Live from New York! It`s Silliyak and Moonrabbit!

I want to make clear that anything that might appear as whining here, is done with the understanding of the great suffering areas of the country have and are continuing to endure. Our hearts go out to everyone who has suffered in this terrible time.


It was a rough start on Thursday. reservations were made for a vacation rental for 2 weeks which included being picked up at JFK.
After a smooth flight, it was a bumpy arrival due to bad weather. Despite this we were 30 minutes early. 90 minutes later, after 3 unanswered calls and an email to the "landlord" we caught a shuttle, "Straight to your door" They didn't mention that there was a transfer, and that was a smaller bus that we couldn't get on and had to wait another hour for the next one. THAT bus dropped us off on the wrong street, but we caught the mistake before he got away. When we finally got to "our" rental, there was no one to meet us, no one knew the name we had or anything about a vacation rental in the bldg.It was nice having my Ipad to make a reservation right then, we got the last room.There are Brits EVERYWHERE here.
By 7pm, we caught a taxi to the Wellington Hotel near Times Square. We have still not heard from the scam artist, and it's pretty clear it's a scam. We have filed a dispute with Paypal, and will make a police complaint next week if we haven't heard anything.
We spent Friday morning watching the royal wedding and filing the dispute. We wandered down to Times Square and ended up in a crowd watching on a bunch of large screens with commentary by "Say Yes To The Dress" from TLC channel. We also started shopping for another hotel, ending up Friday at the Sheraton 4 Points Chelsea. Not exactly saving money.
Our stress level has lowered and we are enjoying the trip. Pictures to follow It's interesting to note that our usual pattern of taking massive amounts of pictures the first several days has NOT occurred.

A thoughtful neighbor

put this up for our lost friend, an "ex" (no such thing) Marine.

R.I.P Norma

Our wonderful neighbor is gone, almost a year to the day after her diagnosis.

Lost again in a genealogical fog

Late last night, a bunch of "hints" came up in Ancestry.com. I had some free time before my yoga class this morning, so I thought I'd start winnowing them out, I find them slightly annoying, something that has to be dealt with. About half were on a line I'm not following anymore, but half were on my dad's line. As I perused the information, I found Samuel Maris Wilkinson. Born 1897, died in France 1918. So I checked military records, and found that he had enlisted in the Marines in Dec 1917, was wounded in June 1918, and died of his wounds. So few facts, but one can imagine so much. I may research June 1918 battles, but next thing I know I've missed Yoga.

I feel like my heart got exercised a bit, and a bit of poor Samuel has resurfaced.

Update, this happened in June of 1918.

The Battle of Belleau Wood. 

Genealogical Critical Mass

I have been working on my genealogy tree for a couple of years now, joining Ancestry.com as needed, partially because one brother is a Morman, and also out of curiosity. Typically, I would make great strides, then get stuck for a LONG time.  Last year,after a long hiatus, I hired a genealogist via Ancestry.com to try and break through on the male line of my dad.

We got "over the pond" back to Antrim, Ireland in 1712. I found that when they came over, they were Quakers in North Carolina, near Raleigh. Sad to say they were slave owners for a time. I'm not sure how to feel about that. One ancestor married a Presbyterian and got kicked out of the Quakers.

The family fortunes seemed to have declined, and my line moved to Arkansas for a few generations. The only nagging question left for me is the date of death of my great great Grandfather and the circumstances. (And why he was named "Egbert", it's not surprising that he's the only one!)

Anyway, the point I wanted to get to, is that after all this struggle for bits of information, you come to a point  where you start intersecting with other peoples trees and are suddenly FLOODED with new distant relations and the information about them. And every time you enter them, Ancestry.com gives you new links, which lead to even MORE new relations. These people knew how to have babies! I'm talking about 8-10 with the first wife, then a few more with the next! Then maybe 60% live to breed and have another 8-12 kids!

So I've stopped entering "new" people, unless someone shows up who is "closely" related or otherwise interesting. I have one relation with the nickname "the kid" who was killed by a bushwacker. I'm guessing that nickname predisposes you to that sort of thing, versus longevity. Another was a minister who founded a church in Arkansas, who was kicked out of the same church for drunkeness.

It's been interesting.

More storm damage

While I was meeting with the Tree Guy to arrange the clearing of the fallen tree, I got a call from my boss that a large part of our back fence at the coast had blown over. The termites must have been frightened by the storm and stopped holding hands.

Our Gust meter indicated a high of 50 mph, but it reads a little low I believe. We got off lucky, just behind our house I saw THIS.

This took out phone and power lines for a bunch of houses, and they weren't repaired for several days.

Neighbor update

Our dear former neighbor who lost her house, then was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer last Easter Sunday, made an appointment with Hospice today. She is no longer able to keep any food down. This is just so unbelievably unfair.

The only upside is that she knows how much everyone in our community loves her and how much she will be missed.

She is a former Marine and very patriotic. The picture is of her house July 4th 2009. She did all the retaining walls herself as part of a landscaping plan the would have been lovely, but now will never be done. I used to call them The Great Walls of Norma.

A busy day

Lots of rain yesterday/last night. Two inches in 24 hrs. It was forecast to be very windy, and it apparently was, but I slept through it. Got up, went to Sunday morning yoga, feeling all warm and relaxed, stopped by the trainyard to check on things. At first glance all I saw was garbage cans and chairs scattered around. Then I saw the tarps had been blown nearly off the cars. It was more than I could fix so I called in reinforcements. Amidst some rain and hail, we spent two hours redoing the tarps. In the middle of THAT, I got a call from my tenant that some trees were down. The ones across the road had been cleared by the Fire Dept, but another was kind of, sort of, on the house. A number of other trees on the same street had gone down, several others across the road.

No lunch for the wicked I guess.

house to right

More rain forecast for tonight and the rest of the week. I'm now "on the list" for the tree guy. I suspect other trees may need some attention as well.

A reflection on impermanence

So long Joe, we hardly knew ye

Lost amidst all the recent tragedy, was a small notice of the passing of Joe Morello, best known as a drummer for the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which itself was known for producing music in odd/unusual time signatures.

I always thought he was something special, but I am biased because I have been a Brubeck fan since the mid 60's. REAL appreciation of drumming I believe is rare, and I probably don't even know how good he REALLY was, but people "in the know" seem to agree he was something special.

He wasn't particularly fashionable, but he was damn cool none the less.

An odd "memory" I have of him was that he was part of a very vivid dream I had when I was about 15. In the dream I was watching him on TV doing a drum solo on the Mike Douglas show, when the doorbell rang. I answered the door and an old lady lady shot me. I was dying, the sensation being that of numbness starting at my feet and moving up my body until it got to my head and I woke up. Actually I had another vivid death dream the next night also. The following night I was understandably not anxious to fall asleep, but I resumed "normal" sleep/dreaming. ( I actually rarely remember dreams)

How was YOUR wedding?

I'm sharing this because it's the beach near our house where I've taken a fair number of pictures.

No snow, but a new (working) stove

Snow was forecast, and I would have loved to have gotten some caboose in the snow shots, but instead it was just damn cold.

Couplers finally finished with the mounting of the knuckles. The linkage is all hand forged iron, real craftsmanship.

Bench seats in progress

Real door latches! I'll kind of miss the "Super secret" piece of wood that held the doors closed until now. The latches portend the imminent installation of glass in the doors.

And then I just got a call from my renter that his furnace has died, on a Sunday, in a cold snap of course...

I'm off!

Update, I found a repairman  (step #1 harder than you would have thought) AND they will bill me so I don't have to drive up to meet him for payment, small yea.

Caboose brake adjustment

A little too much travel, let's move a few linkage pins around...

Much better
 And if you recall the fence damage..

Not pretty, but hopefully functional

Last night's entertainment

Our Xmas present to my BIL & SIL.

As my BIL observed "They don't have this were we live"

Both pictures are of the same individual. At the end they introduced people and where they were from. This is Kevin. Kevin's from New Mexico. It occurred to me that if New Mexico had Lion fish, this is what they would look like.

Click to enlarge (If you dare!)

Job opening?

Maybe a background in gymnastics would be good for this job.

New follower and another old story

Came across http://firefighterparamedicstories.blogspot.com/ the other day, and his posts keep reminding me of old stories, so here's one.

A few months after my "department of origin" was merged into a larger county department, I was put "on the route" which means I had no permanent station, and drifted from station to station to fill in as needed. This was mostly not a happy time. Almost always I was at the station for a full 24 hour shift, but occasionally I had to commute.

One particular day, I got sent midday from a busy 2 company station to a slow 1 company station for 12 hours, returning to the first about 11pm as an extra person. The only bed open for me was the only bed that was in it's own room with a door no less! Atypically for this station I had a nice uninterrupted sleep. The next morning I went out the apparatus floor and noticed the truck I was assigned to was dripping. It had rained after I returned the night before. This is not good, and when I went into the dayroom I was greeting with lots of smiles and "Hey Sunshine! Sleep well?"

For the first and only time in my career I had slept through a call.

Ku Klux Kacti

Every time there's a Kold night predicted, these guys show up. At least they're quiet, but they do have prickly personalities.

A comforting thought perhaps

A synopsis of an old Shelley Berman routine

Due to the process of photosynthesis " No matter how mean, or cruel, or sinful you have been throughout this day (or year?), every time you breathe out, you make a little flower happy"

Another Utube post, I still got nuthin'!

I feel so cheap!

OK so I "stole" this off a facebook post by someone else, but I got nuthin' !