Last day of the year. 2014 starts tomorrow.  For some reason I think I will tend to write 2114 instead of 2014 (or 2013)

Last day of my wasted vacation. It has been somewhat dissatisfying, lots of windy days, lots of rainy days. I think I made it to the beach twice and didn’t go diving or take the boat out at all.

Last blog post for the year. I took a little break between Christmas and now, but that’s over.

I’m not looking forward to 2014. I don’t want to go to work,  I don’t want my dog (or me or my wife) to grow older. I’m sure it will be better than I expect!

Happy 2014 to you! Wishing you health,  happiness and prosperity.

I didn’t know until this morning, after hearing about the 49ers vs Atlanta game, but apparently Candlestick Park in San Francisco is being closed. I saw the Rolling Stones,   J. Giles and George Thorogood there when I was in the Navy at Mare Island. I’ll never forget it.

Internet picture of the Stones when I saw them in 1981 at Candlestick Park

Arial view of Candlestick Park

I still have my shirt like this… somewhere

I’ve been wanting to tell you about this free program I’ve been using for a long time. It’s called Sync Toy and it’s by Microsoft and you can download it HERE.

Very handy, very basic backup tool. I use it to sync the videos in my wifes and my external hard drive, and to back up my photos.

Very good and free.

Winter solstice: shortest day of the year.

The sun passes through the stones after rising at the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge, in southern England, on the annual Winter Solstice. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Winter may just be getting started, but those looking forward to a bit more daylight have not much longer to wait. Today is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, marking our shortest daylight period and longest night of the year.At 12:11 p.m. EST on December 21, the sun appears directly overhead along the Tropic of Capricorn, at 23.5 degrees south latitude. With the Earth’s north pole at its maximum tilt from the sun, locations north of the equator see the sun follow its lowest and shortest arc across the southern sky. For the next six months, the days again grow longer as the sun spends more time above the horizon.

All locations on Earth see the sun rise and set at its southernmost point along the horizon on the December solstice. This also holds true in the Southern Hemisphere, where the sun takes its longest and highest path across the northern sky.

If you don’t like the cold, and live in the northern hemisphere, the good news is whatever the rest of winter brings, daylight is once again on the upswing.

Washington Post article from HERE

Earth View view for today, 21 Dec 2013

Earth View view for Jun 21, (Summer solstice)

Earth View view for Sep and Mar 21 (Equinoxes)

Today is my first day of vacation. Use it or lose it waste it.
I plan on completing some stuff around the house. Going diving, and going to the beach.
I woke up this morning at 430, waited for the alarm at 5, then got up and showered and now I’m I’m feeding cats.

One of them ran away because of my flash.

That’s my plan of the day. Also it’s Friday! have a good weekend

Today is my last day off work befor vacation. It’s not a real vacation, it’s a waste your vacation use it or lose it before the end of the year. But I don’t mind taking some time off.

It’s quite windy this morning. Yesterday it rained in the afternoon and I was on my scooter but I didn’t get too wet. Maybe I’ll take the car today. Maybe I won’t.

Above is a picture of Pearl. She is quite the grown up girl. I took this yesterday at dinnertime. She has a scoop of cat food with the cats.

That’s it for today. I have a warning on my computer: “Low Disk Space”, I need to delete some files before work.
Have a good day!

Article from HERE

The crossword puzzle will be 100 years old this coming Saturday! The first such puzzle was called a “word-cross,” it is published in the New York World on December 21, 1913. By the 1920s, solving crossword puzzles was so popular that publishers couldn’t print them fast enough. Suddenly, the average person’s vocabulary went up. And psychologists argued about whether the fad was beneficial or damaging.

A Columbia University psychologist, for example, said that crossword puzzles satisfied 45 fundamental desires of the human species; Chicago’s health commissioner endorsed crosswords as a means of calming the nerves. But there was debate: The chairman of Maryland’s Board of Mental Hygiene worried that the puzzles “might easily unbalance a nervous mind” and even lead to psychosis. The New York Times derided crosswords as “a primitive sort of mental exercise,” and the Times of London ran an editorial about the fad headlined, “An Enslaved America.”

I love doing crosswords, I used to do them every day. Here the newspaper doesn’t have real crossword puzzles. A crossword must be symmetrical, the ones in the paper here aren’t.

But you can get a good supply of crossword puzzles at Thinks.com, and you can do them online or print them.

When I woke up,  Sheba was crying at the top of the stairs for her walk. So I walked the dogs and fed the cats before I took my shower. Now, I’m dressed and ready for work and they are acting like it’s time for their walk again.

Sheba in manipulative mode. Being a crybaby.

It’s Tuesday and I am tired. After some months of good sleep, I think I am entering a new insomniac stage. I really like the sleeping good stages much better.

After today, two more days till vacation. Put me on it!

Last night I made my infamous meat loaf, not sure it’s agreeing with me last night and this morning. Let’s just say that if there was a fart contest I would have won it.

I can tell that I’m boring you to tears, so I’ll say bye bye.

Last night we watched the movie “New In Town”. That’s a nice movie.

This morning, I walked the dogs and afterward Ditto couldn’t make it up the stairs. Usually, he waits for you to unclip the leash and then he blasts up the stairs, today was no different, except I heard a whimper and I ran and he was stuck about half way up.  I held him till he quit breathing hard and then helped him up when he was ready. Poor lil fella! I don’t want him to get old.

I’m getting older too. When we moved into this house, there was a big rock that I moved over to the property line. (With a wheelbarrow). I tried to move it again the other day, and couldn’t. I could move it, but not get it on the wheelbarrow. I got some help and two of us couldn’t move it. I figure three people are needed. But I put it there myself, with no help. Unless my memory is failing along with my strength…

Have a good week!