New header

To celebrate 72 posts and 242 days in operation, baconisgreat now has a new header.

I figured this header would add some more bacon to the site, and also some photos of things that I liked posting about, namely the old guy, crazy hat man, my jack-o-lantern, diving in the snow, Chuckles the Clown and the FartDroid.

Don't know what these things are? Then you've got some reading to do*.

*I'm pretty sure I've posted about all these things...

More snow, pack-able this time!

During the week it rained for about 3 days straight. Then, come Thursday, it started snowing. It stopped snowing Friday afternoon. Liz had been given a snow day on Friday because the Audubon center was surrounded by 10 inches of snow, which was going to take the maintenance guy a long time to move. I went to work, but was allowed to leave at 4. Getting home with some sunlight left, I said to Liz "We should get outside...", "and build a snowman!!!" she finished.

We put on our snow clothes and headed to the front yard. We started rolling and packing and rolling and packing, the (rough) spheres getting bigger with each iteration. Once we had them the size we wanted we assembled our man, and then began fossicking for stones for his mouth, eyes and buttons. Luckily the driveway here, which was shoveled earlier in the day, is full of suitable rocks. We put in the eyes and buttons, Liz did it much easier than I did, and then we realized when we put in the 2 rocks for his mouth that they were both pointy. We had made a snow vampire! We put in his stick arms and threw on his scarf and hat, knowing that daylight was fast leaving us. We grabbed a couple of quick snaps, knowing that there was always tomorrow to hang out with the snow vampire.

As long as it didn't rain.

Or get really hot today.

Walking back into the apartment, I decided to take down an icicle that was hanging from the top deck - we wouldn't want it stabbing anyone.

The snow vampire was tucked in for the night, and the deck was safe from large icicle falls, so I went out and took a couple of photos before bed. It was quite nice outside - not cold at all...

But the fact that it wasn't too cold last night lost all significance to me. Today we went out and Liz got a haircut and we did the grocery shopping, all at a quite comfortable 41 (5) degrees. When we pulled into the driveway I noted that snow vampire seemed to be leaning backwards. We came upstairs and put the groceries away, and I looked out the front. He was definitely leaning, so Liz came over and looked. We walked away, and when I walked back with the camera 30 seconds later it was over. He was dead.

RIP Snow Vampire - 2/26/2010 - 2/27/2010.

The fall had separated his head from his torso and his torso from his base. Limbs were everywhere (well, 2 places). His eyes and buttons had fallen out. It was gruesome. But that's the life of a snow vampire. Snow men are susceptible enough to light and heat, so when you factor in that he was also a vampire, the odds were stacked against him.

It turned out that Liz and I weren't the only people who had building a snow creation in mind. Several people around the neighborhood had them in their yards (none as cool as the snow vampire), and I spotted these 2 working on something outside as well. Well one of them was working, the other was trying in vain to make "Snow Clone Angels", but his armor or construction wouldn't let his body move that way.

Eventually they finished, and quite ingeniously used the rifles as snow man arms.

Advertising

It was raining today and is still raining consistently tonight. It is a nice change, actually, to hear rain outside. I was wondering at lunch time if it was still raining, because Mike, who was working at the data center in NY state, said that it was snowing there. I couldn't immediately tell by looking outside, so I opened up weather.com and started looking at the details for Stamford. In case you were wondering, it was still raining. I had a look at the forecast for the next 10 days and that's when this guy appeared on the page:

My first thought was something like "Hahahahahaha!", with my second though being "Wow, Lowermybills.com really likes to splash out on their models..." I don't know if the expression on his face is just that of an elderly man, of someone who has just soiled themselves, fear of the camera or a combination of all of them. Then I started thinking about it - his photo made me look at the ad. It even made me take a screenshot of the ad. Then I even went as far as to read it before putting it on my blog. I stopped short of clicking on the ad or going to the website, but catching the eye, getting someone to read the ad - that almost achieved the goal of advertising. It generated awareness of the product, even if I didn't buy it.

Before I left work I checked to see if it was raining (in case you were wondering, it still was). Weather.com opened, along with a pop-up:

Same guy, same company, slightly different context. I personally think that the guy is awesome. He catches my eye and makes me want to know what his deal is. It seems that weather.com and lowermybills.com have found the way to advertise to me - with startled-looking old people. Now if they got this guy to dance to and sing the ice cream and cake song, or do what the dog below is doing, it would be the perfect way to sell absolutely anything to me.

Damn dog, I know what it means when they do that, but it gets me every time.

Ta-da! First fire in the fireplace!

Richard (Liz' dad) and Barbara (Liz' aunt) were around on Sunday afternoon, and as afternoon became evening we started talking about fires and the fireplace. Given that Liz has had a bad track record this past 3 months lighting accidental fires we haven't made a fire in the fireplace. That, and I have no idea how to do a fire.

Richard felt confident in being able to do it, so we gave it a go. It was a strange night to give it a shot, because it wasn't that cold outside. Richard and I went to the garage and got some firewood and brought it up. We had liberal amounts of newspaper to act as kindling thanks to the Stamford Times being delivered weekly.

After about 30 minutes of trying we still didn't have a solid fire going, but Richard wouldn't give up. Barbara left. People started wondering if it would happen. But it happened. The heat in the fireplace had warmed everything up and when the doors closed the fire kept going.

I took some closer shots of the fire, which was quite warm once it was going.

Eventually all the wood burned, but heat and embers remained. Someone brought up that that's the time to toast marshmallows. We only had mini marshmallows, so they had to do the job. The fireplace was still really hot so we had to wear oven mitts to heat the marshmallows. I looked at the bag, and it said that 13 mini marshmallows were equal to 1 regular marshmallow. So, that's how many I put on the skewer:

The fire was fun. I think it made all of us appreciate how hard people must have had to work back in the day to get fires started and to keep them going. Thanks to Richard for getting the fire going and keeping it going. He tended his creation diligently - constantly moving logs around... even by hand on occasion. Running water is in the kitchen.

Really Nice Weather!!!

Yesterday the weather was really nice (it says something about winter when a day that is 45F/6C with a slight breeze and sunny is really nice) and so we planned to get outside. I wanted to go somewhere different, so when we woke up I said "Let's go to Croton!". We've only been to Croton once before, and it was last year for Eaglefest. Croton is a small town/village on the Hudson River, about a 45 minute or so drive away. When we arrived there some wind was whipping up the river, but when we walked through the trees and to the other side of the point the wind was gone and it wasn't cold at all.

We ran into a couple of birders with binoculars while we were walking, and they told us about the birds that they were looking for and had seen. While talking to them a car pulled up with 2 kids and their dad in it. They asked where they could see Bald Eagles in the area. The birders told them that they had seen an immature eagle down near the water not long before. The family parked their car while we finished talking to the birders. They told us that the day before there had been 4 eagles down by the water, and that at Eaglefest 2 weeks before the eagles had been highly co-operative and had been everywhere.

We headed for the path towards the water, trying to make sure we beat the father and kids. Unfortunately, the kids were typical kids, which is fine and understandable. They were loud and stuff like that, which isn't really how you want to be when you are looking for animals. There was nothing at the water by the time we got down there, with the kids still talking while looking. They waited by the water for about 10 minutes before they gave up and walked away. Liz and I hung around longer, walking, quietly, along the edge of the water. After another 15 minutes or so we decided to head back to the car as we were both getting hungry. That's when it happened.

We were walking back along the water and Liz spotted it over the bay, saying quietly "Hey, what's that?", but she already knew. The distinctive white head and tail and large flat soaring profile gave the bird approaching the shore away as being a mature bald eagle. We watched it with binoculars all the way to a tree about 100 metres (300 feet) along the shore. Liz got out the cameras, and we started creeping closer. The eagle though didn't want to hang around and took off again. I took some high speed shots, but high speed decided to be a bastard and take photos while the eagle was obscured.

Damn tall grass!

Branches!

Liz spotted it again from a long distance as it flew over another part of the point, but after that we didn't see it. I'm not concerned that we didn't get any decent photos of the eagle - being outside was great, and seeing a wild eagle certainly isn't an every day occurrence. Plus, we got these photos last year at Eaglefest:

The day whet my appetite for spring and summer - bring on the warm weather: I want to go outside again!

Snow Dives

After the snowfall on Wednesday we decided to see if we could salvage any snow to build a snow man. This morning we got around to going outside, but found the snow unsuitable for man creation.

Instead, I made a snow angel. I sank quite far into the snow (several inches) and exposed grass.

Following snow angel making I wondered if snow would be similar to dive around in to sand.

Experimentation and pictures suggest yes. Sure, I looked like a jackass, but it was fun. Now I am thinking that snow cricket would work. You wouldn't play like you do regular cricket, but play more in the spirit of beach cricket - diving around to try and take the most awesome classic catch that you can. Warm clothing is a must. Explosions - imminent.

87 inches of snow!

Apparently that's not the proper way to measure snowfall, though, so the real number is probably somewhere around 4 inches in that photo.

We've been pretty lucky, Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse hasn't really gotten us too badly. We were supposed to get snow last weekend as part of the big dump further south that shut down Washington DC etc, but none of that eventuated. At the moment we have quite a few inches on the ground and it's supposed to snow all night.

The day was interesting - I have little (less than an hour) experience driving in snow. Liz couldn't get to work this morning because of the weather, so I took the car. Driving to work was fine - there was about an inch around and the roads were all clear. By 11AM though, the snow was getting heavier. Word went around at work that the building wanted to suspend shuttle service to the train station because the roads were getting bad. I took that as my cue to leave. Even the main roads that I took had a fair amount of snow on them. I don't think I went faster than 20MPH all the way home, as even with slight acceleration the car told me it was losing traction. Traction was a commodity that was escaping a Mercedes on one of the major roads - it was bogged in snow like it was mud.

Things got more hairy closer to home, where the roads hadn't had many, if any, cars on them. Coming around one corner the wind picked up and snow blew off the road and trees forming a wall of white. The driveway was the most fun: a car was on my tail so I quickly pulled in and immediately couldn't get down the driveway. Luckily for Liz I reversed out and worked my way in. Luckily for Liz because if I hadn't she was close to putting on a jacket and shoveling a path to the garage...

Ride to work

I'd say that I do a fair amount to help the environment: I recycle a lot, Liz composts and I don't stop her, we drive a Prius etc. Plus, I reasoned, that when car pooling, only the driver generates emissions. The vehicle, like public transport, will be running anyway. That's why I didn't feel guilty this morning accepting a ride to work from our neighbor. Paul works for Splash Car Wash, and sometimes he brings their company vehicle home. The company vehicle is large, for doing things like towing parade floats and carrying around giant reusable checks (cheques). The vehicle is an advertisement-covered Hummer H3.

It was cold this morning, so the heated leather seats were a nice touch. I didn't leave mine on very long, as my legs did get hot. Paul later pointed out that he uses the heated seats, but tries not to think about the electricity flowing around directly beneath him. The car was high - when getting out I forgot about the step or edging or whatever it would be referred to on the side... The front windscreen/windshield was I think the smallest part of the truck - around the same size as, or maybe slightly narrower than, the novelty check in the back. You can certainly tell that it comes from a military-type design trying to minimize places people can shoot through. I was told that the blind spots in the Hummer are large, so it's cool that they went big with as much as they could in the design. It definitely has a presence on the road and an aura to it - so many people waved us through at stop signs - they knew who was king and not to mess with the Hummer!

It was a cool ride to work. Thanks, Paul!

Super Bowl Sundae

Superbowl Sunday was yesterday, which, to a person who follows football like I do, meant nothing different to any other Sunday.

The evening, however, did get off to an explosive start. We decided we would roast a chicken for dinner, and went about preparing it. We prepared it the way we normally do - I washed the chicken and we rubbed herbs on it. We inserted the meat thermometer like we normally do to monitor when the chicken is ready to take out. About 5 minutes into the baking/roasting, we heard a noise from the oven. On inspection we found that the glass covering the meat thermometer had exploded, covering the bottom of the roasting pan and some of the chicken in glass. But the Progressive Corporation and their conspirators' attempts to bring harm to Liz and I were thwarted by diligent picking up of glass. We just had to abandon our plans to make gravy with the pan juices. Damn you, Progressive Corporation! I have no idea what exactly we did to spark the ire of Progressive; I can only assume that one of us has discovered something that they feel needs to be kept quiet. That, or the thermometer was faulty.

You may have taken our gravy, Progressive, but you will have to try harder than that!

The next course was dessert, and we had an idea up our sleeves. Liz was at Tiff's place on Friday night/Saturday and brought home a cake. We picked up some Dark Chocolate Mints at the supermarket on Sunday and mixed them into a batch of coconut ice cream. Add chopped up mints and chocolate syrup to the cake and mint chip ice cream and, voila, Super Bowl Sundae. We then watched Clone Wars while eating it.

The good news about dessert? There is still more cake and ice cream, which means unlike that game of football, this Super Bowl Sundae has gone in to overtime. Yep - football pun.

It does mean though that I have the Baskin Robbins commercial in my head.

Ice cream and cake, do the ice cream and cake.

CALLING ALL CRICKETERS!

When thinking about the title of this post "Calling All Cricketers" came to mind and I couldn't work out why. I'm now certain that my Dad, or his Dad, had a cricket coaching manual from the 50's called that...

The reason I am putting out the call is because of Howzat. Howzat is an online cricket game. It has a practice mode, which I have dabbled in, but it also has a multiplayer versus mode. You sign up (it's free) and you choose a team on which to base your squad. I chose the Australian team, and all of your favorite players are there: R. Paunting, B. Li, M & D Hassey, just to name a few. The teams are then fully customizable - you can change your players names (which I just did), their colors (shirts, pants, kit, hair, skin) and also name your team. My team is "Beefprawnicans".

By playing games you unlock achievements and gain experience, which you can then use to improve your team. I think the best achievement is "Warne" (bowl 25 maidens with a spinner).

I've played one game against Mike, which I won. I am now ranked 15761, have unlocked 8 achievements and have 6 experience points saved up to up player stats.

So, now, I'm putting the call out. Sure, I could play against strangers, but I want to play against people I know. This Friday night (US time) meaning this Saturday afternoon (AUS time) Liz is going out and staying at her friend Tiff's place, so I'm thinking of filling the night with The Clone Wars and Howzat.

The Beefprawnicans, and their beginner line-up, A. Diaga, A. Diagatu, B. Saltza and Smith, are padding up! Let me know if anyone is in.