Category: Memories

Had a nice socially distanced visit and lunch from our other couple friends. It’s good to get some social time in. We were supposed to play Pictionary and maybe Cards Against Humanity at some point but we all talked so much that there wasn’t time by the end of it all. I’m heartbroken that it sounds like their business venture is going to fail mostly due to Covid shutting things down and nobody wanting to go. Not for anything they’ve done because it’s all by the book, just the environment of what’s going on right now with small businesses. There’s a chance they’ll be able to recoup some of their losses but it’s still a letdown – their timing just wasn’t right. After they left we went to Wegman’s for a curbside pickup of some groceries – it’s way cheaper than delivery. I don’t mind too much going into supermarkets but I try to limit my time in them.

This afternoon we have another visitor coming, a colleague of LDs so that’ll be nice – sit by the firepit and burn some troubles away as today is more seasonal for it. I mowed both front and back lawns to clean up the place a bit and get rid of a lot of the fallen leaves. Needless to say we also cleaned the house inside yesterday as well and it looks really good!

Another picture from Gooseberry I’ve taken from the other day. Yesterday I was pretty much just a potato and didn’t do too much.

Just had to getaway for a few hours today to forget about all the craziness around us now, at least for a little while. Here’s a little wooden building at the sanctuary that I think looks pretty cool.

That “debate” last night was awful. I think most people already knew who they are going to vote for anyway before last night, and if they didn’t, uhmm, what’s wrong with them? I think it’s pretty clear we need a change. I’m not thrilled with the candidate, but we can’t go on the way we’ve been going on. That’s really clear to me.

Yesterday I went over to Earth-1 to hang out and visit and while there I decided to pull out the old 8mm movies. I still remember how to run it! The old Keystone 98Z! My grandmother taught me how, and in fact, I think that was really the first time I got into shooting scenes although I didn’t realize it at the time. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the real good films of me and my immediate family – have to look around, there’s one where we all are in makeup as KISS circa 1978 with my mom as Gene Simmons and looks amazing – so we only watched ones of like my uncle’s wedding and my cousins little league games, and ones when they were newborns (boring). There were some gems scattered in there though. There was a scene of me, possibly aged 3 or 4, running around the bases after one of those little league games. I have no recollection of that event. There was also me riding some kind of duck but it didn’t have any eyes for some reason – also no recollection. I enjoyed looking at the cars in some of the shots from the early 1960s and the bouffant hairdos on the women. Some films we had no idea where or who the people were. Let’s just say my grandma’s film labelling wasn’t the greatest. There were some of my mom as a youngster and recently married – so young looking! And some of her practicing for upcoming performances back in the day (she was somewhat of an entertainer back then, her mother, my grandmother, even made all her costumes! Some of them were on these films and they looked killer!) I’ll have to do an entry on this someday because I think it’s pretty cool and I’d like to learn more about that.

I was amazed that I remembered how to run the projector. Not sure if I’d remember how to run the camera, which we still have. I remember you’d load the film and wind it up as you filming the scene, of which you wouldn’t know how it came out until you got it developed and waited 2 or 3 weeks. I remember we would go to Sears and they would send it out and let us know 3 weeks later that it was ready for pickup. Since you couldn’t tell how the movie came out while filming, a lot of times the picture is too dark to see anything or overdeveloped and everything was too white and washed out. I learned early on that it doesn’t work well in darkened rooms. I remember at one point while filming you would have to stop, open the camera, and flip the film over for the second half. These films would them come back to you developed on a reel that you would place on the projector. You feed the film through and kind of thread it through, almost like a sewing machine, until you have enough film the get it onto the second reel, and then watch the movie. The films themselves are only a couple of minutes long, and none have sound. Also can I also mention the original bulb is still in there and still works like a charm? It has got to be over 50 years old! That’s craftsmanship!

While flipping around on the cable channels looking for anything to watch, I happened upon a gem entitled “Killer Prom” on the Lifetime channel of all places. This movie was so bad, it actually kept me interested, even though it really didn’t make any sense. Check it out if you want to cheesily entertained.

Thanks Boston FoxBoston25 for highlighting my pic today! I always get a thrill when some of my work gets shared around.

Installed iPadOS 14.0 last night on the iPad.

Learned that SiriusXM channel 302 is a channel devoted to playing covers by other musicians (24/7 Cover Songs) – I thought that was pretty cool, check it out if you have it.

It was kinda cold outside today. I did sit by the firepit for a bit this afternoon but mostly we stayed in and hibernated.

This afternoon we took a drive out to the Borderlands. Borderland State Park to be more exact. As an aside, parts of Mermaids, Knives Out and Shutter Island were filmed here. We hiked a couple of the trails, first checking out the stately Ames Manor on the property and then walking down the trails toward the pond. I went a little beyond over to the old farm house built in 1880. Coming back we took the Quiet Woods Trail which lead to the Pond Edge trail bordered along the edge of the pond. We even saw a guy playing guitar by himself on one of the little docks along the pond. Returning home (we are beat!) I fired up the grill and cooked up some turkey burgers along with some corn husks. Just felt like it. Might take a trip to a beach tomorrow for some more nature goodness,

I spent the day in Somerville yesterday and while there I was able to pick up the CO monitor at the Home Depot there in town as I looked on the website and it mentioned that that store had 5 left in stock of the kind I wanted. It also said exactly where in the store it would be, aisle and bay number. That is awesomely convenient. Once back I installed it and it’s good to go now.

What do you know, my photo for the town calendar was selected to be one of the 12 out of over 200 entries! Now the vote is on to see who gets the cover. I’m not expecting to be on the cover but if you want to vote for me I’ll put up the details shortly so please check back here. I’ll probably also link the details on my facebook page shortly.

I dreamt last of a barn owl flying in front of me, from right to left, but as it was flying it was directly looking right at me, not looking at where it was going. I looked up Owl Totem and it could mean a change in direction or insight about a moment of transition. Then again, it was just a dream so who knows, although I do know that I have never dreamed of an owl before.

Also it’s mums season, here’s a couple of pots of mums that we purchased recently:

One thing we have to get around here is more pumpkins and more mums. Give it that really nice autumn feel, although I personally don’t want summer to leave us. I removed some of the empty pots and ones that contained flowers that were past prime to the shed for winter storage and also weeded a bit out in front of the house. Typical fall tasks as the season gets nearer.

Late this afternoon I kept hearing this siren squeal and I was trying to discover what the hell it was, trying to locate the source of the sound. At first I thought it was outside but when it kept going off I needed to investigate. After a few minutes I found that in the cellar the CO detector was alerting that it was dying. It’s one of those lithium battery enclosed devices that you never have to fiddle with until it croaks (which is supposed to be 10 years but this one seemed to be less to me). Anyways I found that the Home Depot in Avon carries them so I’ll probably pick up a new one over the next week or so and take a ride out there, I want to get the same one so I can just mount it on the wall bracket that’s already there and will fit without having to redo stuff.

The west coast on fire, hurricanes in the south, pandemic killing hundreds of thousands, a leader who is taking us down the wrong path, Americans divided, killing and dying, businesses going down the drain, depression setting in the more you think about it. When will things finally get better and we live the way we all should?

We took a ride out to Marshfield this afternoon for some beach time. It was a wonderful day. We hiked about 2 miles along the shore and out back along the sandy dunes to the estuary. We picked up some rocks along the way, just because they looked really cool. I picked up one that to me had a pattern that reminded me of a map of a city and I also found a heart shaped rock. After all that we got our beach chairs and brought them down to the water’s edge, the waves crashing in front of us while the sea breezes blew. It was very relaxing. All in all we must have been there for about three or so hours. It was also the first outing of the new beach chair and I’m satisfied with it.

The sea air always knocks me out. I suspect we’ll be crashing earlier tonight than usual.

Came home and chilled for a bit before making a shepard’s pie for dinner. Watched 60 minutes. Just going to glide now the rest of the way.

My computer keeps wanting to run updates since this morning it finally updated itself to Windows 10 2004 which was the huge update that came out last May. To be honest most of the new features are things I would never use anyway.

We actually had a hawk land on the back deck railing this morning! What a sight that was!

I unpacked my new beach/camping chair this afternoon and it wasn’t what I expected. It’s not the chair I ordered, however after trying it out and looking at it and it’s quality I’ve decided to keep it. Strangely the chair they sent me was actually more expensive than the one I had ordered. The only real difference is it doesn’t have the cooler and it appears to be of a really good build quality, so I’ll take it. Comes in a really nice carrying bag too.

NECN did a section on the news broadcast highlighting one of my photos (where the anchor actually called it beautiful). It was the scene from the Boston seaport with the gull lapping up some water from a puddle in the foreground. It’s always cool to see them highlight my stuff like that.

This afternoon’s movie watch was something a little different as it was animated, plus only I really watched it. Batman: The Killing Joke based off the graphic novel from the 1980s of the same name. Not as good as the book (but how could it be? Nothing could beat Bolland’s artwork from the original, plus they seem to have added some stuff for the whole first half the movie which really didn’t have anything to do with the original source material).

Today is 9-11. Never forget.