Photographs from a Bloy in Wisconsin
I spent a great deal of yesterday evening writing up Christmas cards to send out. As I got to a lot of the names on the list I start to wonder… Why do I have contact with some of these people only once a year? Some I intended to visit, or correspond with a lot more than I have. Where does the time go? It seems like it was just a few months ago when I was writing out my Christmas cards last year.
I spent most of last weekend removing the last traces of wallpaper from my condo, when I stripped it from the downstairs bathroom. Yes, my home is now wallpaper free!
If I were ruler of the kingdom, I would require anyone installing wallpaper to be responsible for its removal. The installers would be required to do that when any future owner of said wallpaper wishes it to be removed. As much as I dislike removing wallpaper, after removing it from my kitchen, and now the bathroom, I’ve become quite good at it. Although I probably shouldn’t admit to that (no, I am not available for outside jobs).
Yesterday I spent a few hours spackling the bathroom walls, and today I painted the primer on. Hopefully I’ll get the final coat of paint on in the next few days.
As I was cleaning the paint brush today, it hit me that I’ve have spent more of my free time fixing up or improving this condo than any other home I’ve lived in. One thing I have come to realize: I would most certainly rather be doing something else. If money were no object…
I just finished watching Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I don’t care what your political mindset is, there is no way anyone can see this film and not agree that global warming is an urgent crisis we need to do something about. As the former Vice President says, this is not a political issue, it is a moral one. If the rise in carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase at an exponential rate, the planet’s temperature will rise along with it. Billions of people will suffer fates similar to the hundreds of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims.
The Huffington Post has obtained an internal memo from Fox News, which was written the day after the election. From the memo:
The elections and Rumsfeld’s resignation were a major event, but not the end of the world. The war on terror goes on without interruption… And let’s be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.
I guess the powers that be at Fox News were absent the day they talked about objectivity in journalism school. Be sure and bring this up the next time anyone complains about the liberal bias in the media.
“Fair and Balanced” indeed.
It was a great day for a hike yesterday, so I did a little exploring and headed to New Glarus Woods State Park.
Last night I went to the Bob Dylan concert at the Kohl Center here in Madison. When you go to see such a legendary performer, you bring a lot of expectations along. After all, you’ve heard those classic songs a hundred times before, in their original recorded form.
Over the past several decades, Dylan hasn’t been one to reproduce the song’s original studio sound in concert, and he certainly doesn’t sing the same way he did twenty (or even ten) years ago. However, the outstanding backing band, and that sometimes raspy voice did have more than their share of shining moments. That was especially true when they performed the bluesy songs like “Lonesome Day Blues” or “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” (a song from his newest and highly acclaimed disc, Modern Times). Musically, another strong moment came when the band opened the encore with another of the new songs “Thunder on the Mountain.”
I got to see my great nephew Adam in his Halloween costume tonight. Here he is with his Grandmother (my sister-in-law), who made the swashbuckling jacket.
Say it with me now… “Arrrrrrrr!”
In a couple of weeks citizens in Wisconsin will be voting on two referendums. I’m voting NO on both.
One referendum is asking if the State should institute the death penalty for capital crimes with DNA evidence. Wisconsin hasn’t executed anyone for the past 150 years, and I certainly think we should keep it that way.
The death penalty has always struck me as being a tool of vengeance, which I believe is morally wrong.
My kitchen remodeling project is moving along. Yesterday, my brother and I installed the tile. I had never done tile before, so I was very lucky to have Steve around to help me out with that. It really wasn’t that hard of a job to do, although cutting it to fit around the electrical outlets was a tedious and exhausting process (especially considering the only tool we had to cut those L-shaped corners was a small hand saw). For every half-inch of cutting we needed to do on those porcelain tiles, it took about five minutes. Yes, my right arm was a bit sore this morning.
We installed the tile in the space above the sink, ran it the full length of the counter (about six and a half feet), and up to the bottom edge of the upper cabinets. It looks great, even without having the grout in there yet (hopefully, we’ll do that sometime this weekend).
I spent most of today spackling and putting primer on the walls where that oh-so-beautiful wallpaper used to be. Paint goes on tomorrow. Hey, I might actually finish this project!
I was one of the 81,704 people at Camp Randall Stadium today, watching the Wisconsin Badgers literally run over the Northwestern Wildcats, winning the game 41-9.
After running back P.J. Hill scored a 60-yard touchdown run on the second play from scrimmage, I thought we might be witnessing the start of a big blowout. But the score at halftime was actually fairly close (17-9), because of a three Wisconsin turnovers, and the solid play of Northwestern’s redshirt freshman quarterback, Andrew Brewer.