utenzi

It's not my house that is burning down, it's the show House . Apparently critics are starting to take notice that the writing on the show is in a death spiral. No doubt the sexual and romantic relationship between Cuddy and House this season will be viewed later as the handwriting on the wall . I don't know if it constitutes a true Jumping the Shark moment, but their being in bed together at the beginning of this season must be close. The other reason for the word "Burn" in the title of this post is a more promising one. Burn Notice starts up again this coming Thursday. I liked last season almost as much as the first season and a lot more than the seasons between. I hope this coming season holds the line. Program it in: 10 pm on USA Network. If anyone cares, that annoying Conan O'Brien is making his debut on TBS tonight. He's got a slot between 11pm and midnight.

Every year I delay using A/C in the warmer months and heat in the colder months. This year hasn't been an exception to that. Most of last week it ranged from 56 to 58 in my house. A bit on the cool side but nothing really bad. I spent the weekend at my girlfriend's house and when I returned to my house at 5pm on Sunday it was to find the house had cooled further. Down to 51.2 degrees, to be exact. That was the limit. I don't like it to go under 55 so I turned on the heating system within 5 minutes of getting home. Brrr! Now it's a toasty 62 in here and I'll probably turn it up to 65 tomorrow. It takes a while for the house to warm up so I'm gradually getting it used to the idea, you see. It was supposed to go below freezing last night but I don't know if it did or not. There was a little ice on Carrie's deck but it didn't feel all that bad outside when we went hiking at 9am. Probably around 45f. But a couple of cold nights really dropped the temp i...

I didn't feel like waiting until December. The two pictures here were taken last Saturday. I was hiking in the Cabe lands area of Eno Park, near the quarry. Both pictures feature distant relatives of ours. One an insect the other a spider. While the two are both in the phylum Arthropoda, they're in different classes (Insecta and Arachnida). The hornet pictured there on the left was crawling on my leg after I put it there. I found it on a rock. I had it in my hand for a while but every time I tried to take a picture of it, it fell off my hand and back onto my leg. The hornets movements felt kinda funny because the wings never stopped moving and that created a slight tickling sensation. Because of the cool temperatures, the poor thing was moving a mite sluggishly so it was early to pick it up. But not so easy to get it to stay put. I had an eye exam yesterday morning. I really hate those pupil dilation drops. It was a rainy overcast day so the sunlight didn't bother me but t...

It's been nearly a month since my last post. Maybe this is becoming a once-a-month blog. These pictures are from a hike I took with a Meetup group last weekend. The hike was a 9.5 mile meander along 3 trails in Raven Rock park, near Lillington NC. The last month has seen a few changes in my life. My mother succumbed to lung cancer after a 2+ year encounter with the disease. She was diagnosed 23 months ago with a fairly advanced tumor in her left lung. Fist sized, they said, and gave her a couple of months to live. She stayed nearly pain free for almost the entire two years. It was a very slow growing tumor and really fooled the doctors. The last 2 weeks were bad though---the cancer, relatively mild for most of its span, showed its fangs at the end. That happened a month ago. During the two bad weeks and the month since I managed to gain some serious weight. I don't know how that happened. (okay, I ate a lot) And now I'm up to 193 and am supposed to see my doctor on Monday. ...