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.

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.