I'm getting used to a new routine. It's different and I'm still trying to get it to fit. Why I mention this is because I am not yet organized nor motivated enough to make Blog entries like I once used to. You know where I would go out, have a singular adventure and then come back and blog about it.
Those days aren't completely gone, I just haven't gotten used to the current situation enough to a) have singular adventures and b) want to blog about them.
It'll come.
For now I am taking a page out of my daughter Michelle's Playbook On Blogging and just throwing everything, in a fashion, into the blender and seeing what comes out on the other side. She calls it "Catch-Up". I call it a good idea.
There it is. Now that we have an understanding of sorts, let's kick the tires and light the fires and get this baby moving.
First off, my walks. Still doing them, more or less (lately there has been a greater emphasis on the 'less' than the 'more') and carrying my camera with me. And still fascinated? Entranced? Taken with the idea of themes for my photography.
Like this theme, the 'Road' series. Haha, I likes me a good, long telephoto shot of the road stretching off into the distance. There's something there that catches my attention and I want to catch it on film, or digital as the case is now.
Haha, I can't help it. Like the little boy who keeps hoping to eventually find that pony, I keep on looking down that road for my picture hoping to, eventually, find that Bad Boy.
And sunsets. Lately I have become aware of how few pictures I've taken of the many glorious sunsets I am privy to on an almost daily basis. That's unconscionable. I should be out there at least, at the very least, once a week. Just because, sorta like on general principles.
Because they're there. A lot. And it is so easy to get a reasonably good shot. Oh, no 'technical' perfection but a reasonably good shot that pleases the eye, sort of.
I've had to make myself more aware of the evening shows and get out there to record them.
Funny how, when you're feeling low, you lose sight of the things that can actually bring you up a bit. Well, bear down on the throttle, grab the steering wheel a bit harder and drive on. Things will usually right themselves soon enough.
No really interesting birds lately. Just an ol' sparrow at the feeder.
But I was at least breaking out a camera and getting a couple of shots. Besides, if I didn't shoot a sparrow once in a while, I wouldn't be shooting much of any birds.
Recently, I found a recipe on FaceBook and decided to try it out. It's a Sausage Biscuit Gravy dish.
You take biscuits, dice them and then layer the pan with them. Next, you spread a pound of sausage (in this case, the turkey version of sausage) over the top of the diced biscuits. Over this you spread out a cup or so of shredded cheese. Then you bake it.
While this is baking, you're suppose to mix up some sausage gravy from the grease left over after cooking the real sausage. Uh, oops! Let me tell you that turkey sausage grease is NOT the same as real sausage grease. Not at all. It was an interesting lesson to learn and I happily pass it along to you. Won't work. Not at all.
I tried mixing it up the flour and the turkey sausage grease and, well, it wasn't pretty. Thank goodness I had a packet of Pork Gravy on hand and so I whipped that up and had it ready to coat the top of the dish with. And, Boy Howdy, it worked. It worked very well.
I invited Carol and Don over for dinner and they thought it was alright. I thought it was pretty tasty.
Don even went back for seconds. Haha, we chefs appreciate an enthusiastic audience.
Shortly after I moved in I saw paint markings on the road in front of the house but gave them little thought. One day, though, a couple months ago, I saw some guys out surveying and measuring the road so I walked out and asked them what's up. Seems they're going to dig out the sewer (which is why the points on the road were marked) and replace it with new pipe.
When I asked him when that might happen, the guy looked me right in the eye and said, "Probably never. I wouldn't worry about it because it won't be happening soon." (Or words to that effect. I don't remember exactly but I do remember the intent of what he said, the lying dog.)
Yeah, well, "won't be happening" came a little bit early this year.
To my chagrin, a couple weeks ago they began tearing up the street a couple blocks down and I could see what direction they were taking and it was in my direction.
The odorous fecal matter hit the oscillating air machine this past week, right at my doorstep. Here, in no particular order, is a glimpse of my disorderly, noisy and dusty existence.
The view from the living room. Yay, me!!
I could supervise from my front porch.
Naturally, they had to replace the sewer line to my place. I didn't see this anywhere else, just my place. Oh, joy. And when they did they shut off the water to reroute or whatever. I just know that ever since they messed with the pipes, the water out of the tap isn't clear anymore. It looks worse than usual.
Find the BIG machines and that's where mi casa is.
And they're going to go up the hill, too.
When those big machines move past the house, the whole place shakes and vibrates.
The only saving grace is that they've moved beyond me now. The road is torn up and it is dusty and there are detours all over but they've moved the heavy stuff past me. Thank goodness.
New topic.
A couple weeks ago, I learned that Tom had been admitted to the hospital with an impacted bowel. I asked and they said they could use some help so I drove up there to see what I could do...and while I was there got this picture of Tom and his Baby Boy, Oliver.
Tom was feeling better by the time I got there and they held him overnight and then released him the next day. I was able to help a bit and when Tom got home he and Bonnie looked so tired and ready to get back to normal that I didn't feel I needed to be there in their way anymore so I headed home.
Thank goodness Tom was OK.
I did get to babysit this guy, Ollie, for the morning. He's an easy client. Put him in a stroller and keep it moving and he is happy.
Short rant.
I had paid my taxes and even got money back and then, a couple weeks ago, I got a letter from the IRS saying they'd reviewed my 2014 taxes and I had seriously underpaid them. Whoa, Dude!!
So they gave me until the 8th of June to make good on what I owed. Sadly, I wrote out a check for $1,625 Smackeroos and sent it off, toots sweet, to our in-debt government. Ah, I keep telling myself it is the small price of Freedom.
But, still, I resent it.
Alrighty, then, let's fast forward to this last weekend.
On Friday night Saturday morning, someone, some fine fellow, broke into my house and stole my wallet. I had about $125 in cash plus my credit cards and a gift card thingie for the local movie house. There was also another card there with about $15 in credit for the gym at the Community Center.
Oh, plus my VA Card, my military ID Card, my VFW Lifetime Membership Card and my American Legion Card. And my Safeway card, too. Fortunately, I don't carry my SS Card nor did I have the Medicare Card, with my SSN on it, in the wallet.
But now, dammit, I was without a driver's license.
OK, back story here. In December of last year, I registered the van with Oregon. I qualified for special Disabled Veterans plates and I was told they would have to mail them to me as they didn't have them in the DMV like regular plates.
OK, I headed home and began looking for them two or so weeks later. Nada.
My temporary plates were set to expire on February 15 and so I went into the DMV again and found that they hadn't mailed them yet. So I got another temp plate.
Ah, I know how bureaucracies work. Patiences.
About a week or two before that temp plate expired, in early April, I got a letter telling me that I hadn't submitted all the right paperwork for the special plate. I hauled everything back in and the very pleasant young lady at the DMV (and, Small Town America, she is the ONLY DMV lady working at this office) remembered me and couldn't figure out why they rejected it because I had presented everything.
But, we did it all over again. Oh, and I got another temp plate. I finally got my real plates, after three temp ones, the first week of May. A lot late. A lot of frustrating going on here.
When I registered the mini, I decided to get an Oregon license, too. I was more than a little taken aback to learn that Oregon required you to take a written test regardless of how good your out-of-state license was.
OK, I could do that. I told her that I'd take the test right now even though the pleasant lady at the DMV suggested, strongly, that I might want to review the pamphlet before I tried the test. Hahaha, not I. I've been driving since Barry O was in diapers, I thought I could handle it.
I failed.
But, c'mon, the questions were really stupid and obtuse. For example, they asked me what the dates were that you could legally have studded tires on your car. Wha....!?!?! Seriously!?!
(By the way, the dates are November 1 through April 30!! Haha, you can bet your bottom dollar I knew that one before I took Round Two of the test. They didn't ask me this time, dammit!)
It is a poorly worded and poorly written test. I missed a couple out of the gate with this second test and I was getting a bit nervous but, thank goodness, I eventually passed with only four wrong. And one of those, I admit, was purely my fault for not reading the choices well enough.
Anyway, I passed the test for my Oregon License and now I am legal again. End of story, right? Well you would think so but, you'd be wrong.
So I had passed the test. Now the pleasant lady at the DMV wanted my Washington Driver's License to punch a hole in it, invalidating it, before she would issue me my Oregon Driver's License. I explained it had been stolen along with all the other things and, well, she was sorry about the theft but she needed, at the very least, the DL # to invalidate it.
Argh!!
She gave me a phone number so I could call the WA DMV. I had a nice chat with another pleasant young lady in the WA DMV and got my DL # for my WA license. I walked back in and gave it to the very pleasant lady at the Oregon DMV. It was the right DL # but, for the life of her, the very pleasant young lady at the Oregon DMV could not get the computer to accept it. Washington State DMV either wouldn't accept the number as valid or she couldn't connect with them. Either way, Ol' Jackie was screwed. Again.
I was getting tired of dealing with the Oregon DMV.
After the fiasco with the plates you can understand that I wasn't feeling a lot of warmth for the Oregon State DMV. I walked out, drove home and, feeling more than a bit agitated, decided to call someone higher up in the food chain at the Oregon State DMV. I did and got hold of a very pleasant young lady in the Salem office.
I explained my sad story and she jotted down my WA DL# and went off to check it herself. Came back and said it wasn't working. Rightttttt....hahaha, no surprise there, right!?!
I figured this was par for the course but, just before she rang off she reread the DL# back to me and she had used a "0" where she should have used the "O" like I had told her (she just assumed I had really meant a "0" when I clearly said, "O") She tried it again and, son-of-a-gun, it worked.
I asked her to call the Lincoln DMV and inform the very pleasant lady at the DMV there that my DL# was valid and she did. Plus she sent a FAX of it over to the Lincoln office.
When I went back, again, the very pleasant lady at the DMV was waiting for me with the FAX and, finally, after a lot of angst and gritting of teeth, I had me an Oregon State Driver's License.
Hence the smile.
Success!!
Finally we're up to this weekend.
I'd met this guy, Ryan, at work several years ago. He's in the Washington National Guard and so we naturally talked about Army life and BS in general. We became friends even though he is younger than my three oldest kids. We've stayed in contact the past few years.
I invited him down whenever and he finally came down for Memorial Day Weekend. He was looking for an excuse for a road trip on his bike and this fit the bill.
Just to needle him because he was late (traffic) getting in Friday night, I sent him these pics of the beautiful sunset he was missing out on.
Hahaha, yeah, I am a petty and mean person.
With not much redeeming grace about me.
But he made it, very late.
Saturday morning I drove him around the city. We stopped by the Chinook Winds Casino to visit the Iraq and Afghan War Memorial.
Ryan served in Iraq and this was personal for him.
On the lighter side, he took off for a ride down south along the coast. When he got back we walked on over to The Cruise Inn for dinner.
Believe it or not, Ryan has never had a Reuben Sandwich. I would have never believed that possible here in Modern-Day America. I mean, C'Mon!! It's not possible, is it!?!?! But, somehow, it was. Now, to make things even weirder, after I posted these pics on FB my sister, Darcie, tells me she has never had a Reuben, either!! WTH!?!?!
Given the moment, the bar and the number of beers we'd already consumed, I quickly decided to remedy that little shortcoming in Ryan and got us a couple of Reuben's at The Cruise Inn.
We're eating away and totally enjoying the sandwiches when Ryan notices the mustard on my Reuben. I had to explain to him how the mustard accentuates and compliments the contrasts between the corned beef and the sauerkraut. As I was explaining this, he looked closer at my sandwich and proclaimed that I had more corned beef than he did.
And he was right!!
Hahaha, tough luck, Dude!!
So he got all pouty and upset and accused me of always coming there to eat and that's why I got more corned beed than he did. According to him, it had nothing to do with my effervescent and charming personality. Hahaha, regardless, I totally enjoyed my meatier sandwich and, several times, reminded him that I had more corned beef than he.
Haha, he's almost as petty and juvenile as I am.
We made it back to the house and went out on the bluff to watch the sun set. After getting up and sitting down several times, this happened when Ryan sat down again. At first I thought he'd just had too much to drink and laughed and laughed and laughed. But, to be fair, when I went out this morning to mow the lawn, I saw that the ground he was sitting on was super soft and the rear legs had sunk into the ground when he plopped down causing him to go over backwards. So, yeah it was funny and I laughed my ass off but, honestly, it wasn't his fault.
And since I'm being honest, sort of, he didn't pout about the corned beed imbalance either.
OK, quick segue from Ryan to Ospreys.
We have, in Lincoln City, four different Osprey nests. One in the north of the town by the Grocery Outlet. Another is on a light pole at the local high school football field while the third is located on a parking lot light in the overflow parking at the Outlet Mall.
The final one of these four is located at Kirksis Park. It's situated at the top of one of the field's light poles as you can see in the picture below.
What I find amusing is the large pole, the one you see in the foreground. That one was build specifically for the ospreys to nest in and, yet, they chose to build their nest at the top of the light pole.
Go figure.
Regardless, it's an easy place to get to if you want to watch yourself some ospreys and so on this beautiful and sunny day, I wandered on over to the park to do some time watching for ospreys.
I walk up on the backside of the park where the Seventh-Day Adventist Church is on top of the hill and perched myself on the edge of their parking lot that faces the field. It gives me a good, and slightly more elevated, view of the nest. My plan was to come and watch, and wait, for some picture opportunities. I had intended to stay for at least a half-hour. To this end I had my little AM/FM radio tuned up and playing KBCH.
I was ready to wait.
And I did. I had maybe 5 minutes left of my allotted 30 minutes and was actually getting up and getting ready to leave when Momma took off out of the nest and started swooping round the park.
What I figure was she was stretching her muscles and just breaking the boredom because all she did was swoop around the ball field.
After maybe a minute of flying round and round, she came in to the nest for what I thought would be a landing.
I was wrong.
I wouldn't have thought such a large bird could, but what she did was to hover right over the nest.
And she did...for over 30+ seconds which, when you're hovering, is quite a long time.
I got 24 pictures in this sequence. I'm only putting up every third or fourth picture so you get the idea but not the length of what she was doing.
And I was like, "Oh, wow!! This is sooooo cool!!"
Then she sorta leaned forward and...
...she started moving...
...and she was off again for another couple circuits round the ball field.
She was just flying in circles. I lost sight of her a couple times but she always reappeared within a minute or so, swooping round the field.
And, if I can hazard a guess, having a good time. Girl's gotta get out of the nest every-once-in-awhile.
Then she came back in...
...and this time she landed back in the nest.
Look at the wing span. These are some seriously large birds.
She was back, taking care of her eggs.
I started to pack up and get ready to go when, POW!! She was off again. Swooping and flying round and round the field.
And, after about a minute, back into the nest.
A woman's work is never done and she needed to be back on the eggs after her break.
Ah, well, it was fun, for a while.
I grabbed this picture of me sitting on the curb watching the ospreys. It was a windy day, windier than I had expected, and I had to keep the ol' straw sombrero quashed firmly down on my noggin to keep it from blowing in the wind.
Hahaha, an amazing example of sartorial excellence.
I knew there was a skate park here but I've never seen it since it is behind and around a hill. Knowing my son-in-law, Matt, is a skateboarder, I walked over to the end of the parking lot to get a look.
Impressive. Bigger than I thought it would be.
What would a Smilin' Jack Blog be without some flowers. As I've said, it's super easy and I get a kick out of them so...
I've gotten a couple compliments on these flower pictures but, honestly, people don't understand how little effort I put into taking them. I point..and I shoot...that's about it.
Sometimes I am embarrassed. I feel I should explain but folks might not believe me.
The Surf Tides Motel, just down the street, has some of the neatest flowers and they're always there. It's like a turkey shoot. I can walk up, point, shoot and have a colorful picture.
Haha, I was nice to you and didn't post all the flowers I shot.
You're welcome.
On my walk, I spotted this character, peering out of a window of a house. He looked sorta shifty and was wearing what I thought might be prison garb so I got this shot in case the police might need to identify him for some crime.
Some random phone pictures that I found this morning when I cleaned out the pictures in the phone.
One of my daughter's friends asked if I really lived on the beach and I had to reassure her that, yes, I do. I don't remember when I took this, probably yesterday because I was amazed at how many people were down on the beach.
It was cold but there were still some knotheads out there swimming.
I don't know why but it's taken from the front room looking out towards the ocean.
I made a big breakfast for Ryan and had left-overs. Unlike my rear end, my stomach's capacity for food has shrunken with the passing years. Which is damn odd when you consider how my stomach, and my waist line have seriously expanded with those same passing years.
Regardless, I couldn't get it all down on Day One so I saved it for Day Two and, for some reason, I felt compelled to share this BF, Part II, with Ryan...and now you.
Go figure.
I can testify that it was a good on the second day as the first. I have simple tastes.
Got this last minute picture this morning via the phone (isn't that amazing!?!). I send out postcards to the Grandkids on occasion and Joseph and Brady must have liked theirs. It's tough coming up with things to say on a postcard for eight kids. Very tough.
Well, there's the catch-up. I just realized, as I read Michelle's Blog this morning that, unlike me, when she does her 'catch-up', she breaks them down into a series of mini-blogs. Me? I throw the whole time period together in one great big, delightful package of fun and pictures and let you just sorta battle through it.
Haha, I am not a nice person.
But, life is good.
Hooah!!
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