Saturday, April 30, 2016

Dinner



Mexican Lasagna

Salad


SELL ! SELL! SELL !


So some local can buy!




Accustomed to being assessed by the standings, the Braves now have another daily gauge: the stock price. And by either measure, they are faring poorly.
As the Braves have settled into last place in the National League East, the team’s stock has fallen more than 50 percent from the level at which some of it opened trading on the Nasdaq exchange two weeks ago.
“This has been off-the-charts crazy,” Robert Routh, an analyst who follows Braves owner Liberty Media for New York-based FBN Securities, said of the team’s stock performance. “I never thought this would get as low as it has.”
The Braves stock was created when Liberty Media divided its holdings into three tracking stocks, each tied to a subset of the company. Investors now can buy and sell shares in the Braves separate from the rest of the Colorado-based conglomerate.
The Braves’ Series A shares (symbol BATRA) closed Friday at $15.64, down 56.5 percent from their opening price on April 18. The team’s Series C shares (symbol BATRK) closed Friday at $14.92, down 44.7 percent from their opening price on the first day of trading. The different series have different voting rights for shareholders.   ( THE REST  )

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Daily Koda

 This is the Koda that y'all see daily. Out in the fresh air and woods, snow or not. Happy woodland dog.

 Where as this is much more the truth - sweet old moopah dog slung up on his very own sofa .....


Must See TV .




At least in England, hopefully in the US as well

Dinner



Schnitzel 
(pork)

Buttered Noodles

Broccoli 
w/ red peppers.

There was also a big green salad


Sometimes I think this is such a silly thing to do , take a photo of our dinner BUT , I was just watching this documentary about the history of British eating ( dont judge me ) and there was this thing called the National Survey, that for one week every year, for like a hundred years, every housewife in Britain ( and it was always women ) wrote down their meals - and it turns out that is just  a treasure trove for social historians. No one talks about what average folks eat, it was always the swanky folk and their ilk - so this is sort of one for the history books.

Average Joes in Mendon, New York, 2016. Future gold!

Sweetie Darling

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Daily Koda

Dreary Downtown Day Edition





A ton of rain last night with the temps falling like a stone today, all grey and we today . Fingers crossed for no frost tonight. Even though it is still early enough that it would not be horrible, just a nuisance .

k+b recipe box

Pork Satay With Thai Spices and Peanut Sauce


From the NYT. I have not done this yet, but will very soon - and will let y'all know how it comes out.

Twenty-Dollar Tubman | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee | TBS

Monday, April 25, 2016

Koda's Day Out

 A little puppy retail therapy at the Pet Smart


 New Collar
A Squirrel
New Bowl 
Treats

Then came by the local pet shop that is right down the street where we walked home.


Why Bernie Sanders is Actually Winning

Saturday, April 23, 2016

The Flu and You, updated .


Well, I have ruled out dying, but it was touch and go there for a while.

I know that I have wrongly taken issue with people who claimed to have the flu and what just a nasty time of it they were having. " Oh, come on, its just like a bad cold ".... Twice I was wrong about this. I think I also got way dehydrated earlier in the week , which did not help. I just didn't want to do anything including eating or drinking. I even skipped coffee a couple of days!

Now I am downing the sugar free poweraid and water and tea and juice. Hopefully will be able to help Neil out in the yard tomorrow. Onward and upward !

Dinner ( and a baseball game )




Coca Cola Braised Ham
w/ spicy mustard and brown sugar glaze
( like the coke was not enough sugar )

Green Beans

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Pear Salad 


and then watched the Braves lose to the Mets, where in the top of the 9th , I swear the two Mets announcers came as close as yankees can say to " bless your heart " to the Braves .



A pirate looks at the bottom line



 From the NYT :

Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Margaritaville’ Is a State of Mind, and an Empire

SPRING IS HERE

 Folks are eating and drinking street side at the Cottage Hotel
 A beautiful day here, on the cool side - and downright chilly tonight

AND
Neil is back in his gardens!

All is right with the world.

bandwagon



 48 hours or wallowing in some deep '80's

Friday, April 22, 2016

Stupid is as stupid does


Winter came in slow this past year. I think I was wearing shorts , or at least shirtsleeves on Christmas Day. Previous years, the cold stated to settle in and everyone thought about cold and flu season and went right out to get this flu shots, I certainly did.  But this year, even being in and out of many many doctors offices and hospitals I just put it off... I kept meaning to do it, but just didn't. ANYWAY, I have never had the flu.. I dont think I can get it.

I was wrong. I have had the stupid flu all week long, much better today, but it has just been nasty. Neil caught it as well, but his was like a little 24 hour mini virus because he HAD his flu shot. So live and learn, and get in line come September....

Guess you all can figure out the slow blog week from this post... 

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

OPERA NIGHT





My last Met Live for the season, the next one is some super weird homeless folks singing their little hearts out and I am going to leave that for Neil and the hard cores. I knew nothing at all about this one - other than it was about Queen Elizabeth , who I do know a lot about.

I enjoyed it. A whole different style of opera than I have seen before , if Neil were still awake he could explain it in great detail. Both the guys were all the cute, and if there had not been subtitles you would have sworn they sing a love song to one another.


Like I always say after these. If they are in your area, watch the trailers of the ones for next season, starting this fall, and go see one. You will be amazed at how much you enjoy it.

New York


NEW YORK LOVES HILLARY !

Just a big old fashion landslide last night for both parties. New York loves New Yorkers. 

I was a happy politics nerd pig in poop last night, up way too late rolling around in pure numbers.
DIG IN yourself if you like or I'll save you some time. White guys under 40 voted for Bernie, pretty much everyone else voted for Hillary. But, then there is this map.

This map was getting all sorts of guff from folks on the internet ( of all places ) this morning.  " How could Bernie have lost ?!! It must be freud, I mean, just look at this map, it is all Sanders Green . " Said by folks that do not live in New York. 

Before we dive into how many people live in the blue areas of this map, lets discuss how many folks do not live inside these red circles.


This is New York

 But so are these, and most of the state, all these green areas look much more like these shots around here, than the hustle and bustle of NYC.


 It is just peoples perceptions. Blue areas full of people all piled up on top of one another. Green areas - some cities , but a whole lot of cows. And they dont vote.





Who do you think you are ?



So adopted Neil is doing the spit in the tube gene scan thing from ancestry.com. We know next to nothing about his background, so this will be all the fun. Oddly enough I have zero interest in doing this. I will let y'all know in four to six weeks what we find out.

A Word About North Carolina

Titanic sinks in REAL TIME - 2 HOURS 40 MINUTES

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

AMERICA!


 A beautiful day for voting ....
We could sort of tell going in that is was going to be a different crowd

People were a little taken aback when I put this photo on Facebook saying what a large crowd this was for voting in Mendon. Pretty sure this was all Trump. Some troubles in other parts of the state, we were in and out in two min ....

Monday, April 18, 2016

New York State of Mind





Tomorrow is the day - and for the last couple of weeks I have felt for what purple America goes through every election cycle. Ol Bernie has been raining money down on every tv station there is, at least here in the Rochester market , which I bet is the cheapest of the larger media buys here in NY. Maybe that is one of the reasons that we never see political ads like folks in other states do - the major cost of going state wide here in the Empire State. Sure Rochester, Syracuse and Binghampton are a little big affordable - but I bet Buffalo gets to claim Toronto, and anything too far east or south will be NYC, so we are spared.

So very much special snowflake outrage ( and really, no one does outrage like that do ) over the long held rules of the New York State Democratic Primary. You had to be registered by Oct 5th in order to vote , which has never been a problem. Until this year when everyone under 30 found a new religion about 6 weeks ago.... so now they are sad trombones all over social media.. stupid rules are just so darn unfair when I dont get my way!

Two names on my ballot tomorrow, on X and we are out. I will do a full media black out till like 9:30 when the polls are good and closed. ALL the polls say its Hillary in a big way - but a lot of those got Michigan wrong, so we shall see.

Lets play with the math a little bit, here the eve of New York's juicy 247 delegates, with 44 Superdelegates.

2383 is the winning number

Hillary is sitting at 1758 , including the Supers - she needs 625 to clinch.

Gollum Bernie is at 1076, with Supers  - needing 1307 to win

There are 1931 left, including New York - just split those in half and Hillary wins, and he falls short.

The number tomorrow will be split and a week from Tuesday are ( delegate count / supers )

Connecticut 55/15, Delaware 21/10, Maryland, 95/23 Pennsylvania 189/21 and Rhode Island 24/9, with all but Rhode Island being close primaries that favor Sec. Clinton. At the end of April by my, I am very sure way way off number crunching , Clinton will need about 250, with Sanders  - ( I think ) needing around 861.

Ill re tool this after the NY numbers tomorrow night



Here is some light reading while we all wait :

BERNIE SANDERS IS A BIG FAT JERK...

no, thats not it:

Jay-Z Alicia Keys - New York from Tommy Wierper on Vimeo.

Dinner


 Pork Chop

White Rice

Field Peas

Napa Cabbage
w/ bacon and caraway seeds 


A LITTLE BIT OF SPRING

 We thought that our spring flowers were all going to be a  no show this year after the bout of deep winter that we had earlier this month.  But it turns out that the few days of hard free did not get everything in the yard ( no worries about Neils iris' and lilies, it was too early to bother them )

 A couple of big clumps down in a lower garden


Koda in the back yard.

A good 13 hours of sleep later ....

Turns out that the cure for the crud is a whole lot of sleep. Which is super rare for me - I am lucky to get 6 - 7 a night. But feeling better today for sure - at least up and about some. Although Neil may be coming down with the worst part of it. If you visit a hospital and there are huge signs at every door saying if you are coughing .... just walk back out.This is a nasty bug. I do hope it does not linger, but really I am a lot better today than I was Saturday night or all day yesterday.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

slow blogging

We are just about to hit our high spring , everything is in full bud . So - when i started feeling a bit off yesterday, I figured that it was just a little late season allergies - which I had not really had in a week or so. I had to do several things and was all over town , feeling odd the whole time - not realizing that my bad allergies are mostly here.

Then last night I got a little ton of bricks - just sick , nasty nasty chest something - cough, little fever - just icky. Neil sort of had it too but kicked it more than I did. Slept of today and now, late night , I am feeling somewhat better.

Some horrible , hopefully short lived bug that I am sure we picked up at the hospital. MUST be well by Tuesday night .....

Friday, April 15, 2016

eggshells





I really can not wait until Wednesday morning and the end of the New York State Democratic Primary. People that like each other, that have been pals/ co workers / friends for years are just getting all the snappy with one another.

Me, breaking my cardinal rule of Facebook, have been suckered into typing arguments with people that I have no wish or desire to squabble with, in any way. Very common knowledge which side my blue bread is buttered, so I posted what I thought was a cute picture of Neil the other day getting our HILLARY yard sign - some folks did not like it!

The ill wind that blew through the auditorium in Brooklyn last night came all the way to the Finger Lakes today and people just kept on fussin  '. I think it is the close to 20 points down in the polls and the Nate Silver 99 to 1 that has all the Bernie robots all crabby and itching to scrap, but I dont want to! Really - I may find it odd that people are falling for the pie in the sky socialist , but I dont pay your bills or tell you how to vote, and I do not want to trade nasties on Facebook!


Now, Nate got Michigan wrong - true, but it was an open primary, and people were fired up there from years of constant battle with their swine of a governor. New York is a closed primary - with the cut off for registering LAST Oct 5th or something like that.

The long hairs are furious and plotting all sorts of Apple Dumpling Gang shininanagans for election day. I just want it over. Move on, get her the position and start to deal with which ever goon takes the GOP ....


BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN



Boston, Milwaukee, Atlanta - 140 years the Braves have been around, and only once in all that time has the team gone 0 - 10 to open the season. 1988  -  two years out of their worst of first season and the start of Americans Team dynasty - Atlanta with zero and ten.

It was looking like tonight would tie that record, as the soon to be COBB Braves played Miami were down 3 - 0 before the Marlins got tired and the Bravos scored two in the 7th and 4 in the 8th to beat back the specter of the late 80's.

Im sure the Denver overlords are happy - if they know at all.

FUN!




A totally new time waster, that will give you some great info as well. This very amusing woman , who is an excellent cooking teacher , from her great home kitchen in what looks like a cool NYC townhouse - doing great youtube tutorials.

Some shorts like this and three great longer episodes of full dinner parties. Hopefully more to come soon.

Daily Koda

 Day two of this close to perfect spring weather - the crazy late winter of early April behind us, clear sailing till summer... Im sure that is not true, but these last couple of says with their perfect cloud free blue and warmth have been a great treat for serving the weird season that we have just been through.




 The rest of the weekend looks great as well!



Dishwasher Blues



Getting there! Still going to replace the panels in the door
and some more clean up, but close! 


Did I tell y'all about the new dishwasher . pretty sure I did. But probably not the entire long many many phone calls story .

So new kitchen, new dishwasher and for the few days before the kitchen was torn up, it worked fine. About a week later, counters in things back to normal and boom - it does not. Starts, then stops at the beginning of the cycle - dead, with water in the bottom. Not good - it is brand new - and we did not get a cheapest one either.

Call Lowes - they will send someone in a few days, he finally comes, says the drain is clogged, totally judged Neil and I for not pre rinsing , the dishwasher is washing along, he takes off. It stops at the beginning of the cycle - dad, with water in the bottom.

I call, not Lowes, but the mom and pop appliance repair place that Lowes sent to us - they can't find the guy - and he can't come back for a few days. Now this is almost a month into having a dishwasher now, that has worked like three days.

So I go back and forth with the store all morning, and when you call with a customer service question you are shipped off to a call center. Lots of calls and foot stomping later - the mom and pop will send out a the same guy in a week or so with some new parts that have to be ordered.

Yeah, no.

Back to the national call center - fine, it has not been the 30 days you get - a whole brand new one! Asap, like maybe this afternoon - the local store where you got it will call . Hours go by - so I call the store - they have not heard of this.... grumble, grumble, grumble.

I go a little Shirley MacLain when Debra Winger needed her shot - and the manager tells me he will fix this - he will call right back. And they pretty much do - but they for some reason call nice Neil's cell phone, who has been out of this big ol loop all day long and tell them they will bring us the shiny new dishwasher 4 or 5 business days... everything is good. " Sure ", says nice Neil.

No.

Slightly raised voice later, but always with more honey than vinegar  - and they guy will be here in two days and they will take 100 dollars off of what we paid. Everyone is happy. The guy comes this morning, and this is a Lowes employee - and tells us that our HOT WATER IS TOO HOT and it is warping the seal on the dishwasher between the door and the box of the machine, and gave us a little bit of " well if you had read your manual " attitude  . So the machine is thinking that the door is open. He gives us the new one anyway, maybe with a better seal and we turn down our hot water heater.

And now I have a dishwasher that works.

The B-52's 52 Girls