Day 213

Finally made it home. Here's the deserted airport that welcomed me back.

Day 212

The snow blower.

Day 211

Fire in the fireplace.

Day 210

About 2 to 3 feet snow. I'm stuck here until Thursday. Not in a good mood at all.

Day 209

White (day after) Christmas. 4 inches already with a possible 20 more to come.

Day 208

One of the few Christmas trees visible from outer space. What I want for Christmas is for my flight to not be cancelled by the snow thats coming in the next day or so.

Day 207

Part of my 4 Food Groups of Christmas. There's Italian food, Polish/Jewish food, cookies (above), and bread (the good type that doesn't exist in the south). And I'm neither Italian, nor Polish and certainly not Jewish. Otherwise this would have been my 4 Food Groups of Hanukkah.

Day 206

Aw hell no!

Day 205

You go from having no Christmas cards one day, to a whole bunch another.

Day 204

I stayed up to try to see the lunar eclipse, but the clouds wouldn't let me see anything. While sleeping in, I was woken up bright and early by this.
After years of having warped boards under that window, they decide today to replace them. Nothing but hammering from 9:30 until noon. All 10 feet away from my window.

Day 203

Uh-oh...somebody fell asleep on the production crew...

Day 202

One of the most buttery apple dumplings ever along with dumpster/redneck pie. Both were good.

Day 201

Is your GREEN certified? Can you afford to not have your GREEN certified? You may be one of the thousands of people at risk. Check your colors (or colours) if you think they may be counterfeit. If you do have a forged color(s) (or colour(s)) contact the proper authorities immediately.

Day 200

Comparison shot from the summer.

Day 199

Hey! Look at all that sno... Oh, well. There's another possibility for snow this weekend.

Day 198

So I hear that it's supposed to snow tonight, and I go outside to see whats falling. Well, here's what I see. A whole lotta nothing.
But... the air does feel like it could possibly snow

Day 197

The Vikings dome collapsing. I obviously didn't take this, but I could watch it all day.

Day 196

That's right. A low of 15 tonight and tomorrow. It's not supposed to get that cold here.

Day 195

First snow of the year.

Day 194

Cupcake from the first of many Christmas parties.

Day 193

A fairly unambitious salad.

Day 192

Some pizza tonight. Frozen, not homemade.

Day 191

This doesn't have anything to do with the picture, but it did happen today.

On the way home from the gym a garbage truck decided to block one lane of traffic. You had to drive round it, meaning you were driving on the wrong side of the road. Not a huge deal, so about 8 to 10 cars and I all bunched together go around it. No problem. That is until the car in front of me goes around. 

A soccer mom in her over-sized SUV, and who was not there when we all started out, decided that the first 8 people in this stream were fine getting through, but myself and the car in front of me needed to be taught a lesson. Not only did she try to hit both of us, but we get flipped off as well. 

After that pleasant exchange, we keep going down the road. It widens out into 4 lanes, 2 on each side. For some reason, 2 delivery trucks, one on each side of the street, decide that the start of rush hour is the best time to deliver packages. So 2 lanes of traffic are now also blocked off. I decide I don't need this aggravation and went a different way home. All is fine.

That is until I get to the apartment complex. A guy walking two of his dogs thinks he should be able to walk out in front of me. I don't really mind because I'm nearly home. Still a fair distance away I just stop and wait. But the guy also stops. I'm looking at him, he's staring at me. We just sit there for a good 10-15 seconds. Then he starts playing with his dogs. I think at this point my head was about to explode. "What are you doing?! Why are you doing this?! What the hell is wrong with you?!" All these things flying around in my head. I decide, to hell with it, I'm driving off.

As I get closer and closer, he stops playing with the dogs and just looks at me. His facial expression is really hard to explain in words. It was a mixture of confusion, dishevelment, sadness, and disbelieving. It's as if he thought I was going to let him play with his dogs in the middle of the road/parking lot. I keep on going by, just staring back at him, feeling like a parent or teacher who just saw a child trying to stick their finger in a pencil sharpener. You're disappointed that they don't have enough common sense to know what to do in these situations. And because you have no idea what they're doing or why they're doing it, you've been brought down to their level of incompetence.

And that was the most infuriating thing about this whole event.
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One last thing. 30 years ago, Mark David Chapman read too much into the overrated novel "The Catcher in the Rye" and subsequently took a great musician, songwriter, and activist from this world. John Lennon would have been 70 years old.

Day 190

Fruit cake. The kind that will last long after any nuclear holocaust. And I am one of the few people in the world that actually like to eat it.

Day 189

Out watching the abysmal football game. The Jets must be having a good season if it's taken until week 13 for me to turn the game off.

Day 188

Got the mushroom and Swiss burger with fried pickles at a new restaurant. I really wanted to hate this place because it took over a nice restaurant that was already there. Having said that and having now eaten there, I'm kinda coming around on it.

Day 187

Watching a snoozer of a fight. You get what you pay for. It was free, by the way.

Day 186

Getting some food at the only place I know of that founded by firefighters.

Day 185

Long shadows. Slow day.

Day 184

My Christmas tree. Maybe after a few trips to Target, it'll look different.

Day 183

Wearing a little blue for St. Andrew's Day. Not that anyone nowadays knows or cares who he is or why it's his day. Even though St. Andrew is associated with other countries, I stick with the blue of the Scottish flag. He shouldn't be confused with either the Old Course at St. Andrews or Metallica's St. Anger.

Day 182

Out and about at night.

Day 181

A few more pics from the Thanksgiving weekend.

The capital. 

Some more driving.

The large deer above table at a restaurant.

A stereopticon.

Day 178,179, 180

An impromptu Thanksgiving road trip meant no blog updates for a few days. So here's a bunch of pictures from the trip.

 Somewhere in America.

 Best pie I've had all year.

A whole lotta nothing.

The place to be in Vienna. Vienna WV, that is.

On the road again.

Day 177

A packed bag.

Day 176

Advertising for all the lonely people.

Day 175

Yes. YES.

Day 174

Remember when I said I had the best mugs for root beer floats?

Day 173

The lights are up in the apartment complex.

Day 172

Melted and refrozen healthy* fudgesicle. 

*Healthier than a regular one, that is...

Day 171

No way! Full 3G for the first time since the horrible asinine worthless ill-advised OS4 update.

Day 170

Over a pound of cheese balls. Each. Too much? Probably not.

Day 169

A result of the blustery day. 2 solid inches of leaves.