An Outing on an Outing

One of the things I love about living smack in the middle of downtown is being able to walk all over the downtown area without having to worry about traffic, parking and all the headaches that come from having to drive to the downtown area.

It also means the local farmer’s market is JUUUUUUST down the street 😀

I usually go down there, get some fresh cheese curd, various veggies I’m gonna use for the week, and stop for my brat-breakfast (brat, kraut, spicy mustard, nekkid (no bun)).  I also grab something bakery for the SQO, and any other odds or ends that strike my fancy.  (found a fantastic smoked tomato sauce a couple of weeks ago, and the DIL almost drooled when she found some pickled okra).

I always finish my Saturday market excursion with a stop at my favorite coffee place for a good cup of cold brew:  The Steaming Cup.

Here’s a longer shot of the building in the background…it’s the building with the conical top on the corner:

This morning, when they took my order & gave me the number to hang on to…I was stunned.

 

 

 

HowInHell did they know I hit the big Five-Oh???

 

 

 

I feel so….’outed.’

Business Signage and my Brain

Just a quickie today…

I’ve been driving in to work the last couple of days because unforeseen events and extremely muggy weather put me in the damn car again.  But I did drive past a sign for an Italian restaurant in my area that was advertising Steamed Mussels the other day.

My first thought?  Why are they so mad?

My next thoughts?  Well, they went off on several different tangents, most of which got discarded for either being unworkable or running head-long into a mental brick wall, but eventually the various voices in my head agreed with the final sentiment:

That’d be a great name for one of them hoity-toity pampering spas featuring a lot of high-end saunas.

They could call the place Steamed Muscles.

 

Spam…the Amazing Meat in the Little Blue Can

For some odd reason, I’ve become obsessed with my spam filters.  Just today, I cleaned out probably a dozen quarantined posts for payday loan sharks.

If anyone deserves the nation’s ire – it’s these outfits.  These are the guys who prey on those whom life has handed a big pile of shit, pretending to be their salvation just before they charge an arm and a leg for a slice of tasteless white sandwich bread to tuck all that shit into.

If the riots come down hard & heavy in this country, I hope these places are some of the first to fall.

sorry…venting…all better now…

 

Anyway – I got a real gem from my spam filter, and had to share…

Businesses are erasing the boundaries between nations and
as a fruit, communication with the requisite portion in expanding your
reach as entrepreneur. Communication, in this be important, is the wit to spell out between any cant yoke there is and the transfer services boom has made it
steady easier. You valid be suffering with to persuade sure-fire the circle you trust your transference offers legitimate accommodation,
which can be verified through checking the reviews of the
fastidious one.

Not sure what they’re trying to sell me here – but if I hover over their little link, the screen shot that comes up is coded 403-forbidden.

I’m almost certain they’re either trying to get me engaged to some hot Russian woman, or have some little blue pills to sell that will get my dick hard.

It’s gonna take more than pharmaceuticals for that to happen, people…

How to Chain Your Dragon

I did it…I got the tutorial done for my dragon design.

YEA, ME!!!!

 

It was a monster of a project – almost as monstrous as all the design work that went into the form.  I lost sight of the actual photo count by the time I finished (added a few last minute shots, dropped a few others) but I had 251 pixs edited and lined up by the time I’d finished the photo work phase.

The final page count for the tutorial is 79 – but most of that space is taken up by the pictures.  It ended up a HUGE file in my hard drive.

Now, I’m no stranger to writing (duh!).  I’ve done ‘how to’s’ for employers in the past as they attempted to document JUST how a certain job is performed.  The writing of those little guides were usually dry, cold, impersonal and boring as hell, because there were higher-up’s involved who wouldn’t know a humorous phrase if it came up off the page and bit their noses off.

When I started the dragon tutorial, this was how the writing ‘clicked,’ because that’s my past experience with guides…a very ‘business impersonal’ style.

Took me a moment to realize what I was doing – and scrap the first draft.  I didn’t need to impersonalize this work, because there were no higher-ups between me and the publishing button.  The ONLY thing that would stop me from inserting my personality into this work was ME.

Can you see me cackling madly at my keyboard, yet?

If you want to make a dragon of your very own – here’s the listing:

How to Chain Your Dragon (a tutorial)

And if you want a dragon withOUT all the mucking about with pliers and little metal rings – I’ll make one for you:

My Pet Dragon

 

 

Murder in the Concrete Jungle

You get a lot of time to think when you’re pounding the pavement.  Sometimes I just mouth the words to whatever song is blasting away on my iPod.  Sometimes I mull over a string of numbers (work numbers, keto numbers, financial numbers, etc…).  And sometimes, I have long, in-depth conversations with the various voices in my head…just to work shit out.

Sometimes, it’s the only intelligent conversation I have all day…

For a while now, I’ve called this little stretch of my walk the Cathedral.

 

It’s nothing that special, really.  The owners of this particular piece of property decided to plant bushes all along the boundary of their lot.  Those plantlings did what greenery does, and grew – eventually getting tall enough to clasp branch-hands with the trees on the median.  For the entire spring & summer, the branches have been trimmed back over the sidewalk so people don’t have to push through the bush to get where they’re going – but they haven’t trimmed more than that.

 

It’s a landmark on my journey where I stop for just a moment, and breathe a huge sigh of relief.  It’s here that I get out of the hot sun and soak in a little shade.  In my head, this little canopy is the ‘official’ boundary between the industrial leg and the park leg, and marks where I’m ‘officially’ on the way home.

But this morning – I walked up to the Cathedral in horror.

 

LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID!

 

The Cathedral has fallen!  Those murdering bastards BUTCHERED it!

**SOB**

I got half a mind to march up to the door and give ’em a serious piece of the mind I’ve got left.

…Deep breath…calm and focus…oh yea, that’s right…I don’t do confrontation…

Upon closer inspection of the carnage, I can kinda/sorta understand why the bushes had to come down.  Looks like they were tangling up the power or cable lines running to the house.

 

But still….SLAVERING HEADBLIND SOULLESS BASTARDS KILLED MY LANDMARK!

OK…I feel slightly better now…

Couldn’t they have allowed just ONE more Autumn display of color that I could aim my camera at before the wholesale slaughter ensued?

 

 

 

Just a little sumfin…

I’ve been getting a bit dark here – it’s time to lighten up the load just a smidge…

 

So I snapped a quickie photo of a black walnut tree – with the beloved Fox river in the distance.  To make it fun – I added a bit of my text from one of the Austin Powers movies.

 

giggle a bit, accomplished.

Kindred Spirit

Did you ever embark on a solitary adventure on a sultry summer evening?  A random, spur-of-the-moment event with your only concrete intentions a vague desire to spread your consciousness across the terrain of your choosing?  And whilst upon such an unplanned sojourn, was another unspoken goal to blend into your selected area so expertly that the surrounding mankind were only aware of your presence on the very outside periphery of their understanding?

Have you ever taken such a event in with a companion – your only communication the poetry of expressive body language?

Might you oft believe that such observational activities are an unrecognized and unconsciously highly-sought after art form?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you ever pad the sidewalks or Greenspaces within your targeted territory with all your senses wide and receptive, opening the very core of your being to those communications from anything natural and wild?  Do nightly dreams tickle your sleeping self after this absorption, as your mind tirelessly works to adapt itself to these ruminations?

Have you woken to the sun caressing your face, and felt more alive than the previous years?

Might you celebrate the solidity of the rock, dance with the spirits of the wind, sing the hidden song of the stream, or bask in the wild fire of the setting sun?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you a creature of deep Earth – open to the Natural, yet reside within the heart of a city?  Are contradictions such as these accepted without understanding?

Reading this – do you nod your head in solidarity…and posit questions of equal gravity in return?

Then I’d like to experience you – a kindred spirit well met.

 

Dutch Goes the Photo – Dark

Good Old Frank…where would we photographers be without his challenges?  He’s got a challenge this week that REALLY speaks to me – Dark.

 

Dark photography is kinda where I live and breathe in the world of hobby-photography.  First, there was the SQO’s band – working on a darkened stage with bright spots scattered randomly about necessitated my first camera upgrade.

Discovering light painting as an art form pushed me to the current DSLR, and keeps a full-frame sensor on my list of ‘things I need as soon as the money is there…’

Let’s not forget all the celestial events happening …

Or the artistic displays that show up around here in the fall…

And then there’s the kids hobby of spinning poi – conveniently lit on fire.  Yea…I have no lack of potential dark photography subjects at my easy disposal at any given time.

So I’ll offer up some of my favorite dark shots – just for you Frank.

Keep the stellar photo-sharing ideas coming!

 

 

 

 

Winter is Coming

Yup.  I done it.  I stole the title of this blog post straight out of G.O.T.

But it’s not about the ever popular Game of Thrones, although I did become enough of a fan this summer to put the published books on my Kindle.

Should be a couple months of reading, at least…

I can feel it coming.  Winter, that is…not dragons or the Night King…

 

Well…maybe dragons…I’m still writing out a tutorial for my fellow Chainmaille Addicts…

 

I feel it every year, with varying intensity.  As summer slips into Autumn, this seasonal change plays merry havoc with my sensibilities.

Every year.

I feel the shift from growth to winter prep.  The trees, the grass, the bushes … everything shifts its focus.

I feel the heaviness.  I need more sleep.  I get very introspective, and start digging along the dark paths in my head.

It’s going to be a long winter here in Wisconsin based on how early this Autumn shift hit me…and the leaves haven’t started changing yet.  I’ll try not to get too dark and introspective here on the T&T.

 

Spam…salty breakfast of Champions!

I occasionally browse my spam filter…usually when I’m bored, tired of games and facebook and general web browsing, or I’m frustrated with a chainmaille build.

Or sometimes…just ’cause…

Today – I peeked in the spammage…and came up with this gem for a user name:

 

Donald trump forming Convervative cannabis lobby

Now…I try my damnedest to keep politics off the T&T – there are plenty of other blogs out there who regularly churn out their take on the political landscape.  If that’s your thing, more power to ya.

But this was just too good not to share.  Hope it brings as much giggles to you as it did to me.