Northern Lights in Norway - January 2012

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Just Thinkin'

I was on CNN.com on the web on my phone this morning when I saw the headline to an article "What People Talk About Before They Die" and was intrigued. It was written by Kerry Egan a Hospice Chaplain in Massachusetts. It was meaningful to me, and wanted to share it. Her observations were that most people facing death were not talking as much about the afterlife and a higher being, as they were about their families, and that the love of family is the real face of God.
I don't know what happens when we die, and I'm okay with not having all the answers. I think I'm more of a religious philosopher than anything. I am spiritual, just not in a way that is easy to define. My connection is more to the natural world. I constantly think about the impact of my actions on the world around me.
I was raised in the Unitarian Church, and when I was a teenager I remember having a few conversations with Mom and Dad about religion. Dad defined himself as Christian with a small "c" - that it was more about how we live and what we do, than what we say we believe. Mom said once that she felt that God was the highest level of ourselves, and that positive energy within all of us collectively was God.
I always say I'm the product of my parents, and how both of them approached faith shaped who I am today.

Bits & Pieces

I added a few new links today; a video of the Michigan Central Station, and in my Favorite Websites section I added the link to the homepage of 'Talk To The Station'. The owner is getting feedback directly from the public on how to try and plot the future of the former train station. I truly hope that it is saved and brought to it's former glory, it is a beautiful building, take a look at the archival photographs. The new photos are pretty cool too. The first time I saw it was in the television show 'Detroit 1-8-7'.

Below are my favorite comics from yesterday. The timing of this Non Sequitur could not be more appropriate. What has really cracked me up about the current GOP race, is that everyone is saying the nastiest things about each other in their ads or during the debates. Then when they drop out, they turned around and endorse an opponent they were previously trashing. Is it that politics makes strange bedfellows, or  hypocrites of them all?

Non Sequitur - January 20 2012

The cartoonist Darby Conley does the funniest play on words, I love his comic strip. I was introduced to it by a coworker at T-Mobile about 9 years ago. 

Get Fuzzy - January 20 2012

January 2012 Snowstorm

The view to the south out the living room window.

Thankfully today was my last furlough day and I could stay inside. I think there is an accumulation since Sunday evening of about 8 inches of snow at the house. I was watching the news at 3pm and our temperature was 19 degrees, and with the windchill factored in, 3 degrees! I was stunned by the 80-100 mph winds they had on the Oregon coast.
I am not looking forward to going out in it tomorrow morning. I can't wait for it to warm up and start raining on Friday.
I did not let any of the cats go out in this. TomCat is sitting at the door right now, but it's just too cold. Last night I had let him out and he was fine on the porch, and then a neighborhood dog chased him into the back yard and under the deck. I had to really work at coaxing him out and back in to the house.

Woody is checking out the snow from the living room.

I baked some peanut butter cookies this afternoon to take to work. I experimented and added butterscotch chips to half the batch and chocolate chips to the other half. The butterscotch flavor works great with peanut butter. I am frustrated that they seemed to over-bake again; I've got to fine tune my timing, they are sensitive to that.
Last night's episode of The Mercer Report on CBC, had Rick going to St. John's Newfoundland to the set of 'Republic of Doyle' with Allan Hawco. He had a blast driving the GTO. As usual it was a kick in the pants. The second episode of the new season of 'Doyle' is on tonight, can't wait!

Random Stuff

     I took this video of Munchkin the day I adopted him in August 2010. 

Woody  always reminds me of a shark moving through. 

When Munchkin was a kitten I thought he was long haired, but that didn't turn out to be the case as he grew. He had the most perfect little face when he was a kitten, I was so in love! The 'honeymoon' phase ended when he got big enough to get in to things!  Now that he is older, he gets in to stuff mostly because he gets bored. I'll get up in the morning and find little things on the floor that he has knocked off my desk, he's such a pill but I love him to pieces. I know he doesn't like it, but I am still very protective of him outside. He is very independent and likes to wander, but there is too much trouble that he could get in to around here.

Thursday afternoon at work, completely out of the blue, I was offered the admin position for my region, and am going to be training this coming week and transitioning in to that as Julie leaves. I am still wrapping my head around it. But the sad thing is I'm going to miss Julie who I am replacing, she is such a sweetheart. I've got a lot to learn, I imagine this year is going to wiz by like last year did.

Pauline had her annual vet visit this morning, and she is gaining some weight back, I was relieved. She got her rabies shot and seems to be doing very well for her age. She sure was happy to walk out of the carrier when we got home. That's all for now......

Steve Patterson Halifax Comedy Festival

This is my favorite comedy bit from Steve, this is hilarious, and he is so on with this audience!

John Pinette - Just for Laughs

In one of my visits to Dad & Susan in Detroit he turned me on to the comedy shows on CBC, and now I love the Winnepeg & Halifax Comedy Fest, as well as Just for Laughs.
I originally saw this on CBC, and it is hilarious and no foul language!

Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. on Conan, he is not politically correct, but he is ALWAYS funny-

Conan O'Brien

I was digging around for some of my favorite Conan comedy bits. When you watch it you'll see it's a little dated but still funny,  enjoy!

Munchkin and the paper ball

New Year's Day 2012

This is today's Non Sequitur; I really enjoy this cartoon, and some times he really hits the nail on the head. Sometimes I really think that humans are so arrogant to think that we are the top of the food chain.

It's been a very quiet holiday for me. I've slept in every day for the last two weeks, so it's going to be hard getting up at 6:30 tomorrow. I didn't get nearly as much accomplished with the time off as I had originally planned. But I have discovered a few new things on my computer, which I was hoping, so it's not a total loss. I played around with the Windows Live Movie Maker, and that is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to creating a project with that once I have scanned more of the family slides.
I also felt good creating this blog and learning how to embed a video. The Life of Flowers video I added to my home page is something my step mom Susan forwarded to me a few months ago. I absolutely love it and have lost count of how many times I've viewed it.
I know some of the computer related things I have learned may seem ho-hum, but I've come a long way from where I started.
I have very little formal training, pretty much all hands on in regards to computers. But I recognize the biggest thing I have going for me is curiosity, and that I like to play around and experiment.
I am hoping the weather is better this spring, I was so sick of the rain last year. By the time the weather finally got nice for me to be able to work outside, I ended up working so much with the new job I couldn't get anything done personally.
I am still working on refinishing the old Army desk that I started two summers ago. When I finish that, then the next problem will be figuring out where to put the black table that is in it's spot in the living room!
I also want to start working on my needlepoint project again, I've had to keep it on the top shelf to keep Munchkin out of it. I haven't worked on it in over a year now because he kept chewing on the wool yarn.
I'll upload some pictures of that and the furniture that I have completed refinishing on since 2006 in a future post.

I'm looking forward to the second season of 'Downton Abbey' on PBS next Sunday, and "Republic of Doyle' on CBC, Wednesday the 11th. And new 'Doc Martin' is coming in March, woo hoo!