been on a bit of a biography kick for most of the year, and don't recall ever having read one on Alexander Hamilton before. They had four copies of this book this time, and I figured that it was time to give him a go. As is always the case before I buy a book, I flip through the pages to make sure they're not written in, stuck together, torn, etc.; and in this particular instance, the flip through yielded an interesting find...

I've found lots of interesting things in books over the years, but never any money. It would've been better if it had been a Hamilton, but Abe was pretty good too. I have no doubt that this was intentionally placed in there for a future buyer, which is kind of funny, because I've thought about doing the same thing before. Although, in my case, I envision myself walking around inserting a few lower denomination bills in random books; thereby hopefully bringing a bit of joy to said books future owners. Maybe someday. Needless to say, I did flip through all of the other copies just in case. No more money though. One of the copies was in slightly better condition, but I figured this one might have some good juju attached to it; so that's one that came home with me.

I feel like there's something else that I wanted to mention, but for the life of me, can't remember. Oh well, the post is already kind of long, so whatever it was can probably wait for a future rambling. And I did get to end on a positive (bank) note, which is always nice. As usual, many thanks to those who stuck it out 'til the end.

An inscription that I can sink my teeth into

Sometime late last year my mom gave me a book that she had gotten at one of the places she volunteers at. This has become a fairly regular occurrence in recent years, but this particular book was a bit older than the ones she usually finds for me.

Being sans dust jacket, one would be hard-pressed to identify the title just by looking at the "cover". Book nerds may recognize the publisher's logo though.

A simple turn revealed the title... "Racul" 😆 by Bram Stoker. 

The book has clearly been read a few times over the years, but some hide glue will do wonders for the binding (provided I can ever find any).

The Modern Library was undoubtedly trying to cash in on the renewed interest that came about thanks to Universal's film adaptation of Dracula that was released the previous year.

I have a less than desirable paperback from the 80's, so this was a considerable upgrade. 

The book itself was a nice surprise, but the proverbial "cherry on top" is that it was inscribed...

"November 5th 1935

To Hazel Reid

From

Everett Howell"

That might seem innocuous enough, but given the title, the year in which it was given, and that it was being given to a woman is quite interesting. These days, nobody would think twice about giving a woman any particular book, but things were still different (better?) back in '35. Hazel must've been quite the woman. I'm also infinitely curious as to the relationship between Everett and Hazel. Were they friends? School chums, perhaps? Relations of some sort? Or, as I would like to imagine, was Everett courting Hazel? If so, again, she must've been quite the woman at the time to be the sort who would be receptive to receiving such a book.

I have done some cursory internet sleuthing, but with no location mentioned, it'd be quite the task to locate either of these folks......

---------------------------- Update -------------------------------

I wrote the first part of this post back in March, and then, obviously, never published it. Well, now three months later I've come back to finish it. Before hitting the publish button, I thought I'd give my search for these folks another go, and am happy to report that I've found them. And what's more, apparently one of my original speculations turned out to be correct, as they got married in 1936, so Everett was indeed courting Hazel when he gave her this book. I can honestly say that now that I know who the book belonged to, and the circumstances in which it was given, this instantly becomes one of my most cherished possessions.

Not surprisingly, both have passed, but if it you're curious to read a bit more about these folks, here's Everett, and here's Hazel. 

------------------------ Bonus content -----------------------

My mom has given me a few more books since the beginning of the year, and seeing as how I haven't posted in a while, I thought might be worth padding this one out a bit more by sharing the rest of those...

This book, and the next two, both came from one of my mom's excursions to McKay's.

I've made it no secret over the years how I feel about cellular phones, but, they do occasionally come in handy, especially when it comes to one person being able to instantly ask another whose a couple of hours away what books they still need in a particular series. And I know that I've already mentioned it in a previous post, but damn do I love these Aubrey-Martin stories. The dialogue between characters almost makes me swoon with giddiness. And all of the esoteric language and phrases are just a thing of sheer bliss. 

Everything from here on came from one of the places my mom volunteers at; which I'm hoping most of you would understand why I'm not publically naming either of. She doesn't get a discount at either place (books are generally a dollar apiece though), but does have access to items before the general public, so in some cases, I guess by proxy that means that I do to. It's been nice, at least as far as books go.

It's funny how I had little-to-no interest in anything sailing prior to starting my genealogy research last year, and now I can't seem to get enough of old accounts/fictional stories set in centuries past.

My mom and I are both fans of Harlan Hubbard, and with the Ohio River being such a big part of his life/work, she thought of him, and then me, when she found this book. And what's more, this particular copy has another nice inscription...

And no, I haven't tried to find these people yet, as I just got it a few weeks ago. As an extra added bonus, this book contains a bunch of ephemera tucked in between it's pages; none of which I've look at yet.

My mom already got me a copy of this book a number of years ago, but that one was minty fresh, and signed by the author, and while I don't collect books, I still didn't want to muck it up so I never read it. This one is definitely a reader though, so I fully intend to finally do so.

I wonder if people called Michael are more predisposed to writing about the Hindenburg? If one only had these two books to go by, it might seem somewhat plausible.

I don't usually go to either place that my mom volunteers at, but did go to one a few weeks back. While there, I couldn't help but go through the books. The rest of the books in this post were gotten that day.

I've been spending more and more of my time reading and researching local history, so both of these were must haves. The Cumberland County book is of some note, in that many things of interest (to me) are mentioned in passing, but aren't fleshed out nearly as much as they could've been. I guess those things weren't of interest to the authors.

I'm not reading as much about ancient history as I used to, but this one looked good.

There are a lot of books like this out there, some good, many bad. Where this one will fall is anyone's guess.

My interest in English history wasn't that high before starting my genealogy research. It's grown considerably since then. 

And finally, a biography for a fictional character. I've only read one of the Hornblower stories thus far, but this seems like the sort of book that might actually work better if I read it before reading any more of the original stories.

Oh, and I guess for a bit more bonus content, though not book-related...

I spotted a snapping turtle walking by the patio door last month, likely headed towards either the waterway behind the house, or the pond just beyond that.

By the time I got outside, he, or she, had decided to take a rest amongst the echinacea (which by now is in bloom). Here's the ass end, dinosaur tail and all.

As is always the case with their kind, it turned to face me as I approached. They don't seem to go out of their way to look for a fight, but they're always ready for one if it comes to them. This one wasn't full grown yet, but could still easily take off a human finger with one bite. It should go without saying that I didn't give it a chance to do so; just grabbing a few pictures, and then letting it be.

Ok, no more bonus content for today, I think this was enough, as I'm trying to ease myself back into blogging after taking a few unplanned months off.

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.