pomdla: Nermal Looks at Buddy

pomdla: Nermal Looks at Buddy

You have to look at this! Buddy is blogged! Nermal looks so good!

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Cats Tuesday: For Sale: One Useless Cat

For Sale: One Useless Cat

I have been sick so I forgot to post a new story for today. But I have run across these photos from another site that gave me a chuckle. A lot of cuteness, too. I will be visiting everybody but it will take me all day. Have a wonderful day!

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Birds at VINS

On my wonderful date on April 7, we went to VINS in Quechee and saw these raptors that had been injured and were being treated so that they could then be released. The movie is not good but it holds many great memories.

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Denial Works

If all the stars are out tonight, it will be a nice day tomorrow.
– New England weather lore

It's true: I woke up at 4 AM and the stars were shining into my room through the skylight. I was too excited to go back to bed (and too sick with this cold), so I stumbled downstairs. When I went back to bed at 6 AM the clouds were back, but I didn't care. The storm had broken.

Yesterday was uneventful. Anticipation is worse than reality. It snowed all day but the temperatures seemed to be always above freezing. By dusk the snowfall was very heavy and accumulating and I thought we would be clobbered. But by 11 PM it was over. In bed last night, we all fell asleep to the sound of sleet on the skylights. The cats don't like that sound but I enjoy it. Some cats immediately crawled under the covers. The others laid their ears back in their sleep.

I went to town today to run errands and it seems that the whole world has come out. The wind is very strong but you can tell spring is here. It is lovely and wonderful. Everyone is sick. The clinic won't see anyone anymore with a cold because they are swamped. You can only go if your fever is at or over 101° (38.3° C) or if your congestion becomes suddenly worse. They told me to call back in a week if I am not better. None of us seemed to feel sick today, though, in this beautiful weather.

At EM Brown's the wind flung open the door and took down some ceiling tiles. At the Glover store I heard that St. Johnsbury's power is out. At the post office I heard that half the town has laryngitis, like me. The C&C is putting in new freezers so none of us can find anything anymore. There was no Ben & Jerry's to speak of. When you are sick you need a good supply of Ben & Jerry's. I had to settle for M&M ice cream cookies.

I treated myself to lunch at the Pharmacy and it was wonderful. It was very crowded with 15 people. All the tables and counter stools were full. Everyone was talking about how lucky we were to have missed this storm. We all seem to be enjoying this warm wind.

I relax when the wind roars like a never-ending train as it comes down the mountain behind me. It is a familiar and comforting sound. I love the smell of the wind from the earth and the trees. Mud season is back and I am sick but I am happy. I am no longer isolated. The snow in the back is shrinking so quickly that it is now at the lower level of the windows. I saw a bare spot of earth in front of the house right under the eaves. The sun is out. The icicles are all gone and water is pouring off of the roofs.

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Quechee Falls

Remember my all-day-long date on April 7? I made this video when we went to Quechee.

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!@#$%^&*(()))))___

I really can't take anymore. I still have a 10 foot drift blocking a window and snow up to five feet deep behind the house. I got to the barn before this week's snow only because it was so crusted that I could walk over it. Now I can't get to the barn again and the cats can't get out there either. I thought of going to Anna's in New Haven to sit out this storm and start my "spring break." But they say the wet snow could bring down the lines and I can't leave the house when I may lose power, water, and heat. So I cried. We will get anywhere from one to three feet more. They can't tell us how much because it is a "massive storm", "a complicated and tricky situation."

I have stopped crying and now I am trying to re-think myself into winter: movies, cooking, reading, blogging. It isn't working well. I am going to try denial tomorrow.

Winter Storm Warning

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
407 PM EDT SAT APR 14 2007

...ANOTHER LATE SEASON WINTER STORM TO AFFECT THE NORTH COUNTRY SUNDAY INTO MONDAY...

.LOW PRESSURE DEVELOPING ACROSS THE TENNESSEE VALLEY THIS AFTERNOON WILL MOVE QUICKLY NORTHEAST TO THE MID ATLANTIC COAST BY EARLY SUNDAY... AND INTO SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND BY LATER SUNDAY NIGHT. THE LOW WILL THEN REMAIN NEARLY STATIONARY ACROSS SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND ON MONDAY BEFORE SLIDING SLOWLY OFFSHORE MONDAY NIGHT. AS THE LOW APPROACHES ... COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF MOISTURE WILL FEED INTO THE REGION OFF THE ATLANTIC DURING SUNDAY AND MONDAY. THIS WILL ALLOW WIDESPREAD RAIN AND SNOW TO OVERSPREAD THE ENTIRE REGION DURING SUNDAY. AS TEMPERATURES COOL SUNDAY NIGHT ... PRECIPITATION WILL LIKELY CHANGE TO HEAVY WET SNOW ACROSS MANY AREAS ...WITH SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS LIKELY BY MONDAY MORNING. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO ONCE AGAIN MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO RAIN AT TIMES DURING THE DAY ON MONDAY ... LIMITING ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS TO NORTHERN AREAS OF VERMONT AND NORTHERN NEW YORK. PRECIPITATION WILL THEN SLOWLY TAPER OFF AND CHANGE BACK TO LIGHT SNOW MONDAY NIGHT.

DUE TO THE LIKELIHOOD OF SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS OF WET HEAVY SNOW ... THE POTENTIAL EXISTS THAT SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES MAY OCCUR IN AREAS WHERE SNOW LOAD BECOMES EXCESSIVE. IF YOU ARE PLANNING TRAVEL OR OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES SUNDAY THROUGH MONDAY ... YOU SHOULD MONITOR LATER FORECASTS AND STATEMENTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ... AS TRAVEL WILL LIKELY BECOME HAZARDOUS ACROSS THE AREA.

NYZ029>031-034-VTZ003-004-006>008-016>018-150900-
/O.UPG.KBTV.WS.A.0008.070415T1600Z-070416T1600Z/
/O.NEW.KBTV.WS.W.0008.070415T1200Z-070416T2200Z/
SOUTHEASTERN ST. LAWRENCE - SOUTHERN FRANKLIN-WESTERN CLINTON - WESTERN ESSEX - ORLEANS - ESSEX - LAMOILLE - CALEDONIA- WASHINGTON -
EASTERN FRANKLIN - EASTERN CHITTENDEN - EASTERN ADDISON - INCLUDING THE CITIES OF... STAR LAKE ... SARANAC LAKE ... TUPPER LAKE ... DANNEMORA ... LAKE PLACID ... NEWPORT ... ISLAND POND ... JOHNSON ... STOWE ... ST. JOHNSBURY ... MONTPELIER ... ENOSBURG FALLS ... RICHFORD ... UNDERHILL ... BRISTOL ... RIPTON
407 PM EDT SAT APR 14 2007

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 8 AM SUNDAY TO 6 PM EDT
MONDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BURLINGTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR ALL OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN VERMONT ... AS WELL AS ALL OF NORTHERN NEW YORK ... FOR HEAVY SNOW IN EXCESS OF 6 INCHES. THE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FROM 8 AM SUNDAY TO 6 PM EDT MONDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

WIDESPREAD RAIN AND SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OVERSPREAD ALL OF THE WARNING AREA DURING THE LATE MORNING TO EARLY AFTERNOON HOURS ON SUNDAY. AS TEMPERATURES COOL SUNDAY NIGHT ... PRECIPITATION WILL CHANGE TO ALL SNOW ... WHICH WILL FALL HEAVILY AT TIMES THROUGH MONDAY MORNING. AS MILDER AIR FILTERS INTO THE REGION DURING THE DAY ON MONDAY ... SNOW WILL ONCE AGAIN MIX WITH ... AND POSSIBLY CHANGE TO RAIN AT TIMES ACROSS THE REGION. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED TO VARY WIDELY DURING THIS EVENT ... WITH THE HEAVIEST TOTALS OF 10 TO 20 INCHES POSSIBLE ACROSS THE NORTHERN ADIRONDACKS. ELSEWHERE ... ACCUMULATIONS WILL GENERALLY RANGE FROM 7 TO 14 INCHES ... THOUGH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE ALONG EASTERN FACING SLOPES OF THE NORTHERN GREEN MOUNTAINS.

PLEASE STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO ... YOUR LOCAL MEDIA ... OR GO TO WWW.WEATHER.GOV / BURLINGTON FOR FURTHER UPDATES ON THIS WEATHER SITUATION.

$

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Photo Hunters: Hobby

My new hobby: photography. I enjoy playing with effects with different software. While preparing this post I found a new way to make a banner for my blog: using Image Tricks crop and gamma adjustment. In the future, I will finish this banner and use GIMP to make the final size adjustments. For these photos, I used three days of photos of Jay Peak in Vermont taken on April 10, 11 and 12, 2007 in different light and clouds. All photos were taken from the same spot on the road.

Under each photo I have sparse notes of the software and perhaps the effect that I used. At the end of this post is a linked list of the software. Each link and each photo link will open a new window. You can also go to my Flickr set that I created to collect this work.

This was great fun for the afternoon that I was snowed in (Thursday afternoon, April 12; we are still having winter here).

April 12, 2007

April 11, 2007

April 10, 2007

picnik with vignette and other effects

bloom effect on Image Tricks

circular splash on Image Tricks

flickr toys and ImageWell

ImageWell with black canvas and crop

ImageWell with black canvas and Apple's Grab

flickr toys

flickr toys

flickr toys

Image Tricks Kaleidoscope

Software used:

ImageWell
Image Tricks
iPhoto
Grab
GIMP
picnik.com
flickr toys
dumpr.net
krazydad.com

I can't wait to learn about the hobbies that other people have. Have a great week! I will, I'm going to be on spring break, with or without spring!

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Why I Live In Vermont

Things look brighter in Vermont, originally uploaded by paul+photos=moody.

Be sure to click on the photo to see paul+photos=moody photos.

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Overheard Today

The Missisquoi River this morning.

The people who tell the state people what the real weather is going to be called the road supervisors yesterday or today. They said to be very prepared for the nor'easter that is coming Sunday night through Monday. It will be hurricane force winds and three to four feet snow. It is going to be affecting all of New England very badly. We will be on the cold side of the storm, not the warm side as predicted so far.

This has credence because we all know that road supervisors get more information than we get. That is why the graders clear the sides of the roads the day before a heavier than predicted snowfall. Also, the TV and radio weather people have hinting that the storm could be colder than they think it will be.

I heard this from T who heard it from L who heard it from B who heard it from the road supervisor.

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Red Sox Twitters

The game was called. Spring has retreated. We were allowed to go home an hour early. The drive was the worst of the season because of the wet snow. I slipped several times even though I have studded winter tires on.

But it was a good day. I stopped by the road to take another photo of Jay Peak this morning. A van of parents and students stopped to make sure I was OK. Then another teacher stopped for the same reason. M. told me that she saw me pulled over on Monday and turned around to see if I was OK. I was. I was on Rt. 5 taking a photo of Barton Mountain from the Coventry side. I will have to attach a sign "TAKING PHOTOS" to the car so nobody worries.

The rehearsal for the spring concert was wonderful. I had to sight read because I had failed to practice. But I did fine! I was the best player there! So from now on I will only play with young students who have only one to two years experience on their instruments. It makes me feel great! The concert is May 9.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before vacation. I have activities planned: at least two dates, and a date with my sister in Montpelier for our traditional bookstore tour and lunch at the New England Culinary Institute grill. It may even stop snowing (although as of now, every day on the NOAA forecast has snowflakes in it through Monday).

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Apple! Get Over It!

iPhone ain't worth this delayed release of OS 10.5. You can't choose your own carrier, and there is no service in the Northeast Kingdom. I won't even be allowed to buy one! Cingular can "get me in big trouble" (ooohhhhh I'm scared!) if I go to New Hampshire and smuggle the iPhone into Vermont. Is this corporate high-handedness or is this corporate high-handedness? I took that iPhone off my wishlist one week after it was announced.

From Apple – Hot News:

Apple Statement
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]

The following quote is from an e-mail to me from an Apple retailer in Vermont in response to my question about iPhones not being available in Vermont (18Jan07):

If you have a cell phone and a local 802 # you can go to Boston or another place where Cingular sells service, get the iPhone and Cingular service and because of all the rollover laws keep your VT phone number...

Also Gov. Douglas has a plan to make more wireless and cell service available in VT so this may change.

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Signs of Spring, Signs of Winter, and MSIE Blues

Jay Peak on April 10, 2007 as seen from Rt. 105, North Troy, VT

I had my own personal sign of spring today: Buddy's first kill. He went out in the dark at 5AM this morning, as usual. It was snowing (of course) and cold. Two hours later when I drove the car out of the garage, a cloud of beautiful downy feathers flew around outside the car. I stopped and looked: bird parts were all over the roof of the car. So despite the weather, Buddy was able to kill. No wonder he was exceptionally happy coming in this morning.

Sights on my drive this morning: a flock of turkeys that flew away as I came near. Flew! And rather high, too, and for quite a distance. I've seen them awkwardly flutter short distances before, but never fly like this. There was no chance for me to photograph them. Then there were three deer following a trail in the woods (again, no photo), and a small group of Canadian geese paddling in a Missisquoi-flooded field. (Update: they may not be geese afterall).

Microsoft Internet Explorer, any version, does not display my blog properly. The right hand column shows up on the bottom of the left hand column. If anybody knows how (or if) I can remedy this, please let me know. Why can't Microsoft be like Safari and Firefox?

Most disappointing: we are on another winter storm watch for Thursday. There were rumors all day in school about it with people disputing it and expressing dismay. It is possible that we will get another six inches of snow. This is depressing me. Spring vacation is next week and it's looking more like December and February vacations with over one foot of snow on the ground everywhere.

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Cats Tuesday: The Infinite Cat Project - Cats Watching Felines Watching Moggies

The Infinite Cat Project - Cats watching felines watching moggies. It's a concept!

Somehow somewhere I ran across the above link and clicked. I want to do this so bad! This is like the mirrors in Versailles (so I hear . . . I have never been there!): you see an image of you looking at an image of you looking at an image of you. On and on into infinity. This is a version of mathematical recursion and I love this stuff.

Buddy was lounging on the futon. I plopped the laptop in front of him and started taking pictures. I had read the directions but do you think that I thought I had to follow directions?

Look at all the fur on the futon cover!
And look at how red and irritated my hands are from washing them all day at school.
(I do follow CDC guidelines to prevent flu infection).
And Buddy is not cooperating!

But even worse: look at the dirt on my brand new MacBook! It's disgusting!

There is too much glare on the screen (gee, they mentioned that)!

NO Buddy, not me! The screen! Look at the screen!

Oh gee, not only is Buddy bored and now irritated but we woke up Possum on the other side!

OK, now the afgan is covering up the fur and Buddy is watching the screen.
But the glare! And the dirty keyboard!

OUCH! HE BIT ME!

AWWW he loves me again. Our session is all over, though. It's time for Buddy to sleep after a five minute vigorous workout with the MacBook. But I shall succeed and be a part of this recursion project!

(I have no idea what "moggies" are, but I sure hope it's a clean and not a dirty thing!)

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Staghorn Sumac Mystery

The mystery plant that the robins were eating is staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina). Patti of 2nd Grade Teacher blog gave me the identification. According to my National Audubon Society Field Guide to Wildflowers: Eastern Region:

The soft hairy covering on the branches, resembling that on a deer's antlers when in velvet, accounts for the common name. The species name indicates the supposed resemblance of the branches to cattails (Typha). Its bark and leaves are a source of tannin, and the downy fruits are eaten by many songbirds and game birds, particularly in winter. False Poison Sumac (R. michauxii), a southern species found from Virginia to Floria, resembles a dwarf Staghorn Sumac, but its leaflets are green and downy on the underside.

Patti adds:

We use it to make tea, sometimes. It makes a pinkish, lemony liquid - very refreshing. I like to make my Christmas wreath from sumac, but I feel guilty taking it away from the birds!

Thank you Patti!

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Andrew At GWU

I found a pdf file from George Washington University from the time that Andrew was a graduate student there. They featured him in order to advertise their graduate programs. I used ImageWell and Apple's Preview to edit the pamphlet for this new image.
And now? Andrew is a practicing psychologist (research, not clinical) and is planning his Ph.D. studies!
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Easter In The Kingdom

Photos: I-91 Northbound, Sheffield Heights (Sheffield), Vermont, 4.7.07, 4PM

The best thing to be said about April snow is that the roads usually remain clear. That's good because it is still snowing today.

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Happy Easter!

created on dumpr.net

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Microsoft is Dead

An interesting and satisfying post by Paul Graham:
Microsoft is Dead

Photo Hunters: Clean

Robins in Clean New Fallen Snow

(clicking on a photo will open a new window)

My imagination failing me for this week's "clean" theme, I choose to use these photos that I took on Thursday. Snow is clean, right? ;=)

These are the first robins I have seen in the Kingdom this spring (others have seen some in late March). The day that you see your first robin of spring is said to be your lucky day. We had a snowstorm instead! The photos were taken in Newport City, Vermont.

If anyone can identify the big woody plant that they were feasting on, please tell me!

I am happily going on a date all day Saturday, so I won't be commenting until Saturday night and Sunday (I know you will all understand!). WHOO HOO!!

The End! (get it?!)

Happy blogging everybody! It may stop snowing yet!

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Good Friday Confusion

4/6/07: A burned-out cabin on the River Road, North Troy.
The Missisquoi River is behind.

I was on my break when VPR was playing Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. I confused the portion I heard with the Easter section of the Messiah and became disoriented. It was snowing, cold and windy. The roads were covered with packed snow and it was blowing through the air as if it were mid-winter. Messiah is traditionally, now, Christmas music, and I hear it every Christmas. What was the date? Very quickly I realized that the music was clearly Bach and not Handel. I also realized how important context is to me and how strongly I weave seemingly unrelated things into my perceptions and expectations of the world.

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