Post by: jcarter on December 13, 2013, 08:00:59 AM
Have to think of summer even in December, as its cold around here today.
Post by: Jack W on December 13, 2013, 08:58:19 AM
Me thinks the dogs like to frolic in the water !
What dogs don't ?
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all.
Hang in there, Spring will be here soon!
Jack
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 13, 2013, 09:28:09 AM
Post by: jchuzi on December 13, 2013, 12:27:48 PM
Post by: krissel on December 14, 2013, 01:05:32 AM
The white stuff will keep me in this Saturday.
Jane, I've been rereading "Call of The Wild" this week and your card made me think of Buck and his buddies.
Post by: jcarter on December 14, 2013, 06:32:26 AM
We love the Nevil Chute books and we occasionally reread some of his, we have his entire collection given to us my my elderly aunt, whos husband had met Chute. Most of our Jack London collection is in the house in Maine, had those thru a few generations, and they are starting to fall apart.
We try to keep the classics up there in Maine as we have more storage there.
Snow and rain on the way, so if I want to get some more of those nice LED outdoor lights, I better do it today.
Post by: Frances144 on December 14, 2013, 10:58:16 AM
Merry Christmas everyone!
Just got to finish Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia which is fascinating.
Post by: jcarter on December 14, 2013, 12:07:13 PM
A few years ago there was a fascinating article in perhaps Scientific American or one of those magazines my husband gets, about this subject.
Post by: kimmer on December 14, 2013, 07:15:18 PM
Post by: Highmac on December 17, 2013, 02:31:33 AM
And, just for Frances's dogs
Post by: Frances144 on December 18, 2013, 01:52:10 PM
And I have just found out that my youngest, Flossie sees music in colours. She has color synesthesia - amazing!
Post by: jcarter on December 18, 2013, 02:05:52 PM
One of our kids has spoken of a youngster in their class who had it long ago.
Congratulations.
Post by: Frances144 on December 18, 2013, 03:22:28 PM
I never knew. She has Neuro Developmental Delay (retained Moro, Plantar and Palmar reflexes).
I was reading the book and suddenly wondered if she had synesthesia. I knocked on her door last thing at night and we had this conversation.....
Me: Can I ask you a question?
Flo: Yes!
Me: When you hear music, do you see, err, colours?
Flo: Yes.
Me: Always?
Flo: Yes. Don't you?
Me: No. Why didn't you say anything?
Flo: You never asked!
Most odd.
Post by: jcarter on December 18, 2013, 06:55:30 PM
As I remember, that kid was in the music class with my kid.
I had to look up the others, to see the reflexes. Our doctor did not name them, but told us to look for them.
I will bet you daughter could be very musically talented?
As the kid in our daughter's class was.
Post by: Frances144 on December 19, 2013, 05:43:45 AM
Flo is one of those persons who does not practice, has little interest in music and does extremely well in music exams. **** sigh ****. She doesnt play an instrument now but expressed that she might like to learn the piano again. I would happily pay for her to have proper lessons and buy her a stackable portable electric piano if she wanted for her room in Halls. I have to wait for her to ask rather than push this.
Flo's talent is languages. She learns them very quickly. They think this is because she has the ability like babies to learn very quickly. A baby learns to speak its mother tongue in a matter of months. Flo can do this.
She is learning Mandarin and Classical Chinese at Oxford.
Post by: jcarter on December 19, 2013, 05:59:13 AM
Chinese is not an easy language to learn. I know around here and in Boston, our hospitals are always asking for interpreters, that could be a part time job. Tho I guess its mostly volunteer, but interesting anyway.
Post by: Frances144 on December 19, 2013, 06:35:11 AM
Nuff said.
Post by: gunug on December 19, 2013, 08:41:35 AM
Post by: kimmer on December 24, 2013, 09:12:11 PM
My sewing cabinet arrived 4 weeks early and our friend came over yesterday morning in the midst of it all and put it together for us. Now to have time to play with it. I have quilts projects ready to go … just need time to myself. Perhaps next year? hahaha Anyhow, I'm happy, healthy, and totally worn out.
We hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas!
Kimmer and Sneakers
Post by: RNKIII on December 24, 2013, 09:47:07 PM
Kids just left for the night after a wonderful schnitzel supper (one of our 'traditions'). They will be back bright and early for breakfast and presents... Sister just called from South Korea...Christmas is done there.
About 1&1/2" of new fluff on the ground to make everything magical.
Bob K. rnkiii
Post by: Paddy on December 26, 2013, 12:42:00 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Dec 13 2013, 10:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
And a BIG Merry Christmas to all from the Sunny South! Just remember, any white stuff you have comes from the moisture we've sent (the color it becomes, after delivery, is your problem!)! No thanks expected or required (but we would appreciate your keeping your frigid air to yourselves)! Hope you all have a great New Year with good health and happy family times!
AHA...it's all your fault then! http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toro...g-day-1.2476163
A belated Merry Christmas to all! We were 49 hours without power (Saturday night to Monday night) and Christmas dinner for 14 at my house was beginning to look dicey. We have a gas stove (cooker, for those of you in the UK) so were able to use the burners, though not the oven, as that's electronic. We also have two gas fireplaces, which we were surprised to find DO work when you turn them on even with no power. Good thing too, as our neighbours who had no source of heat were reporting indoor temps hovering in the 40s (F) and we had -17 outside one night. Our house wasn't as warm as usual, but hey, I'll take 65-69 any day over barely more than freezing. I headed off to Canadian Tire on Sunday morning for batteries (AAAs for the LED flashlights we had were running low) and to see if I could find an LED camping lantern. Ha! EVERY camping lantern in the place was sold out - though I did manage to find their last 6 volt LED flashlight, some batteries and (in the automotive section) a 25-LED light with a hook and a magnet which proved very useful when we stuck it to a potlight in the kitchen. Still pretty dark though - wrapping presents was slow and comical. We were very lucky - none of our wires were pulled down and our big maple only lost some small limbs. Our birch tree is bent way over still, as the ice hasn't yet melted. Our entire neighbourhood, and any other neighbourhood in the city with mature trees was badly hit though. Limbs, entire trees and wires down everywhere - making many streets impassible. My neighbour across the street moved his car out of his driveway 5 minutes before an enormous limb crashed down where the car had been standing. We moved our cars up between the houses, a ploy that worked for us, but not for my aunt's next door neighbour who did the same thing only to have a huge branch bounce off her roof into the driveway between the houses, making her car a right-off. At the height of the outages, there were over 300,000 homes and businesses in Ontario without power - over a quarter million of those in Toronto. Now it's down to just over 50,000 and a lot of those are individual homes in areas where power has been restored to most, but not to those who had wires ripped off their houses. If there ever was a case for buried power lines, this is it!
Here are a few pics. I don't have as many as I would like, but it was a bit dangerous to be walking 'round when things were still crashing down! Since the software puts the last one I upload FIRST, the last one is of the intersection of our street and another street a few blocks away on Sunday, the third is of my neighbour's house - just after he moved the car on Sunday morning, the fourth is in our backyard. It's all quite beautiful with the sun on it now - (first shot).
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 26, 2013, 12:52:29 PM
Maybe you need to plug in that LED flashlight to your Mac?Thought about Chris with the power outages, didn't realize it visited Canada, also! Maybe you need to talk to the emigration authorities, they should inspect things coming across the border better!!!
Hope every one is back on the grid before tonight! 
Post by: jchuzi on December 26, 2013, 01:34:01 PM
Post by: jcarter on December 26, 2013, 02:42:57 PM
And OK with my new Mavericks Mac.
Glad you and everybody nearby is OK!
Ice storms dont hit here very often, but we did have one last year, minor, and didnt lose power. But took down a huge White Pine, which needed to come down anyway.
We bought a gas fireplace, but hooking up to the gas is way way delayed, as the local gas company here on Cape Cod is not very swift. Like 3 months late! Everybody is converting to gas around here, except for Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, they have to stick with elec or propane.
We still burn coal and oil, so when the power goes out around here, everybody ends up at our house. But bring beer for the humans and gasoline for our generator.
Post by: kimmer on December 26, 2013, 03:01:29 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Dec 26 2013, 10:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Could be my browser blocking Flash... of maybe that all the pictures were of white objects in white surroundings and over exposed! At any rate, I don't see any images in Chrome. Maybe you need to plug in that LED flashlight to your Mac?
Maybe you need to plug in that LED flashlight to your Mac?Not sure what's up with your browser/settings, xABD, but it isn't flash–she attached the pics using the board software. I see them fine in Chrome, but I'm running 10.8.x.
Paddy, you have my sympathies -- that's no way to enjoy ANY day, let alone Christmas.
Post by: Paddy on December 26, 2013, 03:28:05 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Dec 26 2013, 01:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Could be my browser blocking Flash... of maybe that all the pictures were of white objects in white surroundings and over exposed! At any rate, I don't see any images in Chrome. Maybe you need to plug in that LED flashlight to your Mac?
Thought about Chris with the power outages, didn't realize it visited Canada, also! Maybe you need to talk to the emigration authorities, they should inspect things coming across the border better!!! Hope every one is back on the grid before tonight!
Maybe you need to plug in that LED flashlight to your Mac?Thought about Chris with the power outages, didn't realize it visited Canada, also! Maybe you need to talk to the emigration authorities, they should inspect things coming across the border better!!!
Hope every one is back on the grid before tonight! Jim, I discovered that I had to change skins and browsers - couldn't see the upload options until I switched, so pics were probably being added while you were posting.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 26, 2013, 09:21:04 PM
Back on my desktop machine. Pictures look fine... well, they display fine. Their information is terrible, of course. Hope the new storms are not causing more problems or added delays. Does help remind us how little control we have in life, however...
Are there actually any undamaged trees in your backyard?! At least on the ones still standing!
PS: Anyone heard from Chris? I'm sure he has heat as he keeps a good wood pile but it may be hard to travel with mud AND ice downed trees/limbs.
Post by: krissel on December 29, 2013, 02:40:05 AM
Ice is worse than snow since it is more destructive and leaves you unable to travel via any mode and you can't shovel it. UGH. Glad to hear you have power back. After spending nearly two weeks last year living in the 1800's I know how spoiled we are with our conveniences.I've been wondering about Chris, too. Anyone heard from him? I just dashed off an email to see how he is doing. Will let you know what I get back...or maybe he will stop by here.