So long 2009...

What? 2010 already? It can't be.
It seems like only a year or two ago we were running around Rockwell testing each PC and marking it with either a Green Y2K compliant sticker or a Red Non-Y2k compliant one. (As a side notes it's scary but some of those PCs are still in use on the manufacturing floor 10 years later!)
And then on New Year's Eve 1999 we were watching the massive fireworks from around the world, starting in Sydney, then Tokyo, and so forth to welcome in the new millennium (a year early). I remember rushing home to see the Paris and then the London displays, and the rows of fireworks running up the reflecting pools in Washington DC.

I guess I've been a little lazy about updating here but here's a dozen blog posts I never actually posted but meant to:

1) My Kindle DX review (amazing piece of equipment I love it!)
2) My Kindle Cover from Oberon Design review (even prettier in person!)
3) The Kindle DX screensaver Author Challenge (Try to read at least one book by each author who's picture is part of the screen saver. Of the 15 authors I had read 7 before getting the Kindle, and finished one since - Jane Austin, and started another - Alexander Dumas)

4) my reviews of the 3 free books I got from the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing:
Dance in a Buffalo Skull
Dragon Forge
Any Given Doomsday

5) NetFlix and how I love discovering new TV shows (Castle, Big Band Theory, Leverage, Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures, Heroes, Chuck) or revisiting old ones (To the Manor Born, The Grand, Flambards, Brideshead Revisited, The Good Life/Good Neighbors, Keen Eddie)

6) Monty Python For the First Time (One of the guys I work with told me he has never seen Monty Python. None of the TV shows or movies! So I took the TV show DVDs in to work and we are watching them at lunch. It's fun watching him encounter the dead parrot, Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, the Nudge-Nudge Wink-Wink Guy and the animation of Terry Gilliam for the first time.)

7) Return To Marching Band (I played in the South Milwaukee Heritage Days parade)

8) Return To The DM's chair (I had so much fun running the Free D&D days sponsored by Wizards of the Coast that I started a 4th Edition campaign with 4 of my friends. We're meeting roughly every other Saturday.)
(On another side note today Dec 31st, 2009 is the 32nd Anniversary of the first time I ran D&D. Peter Nelson got the basic set for Christmas 1977 from his uncle and I read and ran it at our family's yearly New Year's Eve get together.)

9) Return of the Owls (they are back in the neighborhood, I heard two of them in the woods hooting at each other while I shoveled snow for the first time this season.)

10) Root Canals Are No Fun (I really don't recommend them)

11) TurkeyCon 2009 (Our annual board game event the day after Thanksgiving, attendance down a little from last year but a good time was had by all)

12) The summer cats - this I feel the worst about, I don't have pictures of all of the foster kittens from this summer and I'm sure I've forgotten some of their names.
Rosamund (who is still with us)
The Great American Composers - Cole, George, Irving, Vivian and Jerome
The UK Counties - Stafford, Claire, Cornwall, Devon and Kent
The Tea Babies - Darjeeling & Jasmine (both adopted Dec 20), Oolong and Rooibos who died before they could be adopted and the two unnamed ones who died before we got them from the barn
Arwen from the same barn who only lasted a week and Brambles who lasted barely 4 hours
Ovaltine (adopted Dec 20th)
Frodo Baggins who was adopted but then returned and we kept him (Michelle scooped me on this story)

I think I saw the owl!

Math problem:
If yesterday = 12 inches snow then today = ???
Please show your work...
....
....
....

the correct answer is today = 90 minutes of shoveling to get 1/2 driveway clear

I like snow, really I do.
I don't mind shovelling at night in the cold, clear, quiet it's very zen-like.
After all the other people with their noisy snowblowers finished and went inside I was pausing to catch my breath and I heard the owls again!
One north near the tree farm and one south by the woods.
I decided then that I had cleared enough to get the cars in the garage so I went and got the binoculars and walked up towards the tree farm.
I think I saw the owl up on a bare branch in a tree moving back and forth, but it's been awhile since I used binocs and couldn't hold them very steady.
I'll go back tomorrow when it's light and see if I was looking at a squirrel's nest :)

But....
I was down on one knee in a snow bank trying to get a different view of the branch and when I took the binocs from my eyes and was about to get up I realized that there was a coyote staring at me from about 20 feet away.
Coyotes are NOT small, as I found out when I hit one on the freeway with my new Kia in September of 2006.
This one seemed not quite as big as that one.
It looked at me as I stood up slowly, then it turned and ran off towards the pond, leaping over the snowdrifts.

I like living on the edge of the country, but I know animals can show up in the most unexpected places, like the fox that we saw several times walking down the road at night in London when we there in 2006.
We were staying in the Bayswater area on the north side of Hyde Park and see the fox as we were walking to the tube station and to "The Swan" a very nice little pub that we ate at twice.
Mr. Fox was too quick for us and we never got a picture of him.

UPDATE: I walked down to the tree farm this afternoon and there was nothing on the branch I was looking at last night! Owl confirmed!

Owls in Caledonia!

Last night as I was reading in bed I heard an owl outside my house, pretty close by.

A couple of minutes later I heard it again to the north, near the Tree Farm.

Suddenly I heard it again near the house and realizied it was two owls!

They hooted back and forth in a 5 hoot pattern (whowhowho-whowho) several times.

I'm not sure what kind they were.

There is a pack of coyotes that spend several nights a month in the Tree Farm, we can hear them howling at night.

This is another reason why we keep our cats inside at all times.