The Sky is Falling!

Tammy is 11 weeks post-op from her hip replacement surgery and is pretty much back to normal. She was given the green light a few days ago to resume her Zumba workouts. I'm super happy for her because I know how important those workouts are for her. She's happy as well. It's been a few years since she had to stop exercising due to hip pain.

We braved some near-blizzard conditions two weeks ago to take a mixology class at Norseman Distillery in Minneapolis. It was a gift Tammy had surprised me with one year ago and it was about to expire. I've put so little time into learning what goes into various drinks so this was all new to me. It was a lot of fun—so much so that we're talking about taking Mixology 2 as a follow-up. 

We had the most beautiful snowfall earlier this week. Over two days, about 20" (50cm) of tree-clinging snow blanketed the area and because there was very little wind, most of what was clinging to the trees is still hanging on, making a walk through our neighborhood look much more beautiful than normal. I had to get out and get some video this afternoon for the archives. I know, kind of boring. 🤷🏽‍♂️

They say this is the snowiest start to winter the Twin Cities has seen in 30 years!

My nearly 2.5-year-old Google Pixel 4XL cellphone died last week. That does seem premature. For a brief moment, I considered climbing aboard the iPhone train but since we're very happy with Google's Project Fi phone plan, it wasn't something I considered very seriously. For me, the most important aspect of any cellphone I've had has been its camera. My new Pixel 7 Pro doesn't disappoint at all in that regard. I posted this to my Instagram account to show the phone's 30x zoom ability. It's quite remarkable! The newest iPhone 14 Pro only has (I believe) a max of 15x zoom. I imagine my new phone coming in handy when I'm riding the river trails and want to zoom in on eagles that are plentiful along the river.

I've had zero motivation to be down in my shop working on stained glass this winter. I'm not sure what that's all about. No worries. At some point, I'll find the desire again and find my way back to it. I do need to continue work on a design for our master bathroom windows. Coming up with a design I'm happy about will be all the motivation I'll need to start on them. We also have some stained glass panels planned for above our kitchen cabinets, but again, I need to sit down and flesh out a design first. 

Today marks 2 years since the attack on our nation's Capitol. I'm hopeful that the ongoing investigation will ultimately result in indictments of Trump and those who plotted the failed overthrow. I feel it's far more important to have justice for this matter than worrying about dividing the nation over an indictment of a former president. We're already hopelessly divided and that's not changing; not until conservative media and conservative politicians decide they've done enough damage and level with their followers about the extent to which the former president bears responsibility for the attack. I don't expect that will ever happen. 

One of my favorite albums from 1988 was Third One From the Sun by Mark Place. I only had it in album format and was never able to find it as a CD. I bought a Stanton turntable a number of years ago and went about digitizing several albums that were never available in CD format, with Mark's album being one of them. There was a song of his that I wanted to use as backing music for one of my ride videos so I somehow managed to find an email address for Mark and ask him for his permission to use his song. It was probably the record label's call to make but he encouraged me to use it. And so I did. I sent him a link to the finished product and didn't think much else about it. He reached out to me recently (through the comments in the video) to get my contact information. When he replied he shared that he's recorded some more songs in case I was interested. Definitely!

I decided to use that same song again plus another song of his in a video for a ride I did on New Year's Day. The first video I'd made using his song is inferior to what I'm putting out now and I wanted him to have something better than my first effort. I like the way the video transitions from the first song to the second song. It's the 2nd video below.

The 1st video below was from a ride I did yesterday. I had to get down to the river trails to see the beauty of the snow-ladened trees. They didn't disappoint!

That's all I've got.