Go Off On A Tangent.  It is so fun to see how our little blog group of 4 has grown and  developed in the past 2+ years.  It has been so exciting to not only read each others posts but to come to know each of these great people.  What started as theatre acquaintances has grown into a group of the best friends I have ever had.  That is what has made our little gang of tangenteers so special:

• Taylhis describes her life as a stay at home mom, with her fabulous hubby, and their four wonderful kids and their menagerie of pets.  At times humorous, thought-provoking, but always insightful!  She may not have a great amount of time but I love reading every post she has the time to create.  And with baseball season finally approaching… you can bet she will be going in-depth (as much as possible) on  another season of her beloved Cubbies!

• Derek has documented the many roles he has played as a substitute teacher in the burbs of a great metropolitan area, to youth group leader, and finally to his position in the auto industry.  Postings are a bit spread out but always fascinating.

• The “Old Admin“… well what can we say about him.  I think he last posted way back in October.  I have been waiting on an Office post since da Bears’ season has come and gone once again.

• Justj joined our gang a few months after we started.  His random thoughts center a lot on his family which I find truly endearing but also delve into many of his hobbies as well.

• Somewhere along the road, we picked up a few other tangenteers.  Mare has become a great friend through my involvement with yet another community theatre group.  And with the new admin there are big changes in store.  Not forgetting froggy and our newest Kloe.

Brand new to the site is an interactive page on which you can post a single blerb about anything… much like tweeting (or whatever it is) but I think it will be even more fun.  So why not follow us and go off on a tangent of your own!

WOW!  How could I almost forget dear Carol!  She is also one of our new followers who offers great insight into her everyday life as a teacher and mother…. or this and that!  GREAT FRIENDS ALL!!!

It has been 2 years of blogging for this old man. Sure I like tech stuff, but writing about this or that was never something I thought I would do on a consistent basis. But 543 blog posts later, I guess I surprised myself.

I’ve rambled on about many things. Life, family, friends, movies, food, theater and the list could go on.

As the background of our little blogging world is changing (Not a bad look either), I’m wondering what direction to take my own blogging efforts in the next year. I’m sure I will continue to write about things I find important or interesting (I wouldn’t do this otherwise), but I wondering about content. During the first 2 years I said very little about two subjects. Part of that is something I learned in my youth. “Every topic is fair game except Religion and Politics”. These two subjects seem to bring out the best and the worst in some people. In like minded people, the discussions can be calm and rational. In other groups, the discussions tend not to be so rational. Provoking confrontation was not something I wanted in my blog. So I tend to avoid those two subjects. Is this good, bad or indifferent? I’m not sure, but since I usually avoid those subjects in real life, I guess it is me. So that is not a direction I will be taking.

What is left? More of the same? I’m not sure at the moment. I guess we will see.

It is a cool, wet, dreary day. I have a fire going and the house is warm and comfortable. As I sit and watch the clouds gray thoughts find their way into my mind. I have thoughts of little gray mice and large gray elephants. Gray skies and gray tree trunks. It is spring time, but the green has yet to bloom forth, so I am here with gray.

I have a picture of a sunset. I’ve talked about it before. It is of a sunset in these very woods. I’m not sure if that was a spring time sunset or not, but there are no leaves on the trees, so I will ‘assume’ it is spring. Since I was the one who took the picture, I know the day was cool, but not too cold. So either spring or fall works. That picture is full of reds, oranges and yellows. That is not today. Today is a gray day.

Gray can describe a mood, or just a color. Today is all about the color. In the early day of computer screens and graphics our displays were in gray scales. There was the same type of thing in early TV, movies and films. Black and white mixed give us various shades of gray. In a colorful world those shades of gray are often missed and ignored. But in the black and white world of old graphics and the new world of e-book readers their are gray scales. Those scales brought realism in a time of black and white movies and TV. They are not the color of life, but they are the shadings of life.

Gray had me thinking a bit today.

I am pleased to relate that EHS’ production of Your A Good Man, Charlie Brown was a hit.  Several people have asked me if I was able to attend last weekend… regrettably I was not.  Apparently, it went very well.  “Charlie Brown’s” mother was in today and she related that she was a bit apprehensive until her son got through his first song.  She did not know he could sing.  That comment took me back.  Prior to my duet of “Summer Nights” my junior year in high school, few people knew what kind of voice I had.  When auditioning for the bit, Emily herself was taken aback!

However, I am also pleased that the director is already making plans for next year’s musical!  HOORAY! It is so neat that we finally once again have a music teacher who is committed to not only building the band and choral programs but also reinstating something that has been lost at the school of a good many years!  Now only if the administration can manage to hold on to her!  Seems that the last few years the school had an array of music educators who have been poor influences.

Bravo to Ms. Reardon and to the young adults who have begun the work of making the arts once again flourish!

A while back now, I made a blog post about a site called mentalfloss.com, which is a collection of interesting, somewhat useless but incredibly entertaining tidbits about pop culture, history, travel, and a bunch of other topics.  Here are some links to other articles on mentalfloss I found interesting, and since I collected this list a long time ago and left it in my drafts, forgotten, I went back to check the links.  While I was checking, I got so sidetracked on mentalfloss again…  their miscellaneous info about anything and everything is really addicting!  I collected some of the best ones for you, so that you don’t have to risk hours and hours of your free time by going to mentalfloss.com yourself and clicking on link after link after link 🙂
See if any of the following capture your interest, and if you make it back here to tangents, leave me comments to tell me what you like!

An airplane graveyard in The Mojave Desert

Abandoned hospital in East L.A.

31 unbelievable high school mascots

10 unusual playgrounds from around the world

10 technologies we stole from the animal kingdom

7 crafty zoo escapes

And last, but definitely not least…

A collection of videos of dogs welcoming home their soldier owners – this is unbelievably sweet; these are the happiest dogs in the world!!!  (I cried)

Well, us moving is up in the air. Tony, I think, has decided that we won’t be able to get a loan, but I won’t give up. I know that something will work out, I have to believe that. I can’t give up before we have even started. Amie and I are planning on looking at houses if we have a day off together. Maybe it will be a waste of time, maybe we won’t be able to get a loan, but I don’t want to give up before we even start! I love Tony, and I know that he can be pessimistic, but that is who he is and I wouldn’t change him for the world. I will just have to keep up being the one who has the faith, keep him from going doubting too much.

I know that Tony will be reading this eventually, and I just want him to know, I really believe we can get a loan somewhere! We just have to keep trying. We are already outgrowing this house and we really need that $8000 tax credit next year. So, keep praying for us. Thanks.

I’ve been complaining that my laptop is broken for some time now, but I never used that opportunity to fix my Power Box. I’ve had stuff to do on it for a couple of years now, but it just wouldn’t boot up properly after I installed a new hard drive. I thought I knew what the problem was, but I never undertook the job of actually looking at it. So today I did.

Yes, the problem was exactly what I thought it was. It was trying to boot from the old disk drive. Unfortunately, this drive no longer had any operating system on it. It was still formated as a bootable drive, but there was nothing to boot to. Quick spin through the bios, and that drive is no longer on the boot list. YEAH.

Now I just have to find all of the stuff I needed to do and finish it up. Yes, there may be a Godspell video in there somewhere. I guess I’ll have to stop blogging after my software updates from more than 1 year of inactivity.

More work for me. I’m glad I took a break from theater for a while… 😉

For a while, my laptop’s screen started working again. I took it in to have it checked out, and they cleaned some contacts in hope that it would solve the problem. It did for a while. Buy now, it stopped working again. I guess I need to fork over some cash now to get a new backlight.

Right now I have it hooked up to my TV, but I have to sit too close so I can see the writing. Just not a comfortable way to do this unless I move the couch to within 2 feet of the TV, or set the screen resolution to a bigger size, so I can see the print from across the room. Oh well, I hope to back up the drive tonight and take the machine in tomorrow.

I also finally hooked up a wireless keyboard to the machine. This actually works very well. I’ve had the keyboard/mouse for a long time, I just never bothered to hook it up. I was hoping to be able to sit across the room looking at the TV screen.

I just set the screen to a different resolution, and can almost make out the print from across the room. I could definitely play computer games this way. I just don’t play that many computer games.

Maybe I could use this to watch baseball soon. If my connection speed is still good, I may have to sign up for the MLB package.

Funny thing about living in a small town for the better part of 36 years, you have many memories that really do take you back.  Last night, a customer who used to work at the store when it was known as Shaffer Value was in and I had to recite her full name (which is six in length… K.J.E.S.H.P) that she made it a point to teach me when we worked along with the Master Meat Lady in the back.  I recall that it was during this time when I was introduced to a great amount of country music (it beat the musak that played through the store.  One song in particular comes to mind: John Michael Montgomery’s “Be My Baby Tonight.”  Is that the title or is it the tongue twisting refrain of:

Would ya, could ya, ain’t ya gonna, if I asked ya, would ya wanna be my baby tonight?

I still can’t remember how long it took me to get that lyric down.  Forget the rest of the song.  I would be quizzed every time I went to work.  I think my fumbled lyrics were even more memorable than the real thing.

  Sorry I could not find an official video.  Everything else was karaoke versions.

For the second time in 3 weeks my back decided to go out on me. The first time was just getting out of bed. The second time was while trying to clean up after the dog. Nothing very strenuous, I just happened to move the wrong way. The second time only allowed me to sit for 15 minutes or so at a time. I must find everywhere I sit that promotes bad posture and get rid of it. I’m thinking the first place is my chair at work. I spend a majority of my time in that chair and I think it may be part of my current back situation. Now all I have to do is find a good office chair.

Any suggestions?