kbobam

Massive insomnia the other night. But in my new Midwestern US location you can go out in the street in the middle of the night and there's no one there waiting to kill you for sport. It's great! I never really paid attention to this building. It's very boring looking during the day.

I really like that Coke marble! Never seen one quite that 'abstract'. Those that I've had have always had a more straightforward simple design. And I'm not sure that Coca-Cola would be especially approving of those rather 'Pepsi-ish' colors! ( :

Lagunitas was a new one on me, Mike. They look like some fun people making interesting beer. https://lagunitas.com/beers Richard, I have no idea what's going on here at this point. I think there's at least one local spot that micro-brews some stuff on premises. It's funny how wherever you go the locals never seem to think very highly of old established brands in their area, even though people from out of town can show up and think it's terrific beer. (And would never refer to it as "Feline Output"!)

Beer day! Yay! You can get it at the convenience store in Wisconsin. Or Walmart! Either of those things would be just crazy in Maryland. Thish playsh is grate! Not that I actually went out and got any because I'm reshponsible. But ash long ash I'm here have I told you guys how cute you are? No seriously! You're just like so much better looking than average it's not funny! But wait! I don't meant that like superficial like! Itsh much deeper! I really love you guys! No serioushly! You jus dough no! Gonna goto bed now and wake up and be even more in love witchoo!

Heeeere.................jetty! Jetty, jetty jetty jetty jetty!............................ That sounds like a pretty normal word. And I had no idea what it meant. I think there may be a lot of those. It's been coming to my attention lately that although I'm a complete fricking genius in many respects , I have these 'gaps' in my knowledge that 99% of 'normal' people don't have. It's very frustrating. I don't know what to make of it. Long ago in New York City things got so bad that even two bicycle locks weren't good enough People started doing completely insane stuff. Like taping laboratory samples of their bodily fluids to their bikes to make them less appealing. What a world! .

Ha! I forgot about the roller blades. Yes. Some of the terrain near the lake is much better served by the bike's knobby tires and their tendency to stay on one's intended trajectory. Although roller blades do look cool. One of these days I'll get up the nerve. Here's a shot of 'a brand new one on me', in spite of the fact that I come from Annapolis, where they supposedly take fish pretty seriously in spite of their silly tendency to call striped bass 'rockfish'. I can definitely tell you that if you go down by the water in downtown Annapolis they will not provide you with a large convenient fish-cleaning station which apparently includes the biggest garbage disposal unit currently available. I'm impressed. Actually, about a hundred yards away I knew I was coming up on something impressive. Just didn't know what it was yet! Made me happy, though. In my case, I grew up a block away from an open-air fish market I walked by every day, so the 'aroma' is a good thing to me. Maybe our serious fish people at TMC know what I mean. (Steph, the rest of this message is really boring. Please don't waste your time reading it.) So slightly up-river from the clean fish area was this 'I don't know what you call it' which lead out to a lighthouse. I left Steph's bike at the near end and walked out and took a look at it for half an hour or so. Didn't even occur to me to make a point of locking the bicycle to something. I guess depending on where you're from, you may not be particularly impressed by this. Coming from the Baltimore area, this was a totally mind-blowing situation for me. (The first day I was in Wisconsin, I was having a cup of coffee somewhere and using a laptop computer. When I went to the restroom, I took the laptop with me. In Baltimore or D.C. you'd be an idiot not to.) But I know better now. I like it here! ( :

All things in moderation. Which of course includes the 'all things in moderation' rule.

Oh. Em. Gee. Just finished writing that 'title', and was pretty pleased with the post so far. But then I realized that what I'm potentially subjecting you to is essentially a sort of 'personal blog', which is just about the worst thing one human can do to another. (Not quite as bad as 'reality T.V.', but pretty close.) I apologize in advance. Especially because my psychic friend just told me that I'll be sending you guys 437 of these 'postcards' before such time that I become a small 'curd' in a huge vat of 'whey' in a bizarre (and cheesy) industrial accident. So here are a few pictures from a far away land I took today, with I hope not too much commentary. For a Monday morning I was thinking pretty clearly today, and decided that it would make a lot of sense to cruise around the area and see what businesses were nearby. All other things being equal, why not try to find a potential employer within walking or biking distance? And just maybe there might be one of those which was appealing in its own right! What do you know?! Nailed it right out of the box! (Turned out this is a different company now who kept the Bud logos for 'historical landmark' purposes.) I'm probably getting a little ahead of myself here, but thinking about where I might want to live, well, this is looking like a pretty good choice to me. This building is in what I want to call "old downtown" Manitowoc. It's sort of a 'one of a kind' structure around here, in that you just don't otherwise have this sort of large tall old-school hotel/apartment style of building in this area. And it's so 'New York'! (Where I'm from, if you don't remember) I kind of love it. I rode a couple of circles around it today on Steph's bicycle (seen in foreground!) and learned some things which made it even more appealing. At street level on the front side there's a cantina with cheap pitchers of beer. And as if that's not enough, there's a Chinese restaurant around the side and an Italian deli around the back! I could happily handle a lousy job to live here! Although! I took a ride in the opposite direction today and found a new neighborhood. Got to the end of a street I'd never been on before and saw this. Made me feel like that person who 'discovered' the Pacific Ocean. I'm assuming this is Lake Michigan, but what do I know? The street which runs parallel to this view is called 'Lakeview Drive', which reminds me of an address in Ann's neck of the woods which I could never afford. Here? Maybe some day. Better get a job soon. ( :

No need to be too generous with your open-mindedness. It's almost certainly still their fault!

And there's a 'size issue' too! Most of these marbles appear to be about 1/256th. of an inch too small. Is it cold where you are?

I appreciate all the nice thoughts from everyone. Probably should have headed in this direction years ago. ( : P.S. I remember at least a few of you watched 'Fargo'. That's how most people really talk around here!

Tonight I turned to the "S is for Entropy" page in my mental alphabet book. Entropy is one of the greatest words (and concepts) in existence. You could spend a lifetime studying it, and wind up with the ability to say "I think I halfway get it!" But if you're the right type of nutcase (said with affection and admiration, of course) you won't regret the time spent. I was originally going to use the thought of entropy to lead into one of my 'The World is going to Heck!' rants. But you folks are all so nice that I'm going to spare you that, and instead tell you a truly amazing thing that sort of indirectly shows why the inability to explain entropy makes it great. So here is The Single Most Bizarre Aspect of Human Existence! Our ability to communicate isn't anywhere near capable of expressing what our brains are capable of feeling and understanding. Not even close! So-called 'social media' has made it clear that most people are very skilled at wasting time communicating totally worthless information, but when it comes to the really good stuff we have 'upstairs', spoken or written language simply isn't up to the task. You know stuff you can't 'share'! How frustrating is that?

Mike, you've got a 'fan' here too. And no doubt in many other places.

I seriously considered trekking the extra distance to the West Coast. There's never been any doubt in my mind that I'd really enjoy living there. But for now the 'small issue' is significant, and around here the housing costs are particularly low. Blue collar salaries aren't lower in nearly the same proportion, so the overall situation is efficient, and a good deal for someone trying to get back on their feet. ( :

Oh! You say that now! Where were you when I knocked on your door at 4 A.M. while on layover in Chicago?

Was recently at the end of my rope. More so than you want to know. This mostly had to do with losing my job of many years. It would probably be more accurate to say that the job lost me, since the company I worked for more or less disappeared overnight with the sudden and unexpected death of the owner. This put me in the unenviable position of being an unemployed fifty-ish guy in Maryland, where there still isn't a lot of work even though the federal government seems to want everyone to believe otherwise. So the ever-wonderful Steph, somehow realizing that I'd had it, said (literally) "Go West, young man! We'll (She, her terrific husband Jimmy, and the state of Wisconsin) take care of you!" And here I am. And things look real promising. So much so that after a long period of fetal-position non-function I have photos to post! Going to give you a little variety. First off is an artsy-fartsy shot, followed by what could only be thought of as a traditional 'postcard' photo. Last and definitely not least is a shot I took yesterday. I was at the laundromat across the street doing some wash, and when I stepped outside for a second, this is what I saw. I'm going to take this as a 'lucky sign'!

We were going to hang out in the pool today. But we have our critter situations here too.

I hope none of our TMC friends took my badly-worded comment the wrong way! 'Waiting too long' was a description of the empathy I feel for those situations when one's in a communicative mood but the timing for getting a quick response isn't good for whatever reason. No implication that the people who could answer the question were taking too long!

Hey, Bud! I'm probably the last person who could answer your question. But you've been waiting too long for a response, and I'm starting to get into a halfway decent Saturday night mood and felt like saying Hi anyway. It's a cool marble, whatever it is. The white has a sulphide look to it. ( :

Terrific assortment and photos! No idea how you did the lighting on the sulphides, but it sure worked well. shortnhairy59

My time is limited, but I'm going to have to come back and listen to more of these people. That was a neat song. The video was pretty hideous, but admittedly I've been loathing videos associated with music since the early 1980's. If music needs a video, then it's not especially good. (Insert 'old fart making a raspberry' sound here)

Alan, you need to stop being so shy and reserved! Man, this is such a great shot. Both the photo and its contents. I may have had a little too much of my cough medicine tonight, but I swear some of these marbles are 'levitating'.

Ha! I was a little slow checking back on this topic. I'm so glad to see I wasn't the only one to do a bit of a 'double-take' with the title! "Not that there is anything wrong with that!" was one of the all-time great television lines. ( :

Mark beat me to it.

That's a terrific portrait of your young admirer! And I did a "Hah!" when you mentioned the great state of Montana. In terms of the 'lower' United States, I've always thought of Montana as the place people who appreciate having a little 'space' around them would want to go. Along with this, it's also a place where, if you want it, you can get a little closer to the lifestyle of the people who made this country great. People who embrace New York and L.A. don't understand this at all.