Weekend Roll Call 3-18-23

[kcdave]

I don't often backtrack to the day prior for a Saturday jam,
but I gotta show some yearly love to all of my fellow micks,
and the St. Pats fans.



Monday marks the end of winter. Overall, we haven't really had
much of one here in FOC, with a fair amount of warm spells and
only 9 inches of snow. But that bitch, Mother Nature, is hanging
on for dear life with a bone chilling cold front settling in for the
entire weekend. Somewhere, HPG is having a nice laugh at my
post.

After picking up a newer rig for VagHub, I have taken her hand
me down RAV4 and I parted ways this week with my daily driver
commuter car.



Having spent years and years in the biz, I abhor the mere thought
of wasting thousands of dollars on vehicle depreciation or costly
repairs. That 2001 Toyota Solara was a nice solid choice to keep
a tight ass such as myself happy for 13 years.
Purchased in 2010 for $6000 - w/ 105k miles.
Lots of oil changes, tire replacements, replaced brakes a couple of times
and one trip to the body shop for some minor paint repair after our
daughter drove if thru the fucking garage door.
Sold it this week to a guy looking for a good starter car for his
15 year old son.
236k miles, for $3000. I can live with that.

Last week I mention Chris Rocks new Netflix show. Check it out if
you have time. Not the best thing ever, but quite a few solid laughs
none the less. This week, I have watched a new docu ... "Money Shot."
It's about Pornhub ho's. Sort of an interesting watch if you enjoy
learning about the business side of the industry, I guess. Coin flip
on recommending you watch otherwise.

Off to the gym .....

Happy Weekend, Y'all.

[Wolfman]

IN. NCAA tourney underway and somehow I never got on to any bracket contest. Last blast of "winter"here with what should be our last SW FL cold spell. Looking forward to some tunes tonight from Tune Town. Stop in tonight.

[Go Coogs']

That’s a good weekend right there.

My stepson is with a friend and his family all week hanging out in Palo Duro Canyon.

I took the Mrs, stepdaughter, and our 4 month old baby girl out for some sushi and dessert last night.




Not a whole lot planned for the weekend other than NCAA game watching and learning how to landscape a ditch with a rock wall.

My beloved Houston Cougars are playing Auburn today in the second round. They are battered and bruised. Our All-American senior has a quad strain and our floor general PG has a hyper extended knee. I’m hoping we win with our 2 best players not even close to 100%, but I won’t be mad if they lose. It’s been a great season.

Go Coogs!


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[Diego in Seattle]

In. Going to Costco to stock up on alcohol for Tuesday.

Might go to the St. P parade but maybe not, the wife has a long to-do list.

Have you checked to see how big of a life insurance policy she took out on you?

[Kierland]

Camping and four wheeling at Yuba river outside Grass Valley with kids and one of their friends. Heading into Auburn on Sunday night then back to the coast beginning of the week.

[Diego in Seattle]

Camping and four wheeling at Yuba river outside Grass Valley with kids and one of their friends. Heading into Auburn on Sunday night then back to the coast beginning of the week.

How's the water level?

[Kierland]

16000 cfs according to the fishermen I talked to, usually at 2000. So yeah lots of cold, fast moving water.

[Mikey]

Made my Saturday morning run down the hill to the farmers market and Costco. I'll be watching USA vs Venezuela later this afternoon in the WBC. Watched the biggest upset in the history of March Madness yesterday. I haven't been following college hoops much his year but it's hard to see how Purdue could have been so highly rated and FDU so low. The Knights' defense was fucking relentless, and Purdue couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from more than a couple feet out.

Yesterday I pruned a few trees and got the string trimmer out to spend a few hours dealing with our unprecedented level of Weedageddon. I was out of commission for about four weeks in February and suddenly I had a yard full of waist high grass and other shit. Last year I think I mowed once (I can get to about half of our lot with the riding mower) and mostly kicked up a lot of dust. I mowed for the first time last week and it already needs another pass. I did notice when I was out bushwhacking yesterday that we suddenly have some nice colors starting to pop out for the first time in recent memory. Spring doesn't officially start for a few more days, but it seems that we are already in it.

Three more days of rain apparently starting on Monday.

[Sudden Sam]

Last day of having 2 of my grandkids. Running them back to my son and daughter-in-law early tomorrow. Been playing football and throwing softball for three days. Aching all over! Getting old sucks.

Weather been alternating between freezing and normal spring temps. Crazy.

Surprising the kids tonight taking them to a really cool facility where a friend’s band plays. Gonna catch 8 or 9 tunes before I have to try to get these spring breakers to sleep for a few hours before we hit the road.

[d-townmike]

In.

Posting from our hotel in Calhoun, GA. We left a 23 degree St. Louis this morning and arrived to 45 degrees with a freeze advisory in effect for this area tonight. Even the South isn't immune to these last days of winter coming back to prove some point or something.

Next week is Spring break for our kids and we are headed to Tampa, FL for a few days. We have a free day and then two days to use at Busch Gardens. Sure is better than that week we spent at Disney World in October 2021. Holy crap what a complicated woke shitstorm that place has become.

We would have squeezed in Cardinals spring training baseball......if they were still in St. Petersburg which is right by Tampa. But, Jupiter, FL is a 3 1/2 hour drive to the other Florida coast and would have been a long ass day for us.

Rack a sunny and 85 in Tampa on Tuesday and Wednesday!

We will be making our way back on Thursday and doing a full day in Atlanta. Taking in Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca-Cola on Friday before highballing back to STL on Saturday.

[Ken]

Just got back from St. Pete Beach a bit earlier this eve. Total relaxation. Did some dock fishing, beach walking, and grilling a couple ribeyes at the resort's outdoor facilities. Probably drank way too much vodka while I was down there, but fuck it. Very glad I scheduled to come back to the 'burgh today rather than tomorrow. I have tomorrow to continue to decompress and get ready for the work week.

Mikey, love the garden pics. I'm a horticulturalist and I could only recognize one... Ceanothus. Others, I could probably hazard a guess but would probably be wrong. Cali and much of the west coast flora are greek to me.

[Mikey]

Just got back from St. Pete Beach a bit earlier this eve. Total relaxation. Did some dock fishing, beach walking, and grilling a couple ribeyes at the resort's outdoor facilities. Probably drank way too much vodka while I was down there, but fuck it. Very glad I scheduled to come back to the 'burgh today rather than tomorrow. I have tomorrow to continue to decompress and get ready for the work week.

Mikey, love the garden pics. I'm a horticulturalist and I could only recognize one... Ceanothus. Others, I could probably hazard a guess but would probably be wrong. Cali and much of the west coast flora are greek to me.

Good call on the ceanothus. Those are all native California plants, BTW. We've been trying to cultivate them for about the past 15 years, with mixed results. We have a lot of space to fill. We planted that one about six years or so ago, and it's just getting started on its bloom. Also in there was some California sagebrush, coyote brush, desert mallow, white sage, California buckwheat, red maids (those are actually growing wild in our yard), fremontodendron, western redbud, blue-eyed grass (also wild here). I probably missed a few, but right now we mostly have weeds.

[Softball Bat]

Mikey, love the garden pics.

Ditto.

Nice pics, Mikey!

[Ken]

Just got back from St. Pete Beach a bit earlier this eve. Total relaxation. Did some dock fishing, beach walking, and grilling a couple ribeyes at the resort's outdoor facilities. Probably drank way too much vodka while I was down there, but fuck it. Very glad I scheduled to come back to the 'burgh today rather than tomorrow. I have tomorrow to continue to decompress and get ready for the work week.

Mikey, love the garden pics. I'm a horticulturalist and I could only recognize one... Ceanothus. Others, I could probably hazard a guess but would probably be wrong. Cali and much of the west coast flora are greek to me.

Good call on the ceanothus. Those are all native California plants, BTW. We've been trying to cultivate them for about the past 15 years, with mixed results. We have a lot of space to fill. We planted that one about six years or so ago, and it's just getting started on its bloom. Also in there was some California sagebrush, coyote brush, desert mallow, white sage, California buckwheat, red maids (those are actually growing wild in our yard), fremontodendron, western redbud, blue-eyed grass (also wild here). I probably missed a few, but right now we mostly have weeds.

I noticed what would be a mallow, but had no idea the common name so didn't bother. The other, the Western Redbud... when first saw that pic, I immediately thought redbud but then jettisoned that thought as we are only familiar with the Eastern Redbud here and wouldn't think of them being on the west coast. Beautiful trees here, but not very good as far as aesthetical structure goes. They are kind of junk trees here.

Btw, did not see anything remotely resembling a sage in your pics.

[Mikey]

There's sage and then there's sage brush. These are a prostrate form of California sage brush, called artemisia montara. Notice a couple of small ceanothus below and to the left.





When you say sage around here you generally mean some form of native salvia, like this one.





The plant that's partially obscuring the front door is actually a salvia, but they're not blooming until probably May or June.

[Rootbeer]

Yellow.

/s/
Kierland

[Sudden Sam]

How ‘bout that Tide!!!

[Kierland]

Yellow.

/s/
Kierland

It’s not nearly as yellow as your comrade pedokkkal.

[Sven Golly]

In.

Posting from our hotel in Calhoun, GA. We left a 23 degree St. Louis this morning and arrived to 45 degrees with a freeze advisory in effect for this area tonight. Even the South isn't immune to these last days of winter coming back to prove some point or something.

Next week is Spring break for our kids and we are headed to Tampa, FL for a few days. We have a free day and then two days to use at Busch Gardens. Sure is better than that week we spent at Disney World in October 2021. Holy crap what a complicated woke shitstorm that place has become.

We would have squeezed in Cardinals spring training baseball......if they were still in St. Petersburg which is right by Tampa. But, Jupiter, FL is a 3 1/2 hour drive to the other Florida coast and would have been a long ass day for us.

Rack a sunny and 85 in Tampa on Tuesday and Wednesday!

We will be making our way back on Thursday and doing a full day in Atlanta. Taking in Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca-Cola on Friday before highballing back to STL on Saturday.

I live in ATL, and if I were you d-town, I’d skip the Coke Museum…err… the Woke Museum. It’s just one big coke advertisement. Maybe it’s changed since I went there 20 years ago. The aquarium is worth it though, as well as a trip to The Varsity for chili dogs.

[Wolfman]

Irony, my older son lives outside Calhoun GA. Busch Gardens has some killer coasters if you are into that. Too bad you can't do a roadie to Fort Myers.

[d-townmike]

Wife and I visited World of Coca-Cola in 2015 as part of an overnight layover after our vacation in St. Lucia. One of the best PETs I ever did was that trip!

Anyway, yeah it's still a big Coca-Cola commercial but it's right next to Georgia Aquarium and also right next to our hotel so it's all within walking distance and we won't have to park our car twice in downtown Atlanta.

Irony: we still don't drink Coca-Cola products. Mostly Pepsi but generally try to stay away from overly sugary drinks.

It's a big reason why I got a hotel within walking distance of Busch Gardens. Avoids paying $30/day to park at BG...even though this area is a little on the sketchy side.

Last time I was at BG was 2000 and before that was in 1989 when I was 11. Even since 2000 it's undergone numerous additions and changes. It's more of a thrill-seekers amusement park now rather than a zoo and animal refuge. But it still has a big emphasis on the zoo/refuge side.

[Sven Golly]

It is definitely convenient to the aquarium. I also remember the free "cokes in every country" at the end of the tour.

Some were way too sweet, and one was disgustingly bitter. Can't remember which country that was.

I took the CNN tour when I first moved down here in 92. NOT worth the money at all. Complete rip off. Shocker, right?

[Kierland]

Nobody is shocked that CNN tour wasn’t filled with hate and so you hated it.

[Sven Golly]

No, you cum soaked shitstain, it was a rip off because it wasn't worth the money. CNN was somewhat of a "reasonable" cable news outlet back then.

[Kierland]

You mean before they were bought by a right winger?

Your brain is a pretzel.

[Sven Golly]

You mean before they were bought by a right winger?

Your brain is a pretzel.

Yours is a calabi-yau manifold.

[Kierland]

IKYABWAI

Outstanding!

[Wolfman]

"....but it's Monday Bronco Billy."