Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.
So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?
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NOTE: The comments page will split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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Good morning, 53 and cloudy outside my window today. Yesterday I had gardening plans, but I had forgotten I had a lab appointment and then the desk needed attention, so today I hope to do the last of the ivy clipping. Our son will need to do the top of the fence but I’ll do as much as I can reach without using a ladder. It’s humbling to be grounded, but it’s best to stay safe. Best wishes to all.
Wednesday Meese. 41 here in Kingston, raining, going up to only 46.
Puerto Rico
This story is part of a series of reports to mark the 20th anniversary of the departure of the Navy from Vieques. Visit the special site to see a photographic timeline of the events that marked the fight. Also read the stories in Spanish.
Good morning. Had a good walk yesterday, will do that again today. And I cooked a pot of beans, added spinach and tomatoes with chiles, now I have dinner for the next couple of weeks. Anyway, now I’m watching astronomy & eating breakfast. Hope I can get some library users set up today, I have maybe 8 people I left messages for yesterday.
Good Wednesday morning, Moosekind! We have another ugly, cold day in Ashburn. It’s 45 F. now, going up to 50-something. The weather wench said it will be even cooler today than yesterday, with possible rain, thunder, lightning, and hail this afternoon. Rubbish.
Busy day ahead—absolutely must get a story drafted, get hair done, do some grocery shopping, and attend the Progressives’ Happy Hour this afternoon. Today is the last day of the prednisone, thank Goddess.
Time for porridge and coffee. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 59 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 84. Sunny skies this morning and clouding up this afternoon as a new front moves in to cool us down into the 70s for a few days. Thankfully the winds have died down somewhat.
It sounds like House Democrats have a plan to avoid default on the debt ceiling and rolled it out in January, seeding dozens of House committees with a bill that could be brought to the floor for a vote using a discharge petition. Bills only have to be in a committee for 30 days without any action and then they are “ripe” to be sent to the floor for debate and a vote. If nothing else, the debt ceiling will have to be debated, not the late night deal-a-thon that Marj’s Kevin used to get his bill passed. There are also some legal people looking at whether or not the 14th Amendment prohibits a default on the debt regardless of the statutes. The only thing that is NOT likely is that McCarthy agrees to a clean debt limit vote with a promise from Biden to “look at other spending separately.” He knows that it would be the end of his speakership because that bill would pass with mostly Democratic votes and then his caucus would oust him. It would be interesting to see who the new Speaker would be and if that battle would freeze Congressional action and shut down government on October 1st. Another reminder that it is a bad idea to elect people who hate the government to run your government.
Melon is threatening NPR with taking their @NPR label and giving it to someone else. They are refusing to use Twitter and have taken the Twitter link off their news articles. I suspect that NPR has no legal claim to the Twitter handle but I think that they would have a case if it was given to someone not affiliated with their news site. I wonder when the Internet media will realize that they need to find a place to share news that is NOT run by a megalomaniac destroyer – it literally costs $60 a month to host a Mastodon instance that they could control and that could be used for their sharing. Some organizations already have accounts on shared instances (for example, the Texas Tribune) and are using them to reach the smaller but growing crowds in the Fediverse. They will grow bigger when news sites start putting Toot links on their articles.
I have a dental appointment later this morning so I need to put my nose to the grindstone and get the rest of my day organized. I have no interest in doing the things on my to-do list and I need to shake myself out of that. I think I am reacting to being too busy since the beginning of the year so maybe a few days off not thinking about what I should be doing is what is needed – although that is likely to be anxiety producing! I will decide after I get back from the dentist.
See all y’all later!
Good luck, Jan! I always tell the dentist to wake me when it’s all over, even when they’re not using gas.
This visit is to pop a crown onto an implant – there is no nerve and no human tooth. He promised it would be over in 10 minutes. We shall see!
Technical Note 05/03/2023:
I’d wondered. Meant to report the “outage” to you if you hadn’t said anything about it when I got here. Bless you.
It’s 52 heading for 75 and sunny again. A week or so of overcast moves in this evening but looks like we’ve got one more good day of production. Yesterday was about the same as the day before – 21.1 KWHs and the m-t-d was at 42 when we started the day. We’ve already generated another 2.5 already today.
Wretched night and slept in so I’m just getting started. I haven’t heard anything new from anybody which is usually good. Need to get over to twitter and Spoutible and start boosting stuff. I suppose some time or other I’ll nerve myself up to start an account at Mastodon and see what’s in my line of stuff to boost. If any. Spoutible is easy. If it’s not in my TL, check a hashtag or somebody I’m following’s profile. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Mastodon is still waiting for a universal app. It is difficult to find things because there is no search function for content (there is for hashtags). With Automattic embracing Mastodon, and Melon targetting news sites, there will likely be something sooner rather than later. My advice is to wait other than maybe to reserve your social media handle.
Oh, I’m always happy to put off wading into Mastodon for a while. 😁 Thank you.
Thursday Meese. 44 going up to a rainy 54 here in Kingston.
In case you haven’t seen Colin Allred’s campaign launch ad – taking on Ted Cruz in Texas – here it is
Fingers crossed. Ted Cruz is despised but Republicans in Texas don’t seem to care – they may even delight in – despicable politicians. I think this guy has a better chance than Beto; he has some center left and center right appeal and may appeal to moderates and independents. We shall see!
Puerto Rico
(Today’s topic in Caribbean Matters is Vieques)
20 years after the end of the bombing in #Vieques
Good morning. Walk is done, only ran 3 segments, just couldn’t do it this morning. Anyway, here I am in the office.
Caribbean Matters posted
Good Thursday morning, Meese! It’s 47 F. and cloudy AGAIN in Ashburn, going up to 60 F. this afternoon. At 4 a.m. I leapt out of bed screaming because of a leg cramp. OMG, that hurt. I will have to search for the bar of soap at the bottom of the bedclothes that’s supposed to keep this from happening.
The Peach Bran Muffins I made this morning tasted wonderful. In a minute I’ll get cleaned up for another busy day. This afternoon I’ll attend my first Resident Publications meeting in a month.
Hoping that the message I sent yesterday online to Patty Lee, M.D., will bear fruit and I’ll get an appointment. She’s the one who injected Betsy’s husband with hyaluronic acid to plump up his vocal cords, after which he was able to speak for the first time in 11 months. I don’t care if she’s out of network. I’ll go into debt, or do a Go-Fund-Me, or sell Peach Bran Muffins in the street to get the money to get my voice back.
In other news, I MUST write that article today or die in the attempt. Dearly’s going to the doctor to get his blood tested in anticipation of a possible Mohs surgery. Poor guy.
Another shooting, another day. Sometimes I want to live in an ivory tower.
MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU, Moosekind! Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
May Fourth! I forgot – I was concentrating on Cinco De Mayo. There will be a full moon tomorrow but in the morning so if you have a chance to look at the moon tonight she will be quite fullish.
Unfortunately, we had clouds. Will do my best to look for the Flower Moon tonight.
This time of year, we rarely have clouds. May is the first month full we experienced here last year and the sun was ever present.
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is a delightful 57 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 79. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Perfect weather.
I tucked a few news articles away in Pocket to read later. I am in the middle of a new user setup and have to finish before people start milling around in the clients office and interrupt my work.
See all y’all later!
I love the Librarian of Congress!
Yay!
It’s 57 heading for 75 and overcast. The clouds didn’t move in until after dark and we generated another 20 KWHs yesterday. The m-t-d is 62.9 – which is actually on track for over 500. A status it will lose today. Who knows where we’ll be when the sun actually comes back. There’re clouds, and rain which we probably won’t get, for the 10-day forecast.
No word from my family. Basket forwarded me something from Fineena saying she’d been rear-ended coming home from the doctor’s yesterday her back hurts but the car’s fine. Amelia/earicicle has a dr appt today. Or it might be dental. I’ve forgotten. Anyway, it’s medical of some sort and it’s out of the house. I’m not sure about anybody else.
I’m a bit groggy. Cloudy weather. sigh. But my hands, while cold and achy, are functioning relatively well. Off to twitter, spoutible, & Dee’s diary on DK. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Friday Meese. 46 going up to 53 here in Kingston and delighted the forecast has changed to no rain for the next 3 days so as soon as things dry up I can finally mow the backyard, and start planting.
Puerto Rico
Good morning. Incredibly muggy — 75 degrees & steamy, feels like July. I did my 30 minutes, only ran 3 30-second segments, it was just too icky. Yesterday the head of Spoutible reminded me why I almost deleted my account, and did log out for several weeks. But when Twitter finally dies, it really looks like the only other thing. Mastadon is…… not the same, it’s hard to find people, it’s just scattered. Anyway, my profound thoughts at 6:30am.
Apparently there were a number of Twitter outages yesterday – it is going to be more and more difficult to keep it running as Melon tries to make do with the people left over after he fired the top line engineers – and closed one of his data centers. I am using Mastodon more and more to find things to read but the only way to find more people is to add some follows and then look at their follows. I am told that tools are being built to make it easier to use. Do you use an app or a web site? I find the web site useless and I read and interact using an app on my phone named Tusky.
I can’t use Spoutible after what the site owner did to the fiction writers group a while back. And I have real issues – dating back to 2008 – interacting on a site owned by one person who wields complete power in arbitrary ways.
I use the website, I almost never use my phone for stuff besides Map My Walk and Spotify. I had pre-registered for Spoutible, and witnessed the thing with the writers, that’s what pissed me off. And he posted lies about it yesterday…. ugh.
Mozilla, the guys who built FireFox, is hosting a Mastodon instance and a lot of people are excited about what they may do with it in terms of user interfaces and the like. It is likely to be a magnet for people writing Add-Ins that we can fervently hope lead to “innovations” like Search. ;)
Ooh, WHAT did the site owner of Spoutible do the fiction writers? I hate people who abuse fiction writers, and am in total sympathy with the writers’ strike.
Courtney Milan and some others pointed out that the wording of their “any links to porn” language in the terms of use was overly broad and offered to help. He lost his freaking mind and banned them all. Said they wanted to spread porn. It was pointed out to him who Courtney is….. he doesn’t care.
They are romance writers and some of their stories include “having sex” as one would expect. He took exception to some of the bodice-ripping covers, calling them porn. Courtney Milan does not need Spoutible, she has a robust following on Twitter and other Social Media. I have never read any of her books but her legal commentary (she clerked for a number of judges) is spot on.
I know that’s the way the story played out on Twitter. The only thing I’m going to say about it is that that’s not the way it played out on Spoutible. (Both from what I personally saw (which wasn’t much) & what was reported to me by one of the beta users on Spoutible who was there for the whole thing.)
I was on Spoutible from day 1, that is what happened. Several people were pointing out problems, CB responded by saying they were deliberately trying to undermine the site. I’ve minimized participation, because if that’s how he responds to constructive criticism, I’m not interested. Had started participating again, then yesterday CB posted saying the same thing again…..I don’t know why it came up but if he keeps lying about people I like more than him, I don’t think I should be there.
Good morning, meeses! Friday …
It is 54 degrees in Tucson with an expected daytime high of 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Great hiking weather!
Proud Boys convicted, yay! May they rot in prison. Air Force General tapped for Joint Chief of Staff, boo! The Air Force is the most unrepentant misogynistic religionist branch of the military – no one from there should ever be promoted. People will blame Biden for House defaulting on federal debt, boo! Biden’s people need to get in front of this – if they can’t pin the blame on Kevin McCarthy and his pact with the right-wing destroyers, it will be a massive failure.
The moon was full at about 10am yesterday and so was not visible here at 100% illumination. But last night, she come up over the Santa Catalina mountains in very dramatic fashion.
See all y’all later!
Thanks, that’s gorgeous!
Yup. Our Constitution is being “interpreted” by a group with no accountability put in place by a minority of our country.
Good Friday morning, Moosekind! It’s a beautiful day for a change, out here in the middle of nowhere. Our current temp. is 57 F., going up to 65 F.
Planning to meet Darling Niece for a MUCH overdue coffee and lunch in Reston this morning at 10:30-ish. Today it has been 7 weeks since my operation and subsequent loss of voice. HOWEVER! I have an appointment next Tuesday with the same doctor in Fairfax who cured my friend’s husband.
So hoping she can do the same for me. I think my croakiness is unfair. And why did it even happen? (First-world problem, I know. Other people have real problems.)
There on people on Twitter I adore, Anne Louise Avery, Yaroslava Antipina, KenyaDad, BrooklynDadDefiant, Tea Pain, Lakota Man, our own bfitz, Imani, Portia McGonagal, and others. I don’t want to leave them until I have to. Also, I only have time for one social media thing (I’m already on FB, rarely), Orange (rarely), and a couple of others. I wish Melon hadn’t ruined things. What a dork! Can’t we shoot him off to the moon? No, he’d ruin it. Perhaps Mercury?
Gotta split. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and all the Brits beyond.
There are no planets we can turn over to Melon – perhaps we can sling him into another universe?
It’s 58 – which it’s been since about noon yesterday when the rain actually started – and supposedly heading for 74 today. And it’s sunny at the moment although clouds are supposed to move in again. We got all of 4 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 66.9 – still on track for 480 at least. We shall see how long that lasts.
No news from family or anybody else so hoping everybody’s trucking along and nobody’s getting any worse. I got my biggest chunk of sleep between 4:30 and 8 and did see the moon a few times. Never fully clear of clouds but sometimes the clouds were thin enough for it to shine through rather than around. And a bank of dark clouds edged in moonlight has its own beauty. Off to twitter & spoutible to do my daily boosting. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}