G+ Migration Blog

Unexpected rainbow in the back yard. It was a huge complete arch, but I needed a proper camera to capture it.

Dinner - pan sauteed flounder in basil olive oil and lemon juice, with a topping of lemon zest, capers, garlic, and regular and lemon basil. All basil items from the garden. Reduced the sauce and added butter to finish. Accompanied by fresh salad not pictured here.

I exercised once today, but my back and butt are kinda sore, so I guess that's probably all I'm gonna do.

All I'm gonna say about this is that I think people in this country have decided that they don't want to talk about sex, and since you can obviously only get sex diseases if you have sex, and nobody ever does that, you don't need protection from sex diseases. Also, children only have sex if you talk about it. If they don't know about it, it won't happen. Also also, if you only have sex with one person starting after you marry them you are guaranteed never ever to get any sex diseases. I'm pretty sure they think only girls get cancer from this, as well, and that if they get cancer, well, god, etc. Even if only girls got cancer from it, here's a newsflash, it's still spread by boys. Just sayin' I think this is why this particular vaccine is not discussed as often, nor received as often. HPV vaccination rates up only slightly, CDC says The CBS Evening News (7/30, story 8, 1:25, Pelley, 5.08M) reported that “a report out today found that just 60 percent ...

You know, sometimes it is absolutely terrifying to follow up on stuff, even if you know you are doing the right thing. #life_getone

Thoroughly unproductive morning, unfortunately.

So, you know how there are times in life when other people look at things and say, oh, no, there's no hidden meaning/agenda/subtext, you're just imagining it/projecting your own issues/etc.; or people are so good at manipulation or word twitchery that if you saw it transcribed you'd swear it sounded perfectly reasonable devoid of facial expression, vocal tone, context, and body language? Like, they're so good, they don't even consciously know they're doing it?  That stuff makes my skin crawl, it makes me feel like I'm insane, it frustrates and irritates me So Much. Maybe it's because if you call people on it, they almost invariably pretend they didn't do it/really believe they didn't (consciously) do it/get offended that you'd suggest such a thing, and aren't you a completely horrible person. Which reactions are, frankly, confirmation that they, in fact, did. If it really was a communications issue, you could say that what you heard was ...

Needs more sloths and otters, that is all.

Happy 50th birthday Medicare/Medicaid.

Nice sentiments. Wish it were, in fact, always true, but at least somebody thinks this. http://theantijared.com/2014/03/never-fatty-westview-track-just-inspiring-fat-girl-named-dan.html

Apparently La Boulange is closing, too? I liked the actual stores in San Francisco; the bread and sandwiches were good. I've never been fond of what Starbucks decided to change their stuff into under the name of La Boulange. Seems like they are, indeed, just another avaricious giant company that buys things up and shuts them down. After degrading the remaining product sold under their name, of course. I wish any of the coffee places opening around here were even remotely like the better PNW coffee places (Blue Bottle in SF, Elysian in Vancouver, places I've never heard of but I know they exist and are good, etc.). They try, but yech.  There are a couple of really good coffees you can get, but one is only at the Farmers Markets, no stores, and the other is the Laotian coffee at the little start-up market for immigrants, which is not conducive to sitting in, either. P.S. OMG, the coffee she brings back from Laos is the most amazing stuff ever.

NOOOOOOOooooooo!!!!!! http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2015/03/09/blue-bottle-coffee-will-not-be-returning-to-sfmoma/#photo-604562 http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2015/03/09/blue-bottle-coffee-will-not-be-returning-to-sfmoma/#photo-604562

Things not to wake up to - opening your laptop and have a spider crawl out. Needless to say, it is dead, now.

Every time Jez tribell mentions Le Marais, this is what I think of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Marais I maaay be a music nerd. Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Marais

Old news, now, but I did finally get to see the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter.

Belated cuteness. Last time I visited my sister, I was greeted with appropriate offerings of toys, and requests for belly rubs.

I've exercised twice today, so that's something, I guess.

Apparently the Senate may be looking to defund Planned Parenthood following some "undercover" videos. Looking at several different articles about this, it appears to me that there continues to be this idea that all Planned Parenthood does is kill babies. No cancer screening, no healthcare for poor women, or women who for many reasons may not have full access to care, no contraception, no education, no prevention or treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Just baby killing. I don't work there, so can only look at the same sources as everyone else. As an absolute binary, yes, they perform abortions. It is a single digit percentage of the overall work that they do. Federal law already prohibits funding for abortions, so federal funds do no go to those activities, they go to the other community and women's health care activities. Therefore, defunding would not change anything about abortions, but it would affect the accessibility of other necessary medical care for wo...

In another abortive attempt at travel, anybody know anything about Vermont? If so, any recommends?

The first article is a little less sensational, but there's info in the second (that's on several reliable sites) that's not in the first. I have to say, I have a real problem with trophy hunting endangered animals. You aren't going to eat the meat, you aren't going to make clothing or useful tools out of the hide and bones; you're just killing for the adrenaline and seemingly you just leave the carcass to rot.  In this specific case, if the guides were professional, where were their permits? If they knew they were near protected land with collared animals, how did they not have some method to confirm whether or not an animal was from the reserve or collared prior to killing it? Ok, it seems you hunt lions in the dark (per comments in the article). How are you supposed to see well enough to make sure you are not randomly killing the wrong animals? If you can see well enough to shoot, how did you not see it was a black-maned lion, which per reports is rare and no...

Oh, look, google thought it was neat, too.

I am sooo behind on photo posting. July 3 we went up along the shore of Lake Ontario to see fireworks. While we were waiting this amazing sunset across the lake and over Toronto happened. The sun was huge, and blood red, with bands of black and purple crossing it as it sank. Thank you all those wildfires. I wish I had a proper camera, though, because these phone pics do not do it any justice, at all.

Shades of childhood. Shopsy's was a deli in Toronto. Among other things, they provided the corndogs for the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) every year, but they did have an actual deli in the city. My mom had this bag wrapped around something in a long buried box of stuff.

If thine eye offend thee ...

I may have failed to mention ... The apricots have all been processed, as well as some obviously being eaten in their raw state. I have 2 quarts of fresh apricot ice cream in the freezer, a rustic apricot tart was made and eaten, and there are 17 jars of jam (one was eaten). On the jam front, excellent news, commrades! By the time I got to the last batch, the apricots were a little over-ripe. This is, of course, supposed to be the absolute worst possible thing ever for making jam. Except guess what? That last batch smells like delicious, apricot blossom scented heaven. Oh, yeah! #suckitsquirrels

Hood ornaments! Originally radiator caps with a temperature indicator, 'cuz you really needed to know, eventually evolved into iconic and decorative designs. Pierce Arrow's Archer is one of the best known. #PierceArrow   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_ornament

Ok. Stupid human question. It's easy to go into an individual photo and tell g+ not to include it in the "highlights" page. How do you get it to not put the stories on the highlights page? I can't find where to turn that off. Stories show up under stories, I don't need the extra annoyance of them being under highlights, as well.

Well, now I know what it takes to get g+ to make a story. Lol. Still gonna share the individual groups of photos with commentary. https://plus.google.com/107085665537347703493/stories/778d9756-9fad-3ae7-96de-c8cb1f8a214f14ed2c1c26f

Amused by this bit, as well. For one thing, it's a little confused about where this is. Although near the confluence of Ellicott and Tonawanda Creeks, this is actually north of Tonawanda Creek, which is north of Ellicott Creek. And even though it knows it's Lackawanna, it just says Buffalo in the story. I am amused by the technology. But I got my first two stories, woo! https://plus.google.com/107085665537347703493/stories/9169a0d9-006b-316c-80d0-a4de80e2646214ed2c1c26d

Some of these restorations are pretty amazing. #PierceArrow  

There will be a series of disjointed photo collections from the Pierce Arrow Society Annual Meet that was open to the public on Saturday. I took a lot of pictures. This is apparently a very well known one of the cars that still exists and has a complete story. It is unrestored, so this is the amazing condition of an 89 year old car. It's story is behind the link. http://www.pierce-arrow.org/features/feature10/index.php #PierceArrow

Some of yesterday's activities included a two hour walking tour of North Tonawanda and going to the Serbian Festival (at the Serbian Orthodox church, of course.) I've done walking and bus tours with this company before, and they're usually really good, but this one is obviously new and needs work. An hour and 40 minutes in, we hadn't even gotten to the good stuff, like the truly significant old architecture and the creek/canal. Oh, well. I can go back on my own when some of the building and homes and things are open to tour and it isn't 90+ degrees and humidity. There are supposed to be revolutionary war era graves in the cemetary, too. The Italian and Polish and German and Irish festivals do not confine themselves to a single church, although there are some events that may center around one sometimes. The Greek festival centers around the big Greek Orthodox church in the city, but that's because of location. The Lebanese festival is at the Maronite church, whic...