What are you doing today?

[Back in the fold]

My official ban hammer is a 5 lb sledge hammer. But the head is detachable to reveal a built-in lightsaber. It also converts into a fine fishing pole.

Did you swipe it from your little guy that fishes in your aquarium ?

 

[gwand]

I think we need to pool our pocket money and put creatine in cans of spinach. Old guys of a certain age will get it, and buy it by the ton. We can then all settle down, and build a gym with 360 gallon tanks all around it so we can have something to watch while we toil.

The reference to spinach brought back a very old memory. When I was in medical school, I had a cadaver that when living was a merchant marine. He was tattooed from head to toe. Every square inch of his body was adorned with an image. In this day and age, that is not a rarity. However, in 1975 it surely was. The largest tattoo was a ship’s anchor blazoned across his chest and two smaller anchors on each bicep. I named him Popeye, thus the spinach reference.

 

[GaryE]

I worked with a tough old guy in the 70s, when tattoos weren't in fashion. They were for old guys who had been wartime merchant marine, and that was about it. He had an eagle - head on his throat, wingtips on his shoulders, talons and perch below his bellybutton. We were working one day and I asked him how long it had taken. He said quite some time, over a few weeks. Since tattoos were an unknown, I asked how painful it had been to have one done. He said he didn't know, he was drunk at the time.

I remember seeing a forearm anchor and being told, in reverential tones, that only a sailor who had done the ultra dangerous Murmansk Convoy run could have that exact one. I asked what would happen of someone got one because they liked it (I was a young teenager) and was told that a young person with that tattoo would be beaten up by every decent man who saw it. These things had rules!

People get tattoos for personal meaning now, but at one time, sailor tattoos carried serious messages.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I've never had a tattoo. I've had a few piercings, but none of them were on purpose...

 

[gwand]

I've never had a tattoo. I've had a few piercings, but none of them were on purpose...

Does circumcision count?

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Does circumcision count?

Let's keep it family friendly...

 

[jaylach]

I have one tattoo that being a Pegasus on my left forearm. It actually has meaning. First I think of a Pegasus as a symbol of freedom. Second is that there is a broken rope on the left foreleg. The rope is symbolic of my taking off a wedding ring that involved a woman I never should have married in the first place.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Took a hike with the girls today. About three miles up the PopoAgie valley, had some lunch, and back out. I’m not much of a photographer but there were tons of wildflowers (does anyone know what kind this is?), nice scenery, a young grouse that seemed to think one of us was its mother, and a rather amazing looking moth: a cecropia perhaps?

 

[jaylach]

Took a hike with the girls today. About three miles up the PopoAgie valley, had some lunch, and back out. I’m not much of a photographer but there were tons of wildflowers (does anyone know what kind this is?), nice scenery, a young grouse that seemed to think one of us was its mother, and a rather amazing looking moth: a cecropia perhaps?View attachment 369109
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As to the blue flowers I THINK they are Blue Bonnets.

Awesome looking moth! Ever seen a Lunar Moth? I THINK they would be very rare as far north as we are but would see now and then when I lived in Florida. They are VERY short lived and you will see one for a day and then gone.

 

[Back in the fold]

@WhistlingBadger those pictures in post # 11,048 are awesome , especially the bottom one looking up the valley and the river . I bet there’s city folk on this forum that are dumbstruck at the beauty of life in small town Wyoming .

 

[WhistlingBadger]

@WhistlingBadger those pictures in post # 11,048 are awesome , especially the bottom one looking up the valley and the river . I bet there’s city folk on this forum that are dumbstruck at the beauty of life in small town Wyoming .

Thanks! Yeah, and that was far from the best scenery we had today. I'm usually too busy enjoying the moment to think about taking a photo. I know there's some pretty good scenery up your way too. The northern Bighorns are amazing.

 

[jaylach]

Sigh, I think I'm done with getting ready for my apartment being inspected Friday. LOL! The prep involved running a mop on my kitchen floor just to look better. Oh, I did also run a vacuum on the carpet but that was normal for this day of the week.

I REALLY hate these inspections that happen twice a year but that is a price paid for only paying $792.00/month USD including electric. I live in a senior apartment and the inspections are just part of the deal.

I have to laugh at some of the residents when these inspections come up as they freak out and go haywire trying to make their place perfect. I don't bother with that hassle. I live like I live and am bad on some things such as dusting. Don't get me wrong as my place is basically always clean but there is no way to keep up with the dander put out by my cockatiel so the place always seems dusty.

Really the inspection is no big deal as they are just checking smoke detectors and making sure that everything is working. Ya, if your place is a total disaster, you could have problems but I've been here a bit over 12.5 years and have never had an issue. It is just that I am a bit of a loner/hermit and just don't like people in my place unless they are invited.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Took a hike with the girls today. About three miles up the PopoAgie valley, had some lunch, and back out. I’m not much of a photographer but there were tons of wildflowers (does anyone know what kind this is?), nice scenery, a young grouse that seemed to think one of us was its mother, and a rather amazing looking moth: a cecropia perhaps?View attachment 369109
View attachment 369110
View attachment 369111
View attachment 369108

Looks like that moth is actually a Glovers silk moth. Now we know.

 

[GaryE]

For an inland place with no ocean, Wyoming doesn't look half bad.

One of my adult language students from when I volunteer taught uptown is graduating from an accounting program today. Her family is in the Dominican Republic, and she's invited my wife and I to attend in their place. So we'll spend a few hours in a hockey arena watching a ceremony. It's not my idea of a good time, but it's part of the price of being a person.

Finding your way in a new country, a new culture and a new climate has to be really hard. My own ancestors must have had moments - escaping the Great Hunger in Ireland and ending up in an inhospitable, cold land, moving to the city and European colonial culture from Labrador, going from London to Bare Need and Harbour Grace Newfoundland, or coming to Canada after the end of slavery in the US. I can't imagine what arriving in the US as a slave to be sold must have been like. There are so many stories that will never be told.

So I become a minor actor in another person's movie for a morning. This woman has guts to do what she did changing her life like this. Plus, you can never have too many friends who don't need their fingers and toes to count.

A good thing with this is our heat wave has broken, after one day. It got to 28 yesterday, with high humidity, and was not pleasant. Today, we're back to normal - sunny and 20c with a nice breeze off the deep blue sea Wyoming should have. I started to make some acrylic yarn spawning mops for the killies this morning, but the dog really wanted to help and her skills lie elsewhere.

So I'll polish my head and go off to this thing.

 

[gwand]

I added ammonia to initiate my cycling journey in a new 20 gallon long tank. Sandy substrate, rocks and cholla are in place. I will purchase plants over the weekend. The plants will have a 20 minute dip in a potassium permanganate solution, 40 mg/Liter before they are washed and planted. This tank will be home to a pair of Apistogramma cacatuoides. I’m hoping they will spawn.