USMB Coffee Shop IV

[Foxfyre]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

 

[Ernie S.]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

I would love to play computer games like Doom on that screen.

We use the big screen for Karaoke on Wednesday night. I should be able to hook of the WI to it. We could play WI bowling full size

 

[Ernie S.]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

I don't know why... I do have a 96" screen that came with the projector. I use it here on the deck from time to time.

 

[peach174]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

We don't have the space for one that size for our livingroom.

 

[Nosmo King]

Back to school shopping when I was a young student happened at the Northern Lights shopping center in Baden, Pennsylvania. We would pile into the car and drive up the river to Baden. There we found Sears and Roebuck, J.C.Penny's and Montgomery Ward (always referred to as 'Monkey Wards). Trudging around these stores and picking out four pairs of trousers and a half dozen shirts was a chore for me. Everything had to be carefully selected to be 'grown in to' over the course of a school year.

But there were highlights to back to school shopping. There was a local hamburger franchise, Winky's that had better food than McDonald's. So there's that. But the Baden Winky's was close to Route 65 and the north bank of the Ohio River, and directly across the river from the Jones and Laughlin steel mill in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

What made that location so cool was the activity at the mill. There were four massive blast furnaces there. Part of the steel making process in a blast furnace was the production of slag. Limestone is one of the ingredients in steel. When it issuperheated, it turns to slag. When slag is cooled, it looks like rocks from the Moon, pitted and cratered and light gray in color. Many folks used slag as drive way material. As it turns out, slag was a hazardous material due to the high content of heavy metals and other contaminates. But what did we know from hazardous material?

Huge cauldrons were moved by railroad tracks from the blast furnace at J&L to the river bank. There they would tip these cauldrons down the river bank, discharging the slag is a red hot plume. It looked like lava pouring from a volcano, ending is an audible hiss as it hit the water. Sparks, noise, steam and locomotives. What is there not to be fascinated by, especially by a boy bored to tears by back to school shopping.

What excitement! What a spectacular show! What a great Winky's burger! What ugly, too large Monkey Ward's trousers!

 

[Manonthestreet]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

They could have built the thing on the right shoulder of the Twin Cities 15 minutes NE of MPLS right up 35 where 3 freeways, 2 hwys, and several cty rds converge. They would have had dedicated parking lot, with whole new village thrown in combined housing and shopping. Would have also given them an excuse to run their choo choo north up the freeway which I thought would seal the deal...they're always looking for reasons to expand that worthless thing , but nnnoooooo MPLS has to have everything but doesnt have the ability to handle the traffic cause there is a light on every corner timed to make sure you go nowhere.....and god help you if more than one of the stadiums is in use...may as well get motel room.

 

[Ernie S.]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

We don't have the space for one that size for our livingroom.

I kind of do, but I wouldn't be able to use the door to the master bedroom. I guess I'll have to install the double doors from the BR to the deck. I've had the doors for a few years, but installing them is going to be a structural dilemma. The 6 foot wide doors will be on the dormer end of the house. I will need to pull siding and install temporary jacks to support the end of the house until the header is installed.

 

[peach174]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

We don't have the space for one that size for our livingroom.

I kind of do, but I wouldn't be able to use the door to the master bedroom. I guess I'll have to install the double doors from the BR to the deck. I've had the doors for a few years, but installing them is going to be a structural dilemma. The 6 foot wide doors will be on the dormer end of the house. I will need to pull siding and install temporary jacks to support the end of the house until the header is installed.

Well maybe I would would have the room for one if we did not have a 6 ft. Long, 18 inch wide aquarium for our water turtle Mikey.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Wow! I cracked my head, hard, this morning. I stood up too fast in the wrong place and a B747 fell on my head. It hurt, but I didn't realize how badly I was hurt until I noticed the small splatters of blood on the concrete. Ah, well, this too will heal.

Blood on the Tarmac... Always hated that when it happened...

The hood of my jacket was worst. Most of the blood that ran off the head ended up there. Head wounds are notoriously messy. It's coming along well, though. First thing when something like that happens, you look around to see who might have seen you doing something stupid...like smacking your head on an engine cowl.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Good night Darlinks. I hope all sleep well. I really do love you guys.

And we continue to pray and/or send good vibes and/or keep vigil for:

Harper (Save's granddaughter),
Pogo’s friend Pat and special comfort for Pogo,
Becki and Becki’s hubby,
Mrs. O and SFCOllie,
GW's daughter, her friend Sachendra, and Sachendra's husband Bob and son Gary.
Noomi!!!
Nosmo's mom,
Ernie's stop smoking project,
Sherry’s Mom,
Rod, GW's partner,
The Ringels in difficult transition,
Kat, Mr. Kat and Kat's mom,
Boedicca's Dad,
Montrovant's transition,
Foxfyre's friend Dana and Aunt Betty,
Gracie and Mr. Gracie in a difficult transition,
Imperius,
All of us and those we care about who are looking for work,

And the light is left on for Alan, Noomi, Freedombecki, Oddball, Spoonman, and all the others who we miss and hope to return.

Kawachi Fuji Wisteria Tunnel

Love that wisteria tunnel! That must be a sight to see, fer shure.

 

[gallantwarrior]

My favorite westerns are The Tall Men and Cat Ballou (dispite the fact that I don't like Jane Fonda).
Loved her dad's acting though.

Funny you mention "Cat Ballou". My daughter sent me a couple of videos of my granddaughters watching Monty Python's "The Holy Grail" last night. They were absolutely howling with laughter. I recommended "Cat Ballou", among some other old comedy flicks. I always though "The Villian", with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ann Margaret, and Kirk Douglas, was a must see comedy.

 

[gallantwarrior]

Ho-zilla is certainly working out well. We've been able to remove several tree stumps (although the resulting craters will have to be dealt with later), and the beast is a great help moving a lot of the overburden that has to be moved for any additional construction. Fortunately, the partner was the first of us to bury the backhoe axel deep in wet clay. Of course, the machine can usually be used to dig itself out of a moderate "stuck". We have also stashed our first 55 gal drum of fuel. It's always easy to load an empty drum onto the pickup, now that we have Ho-zilla, we can rig and sling the full drums where we want them.
I finally dealt with an epiphany regarding my partner. If I had gotten to the backhoe first, he would have been johnny-on-the-spot, "instructing" me and generally making a nuisance of himself. Little work would have gotten done. But since I was otherwise occupied, he got to the machine first. Since he was busy, I started getting a lot of other small projects worked on. Moral of the story, if you cannot work together, don't. You will get twice as much work done!

 

[ChrisL]

Good morning all. The Balloon Fiesta is going strong this week. Every morning the western sky is filled with beautiful hot air balloons. The traffic is miserable and you can't get into a restaurant or find a motel room within 50 miles of here, but it's glorious just the same.

I like the rooster one.

 

[ChrisL]

 

[Ringel05]

Wow! I cracked my head, hard, this morning. I stood up too fast in the wrong place and a B747 fell on my head. It hurt, but I didn't realize how badly I was hurt until I noticed the small splatters of blood on the concrete. Ah, well, this too will heal.

Blood on the Tarmac... Always hated that when it happened...

The hood of my jacket was worst. Most of the blood that ran off the head ended up there. Head wounds are notoriously messy. It's coming along well, though. First thing when something like that happens, you look around to see who might have seen you doing something stupid...like smacking your head on an engine cowl.

Well, at least is was the head........ Nothing vital.........

 

[Ringel05]

Went out in the back yard last night, it was cool and breezy, looked at the thermometer and it was only down to 70 degrees.......

Still waiting to hear on my disability ruling, hopefully soon plus the wife has been talking with a HR person about a job in Tempe, AZ that sounds promising. Keeping our fingers crossed.

 

[Foxfyre]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

We don't have the space for one that size for our livingroom.

We have a huge great room so could actually do it, but it would so dominate everything else that I think we would lose a lot of ambiance and functionality of the room.

 

[Foxfyre]

Good morning all. The Balloon Fiesta is going strong this week. Every morning the western sky is filled with beautiful hot air balloons. The traffic is miserable and you can't get into a restaurant or find a motel room within 50 miles of here, but it's glorious just the same.

I like the rooster one.

The special shapes during and in addition to the mass ascensions are the highlight of the fiesta--there is one evening devoted to the special shapes. Many are absolutely amazing and you can't imagine how huge they are until you get up close and stand right beside them. Just a small sampling:

 

[peach174]

I like angry bird and the saguaro

 

[Ringel05]

Declined some free Viking tickets for tonite, stadium is just too hard to get to and exit to bother.

We prefer our living room with hot coffee or something, popcorn, and house slippers to the crowds and traffic and misbehaving patrons in the stands.

I prefer to watch my football at Doc's on the BIG screen. We have a pretty good crowd for college football on Saturdays. We have a projector mounted to the ceiling over the bar and a 135" screen that hangs above the stage. With the HD cable, it's like being on the field with your team.

But Hombre won't let me hang a 135" screen in our living room.

We don't have the space for one that size for our livingroom.

We have a huge great room so could actually do it, but it would so dominate everything else that I think we would lose a lot of ambiance and functionality of the room.

We have a 39", the living room is roughly 14' by 18' and the TV is plenty big enough.