Tag: OCF Update

25FEB2022 – OCF Update – Weekly Installment of Snow Removal

photog Current Events, OCF

 

4 – 8 inches of snow projected.  Probably 4 inches on the ground already.  And the obligatory freezing rain at the end to provide the literal icing on the cake.  Blah, blah, blah, I hate snow.  Blah, blah, blah, I hate New England.

And we’re back.  Sorry about the obligatory “winter in New England” rant.  But it’s in my contract so blah, blah, blah.

Well, next week starts March.  The days are definitely getting longer and life is speeding up here at the Compound.  I purchased the (hopefully) last gas can’s worth of fuel for the snow blower.  I’m more than halfway through the latest (for me) Galaxy’s Edge novel and it’s good.  Wish I could say as much for my novel.  I have to face it.  Running a blog takes up most of my free time and that means writing is the loser.  I’ll have to figure something out.

I’ve been looking at a couple of options for selling photos and photo books.  It looks like it should be relatively easy to set up and I’ll include links on the site.  Doing some advance research for the July trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons.  I’ll definitely have to pare down the list of photo equipment I planned to bring.  But there’s plenty of time to do that.

It’s remarkable to watch Dementia Joe become an even bigger loser every day.  The only true thing Barry Obama ever said was that no one should ever underestimate Biden’s ability to foul things up.  It truly is his super power.  But it’s not a mystery.  He’s just a lazy idiot.  Lying about things that fool stupid people at the expense of the good of the United States has always been his go to plan.  And when you’re just a crooked senator or the Vice President it wasn’t that critical.  But when you’re pretending to be the President of the United States it kind of is.

I think the general feeling across the country on both sides is, “How is this guy going to keep this up for almost three more years?”  That’s a really long time.  Will there be anything left of the country by then?  I guess we’ll find out.

The mask mandate is retreating at top speed now.  Only the school requirements are still there and that is one of the most aggravating ones because of the illogic of masking the least vulnerable.  It highlights how beholden the Democrat Party is to the teachers’ unions.  Good.  That will continue to alienate parents in the run up to the November elections.

The Ukraine debacle will really hurt the economy once we have $6/gal gas to deal with.  That might actually tip us into a recession.  Stagflation right from the dictionary definition.  Well, they say Americans are too fat.  This will give us all a chance to go on an involuntary diet.  Oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’m curious to see how Trump’s social media experiment goes.  It will take a while to know if there’s something solid there.  The initial excitement will have to wear off first.  After all, I’ve never been completely sure what Twitter actually does that’s useful.  Amazon’s business model and Google’s ads I understand.  Guess we’ll find out.

So at some point I’ll disappear for a few hours to move the white stuff.  If anything  interesting shows up I’ll opine.  Enjoy the rest of the morning.

 

 

19FEB2022 – OCF Update – Weather Weirdness Continues

photog Current Events, OCF ,

 

We go from having a couple of feet of snow on the ground to nothing.  In the last three days we’ve had sixty mile an hour wind, heavy rain, sixty five degree temperatures, five degree temperatures and now snow.  All we need is frogs falling from the sky to complete the list.  Ah, whatever.  Camera Girl brought home some Chinese food for lunch after her sojourn to the empty but expensive grocery stores.  And I never look gift chop suey in the mouth.

I’ve gotten so used to high winds that I didn’t do anything in preparation and, sure enough, disaster struck.  Well, not disaster.  My barbecue grill blew off the deck and got busted up a bit.  It’ll need some straightening up but it should still get the job done.  Oh well.

So, February 19th, almost the end of the month!  Sure, March is still winter where I live but the days are getting longer and you start getting that itch to look for signs of spring.  Crocuses, daffodils, tulips.  None of those are anywhere near appearing.  But other things are happening.  New birds are starting to appear.  The turkeys have been on the move and the pond has thawed completely.  Soon frogs and salamanders will be heading for vernal ponds to breed.

So, even as the snow whips by my window I am thinking of grass and flowers.  And without the stupid mask nonsense spring and summer will be the free time they ae supposed to be.  Barbecues and soon even opening the swimming pool and the grandkids coming over to swim and even a baseball catch.  All really good things.

16FEB2022 – OCF Update – Unmask, Unmask!

photog Current Events, OCF ,

Connecticut and Massachusetts are ending their mask mandates in the next few days.  Suddenly most New Englanders won’t be able to rob liquor stores without making their intentions known in advance.  It will be the dawning of a new age of emotional communication.  The smile and the frown will re-emerge as human tools of expression.  Now I’ll be able to warn my Dunwichian neighbors when they’ve offended me without being forced to flip them the bird.  And alternatively I no longer have to resort to the OK or white power sign when expressing approbation.  I can flash my pearly whites to get my point across.

The only one still wearing the mask will be Dementia Joe.  He is so old and brain damaged that COVID legitimately is a threat to his life.  And to ours.  If Dopey Joe should die anytime soon we’d end up with the Cackler in Chief.  Now there’s a sobering thought.  Well, he can have my boosters.  I don’t need them.  Even people who were staunch vax believers are starting to get scared about the boosters.  Too many scary stories of young healthy people keeling over afterwards.

Yesterday I wa out half of the day on an errand.  We’re going into another warmup here and I probably have to do one more cleanup day today on the earlier snow.  If I don’t get it out of the way it’ll turn to ice and will be there until April. So I might be a little behind today.

So as more and more states end the mask mandate it is important that we remind voters in the coming months just how long the Democrats kept up this charade and for no reason at all.  People should remember how Brandon predicted that this would be a winter of illness and death for the unvaccinated and how he had run out of patience with Americans who wanted to make their own health decisions without the blessing of Fauci and Biden.

I have a meeting tonight with the Dunwich Pentaveret.  We will discuss all the troubling eldritch horrors that we paid for last year and start budgeting for this year’s troubling eldritch horrors.  What with inflation and COVID restrictions we expect it will cost us 25% to 30% more than last year.  Well, as First Selectman Cthulhu always says, “It is what it is.  And put more barbecue sauce on those election volunteers.”

Alright, enough of that.  Busy, busy, busy.  Stay tuned.

13FEB2022 – OCF Update – Return of Winter and the Mallards

photog Current Events, OCF, photog's Corner ,
Mallards on the Puddle in the Aftermath of 07MAR2018 Snow Storm

So, instead of an inch of snow as promised, we’re getting six inches.  Yay!  But at least the mallards have returned from Capistrano.  For a number of years (at least 3 or 4, maybe more) a pair of mallards show up every late winter/spring and raise a family.  I tried to get their portraits this morning but they were shy and swam off.  Above is a picture from a couple of years ago.

Snow removal will be a part of the daily chores today and tomorrow morning.  Yay!

I noticed Leftists are jumping on the anti-mandate bandwagon.  That’s how you know it’s over.  The big line is, “It’s not left vs. right, man, it’s about freedom and that’s groovy, baby.”  It won’t be long before Joe Biden will be trumpeting his courageous victory over COVID and the return of freedom.  These people make me sick.

I saw an article where Pfizer is starting to prepare stockholders for the fallout from vaccine safety failures.  They’re going to have to explain how they let dangerous drugs be pushed on children.  And Dementia Joe will too.  With any luck Fauci and those at FDA left holding the bag will be fired.  Prison would be more fitting.

Canada has indeed been red-pilled.  Trudeau will be voted out at the next opportunity and I’m guessing it will be sooner than later.  How that changes thing in that country is difficult to say.  They have even more sheep than we do, hard as that is to believe.  They’ll probably just fall right back into old patterns.  Maybe we will too.  But maybe not all places.  The happenings of the last fifteen years may finally be enough to spark a permanent revolt in some areas of the country.  That’s my hope.

And just to cheer myself up on a day that looks like it will be long here’s something from the way back machine.

Well, more to follow.  Gotta make the donuts.

12FEB2022 – OCF Update – Not Beating a Brain Dead Horse

photog Current Events, OCF , ,

The day after posting “Dementia Joe Gets a Hat Trick” and “The Biden Presidency is Officially Failed” I think it behooves me to at least switch the club to my left hand, if for no other reason at least for the sake of symmetrical blood spatter patterns.  I haven’t seen any fresh evidence that Biden is still moving or even breathing so I’ll switch gears today and look for life affirming stuff.

Seriously, the Democrats are retreating from COVID so fast that soon they will claim it never happened.  I especially like those compilation videos that have Fauci and the rest of the mandate crowd contradicting their every pronouncement over and over.  We have to be able to display all this when the time comes.  What will be especially important is when the safety data on these vaccines finally get aired.  From what I’ve heard from Robert Malone, it’s horrendously bad.  The mRNA in these drugs have even been implicated in creating cancers.

What needs to be done is not just win the midterms.  What needs to be pushed is just how many wrong policies the Democrats have pushed in the last few years and the amount of damage these policies have caused.  Vaccine mandates, mask mandates, defund the police, sponsor and protect BLM riots, CRT, import millions of illegal aliens and transport them around the country, degrade the military, weaponize the Justice Department, turn the FBI into the Stasi.  It goes on and on.  The elections from now on have to be about delegitimizing the Democrat Party and rolling back their entire agenda.

It’s a sunny, almost balmy day here in Dunwich.  I plan to get out and take some photos of the retreating snow and ice in the brilliant light.  I’m sure to find something to complain about eventually but right now I want to get some air.

I’m finally reading the next Galaxy’s Edge installment “Legacies.”  I’ve fallen a few books behind because I waited for Legacies to come out in paperback but it never did.  Eventually I gave up and bought a hardcover copy at a good price.  Turned out to be an autographed copy!  The following episodes are available in paperback so I’ll catch up up soon enough.

Enjoy the morning.

 

04FEB2022 – OCF Update – The Ice Storm Cometh and Goeth

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, OCF, Reviews , ,

Winter Storm Landon, possibly named for Lil’ Joe, the youngest of the Cartwright boys, sashayed through the Compound today and deposited a couple of inches of rain followed by a half-inch of ice and slush on my driveway.  Since Camera Girl has a painting class tomorrow morning and will want to to get out of the driveway alive, it behooved me to scrape off this annoying and dangerously slippery coating before it became a rock solid ice skating rink-like surface.  I went out to shovel without gloves, jacket or hat to show her how virile and manly I am.  I felt I had to do this because we had just finished watching Amazon’s first installment of the Jack Reacher series called, sensibly enough, “Reacher.”  After watching him snap limbs, gouge out eyes and break backs in a seven on one prison fight I felt I had to up my game.  I needed something more dangerous and elemental than my usual go to, “taking out of the trash.”  I shouted, “I’m going out there to make the world safe for you, woman!”  She rolled her eyes but I knew she respected the hell out of me right then.

Anyway, this is the second tv series we’ve watched based on Camera Girl’s crime/action book choices.  First we watched Bosch and now Reacher.  So far she’s batting a thousand.  Bosch was very good (except for the last season that got too social justice preachy for my taste).  And now Reacher is a straight up action/crime fest.  And as compared to the movies that featured Tom Cruise the guy playing Reacher is a monster.  He could use Cruise as a Pez dispenser.  So far it’s been very entertaining in a comic book sort of way.  I really need to review these two series.  With so little worth watching out there I should share anything that’s actually worthwhile.

Today was a good fiction writing day so I’m behind on posts for the site but I’m sure to be inspired by the dumbasses who run our country.  One of these days I’ll probably write something very insulting about Jen Psaki.  Every time I watch one of her press conferences it occurs to me that she must be a singularly unpleasant woman.  She appears to be the quintessential Karen, sort of the National Karen so to speak.  But the question to be answered is, has Dementia Joe ever smelled her stoplight red hair?  We’ll see what my muse has to say.

The Trucker’s Protest in Canada has been getting more and more attention.  I wonder if they’ll spark a true revolt up North.  It seems unlikely but you know I think the world is coming to a consensus that COVID needs to end.  A number of European countries have already pulled the plug.  Will there be a flashpoint before Dementia Joe pulls the plug in March?  I hope so.  I’d love to see the feds back down.  Well, to be continued.  Enjoy the start to the weekend.

 

As the Primary and General Off-Year Elections creep up on us I’m interested in getting posts from readers about their local political scene.  Places like Texas, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, Illinois, Minnesota are represented by readers here.  Even Canada and Australia have local political stories that some of our readers might want to provide.  So if you are interested in sharing your perspective on your local politics, get in touch.  Either leave a comment or send an e-mail to orionscoldfire at charter dot net.  Anonymity is, of course, perfectly fine and if you prefer to discuss local cultural issues instead of or in addition to politics that also is encouraged.  I’ll add this want-ad to the footer of the posts for a while to see if I can entice any readers to write.

02FEB2022 – OCF Update – Groundhog’s Day

photog Current Events, OCF ,

“Okay Campers, Rise and Shine, and Don’t Forget Your Booties, ’cause it’s Cold Out There“

Ah, the horror of February.  Interminable days of cold and gray.  I think that’s why February only has 28 days.  It’s to give hope to the faint of heart.  Seeing the calendar flip to March provides some measure, or at least, the illusion of progress.

Camera Girl has been feeding the birds again.  She’s adopted a murder of crows that have been very skittishly approaching the pond to get some chicken scraps that she’s been leaving for them.  But a hawk chased them away today.

 

Later they settled their differences and started feeding together.  She was very happy about this avian ecumenicalism.  I told her not to be surprised if the hawk decided to eat brother crow while they were lounging together.

So rise and shine campers it’s cold outside and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and there’s six more weeks of this nightmare left.

29JAN2022 – OCF Update – Storm of the Century

photog Current Events, OCF, Photography

How can there be a “Storm of the Century” every ten years or so?  Can there be a new century every ten years?  It’s very confusing, as though they might be exaggerating.  Well, be that as it may, I have about eight  hours of snow removal today and tomorrow so depending on how I break it up there may not be much writing today.

I did want to make a comment on the “Angry, Profane Joe Biden.”  I like it.  It’s a good look for him.  His eyes bulging and his neck cords stretching.  He looks more like a puppet than usual.  I like him ranting and raving.  He’s completely ridiculous and no one can possibly mistake him for a serious leader.  He’s like a cartoon character.  It’s remarkable how low this country has fallen.

Well, we’ll be telling old stories about blizzards past and stringing pop corn and churning butter but I’ll be thinking of you people who live in rational climates and shaking my fist at you.

 

27JAN2022 – OCF Update – Cabin Fever in Dunwich

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , ,

 

Camera Girl has set out into the sub-zero shock of New England winter to purchase life sustaining supplies.  Like the heroine of some sort of 19th century Russian novel where the peasants are fleeing into the swirling snow with wolves nipping at their butts behind the horse drawn sleigh, she set out after raining down curses upon my head for being the unchivalrous monster that I am for sending her out there.

I hope she makes it back.  After all I do need some pumpernickel bagels this week and I do like the soups she provides.  But if not, well, the world must continue.  Eventually when it begins to warm again in May I’ll venture out and maybe I’ll discover the truth of her disappearance.  Was it the cold that got her?  Was it roving bands of pumpernickel pirates?  Did she just decide to head south and is now disloyally ensconced somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line?  These could be the questions that haunt me.  I might have to forge a new life for myself.  I might come to be known as a noble widower poet philosopher who dispenses rhyming wisdom and gasoline from behind the counter of my possibly soon to be purchased 7-11 franchise.

I don’t like the way the dogs have been eyeing me as they pace around the house.  Camera Girl didn’t feed them before she left.  More disloyalty.  They have a lean and hungry look about them.  If it comes to it, I’ll put up a stout fight.  They won’t get me without a fight.  Or at least I’ll scream a lot.  Although how bad can being devoured by dogs be?  And screaming is a lot of work.  I’ll raise the volume on the tv.  That should help somewhat.

Why did I ever let her go?  How dare she leave me here to perish in such an ignominious fashion.  What a treacherous sex they are!  And after all I did for her.  All those helpful comments on better ways to do housework and all the times I helped her find much better tv shows that she didn’t know she liked.  Well, it’s all for the best.  Who would want to live if it means going forward without pumpernickel bagels?  Excelsior!

She just pulled into the driveway.

Huh!

Alright, so forget all that stuff I said.  It’s funny how things can get confusing when you’re alone in a quiet house and the cold creeps in.  I guess I shouldn’t have watched “The Shining” last night.  I really need to get more sleep and stop spending so much time on the internet.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

All work and no play makes photog a dull boy.

Honey, I’m home!

 

Uhoh!

26JAN2022 – OCF Update – This’N’That

photog Current Events, OCF

Hello folks.

Here we are in only the last week of January and already Dementia Joe is:

  • Preparing to start World War III with Putin and Xi
  • Planning to impose price controls on the US economy
  • Struggling to find even stupider things to do about COVID
  • Repackaging his Build Back Better disaster into newer and even less appealing “chunks”
  • Calling people racists if they don’t acquiesce to permanent voting fraud
  • Dropping his vocabulary from three hundred words to one hundred seventy five
  • Swearing at the White House Pool reporters

But we have more important concerns here at the Compound.  Camera Girl has heard there is a big snow storm coming on Saturday and she’s concerned.  Reports vary from twelve inches to twenty and she wants me to swear in blood that I’ll have it cleared for Sunday when Princess Sack of Potatoes is arriving for a sleep over event.  I have vowed to use all my snow clearing skills to handle this “blizzard.”

Now all this is hyperbole on her part.  Even twenty inches of snow is hardly a catastrophe.  In the good old days we’ve had thirty inch snow falls and they are nothing more than a day’s worth of work.  Not fun but not disastrous.  In fact thirty inches of dry snow is much easier and safer to deal with than a half inch of freezing rain turning to ice.  But I talked up my heroism in the face of climate catastrophe and vowed to clear that road!

I’ve discovered that my Capture One photo post processing software will not read the raw files from my new Sony A7 IV camera.  So I must buy the upgrade for the software.  And that’s not a problem except that means I’ll have to link that computer to the internet to download the upgrade.  And that means Microsoft will start messing with my Windows program to force a bunch of patches on it.  I’ll see if I can shut down those Windows programs.  I hate that stuff rattling around my desktop so I have that computer isolated from the internet for years at a time but then when I do have to connect it causes massive attacks by Microsoft and a few other software companies.  Ah, such is life.

I heard about the size of that Canadian trucker protest from Neil.  I’m curious to see if the Canadian feds buckle under the pressure.  I wonder if the truckers intend to call a strike.  Now that would get the attention of the population pretty quickly.

This seems to be another indicator that the world is fed up with COVID, vaccines, masks, mandates and petty dictators.  The Brits and the Irish have already thrown in the towel.  Individual states and the Supreme Court have chipped away at pieces of the insanity but Brandon is still hanging onto that albatross that is rotting around his neck.  I’m guessing he will “pivot” in about a month and declare victory.  Well, good luck with that.  My guess is he’s already pissed off so many of even his own voters that November is going to be a butt kicking to remember for the Evil Party.

And it’s time to start thinking about doing taxes again.  The IRS has gotten hyperactive of late so I use a professional advice.  I wonder what nasty surprises await me this year.

I found a cache of museum pictures I took about eight years ago of armor and other ancient war equipment.  I’ll sprinkle them in the daily photos as a change of pace.  I must get out and see some new stuff but the weather has been unhelpful of late.  Apparently that global warming is extremely unreliable around here.

I read about Trump’s new social media project coming on line in April or so.  I wonder if it will be all that much.  I did see that Bongino and Rumble has some sort of payment processing company that he claims is cancel proof.  Now that’s something I’m interested in.  I’ll have to check it out to see if it would be useful to me.

Well stay tuned and I should have something interesting today.