Useless Information

Did you Know:

Americans put 3.5 million coins in vending machines every 15 minutes!

Open Blog - Weekend

I love watermelon!

Search for "How do I Qualify for"

This is nuts....

RECEIPT

“What am I supposed to do with this?” grumbled the motorist as the police clerk handed him a receipt for his traffic violation.

“Keep it,” the clerk advises. “When you get four of them, you get a bicycle.”

Four for Fridays

Hello everyone! It's Friday and do you know what that means? Another episode of Four for Fridays! It's been a busy, busy week and I'm glad it's almost over. Here are some questions for you...

1)  Have you ever had a song in your head that lasted for days?

2) What board games do you like to play?

3) How often do you go to see a doctor?

4) How many places have you lived? And where?

Enjoy your your weekend!

Open Blog - Friday

I'm seeing stars.

Fall In Horicon National Wildlife Refuge!

Yes this past Sunday we went back to Horicon. This time I was able to see a lot more than the last time we went up there. I really enjoyed myself so much. Along HWY 49 we seen so many different wildlife animals, there was a field just full of so many different animals I just could not believe my eyes when I seen all of them. We did take pictures of the fields of the wildlife.

Then we went on the auto tour road and I was taking pictures of the Fall colors changing. The picture above is of the floating Boardwalk. This is so beautiful to walk and see. Sunday was the first time I was able to take this walk with Drew. I just could not believe my eyes when I seen this.

This is along the auto tour road. I had to stop and get this picture for everyone. The fall colors are starting to come in up north and it is so nice to see. 

This is a pond on the side of the same road and you can see a swan in the water towards the top of the picture along with the flowers. I just could not believe my eyes when I seen the scenery it was so lovely and the swan in the pond just made it more beautiful.

This is the blanket of yellow flowers that I was talking about in my last post. It is just beautiful and it is along the floating Boardwalk. This is in a lot of the fields in Horicon. If you remember the first picture at the top of this post you see like a lookout tower that is were I took this picture.

This is down the road from the floating Boardwalk. It is two different ponds with all kinds of wildlife in them. This is towards the end of the auto tour road.

In the distance you can see the turbine's above the trees. Yes we were not that far away from them, we past them on the way down the road to the wildlife refuge. If you see the tops of the trees starting to change there colors it is so beautiful. 

Along this road is a lot of different bike or hiking trails you can go down. In the spring I would love to go and walk the trails to be able to get the wildflowers just starting to bud. I will try to get back up that way to get the fall colors of the trees when they change the beautiful colors.

If you like to see the wildlife and the wildflowers this is the place to go and see it all. For me this is the best place to take a walk and see the beautiful land and how peaceful it is up there. It actually give you a true peace of mind how beautiful our land and wildlife really is. If it wasn't for Drew taking me there I would have never known how this really could make a person feel.

Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Space Shuttle!

Well, we got lucky here in Tucson this morning. As many of you know, the Space Shuttle Endeavour (or OV105) is being flown cross country to it's final home at the California Science Center. Yesterday, Mark Kelly, husband of Garbielle Giffords and commander of Enedavour's last mission, told NASA it sure would be nice if they could do a flyover of Tucson. Tucson is right on the flight path and it wouldn't take much to make it happen, so, NASA made it happen.

I was going to go up to the roof of NOAO but at 11am I got a call from a friend across the street at Steward who told me I could get on their (much higher) roof so I went over there. The flyover was scheduled at 11:15am and it was as close to on time as you can get. 

Here is our first view. The tower is part of NOAO (the building where I work).

It veered north toward the Catalina Mountains before it headed back toward campus.

Then it did a nice flyby where I got some closer shots (these are cropped).

I am not going to complain too much here...I think I had a nice view! There was a good crowd of astronomers gathered on the roof to watch this historic flyby and I am happy I got to see the shuttle in the air one last time.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

Poorly Placed Labels

Open Blog - Thursday

You betcha.

Sunset, the Moon, Mars and Saturn

The weather is clearing in Tucson so photography is happening on a more regular basis. First up, a sunset through low clouds.

Note the colors. Click for bigger versions and look for a cloudtop green flash.

Next up, the Moon and Mars were right next to each other and passing through some thing clouds for an interesting picture.

Finally, a zoomed out view where you can also glimpse Saturn to the right of the tree.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

Dear Madame Zoltar

Hello, my cooling cookies!  How are you?  The nights get nippier and nippier, or is it more nippy and more nippy?  Who cares.  You know what I mean.  It’s good sleeping weather.  More and more trees are starting to turn colors and/or lose leaves.  The stress of the drought will cause a lot of them to go into early dormancy.  Some of the older or sicker ones might not make it at all.  Oh dear.

Our compelling and alluring Green Bay Packers made it Thursday night past versus the Chicago Bears.  Thank you, mighty Pack, for annihilating our opponents.  May the force be with you when you face the Seattle Seahawks this coming Monday night, Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m., at CenturyLink Field.  May the force allow you to destroy our enemies.  Kick their butts, boys!

EMERGENCY! DON’T FORGET!  THERE IS STILL AN ELECTION COMING UP!

Oh my, it can’t come fast enough for me.

This past Saturday, Señor Zanza and I attended the Great Lakes Brewfest held at the Racine Zoo.  What an unbelievable selection of craft brews and homemade beer! Unfortunately, Señor Zanza felt compelled to sample each and every one.  Three or four times.  Oh dear, what a scene.  He is unaccustomed to ingesting such large quantities of inebriates.  He was puking his guts out in no time.  I drove us home.  Too bad.  I was hoping to spend some time exploring the possibility of a Madame Zoltar® Booth at Great Lakes Brewfest next year.

The following video is out of respect for the season.  It is “Tis Autumn,” performed by Stacey Kent (http://www.staceykent.com/), with an assist from Betty Boop:

Isn’t that soothing?  I hope so.  That’s the way I feel when you read my blogs.  Soothed by the thoughts of another.  Thank you so much.

The soothing soothsayer?  Madame Zoltar®, of course: madamezoltar@jtirregulars.com.

Enjoy your week, my darling irregulars.  Now is the time for fall cleanups.  Start battening down the hatches.  Old Man Winter approaches.  Utraquism!

Open Blog - Wednesday

Meow!

My kind of trailer

I saw this rig pull up in front of Kewpee's this afternoon. (They're closed this week because of refrigeration problems.) I immediately fell in love with the trailer.  The man driving said that he and his father built it.  That's beautiful.

Unfortunately, neither of us got our hamburgers today.  

A Time Waster

Panoramic Views from around the world.,

Panoramic Views

Open Blog - Tuesday

Ah, an optimist.

Open Blog - Monday

I hope that your day is not a hair curling one.

Useless Information

Did you know:

In 1938 there was a hurricane on the east coast which downed enough trees to build 200,000 homes!

Best of Racine 2012 part 2

Ok boys and girls, there was not a clear winner for thick crust pizza.
I can't award that one, as we were all over the place.
The winner for thin crust was Mike and Angelo's with Wells Brothers a very close 2nd.
Italian went to Infusino's with Salute a close 2nd.

Here are this weeks' categories - start your nominations for....
Best burger in town
Best sandwich shop in town

Commence nominating!