Spring is springing - Global warming is a crock

I like the title, gets your attention and 1/2 are mad at me and 1/2 are finally!

Well it’s true, “Global Warming” (at least as most people think of it) is a crock.

The general impression is that “global warming” means we will get warmer weather. Actually while the globe may be warming YOUR weather could be doing just about anything. Our weather is just off and weird. Last winter was one of the coldest in history, at least since folks started keeping track. The summer had the “heat dome” and was one of the hottest on record. Now we had a super mild winter and late spring like temps in March! And the Rockies are getting truckloads of snow and freezing temps.

So though the Globe my be warming YMMD.

We are track to be the warmest March on record.

Parts are nice. (for perspective hop back to my first posts from Detroit last year in April)

But come summer there are going to be a ton of bugs. Good thing we have a lot of bats!

Making tracks at Motown Studio A

Aislinn and I wandered over today and ended up singing in studio A! OK so it’s the museum now and nobody was recording but still kind of cool. And it’s an attached garage! This was THE studio for Motown. Only one hit was not recorded there. Well it was recorded in the building but not in the studio... It was recorded in the bathroom! Got to get that “singing in the shower” Motown sound. The studio had a “futz room” (a Fantasy studios term) built in the attic with lots of hard surfaces and a speaker and microphone. Can we say low tech reverb.

It was a LOT of fun walking around.

Motown Museum

If you come out and visit we’ll take you by and you can also sing in studio A - Hitsville USA

BLOGO RIP

It had a fun warped Logoreminded me of Harvey

BUT they haven’t updated it in a LONG time and it doesn’t work with Blogger anymore and that is where my blogs live so...

I’ve looked for an alternative for awhile and there were some promising alternatives but none were as simple and just plain easy to use.

MarsEdit is nice but kind of $$$, and this is just for fun after all.

Mac Journal from Mariner is what I have landed on. It wasn’t really all that blog friendly and the last time I tried it it was convoluted and hard to do what I do, which is not very complicated. Some text a link or two and pictures.

But they came out with a new version and it seems to be much better. Or my brain finally figured it out???

Either way it is working well so maybe I will get back to publishing more than once in a great while.

I have a few drafts so maybe in the next week I will start catching up.

To come.

The trip to the Bay Area.

A capsule of the last few weeks - and a test of some software

I'm testing out some blogging software.  What I had been using has now gone wonky and ??? if they will ever fix it.  But part of the scarcity of posts is lack of a decent tool.

 

But I digress....

 

So, We had fall bounce out close to the last time I posted.

 

A pause for an interesting sign.

 

OK back on topic...

 

 

Then Monty got dressed up for Halloween.

 

 

 

And the green bushes in the back finally decided it was fall.

 

 

Then it turned cold and we started using the fireplace(s).

And Thanksgiving came.  I failed miserably in documenting it so all I have is the morning after shot of the Big ass table (actually two end to end.  It's not so easy to see here but there was plenty of room for more table!

 

And then Winter arrived.  On the 30 of Nov. we had a bit of the white stuff.

 

 

The stubby maple is still pretending it's fall but pretty much everything else has given up.

The recovered dining room.  Thetable in the back is what extended the main table for Tday.

For those that know, we have everything in here we had in SF plus a trunk and the second table.  It's kind of mind boggling.

The once red bushes a week or so later.

It's cold but we only have gotten light snow so you get some pretty interesting images like this one.

 

 

And it's nippy enough in the back bedroom at night the the beast has no problem snugling up.

 

well thats

-30-

The big questions

After the why did you move?, comes:

Did you move on a lark?

I HATE to move, so if it's a lark it's not mine.

Did you know how much it would cost to fix up the house?

Yes and no. It's coming in at almost exactly what I said it would but it's not exactly where I thought it would be spent. And we thought it would spread out over a number of years instead of whacking us all at the same time. O the flip side we will have very must do tasks left.

How can you stand the weather?

I kind of like it. We will have AC next summer so those few really nasty days will be livable, but most of it has been pretty nice. Of course we are heading into winter and that is going to be cold.But, and this is a big ?, so far I like that you have to change things around. You can't wear the same cloths, the same food doesn't really work, etc. It's a little like the Olympics. Was it was once every four years it was special and we all looked forward to it and planned around it, at least a little. Now that there is one every four years it's almost always happening or getting ready to happen... kind of boring. So I'm looking forward to winter because it will be loaded with things that can't be done in the summer. The Bay Area doesn't have a lot of seasonal change, there is some. But san Francisco has a lot less than the East Bay and it all mushestogether a bit. Now ask me in a year if I'm looking forward to winter and it might be a different take.

OK still no pictures but soon really.

Seasons...

So this is what they were talking about!Maybe.

For the first time in months it's warmer in SF than it is here, though that should change in a day or two. Bur SF you go from warm to cold going across the city but here it's pretty consistent in the day. But... Sat was in the 90's, Sun it was nice in the low 80's, Mon. it was in the 50's. That is SF kind of weather. We have had a few days of 50's - 60's so if it's a trend it's "Welcome to Fall". Lots of squash in the market, but still a lot of berries. Where did the summer go. But we are definitely heading into fall.

So time to do winter...

Apple season is just coming in so cider time! And I just got the summer brews in a good place.

OK so winter brews, hard cider, apple jack etc.

house news.

The doorbell is working again, it got broken in the heating adventure (might have been me pulling down pipes).

Wow I started this a while ago... So sorry about the delays. It's been chaos, mostly of my mind.

Well I will finish this off quickly and try to get a better one up in the next day or so.

Roof is almost done, looks great.Heating is done except for inspections and closing walls.The exterior has had some adventures but gets closed up tomorrow and then a week needs to go be before they can paint and then the roofers have to do the portico.

I have to get off my but and give the front drain another shot. If we can't seal it we will have to bypass it and put a redo for that bathroom on a list for another year. It would mean disabling the bath tub but everything else would work.

I have heard from a little bird that the film incentives are getting largely reinstated so things are looking up.

And we are going to be featured in an article in the Detroit Free Press.

Unrelated to that...There is a pop up biergarten that has been happening every Sun. and I have been helping out and I got captured a bit on film so I'm also in the Detroit News.

Here

And Monty won cutest dog at the Living in the V event.

So pictures next time

I'll be fixing some holes... my mind is wandering

HVAC,

Holes, Vacuuming the dust from all those holes, All those damn holes, Calling someone to fix all those damn holes.

I think there is a theme here. We are beginning to refer to the guys as the gods of Destruction. It turns out "minimally invasive" means that they don't strip the walls back to the studs. For some silly reason we thought "a few holes" didn't include ripping two foot wide channels up walls and into ceilings (and cross your fingers , not yet across any ceilings).

To be fair they figured we had balloon construction which is common with this vintage but low and behold we had much sturdier construction. Good in general, bad for running forced air ducting. ANd they would have had to rip into a lot of the same places to get to the water lines that were broken so...It's still a lot of ravage for the poor old house. It's also going to be a LOT of repair work after the fact.

I was pretty resigned to the fact that the house was going to be a construction site till all the work was done, so while it's a bit more than I expected it is in the general ball park. Aislinn however missed the first round when the plumbers were chopping holes (smaller and MUCH fewer) so I think she is kind of in shock right now. Until you go through it it's hard to comprehend the shear volume of dust and that it gets EVERYWHERE. Till they are done and we can really vacuum this dust will be in everything we own and eat.

To a lesser extent it will happen again when we close up all the holes.

But then we will be able to actually start unpacking!

On an up note the deck is almost back together.

And Monty found a new playmate (appropriately named for the houses condition "Dusty").

The electrical is almost done with the first phase.

Bottled yesterday while the power was off, so were stocking up!

so long from the BigD

- 30 -