Scattered Thoughts . . .

A s I was sitting on the couch this evening, looking out the living room window toward our trash shed, the color difference between the old incandescent Christmas lights and the new LED "warm white" Christmas lights was abundantly obvious.  I said to myself, "I'll have to get a photo of that soon..." but quickly decided that "soon" should be "immediately".   First, I grabbed my Sony a6000 camera body and shot a few photos but, honestly, I wasn't too impressed with the photo quality.  This was partially due to using a relatively slow lens at f4 in the dark so the camera used a very high ISO value making the image a bit too noisy and splotchy for my taste.  Usually, when using this camera, I would choose a faster lens in the f1.8-2.8 range but I had the f4 lens already mounted on the body so I figured I would use that one.  I was hoping that I could counter the relatively slow lens (slower lenses struggle more in low light) by using a feat

A fter using the new Alexa-enabled dimmer light switch for the train room for a few days, I still wasn't completely happy with the lingering potential for future train car disasters on these shelves.  As I mentioned in previous blog entries, when people would reach into the shelves to access the light switch that was mounted flush on the wall inside these shelves, they would sometimes snag or bump a locomotive and the locomotive would come crashing down to the hardwood floor resulting in significant damage to the locomotive(s).   I added an extra shelf immediately below the switch to help mitigate where the arm could swing as well as adding a voice controlled Alexa-enabled dimmer switch but I wasn't convinced this was enough.  After using this new configuration for a few days, I decided I should extend the switch box outward a bit to play it safe.  This would move the dimmer switch closer to the front of these display shelves so people wouldn't have to reach into the shelve

A fter checking the weather forecast for the next 10 days, we decided that today would be the best day to be outside putting up our outside Christmas lights.   We started by trimming a couple of trees around the house.  Some of the branches were touching our roof after our last snowfall a few days ago so these needed to be cut back.  On the positive side, these branches were now available to be used to make a big wreath for our front door.  We make a large wreath every year out of the branches that need to be trimmed off the trees.  So, the first thing we did today was to cut some branches and make a wreath.  This is the most back-breaking work so I wanted to start with this and get it out of the way first.  My spinal injuries have been screaming since moving some snow the other day.  It's been keeping me up at night and I cannot get comfortable.  Well...  not even close to comfortable...  at rest, the pain is around a seven on the 10 point pain scale.   We don't use the front

Sheila and I managed to get to the Christmas decorating a bit early this year so our home has been decorated for Christmas, inside and out, for the past two weeks or so.  For a few months, I was thinking we wouldn't do any Christmas decorating at all this year because I had been feeling so lousy.  Mostly, among a few symptoms, I was in quite a bit of pain and I was overwhelmingly fatigued. I then had a few relatively good health days...  not to be confused with a healthy person's good days...   and the weather was cooperating for outdoor activities with some unseasonably sunny and warm days so we tackled the outdoor decorations.  The weather had jumped into the 70s on this particular weekend so we were outdoors. While we were on a roll with decorating the outside of the house for Christmas, we then moved inside and put up the tree and the rest of the indoor decorations.  I started putting up the tree and put the lights on the tree but Sheila finished decorating the Christmas tr

No matter where I have lived across the country, the weather has always been known to change wildly within a day or even hours.  Even though it is not so uncommon, it is worth mentioning when it does occur.   Last week started out a bit on the cold side which was really average temperatures for this time of year.  Then, on Monday, we had a little bit of a snowstorm that dumped about eight inches of wet, heavy snow on us.   I didn't bother trying to start the snowblower since we have not been leaving the house anyway but I did need to rake the roof and do some shoveling.  The snow was deep and it was heavy so it was a necessity to remove it from the roof.  I knew that it would only get heavier as it melted on the roof and eight inches of snow is a lot of snow.   I wasn't too thrilled about needing to rake the roof so early in the season.  Even a healthy person wouldn't be too thrilled about needing to rake the roof but my spinal injuries take a big hit whenever I need to mov

On our first night in Manhattan, we took a short walk uptown to see the Christmas tree and Christmas decorations in Rockefeller Center.  Somehow, we lucked out and avoided the typical Christmas crowds. I don't know how or why it happened but we actually had plenty of room to spread out and pose for some photos! The last time we visited Rockefeller Center during Christmas, we were in a Manhattan-wide mass of people, shoulder to shoulder, unable to even breath easily. On this particular night last week it was relatively quiet making our visit quite enjoyable... This photo, below, of the Zamboni on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center is one I would never normally shoot but our five year old hockey nut grandson, Lukey, will probably find this photo the most exciting of the bunch so... here it is... A lot of looking upward... Below is a single photo of the building-sized Christmas light show put on by Saks Fifth Avenue each year

Our schedule is pretty full between Thanksgiving weekend and the end of January this holiday season. We had planned to head to Church Street in Burlington yesterday for our annual Christmas celebration in Burlington but I wasn't feeling my best in the morning so we cancelled... then I fell asleep for a few hours... I took some extra medications... showered... and I was feeling a bit better so we decided to head up that way much later than we usually do. We got there in time for a very late mid-afternoon lunch at Vermont Pub & Brewery. Lunch was delicious... the beer was delicious (geez... how I wish all micro-brews were as good as their's)... so Sheila and I had a nice time.  Vermont Pub & Brewery is quite behind schedule with their Christmas decorating. They were decorating while we were there which gave us something to watch and laugh about occasionally! Maybe they'll have finished decorating this tree this afternoon. As darkness fell upon Burlington, w