I had to go out this morning to run a couple of errands. I needed to go to the supermarket to grab something I can cook for dinner tonight. As I was putting on my coat I asked Siri to tell me how the current weather looked. She answered on our bedroom Homepod and said it was snowing.
Bullshit. I looked out the window. Everything was wet, as if we had a little rain not long ago, but there was no snow falling. I felt better about the state of the world in that exact moment, but the seed had been planted. The signs pointed to today being a serious downer.
When I got to the supermarket and got out of my car it happened. I saw the first snowflake of the year. It was followed by a second and a third and maybe a few more, but that was it. In the time it took me to walk from my car to the building it had started and stopped. When I left a few minutes later it had not started again, and it continued to not snow all the way home.
It doesn’t matter though. The first snow flakes have fallen. Winter has truly arrived. It is all down hill from here, folks. It’s all over.
This week’s episode of The Penguin doesn’t launch for another 40 minutes so I am going to write a blog post to kill some of that time.
You ready?
Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith posted a picture on instagram today (at least I think it was today) that was taken backstage at a Maiden show in Toronto. In the photograph is one Mr Alex Lifeson who apparently is an Iron Maiden fan? Larry and Mike and I are going to see Maiden in less than two weeks. Do you think there’s a chance that Alex Lifeson will be at that show too? I hope so! I think it would be the best thing ever to watch Big Al air guitar to The Trooper. That would freakin’ rule.
Tomorrow is Monday. Back to work for everyone. Sad, painful, depressing. All that stuff. I have a small mountain of paperwork to do this week. I need to find a way to not be distracted by other work responsibilities so that I can get it all done as soon as humanly possible. I have the day off on Thursday because I wanted to be home and off the clock in time to run our house’s Trick or Treating.
I have one very important non-work responsibility that I have to take care of tomorrow. Well, two actually. I need to pick something up at the drug store for Jen tomorrow before work. That’s not what I am writing about, though it is important. The thing that I am writing about will also hopefully happen before work. I need to buy five tickets to an NCAA hockey game. UMass Lowell (my and my wife’s old school) at University of Vermont (my step daughter’s old and my step son’s current school). Harry and I went to a game last year. This year Jen and Bellana and Harry’s girlfriend are going to go too. I need to get the tickets in advance because I am crazy and don’t want to wait.
Hockey… as a family… how cool is that?
While on our day trip to Burlington, Vermont today, I took a camera with me. A film camera. Dad’s Pentax K1000 with a roll of Kentmere 400 (black and white) film. I shot about two thirds of the roll. I know for sure that I completely and utterly mangled a few of the photos, but one or two might come out okay. If the weather is okay on Thursday (Halloween) I might use the morning portion of my day off as a photo morning. I keep talking about Boston…. maybe I could go to Boston for a little while?
Okay, we’re now 25 minutes away form a new episode of The Penguin. I think I am going to post this literary masterpiece now and listen to some music until the show is released on the MAX app.
I drove for over six hours in total. From home to Burlington , VT where we took the kids to American Flatbread for lunch. The pizza was good, the company was better. After lunch Harry had to go home to do some studying. Jen and Bellana and I went to a bookstore, which was a treat. When was the last time anyone went to a bookstore? Then Bellana had to get home so Jen and I made the 3+ hour drive back.
Next on the agenda is seeing if frozen hamburger patties work in the air fryer. I assume they will, everything else does.
Is carving up a pumpkin and making a jack-o-lantern the single grossest thing that we as a society do? No? Is it in the top 10? Yeah, probably.
Why do we do it? Specifically, why do I do it when our kids are old enough to have moved out of the house and we don’t have them here at all during the Halloween season?
I don’t know, but I still do it. Specifically, I just did it. Meet our 2024 jack-o-lantern. I am still thinking of a name for him. Smiley? Jackass? Putz? They all seem appropriate.
My beloved wife and I watched It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown last night. I completely forgot about the scene where Lucy and the girls used Charlie Brown’s big bald head as a template for a jack-o-lantern. Freakin’ hysterical.
Early voting in Massachusetts has been open for a week now. In my city the polls opened at 9:00am today. I got there at about 10:30, maybe a few minutes after that.
What was the best part of the experience for me? Apart from actually casting a ballot for Kamala Harris, I mean.
The best part was… there was a line. When I got into the room there were probably 8-10 people actually voting and five people in line in front of me. I get that it was a Saturday and not a weekday and all, but folks in my city are coming out to vote and it’s not even election day yet. Good on you, neighbors.
Given how down the nazi rapist felon asshole orange fucker is about absentee voting and the like and how his cult members follow his word about everything, it is actually a safe bet that few if any of the early voters around town are voting for him, and most if not all are voting against him. Here’s hoping, at least.
Inside the Red Head's Head 