Happy New Year 2018

While we've had only a few light snowfalls so far the winter temperatures have sure arrived.  We've been hanging out in the single digits below and above 0ºF for some time with no end in sight yet.  On Wednesday Lake Mendota, the largest of the local lakes, officially froze over, helped by this cold snap and light winds.  Much earlier than I expected, and some years it never completely freezes over.

The cold weather will not be friendly to new year revelers out and about tonight.  We won't be leaving the house tonight, but we will be having a few friends over to keep us up until midnight.  Nothing fancy, though my wife will be putting in some work on the food.  I've asked her to not try to do so much, but she enjoys cooking and trying new dishes.  Who am I to complain?

Happy New Year to you all.  The ones I read, the ones I love, all my friends and all of you who take the time to read me.  Whether you comment or not, I can see you're there.  Thank you.

Merry Christmas 2017

I woke up late this morning to discover snow outside.  We'd been getting, and continue to get, a steady light snowfall that was supposed to miss us south and east this morning.  It is also overcast, though this picture looks very dark.  I used a filter to try and  lighten it a bit.  My display is still darker than it should be (and I have no idea how to correct it) so it's hard for me to judge.

It's not a lot of snow, just a layer of dry, powdery stuff, but I'm sure it will make many people happy to have a white Christmas.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Happy Solstice!

The Winter Solstice officially arrived at 10:28 this morning here.  Finally, the days get longer from here on!  We have a 4 day weekend here, through Christmas, then back at it until the new year holiday.  I plan to relish every minute away from everything else, and have fun with the times I'm out!



The Harp Twins are playing at the Stoughton Opera House on March 24, 2018.  I would actually like to see their performance, and at 15 bucks a seat I think I may try to get tickets.

Lake Monona Ice Views

I've noticed the ice on the lake the last couple weeks as I drive to and from work and I'd been thinking of stopping to take a few pictures.  Well, today as I was running errands I took advantage of the beautiful weather - sunny and above freezing - to stop for a few minutes and actually do it.  This is Lake Monona from Olbrich Park, where the Olbrich Biergarten was opened late this last summer.  The migrating water fowl, possibly including a population of trumpeter swans that I'm told is in the area, can be seen in the distance here if you look close, where the ice meets open water.




And to my right as I stood is again a beautifully framed view of the downtown isthmus and our picturesque capitol building.  I like this picture enough I've made this my background on our computer.




The ice closest to shore is mostly rough from being broken and refrozen, with the water spray freezing on the rocky shore making another nice photo opportunity.  I'm not a total stranger to being out on the ice, but it is much too early to trust it.  At least one overeager ice fisherman has already had to be pulled from the lake.



A zoomed in view to the left may provide a better indication of all the water fowl out on the edge of the ice.  Their noise actually made a quite a dull roar from where I was standing.  The Madison lakes are a popular spot on waterfowl migration routes.



And another zoomed in view of the downtown isthmus area that shows the transition from the broken/refrozen ice, to the ice sheet and then open water.  It's too early to say if the lakes will fully freeze over this winter or not.  On the left you will see the Monona Terrace convention center, a bike destination over the summer, and to the right that bit of green you see is the copper top of the Barrymore Theater, also pictured in my last Atwoodfest post.






You may also click on the pictures to see them full size on Flickr.

On a side note, this last week or so Windows had two updates that took some time to install and ever since then my display is darker than normal.  My new monitor is and has been at 100% brightness, but in my windows display settings there is no longer the choice to change the brightness.  I've tried everything I know to do to remedy this, to no avail.  Anyone have any ideas?

Thoughts, And Cats!

Hamish, top, and Basil

Welcome to winter.  We got our second snow last night and this morning, about an inch is all.  My wife went out and scraped it up off the driveway and walks earlier today and the rest will melt when the sun makes short appearances or may stick around in the corners and shady areas since the outlook is for high temperatures around or just below freezing for the foreseeable forecast.  It looks like we may get a bit more Monday, but nothing to be concerned about.  A white Christmas is still not assured.

Speaking of, I need to get shopping, like now.  We won't be traveling far this year so I need to get gifts chosen, ordered and shipped to where they need to be.  I think we may scale it back a bit this year, not due to lack of funds but we're not going to see them opened and I'm, quite simply, running out of ideas.  I've always tried to put much thought into what I get for presents, especially for the kids, but I just don't feel that inspiration this year.  But who knows?  We'll see what happens when I've been on Amazon for a while later today.

We don't have much planned this weekend except for the Packer game, so I am looking forward to plenty of rest, the aforementioned shopping, and there are several little things I can get done around the house.  The Badger football team lost in the Big Ten Championship game and have a tough bowl game to finish their season in a few weeks.  The basketball team is young this year and not quite as dynamic as the past several years.  The Packers may get number 12 back soon but it may be too late to save the season.  On the bright side, the Bucks are looking a lot better this year.  Okay, that's it for sports talk.

Not knowing what to write and not having enough ideas for a This-And-Thats post I decided it was time to post some cat pictures.  After all, we have a ton of them.  They can be so adorable and we always have a camera with us, thus the phones fill up with cat pictures.  I wish I could be so relaxed and content with all my needs taken care of.

So now I present to you our cats, brothers, Basil and Hamish!


I want to remind everyone who reads this via email or notification that my posts are viewed as intended on the desktop website: https://scoakatsblog.blogspot.com
Other views get the point across in a convenient format, but not necessarily in the view I crafted.

Badgers Time

This is what's on my mind this week.  Our undefeated Wisconsin Badgers have a shot at the national championship playoff, but they have to win on Saturday night for the B1G Conference championship against Ohio State.  There's a lot more to it than that, but that's all for the talking heads on TV.

I'll be watching.  And I believe it will happen.
Go Badgers!

Hotlinks to these pictures may not last long, but the excitement is NOW!  Go, Badgers, Go!

Happy Thanksgiving 2017

Today we made a day trip about 100 miles or more west southwest into an area of the state that borders up with Iowa on the Mississippi River, with Illinois just south, the tri-state area of Dubuque, Iowa.
This picture faces west, Iowa is across the mighty river.

We were on our way to see my Mom and Dan, and my sister's family.  It was a nice day with a nice Thanksgiving feast, card games, football and good company.  The kids are getting bigger (James may be taller than me next time I see him!), and my sister and niece are also doing well.  Mom and Dan are looking forward to another winter in Alabama and sound like they are keeping happy and busy.
We had a very good time with all.  This picture is the view from the bridge, upriver.



Whenever we make this trip I always want to take pictures, especially when we cross the Mississippi River area into Dubuque.  This trip I made my wife get her camera ready so she could take pictures for me.  Yes, my wife Kate took all these pictures - at highway speed, mind you.  I briefly said kinda what I was looking for and to just take a lot of them.  Several turned out very good, the best are here.
This one is coming off the bridge back to Wisconsin.



There's other scenes along the trip I wouldn't mind getting, too.  Like the big M on the mound in Platteville, seen for miles around.  And other random things, like the big cutouts through the rocky hills for the roads, some had icicles from the spring water that seeps out, and other scenic roadscapes.
This is a brilliant sunset picture over the Mississippi River for 60 miles an hour over a bridge.



I must say - though I've said it before - I've started to really like taking pictures, and this blog this year has shown that.  I don't plan on investing in any special equipment or anything, I just enjoy getting a good picture, and now I'm seeing, or looking for, those opportunities more often.

First Snow of the Season, 2017

The first snow of the season fell this morning.  What you see is about all we got, and it isn't expected to stick around long, thankfully.  I expect a weekend filled with football and relaxing.  I do have a growing to-do list, but nothing terribly urgent at the moment.

I've noted our first snow here on the blog over the years:  October 10, 2009; December 4, 2010; November 9, 2011; December 9, 2012; October 23, 2013; hard drive issues and a break around this time in 2014; November 20, 2015; December 4, 2016 and now, November 18, 2017.  It was interesting to look back at the dates.

1000 Posts!

Happy Halloween 2017

The large, bright moon was a good effect.

Trick or Treat!  I got into Halloween a little more this year.  I picked up a window covering that is backlit by your inside lights.  It came in two parts so I put in in the corner windows, and I did get a few compliments on it from friendly parents.  I also bought a mask to have fun with the kiddies.  I waited to get these things until Sunday so there wasn't much left out to choose from.  Oh, and I got candy - loads of candy.  Too much candy.  Anyone want some candy?  I'd say we got around 40 trick-or-treaters or so, not too bad.  I expect that number to grow over the next several years as the kids get bigger and more numerous in the neighborhood, but I could be wrong.  I answered the door all but once with my mask on, bending down to kid height.  Showed the spirit but I didn't make any kids run away screaming.

Unimpressed Hamish

After the break is me, in my scary mask!

One Minute Of Peace

Late last night, friends had left, cleanup done.  I relaxed by the fire for about an hour as the winds picked up before the front would come through overnight.  This is why I want to put in a permanent fire pit, but without the wind, of course.

October This-And-Thats

I’ve not posted in some time, just been busy, tired or both.  And looking back, I've been pretty streaky with posting the last few months; twice in June, 8 times in July, once in August, 8 times again in September, and now this is the first for October.  It looks like I'm taking every other month off.  Overall, there really hasn’t been a whole lot going on or I would most likely write about it here. But as for now, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say here yet, so it's time to start typing again and see what happens!

•  The days are getting shorter and we’ve had to turn on the furnace to keep warm.  I’m hoping for several more nice days before winter, and we may get them but it may not be shorts weather again until spring.  At least not for me.  The leaves are changing colors and falling, some trees before others.  It will still be some weeks before raking is necessary, and I’ll need to wait for the trees to be finished before cleaning the house gutters.  I already have a list started for spring, just some projects I'd like to do (fire pit!) and products that will be needed.
• The gardens are in order after cleaning them up and adding the composted soil to the nutrient-starved east garden.  Kate got the garlic planted a few days ago.  Feel free to visit the garden blog.  Updates come sporadically over there, but I still try to hit all the highlights and usually post a bunch of pictures.
• It’s football season!  The Badgers are well on their way to a *ahem* hopefully undefeated season and one of the four College Football Playoff berths.  The Packers unfortunately lost Aaron Rodgers to a broken collarbone last weekend, but I still have hope of winning games and making the playoffs - then anything can happen.  I enjoy watching Badger and Packer games but it does seem to take up a big chunk of the weekends so I don't really watch the other games like I used to.
• I’ve begun (or continued) a job search.  What a pain.  Everything is online these days, complete the application, upload your resume, answer these questions – only 38 pages long, you’re almost done!  Then you get to the interviews.  'Star interview' questions?  Never heard of it before my wife mentioned it recently, and that explains some of the questions I've heard before.  I’ll need to brush up on a few work stories, I guess, to make myself look good.  Looking for a job is selling yourself.  My problem is, I’ve never been a salesman.  I better learn quick with more interviews upcoming!
• We haven't had the bikes out much lately, with the cooler and wet weather.  I should start looking for a place to take them in for off-season maintenance.  Mostly they need professional adjustments of the gears and my brakes.  I think I know of a nearby place, just off the bike path of course, so I should contact them this weekend and schedule it.  

While writing this I thought of the last TATs post, in September.  I mentioned that if I wrote about posting cat pictures that would make it more likely to happen.  It hasn't, obviously.  I will try to remember this time, but for now here's Basil and Hamish from several weeks ago, hanging out on the ottoman looking all cute and innocent.  We know better!

Olbrich Biergarten

Yesterday evening my wife and I finally made it to the Biergarten at Olbrich Park.  It opened about halfway through summer and we drive past it at least twice almost every day, and I've been past it on my bike a few times, but we finally made it there to sit and enjoy the area, scenery and ambiance.   The beer garden is a good idea for the city to get more people to use the park and make some money, and it appears to be working as there were lots of people out yesterday evening but still not all the tables were taken so we didn't feel crowded.  There's still plenty of open green space, the space for soccer fields is still there, and the boaters have their own area on the other side of the Starkweather Creek outlet into Lake Monona.

There were great views of the lake and area, and I've really been enjoying taking pictures this year so here's some more!  This is on Lake Monona, when we're out on the boat we're on Lake Mendota.  The state capitol building is on the isthmus that separates the lakes so this is the other side than the view I usually post here.

We were supposed to meet someone we met at a local hangout but they pulled a no-show and didn't reply to a text until hours later.  We are open to making new friends but this disappointed us.  We do what we say we're going to do and are always on time, and for the most part we'd like our friends to be like that, too.  Still, we enjoyed ourselves while sitting by the lake and sipping a brew as the sun lowered over the lake.  It was a lovely setting, right in the city but so nice, calm and relaxing.

Earlier in the day I got some yard work done and so I posted a tour of the yard over at the garden blog last night.  Stop over there and have a look, and, of course, more beer garden photos after the break!