A week's worth o' blogs

So business takes over and blogging is often put aside. Weather-wise, it's been much of the same. Last Thursday when I played open mic (see below), temps fell to the lowest in the season so far and we got a couple of inches. Then more WSFFTS Saturday and Sunday...
but on Saturday afternoon, I happened to look outside at some point and saw this:

It was POURING snow. Like someone was dumping a big bag of it over the top of an impossibly tall set piece.
It only lasted about 10 minutes, but it was so beautiful.....so much snow...
Of course, we barely got a quarter inch out of it.



Last night was another situation. We had the prediction of 1-4" (which pretty much means they have NO IDEA how much it's going to snow.) It was a lovely surprise to see what I think was the most snow we've gotten at one time so far this season. It looked to be about 3" maybe 3.25. I had an early meeting and still cannot find my snow ruler (it's transparent!!)
The snow was fluffy and on the trees in thick layers which were coming down when SQs and birds ran across.



"Hey...got any more sunflower seeds? "


So, as promised, I have pictures from Thursday night open mic at Fingers Saloon. Had much fun and selected a few shots of the evening.



Here is a basic one. It seems I sing a lot with my eyes closed. I know it keeps me on task and undestracted by the drunken crowd but it makes for boring pictures. I know I open my eyes more than that,,,,,,


I like this one for the expression on my drummer's face. It seems I'm attempting to be serious, although for the life of me I can't remember which song this was. It was the only one he drummed for.


This is Steve..the second drummer, and Bart...one of the music men running the show. Steve was great. We had never met, he walked up and asked if he could sit in. I played mostly originals (the crowd seemed to be going for it) and he not only kept up but really accentuated the songs. I have a recording of it. I'll figure out how to attach or link to it somehow.


This is me just leaving Nick's Hug Zone.....



Bart and Kathy..and other usual suspects playing what I believe to be Zombie....


It's a good time whenever I go. It's always fun to play with other musicians. I don't necessarily consider myself a musician as much as a hack. I don't know all the chords or read tabs. I play and fiddle around until I figure out what I need to know to either write something or cover something.....total hack.
But it suits my purposes. I'm in grad school....not really looking for that elusive recording contract....any more at least. As long as I can find a good open mic at a bar ...usually on a weeknight...I'm good.
And why a bar you might ask? Well, I do play coffeehouses. But the bar is a different vibe. Plus the majority of people you meet and play with at the bar are adults...whereas at a coffeehouse in a college town....lets just say it makes me feel a bit old sometimes.

The week

It's been a crazy week for me so I'm catching up on a few days of weather and such.... Above was the scene on Monday morning. It snowed about an inch and a half or so. Big, fluffy lake effect snow.


Wednesday morning it started snowing these beautiful, big, fluffy flakes. It was gorgeous. I went up to the Caffe' and watched them fall from the big window.


This little guy was pretty funny. I've found I can get them riled up and talking to me when I make a little SQ sound and move my head back and forth really quickly. I'm amused as hell but I think my neighbors must think I'm insane.
I was able to get this great shot though. This is one of our medium to large ones. I have a couple of others (Chuckles especially) that are even bigger!





Miss Kleo Ma'm was trying to join the dinner party and could not understand why we wouldn't let her on the table. I finally found this stool for her but as you can see, her intent remained clear. She finally acquiesced and hung out with us from her little throne.




Another picture of the big, fluffy flakes of Wednesday. Today, right now, the sun is shining really brightly and for once...no clouds can be seen. I'm heading to Southfield to play open mic so hopefully I'll get to enjoy some of that sunshine.
The only downside....tonight it will hit 1F. The price we pay for no cloud insulation.

I'll bring pictures of open mic later this weekend.

Namaste'

One of those days

My gray day with snow beginning. Here is the street at 12:30 pm on Sunday, January 21, 2007
The snow is starting to pick up soon. We aren't supposed to get very much.



It's one of those days where the non-descript overcast sky takes the brightness out of even the snow. Everything out the window that is not a distinct bright color (the red house across the street, the green of the pine tree off the porch) melds together with the sky and ground. The stark brown of the tree trunks and dormant bushes break up the whiteness with punctuation marks of uniform uniqueness.

That little revele was broken up by the appearance of one of the Red SQs on the table right outside my window. The cats have gotten so used to seeing them right outside the window, they rarely react to a sudden appearance.


Although I reacted quickly to the appearance of this momma cardinal on the tree Saturday. The fuzziness is the double window pane I shot through. Her mate was just a few branches above, but hiding so that all I could get was snippets of red amongst the green.



Some snow is moving in but the system sheared as it neared MI so we won't get huge accums today/tonight. We have a forecast that I call the Michigan Forecast. Mostly it's a rubber stamp across the week...snow (usually WSFFTS*), temps in the 20s during the day, cloudy...this clouds reflect in the snow kind of thing. Honestly I think the snow is the only thing that keeps people from doing away with themselves up here given how little one sees the sun during the winter. Much local legend around here insists East Lansing ranked as the 2nd cloudiest city in the US. I've looked online for confirmation of that and cannot find it outside of blogs and people saying "I've heard EL is the ......"
This is the closest I came to a fact site

http://www.weathertoday.net/weatherfacts.htm

I think it is cloudy enough here that the myth can easily be believed.
I've been tracking the weather and submitting observations online for some time now. My ex-boyfrirend was a really good amature meteorologist and he got me into it. I've always been fascinated with the weather so this gives me a good way to interact with it.
You can see my observation postings here.

Earlier this week we had a little sunshine and here are the girls enjoying a brief interlude of warmth.


Here Miss Kleo enjoys a bright big sunbeam.


Skuttle also had a sunbeam here but it didn't show up as well in the photo. She prefers the ambient heat of sitting next to the laptop. She knows the poor thing will be cranking away for hours.

We had new snowfall on Friday (about an inch and a half) and everything went even whiter. The snow was big and fluffy and the SQs were out frolicking again and digging for buried sunflower seeds. Here is a great pic of what I think is Chuckles.


And her compatriot grey SQ. I love the snow on the nose effect.



Much writing needs to be done today.

GEEK OUT!!
Battlestar Galactica starts new episodes tonight!!! I'm a little peeved at them moving it to Sunday nights, but I should probably be content with the fact it is still running!

Something cool

This is a groovy picture of Montserrat, which blew again last week.
Love the volcanoes!!!

http://standeyo.com/NEWS/07_Pics_of_Day/070115.pic.of.day.html

A post for Kyat

My dear friend Kyat in CO requested a pic of me here. I'll post some self-portraits as time goes on but don't have one from the last couple of weeks so
I really did not like the NYE self-portrait so I am replacing it with a couple of shots from open mic night in December. I'm going back next week so I'll take some better shots then.

Heya Kyat!!!!! The hair is the same...but I need to cut on it a bit. Other than that...a few more curves..a few more wrinkles....still mostly me. :-)
I need to talk with you...I'm planning on making a cross-country trip out west this summer and your place is on my agenda.

Brightness of snow...

It seemed to be snowing all night last night. Mostly light, lake effect but it was enough to give us a wonderful winter scene this morning.
Yes, that is the sun shining....and blue sky to boot! So freaking exciting!! Don't let that beautiful sunshine fool ya. It's 15 degrees out there and with the wind chill...around 9. Of course that's up from 12 this morning. My outside thermometer (sitting on the gryphonporch) says 21 right now but I also know it is starting to get a little direct sunlight. I need to move it for the winter.

My workspace on "work at home days" migrates between my living room/dining room and my bedroom. The bedroom has a south window and a west window and the sun is coming in beautifully from the south this morning. I tried to take a picture of it but it didn't quite come out very well. So here is a view from that window of the ice on the trees outside.
In the summer, these trees block all light from coming into this window and the room becomes a cave.

Here is a third SQ variety in the neighborhood. These little guys are half the size of the Red Squirrels but are hilariously fast and hyper! The bigger SQs focus more on getting in the feeder for sunflower seeds but these little guys really like the suet cakes better. This pic was taken from inside the bedroom workspace (west window)

This is a larger pic of the whole window view. It's a lovely place to write if the birds and SQs don't distract too much.

After the Ice

We got about a quarter inch or less of ice on most surfaces but nothing so drastic that my 10am meeting was cancelled. :-(
So here's the scene from ice world off the gryphonporch this morning:


the porch from the other side


The squirrels seemed to be frolicking in the ice.



More snow to come this week so perhaps more pics of winterland...or frolicking. Depends on the SQ mood!

For me....more work.....

Laugh not at the misfortune of others

So I was a bit too amused at my mother's forecast....Now here's mine.......

ICE STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 12 PM EST MONDAY... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAND RAPIDS HAS ISSUED AN ICE STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 12 PM EST MONDAY. A SUBSTANTIAL AREA OF FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET WILL MOVE INTO THE AREA THIS EVENING AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES OVERNIGHT. UP TO A HALF INCH OF ICE ACCUMULATION IS LIKELY BY MID MORNING MONDAY BEFORE THE PRECIPITATION CHANGES TO OCCASIONAL LIGHT SNOW. AN ICE STORM WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF ICE ACCUMULATIONS WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS OR IMPOSSIBLE. TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. COMMERCE WILL LIKELY BE SEVERELY IMPACTED. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL...KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT...FOOD...AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY. ICE ACCUMULATIONS AND WINDS WILL LIKELY LEAD TO SNAPPED POWER LINES AND FALLING TREE BRANCHES THAT ADD TO THE DANGER.

Ok, so I probably asked for that. Nothing has changed for now from the morning pictures except that I shoveled and some street snow melted. We are at 32 now on the porch which is perfect for sheets of freezing rain.
The cats have the right idea:



Open mic was quite the groovy happening. Here is one of our performers. We probably had at least 10 musicians and three poets.



Here's a quick shot from the performance area. Best coffee in town!

More as the storm progresses.....

Snow and animals

We got some snow and ice overnight. When I woke up this morning the feeders were nearly empty and the sky was raining ice pellets.
It finally looks like winter!




I caught this squirrel (I call her Chuckles) hanging upside down over the feeder...unfortunately I just missed the high wire act with the camera.


















We got about an inch and a half of snow and ice and now they say we will get a mix of snow and ice tonight into tomorrow. Unfortunately The U does not close unless there is two feet of snow so I will have to somehow make it into work at 10 am on Monday.

Going to an open mic this afternoon at the Caffe'. I'll bring back pictures of the fun.





yes...he's a little black squirrel. I have a family of five or so that come eat sunflower seeds at the gryphonporch.

Waiting for snow

It's a good weekend to work. I'm hoping I can get some done.
It's also a good weekend to watch the feeders, although I will probably need to get more seed before the snow comes in tomorrow (supposedly.) We haven't seen any appreciable snow since early December and even that was pretty low-key.
I'll post a picture if it really happens.

My mother, otoh, lives in St. Louis, MO. Her forecast is hilarious and frightening all at once:

GREENE IL-MACOUPIN IL-MONTGOMERY IL-BOND IL-FAYETTE IL-CLINTON IL-
ADAMS IL-BROWN IL-PIKE IL-CALHOUN IL-JERSEY IL-MADISON IL-
ST. CLAIR IL-MONROE IL-KNOX-LEWIS-SHELBY-MARION-MONROE-RALLS-PIKE-
BOONE-AUDRAIN-MONITEAU-COLE-OSAGE-CALLAWAY-MONTGOMERY-LINCOLN-
GASCONADE-WARREN-ST. CHARLES-FRANKLIN-ST. LOUIS-ST. LOUIS CITY-
JEFFERSON-CRAWFORD-WASHINGTON-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...LITCHFIELD...VANDALIA...QUINCY...
EDWARDSVILLE...BELLEVILLE...HANNIBAL...BOWLING GREEN...COLUMBIA...
MEXICO...JEFFERSON CITY...ST CHARLES...UNION...ST LOUIS
436 AM CST SAT JAN 13 2007

...ICE STORM WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM CST MONDAY...

THE ICE STORM WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM CST MONDAY.


THE ICE WILL MAKE TRAVEL EXTREMELY DIFFICULT...IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
IF TRAVEL IS NECESSARY...MAKE SURE TO EXERCISE CAUTION. BEGIN
YOUR TRAVEL WITH A TANK FULL OF GAS...AND CARRY A WINTER STORM
KIT WHICH INCLUDES A SHOVEL...FLASHLIGHT...CELLPHONE...AND
BLANKETS OF EXTRA WARM CLOTHING.

WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES ARE LIKELY. QUICKLY MAKE PREPARATIONS AT
HOME BY STOCKING EMERGENCY SUPPLIES...SUCH AS FOOD...MEDICINE AND
EXTRA HEATING FUEL...JUST IN CASE THE STORM MAKES TRAVEL
IMPOSSIBLE. 

Luckily she has a wood-burning stove in her little farmhouse so they should be ok for the weekend. Rest of my family I'll need to keep tabs on. Still... not much fun in store for STL where they have already suffered through two widespread power outages in the last 6 months!