There's no way I'm going out tonight to Home Depot or Lowes to get another bucket, so I just taped up this one and brought it inside to keep my chippy birds away from the bucket. Not to be confused with Chipping Sparrows, which I also have.
It's an eight foot tower of cars, on a spindle, and was featured in the movie Wayne's World. The Spindle, also known as the "Car Kabob" or the "Eight Car Pileup" is located in Berwyn, IL a suburb of Chicago. It was supposed to be dismantled last year to make way for a Walgreens (like there isn't one two blocks down?), but a couple of preservation groups formed to protest, and are trying to have it relocated.
How much would you pay for a rusted, bird poop covered, famous spindle of assorted cars? The full article and video are here.
They don't know who the cat belonged to, they'll be searching it for tags, chips, or markings to track ownership. Cougar sitings in Chicago are rare.
Above is the waterfall across the street from my work that they started up this week. During the Christmas season, they string lights up from all the trees, making it look very festive. There's a little path behind it, where I believe you can walk, although I've never gone back there. Perhaps this summer when it's a little warmer out, I'll check it out. It's just tough crossing a six-lane road on foot.
Here is an alien I found living under my desk at work. You can see a little bit of the hoses that they have inserted into the wall. Is this a baby alien, that was left here alone, while the parent went outside to stand guard? And exactly what is it doing? Stealing important steel data from our office? Inputing viruses?
This is the difference between our old and new carpeting. The old carpeting is blue, a little lighter than sky-blue, very worn and ugly looking. During the winter, with one particular pair of shoes, I am constantly getting shocked from a build-up of static electricity. The new carpeting is actually squares of the same pattern that are being alternated to give it a checkerboard appearance. It's much darker, but it will wear better than the older carpet. And I don't get a "charge" from it, lol.
Here's my keyboard that I've had for five years. Note the keys still have all their letters and numbers. I guess I either don't use it enough, or don't rest my fingers on the keyboard like other people do.
Here is an Orange Cone-Head Alien that I think might have been a hostage to the AT&T repair van. I could almost hear it calling out to me when I pulled up behind it.
For those of you that don't get a lot of Canadian Geese where you live, here's a picture I took last November as an example of the sometimes expansive flocks I get here on my lake/pond. There could be as many as 100 geese in this picture. Right now we don't have that many, but in a few weeks, during breeding season, we could see the number increase. Usually we have several pairs all with cute little goslings running around. At least once every spring, I have to stop my car on the way out to the main road, to let the adult geese and goslings cross the road. 
Monday night, showing the drywall that was cut out to get to the pipes, and the interior insulation that was pulled out from around the pipes.
This was taking Tuesday morning, after the plumber had been in while I was sleeping. They pulled the toilet up (it's sitting off to the left in the bathtub) and ripped out more drywall.
Here's a close up of the pipes and insulation in my wall. If you look carefull, you can see some small shiny sections of copper pipe. Those are the newer pieces they put in to replace the busted sections. I'm assuming some are from last year. There are at least four that I can tell in the picture, one longer piece on the right side, lower pipe, one small piece in the middle top pipe, and one small piece on both top and bottom pipes on the left.
Because of the water on the bathroom floor, I knew it would start leaking to the carpeting in the bedroom, so Monday night (Tuesday morning actually), once the water was shut off, I started getting everything out of the way before the water got to it. I dragged it wherever I could, and still leave a path to my computer.
Here's the finished bathroom tonight when I got home. Same toilet, can't get that replaced yet (next on my list), but I have a new vanity, cabinet, sink, faucet, I got it all. If you compare this photo with the first one, you can see the difference in the cabinet door. This new one is much nicer quality than the old one.
Also standing from my front stoop, this is a picture of part of the parking lot. The one car in front hadn't moved in at least a couple days, so it was all covered in snow. Mine is the silver one on the far left, partially obscured by the tree. There are piles of snow from the plow, and the sidewalk hadn't been shoveled yet. Those are footprints on the far right side leading up to my door, where people had to trudge through very wet and slushy snow.
From my apartment, this is looking out on the golf course. The darker areas in the middle are where the water was collecting from all the rain we got before it changed to snow. This was taken without flash, from my bedroom, through the window. You can actually see the water droplets in the picture that were on the outside of the window.
A couple geese walking through the fresh snow Sunday morning.
This is a new shotglass case I got for Christmas. The three bottome shooters are Mazatlan, Mexico, BB Kings Blues Club Memphis, and Cancun, Mexico. There are four shotglasses along the top, although you can't see one of them because it's dark blue. They are: Key West, Florida, Great Platte River Road, Kearney, Nebraska, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, and Amelia Island, Florida.
Here's the top, it says "Denise's Shots"
This was my bedroom window last night. We had a wicked storm go through. Not a lot of snow, at least I don't think there was a lot of snow. Most of it was blown all over the place, due to wind gusts of up to almost 50 miles per hour. Along with the wind, the temperatures dropped from almost 50F late morning to 0F overnight.
All he needs is a little help from behind to navigate down stairs.
Once he's all the way down, one set of wheels lifts up, and he will only use one set of the larger wheels, and the smaller set of wheels. He can go through grass, some sand depending on how packed it is, over curbs, it's amazing how well he can get around. None of this has stopped the family from taking trips, and doing things together. We met them for lunch at the Doubletree Resort, then walked a few blocks to the Santa Barbara Pier. Because it was off-season, not much was going on, but it was nice to walk out to the end and see the ocean. That was as close as I was going to get on this trip. Just as we were getting back to our car, it started raining lightly. The weather couldn't have co-operated more. It rained until we arrived, then quit until we were ready to leave.
This was where you paid to get in for the tour. My sister paid and kept the ticket, so I have no idea how much it cost, lol.
This is a shot looking up at the antennae or whatever those things are that stick up from the top of the carrier, lol.
Here's the entrance where you go inside to the hangar deck, where they hand out headsets and a hand-held audio player. There are many numbered spots throughout the carrier, you just press the button for that spot and you get a recording of information about it. You can do them out of order, as many as you want, etc. It's suggested, that you should allow 3-1/2 hours if you want to do the full complete tour. There are a total of 60 areas to see on three levels.
This is up on the flight deck. I believe that's the Island Superstructure, and includes Flight Deck Control, radio rooms, Captain's Cabin, and Admiral's Quarters.
Here's a shot looking back from the forward end of the carrier. That's part of the skyline of San Diego behind it. It's kind of hard to see, but I believe that's an F-8 Crusader in the foreground.
Here's a shot of some of the helicopters on deck, once we finished the tour and were down on the ground again. This is from the opposite side of where we entered. I believe the chopper on the left is a Huey Gunship, the white one in the middle is an SH-3 Seaking, and the grey one on the right is an SH-2 Seasprite.
This is what we came around the carrier to see. We could see it clearly from the flight deck, and had to see how tall it actually was up close. You can see me standing in front of his leg, and as I'm almost 5' 5", the statue is over 20 feet high. (25 feet tall to be exact.) For those of you not familiar with this very famous image, it's from the end of WWII, in NY. When the end to WW II was announced, thousands of people ran out to Times Square, and a Life photographer was there recording it. He saw a sailor running around grabbing every girl in sight. As the photographer ran on ahead, he turned around and snapped the picture just as the sailor grabbed a nurse, bent her back, and kissed her. It's one of the most recognized images from WW II. This statue was on loan the city of San Diego. It was previously displayed in New York and Sarasota, FL. It was only in San Diego through 2007 (so how come it was still there on Jan 2, 2008?)
Here's another shot of the statue showing how close to the carrier it is. I don't know what the sign read, I didn't get a chance to read it because my aunt was parked illegally, and we didn't want to dawdle.
