Looks like you all could use an open thread. This photo is from April 2014 – I don’t get to take a lot of nature photos any more, Bixby rarely stands still long enough. But that’s a good representation of what it looks like out there today.
We are breaking records all over the place. It’s not unwelcome as November and December seemed unusually bitter. It was 72 degrees on Thursday and in the 60’s yesterday and today. I’m taking the beast out for a hike. What’s everyone else up to today?
Play nice…
Baud
Pedicure.
Baud
I assume the heat is because of all the election hot air.
MomSense
@Baud:
You and my dog.
Baud
@MomSense:
I’ll take that over sharing the neutering experience.
Roger Moore
I went to the farmers’ market this morning, and this afternoon I’m going to donate platelets. In between, I’ll probably start some bread.
trollhattan
We broke two or three high-temp records over the past week, now things are back to average. Except for no rain. Without a lot over the next eight weeks or so, the West will be in drought year five.
pamelabrown53
@Baud:
“Pedicure”. Beats going to a podiatrist.
TaMara, is that a view from your house? When I see a pic.that exquisite I’d like to think I could leave FL. and brave the cold and snow. What passes for mountains here are speed bumps!
Personally, I’d like to relocate to Santa Fe because I love the desert mountain climate, plus it is culturally compelling without being a large city.
Baud
@pamelabrown53: Or a proctologist.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m thinking of driving to take some pics of DTLA from Echo Park and some pics of some the houses in Angeleno Heights. It’s a neighborhood that’s got alot of old Victorian houses(it’s where the rich folk built houses at the turn of the 20th century after leaving Bunker Hill downtown).
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Sounds a bit elitist.
pamelabrown53
@Baud:
Hah! Last time I went to a podiatrist could have sworn he was a proctologist.
TaMara (BHF)
@pamelabrown53: I wish it was from my house, but I live in Old Town, surrounded by big, big trees. I love that view, but then we get 60 mph wind gusts, I’m grateful for the wind break of old houses and old trees.
To see that view, I just need to go about 1/2 mile.
FlyingToaster
I just got back to Bwahstin from sunny southwest Florida; it had just stopped snowing at midnight when we walked out of the door of Logan.
I’m glad to be back, even though it’s going to be cold and wintry-mix or rain this week. Being tech support* for my Mom is wearing, to say the least.
* In this case, forcing her to buy a new entertainment stand, a new DVD player, and then WarrriorGirl and I assembled everything for her. She asked COMCAST to help her do this, which failed miserably. Failure to understand her vendor’s business model — don’t ask a company that wants you to do everything with their box what other boxes you should buy, D’oh!
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Nah. It’s the poor man’s colonic.
Gimlet
A photo for the ages
http://i1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg601/ignatz23/obama%20rabbit_zpsp0cubhsn.jpg
TaMara (BHF)
@BillinGlendaleCA: This view is LA at night from my cousins’ house.
If you want to send me some of those photos when you’re done I’m happy to front page them. With Betty Cracker on vaca with her husband and John suffering from sinus stuff, we may need front page material this weekend.
dr. bloor
@Baud: So the Baud! campaign is running on an anti-American-Eunuch platform?
Ultraviolet Thunder
I was in Charleston WV yesterday and the high was 60. Here in Detroit it was 58 at noon today. We’ve had very little snow at all.
This is good for Doglius. He has short legs and hates the snow. Walkies today!
Iowa Old Lady
@pamelabrown53: He was doing it wrong
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
We’re getting a break in the rain today in Oregon. Was hoping to mow the lawn for the first time this year, but it probably won’t dry out sufficiently today, and the rain is coming back tomorrow, they say…
Lazy morning with the family. Played a little Magic: The Gathering with Mrs. Disgruntled former Baud supporter, got my ass handed to me repeatedly.
Looking forward to another “game day” today in SoCarol and Nevada! Hoping Hillary can catch a break today, hoping for Jeb! to do well enough that he stays in the race a little longer, and for Kasich to come in dead last! (Saw that dude on Colbert and he was a little too good at sounding reasonable – not who I want to run against in the general…)
Baud
@dr. bloor: I’m pro-choice.
@Iowa Old Lady: Maybe Pamela put her foot up some fool’s ass.
PhoenixRising
Ward meeting, to elect delegates for Democratic Convention.
My impression, based on chatting overheard among 35 Democrats, is that there are those feeling the Bern and those who are staying quiet while they blow themselves out. There are a lot more Sanders supporters. Women in their 60s and 70s whose main argument for Sanders is that Hillary did wrong 20 years ago and they can’t ever forgive her.
Anecdata: I’m not so sure they will organize for HRC. They’ll vote for her, but they are actively not interested in her policy preferences. Don’t want to hear it. She’s dead to them. These are the people who do the work of making a Democratic Party happen, so that’s troubling.
I fled as soon as the real business was done, as my appetite for using a sunny and 72 Saturday listening to great ideas for how to get more youth voters involved in the Sanders campaign is…non-existent.
Baud
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: I keep wondering what’s wrong with us that we have to be scared of reasonable Republicans.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: I think you need to look up and do something to gruntle your disgruntled former supporter. Taking such a cavalier attitude to your voters will land you in hot water on Super Tuesday, I’m sure.
WaterGirl
Gorgeous photo, TaMara!
I just received email from the Southern Poverty Law Center with a link to their Spring 2016 Intelligence Report. Am I crazy, or is that Trump on the cover, with the title The Year of Hate and Extremism?
Wag
My son and I just went mountain biking and will head up to the mountains for a day of skiing and racing tomorrow
BillinGlendaleCA
@TaMara (BHF): Nice. Here’s some I took last week from Griffith Observatory.
Ultraviolet Thunder
An old college crony found me on FB. He posts the most absurd right wing anti-science links: petroleum is not organic and the earth creates it continuously from rocks, climate change is a hoax to steal your freedoms, more guns = less gun deaths, government-forced vaccination has caused an autism epidemic, etc. Just every piece of nonsense you ever heard.
Now, I can understand why some people would believe some of these things, but ALL of them? And a person who (eventually) got a 4-year degree from a Big Ten university? How can you spend 5 of your formative years in the halls of higher learning and not have any critical thinking skills stick at all?
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Baud: I like reasonable Republicans. There used to be a few of them in office, even. John Kasich is not a reasonable Republican. He’s just better at sounding like one than the rest of the KKlown Kar.
Baud
@PhoenixRising:
Or not happen.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: I’m working in being more inspirational and making sure my numbers add up.
Wag
@TaMara (BHF):
I like your photo! South Platte river?
CarolDuhart2
@Baud: Because even the reasonable sounding ones have to cater to the crazy to get even within a mile of the nomination now. The Republican Party thought they were getting over on the Democrats by courting the crazy for their votes. They forgot something-the crazy work and vote and if you don’t give them what they want, they will vote against you…..!
It’s either ride the tiger or be eaten by that tiger, but
the Nixon Republicans thought they could stay on top of that tiger forever-and you can’t. The only real alternative is to get off and walk, but they’re too addicted and now crazy to take a few hits and walk.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (BHF): Is that Old Town where they have a lot of old-fashioned stores? Not too very far from Denver or Boulder?
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Baud: A sound strategy – I may have to give your candidacy another look…
Baud
@CarolDuhart2:
When has a GOP nominee for any office lost a general election due to the crazy voting against them?
Baud
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: You are right about Kasich.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@PhoenixRising: If Hillary wins, I sure hope Sanders will be willing to campaign for her ticket, and that the campaign uses him (and Warren, Franken, Brown, and other popular lefties) to motivate those Dem activists who are so blah on HRC herself…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: A little Preparation H can really help with the Bern.
Hal
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Some of my old high school friends on Facebook drive me crazy. I’ve unfriended a couple of them for straight up racism and bigotry, but others leave me conflicted. I don’t understand how you could be a hip hop living teenager/young adult with multiple black friends and who now in your late 30s thinks Trump is honest and direct. That’s in between chastising the Black community for being wrong about racism and police brutality. I guess becoming comfortably middle class really can change a person.
TaMara (BHF)
@Wag: Golden Ponds near the St. Vrain in Longmont
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Baud:
I am no more afraid of reasonable Republicans than I am of the tooth fairy, leprechauns or other mythical creatures. If the day ever comes when I see such a thing then I will believe in them.
pamelabrown53
@TaMara (BHF):
Close enough. Absolutely inspiring and tranquil. nmmmmmmmmmm’?
@Iowa Old Lady:
“He was doing it wrong” is an understatement. I had my second child at home with a midwife and I swear the “memory pain” was less. The podiatrist to whom I refer lived in my neighborhood. Every time I drove by his seriously gorgeous house, I cursed him! Like a witch. (Speaking of witches, “Bell, book and Candle” is on TCM this afternoon).
Roger Moore
@Wag:
I doubt it. That looks like a local pond rather than the South Platte, which A) doesn’t go through Longmont and B) is nowhere near that wide when it’s flowing slowly enough to look that smooth.
Baud
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I agree. But we are apparently afraid of reasonable sounding Republicans also.
John PM
59 degrees in Chicago right now, before dropping to 39 degrees tomorrow. Just finished two basketball games for 4th and 5th boys. At karate class with the 7th grade boy, followed by last test before he gets his 2nd degree black belt in June. Once that is done, we speed to baseball practice and uniform fitting. While he is practicing I will be working with two other parents to finalize divisions for 48 team travel baseball league. At the same time, 5th grader has agility training, while 4th grader also has baseball practice. Also, heavy winds damaged part of our roof, so we need to complete claims paperwork for our homeowners insurer.
AdamK
The dogs are going nuts with the going outside, coming back in, going outside, coming back in. I went and sat in the yard with them for a while until I got too hot from the sun beating down. In Ohio, in February.
GregB
@BillinGlendaleCA: Nice pictures Bill.
debbie
Can someone give me Anne’s email address? I’m not set up for the program that opens. I have a great photo from FB comparing Cruz with Ed Grmley.
MattF
@Baud: There’s reasonable sounding, and there’s Der Trump– who suggested that Obama would have gone to Scalia’s funeral if the funeral had been at a mosque.
I just don’t get Dems who are ‘Trump-curious’. It makes no fking sense.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Hal: White people never really stop and look in the mirror, I guess. Racism in the US is White America’s doing, and non-whites had no say in the matter. They were not consulted.
Disclaimer: Society and genetics have bestowed upon me the status of a “white” male person, with the various associated privileges, etc.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Hal:
Over time I’ve become more personally conservative-behaving (mostly financially and in civic matters) but more liberal politically. Hell, my first vote was for Reagan and here I am.
Some people are more strongly influenced by their parents. I wonder if class has to do with that: if you grew up in comfort and plenty you’re more accepting of the family politics. In my college buddy’s case those were MI west coast upper middle class GOP politics, so very socially conservative – to the point of reactionary. But I don’t think that accounts for a tendency to accept everything without critical consideration. Maybe it was all the weed.
Cckids
I’m at my caucus location here in NV, and the lines wrap around the block. The burn we’re feeling is from standing out in the sun when we expected to be inside :)
Seems like a Hillary crowd so far. An excited young woman just walked the line waving & greeting people & asking “Feeling the Bern!?” Not many affirmative replies. I’ve never caucused before, it seems like an unnecessary waste of time compared to a primary. Will let y’all know.
Baud
@MattF:
I’m not surprised. The Dems include a lot of people who are not Balloon Juice liberals.
Wag
@TaMara (BHF):
Nice shot!
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Cckids:
Maybe that’s a feature, not a bug. You have to have time on your hands in order to have your opinion count, as opposed to casting a ballot and splitting to get back to your busy life.
BillinGlendaleCA
@GregB: Thanks, I should have decreased the aperture on the lens on the zoomed pic of downtown to increase the depth of field, live and learn.
Feathers
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Believing in conspiracy theories means never being wrong AND being smarter than everyone else. Nice work if you can get it.
Baud
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I read something recently that said that the Nevada caucus was unusual because it was a daytime caucus, which was intended to help with turnout.
I agree about prefering primaries.
WaterGirl
Beautiful day today – 65 and sunny! We had really high winds yesterday, so of course when I looked out my window today I saw that part of my fence broke in the wind storm. sigh. Oh well, at least it’s not a huge tree on my house!
Wag
@Roger Moore:
Down near C470 just north of chat field the SP runs close to the mountians and is wide and flat. I knew that our hostess lived outside Denver and thought it was southwest, not to the north.
Aleta
Do you think there might be people who leave the East Coast to live in The West for just one reason: they only want to wear cowboy hats?
dexwood
@AdamK:
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Ogden Nash.
catclub
@Roger Moore: I donated blood today.
Mike E
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Your fb buddy has achieved “wingularity”… its own kind of black hole.
Iowa Old Lady
Mission accomplished: Christmas decorations out of the front yard and into the garage. Mr IOL can tend to them when he gets home from his bridge tournament.
pamelabrown53
@Cckids:
Happy Caucusing! Thank you for participating. I just wish that we’d rid ourselves of caucuses: voter participation is already alarmingly low.
Brachiator
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Do they also blame Obama?
TallPete
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: Did she beat you with a goblin deck? I used to play it back in the ’90s. Still have the cards several of which are worth $$
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Sure, let’s bring back literacy tests a poll taxes while we’re at it.
But seriously, when voting is easy and quick, people from all walks of life have a relatively equal voice in the outcome, due to the low barrier to entry. Two or three jobs? Working on caucus day? It’s a lot harder to get EVERYONE’S voice heard in a caucus system.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
Sherrod Brown (I assume that’s the “Brown” you had in mind) is already on Team Hillary.
p.a.
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I once subscribed to the odious David Horowitz’s samizdat-like newsletter. Cole had his Schiavo moment, but I don’t remember what happened with me. Gradual realization that those people are lying scum and that I would prefer not to be.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@TallPete: I was repeatedly beat by a deck loaded with Serra Angels. I played for a little while in the 90s, and started up again last year. It’s pretty fun!
Brachiator
@Baud:
People got to get to the casino in the evening.
TallPete
@John PM: Sorry to hear that – not just your roof, having to spend your Sat driving the kids around.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
Indeed. The obvious alternative: mail-in or online primary voting. Both of which are cheaper and less ambiguous.
But no, we can’t have that because ‘vote fraud’. So we’d better stick to the system that advantages retirees at the expense of workers and parents with kids.
/snark
WereBear
Our weather both sucks and blows.
TallPete
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: It is fun.. I got my JH aged son into playing it with me for a while. He started playing D&D recently.
JMG
My daughter is registered here in our town in Mass., but is in graduate school in France (studying wine management in Bordeaux). My wife went to town hall to get her an absentee ballot for the March 1 primary. Turns out you can vote absentee online in our town, but only in person on election day!
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Absolutely. I was just pointing out that Brown, Warren, and other popular liberals might make good surrogates for Hillary to turn out liberals/progressives, those who still haven’t gotten over the DLC in the early 90s, etc. this November…
Germy
It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08gAtoLi3TE
BillinGlendaleCA
@dexwood: That’s why god invented doggie doors.
Cckids
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: Yes, there’s a reason this is my first caucus. When my kids were here, too much going on for an undefined space of time to be allocated to this.
Though if the Girl Scouts would move here from the grocery store where they’re currently selling, they’ll have a huge captive market.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
Gotcha :-)
ETA: And I hope it goes without saying that I agree.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@TallPete: Fun stuff
Brachiator
@Baud:
People got to get to the c@sino in the evening.
ETA: first attempt at post on this fell into moderation
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: [shakes fist in indignant impotent rage]
Cckids
@Brachiator: More union workers at the cas1nos in the evening. Especially on a Saturday.
And the cas1nos are open 24/7, you know b
There’s a reason the Repubs do theirs on a Tuesday night.
Mnemosyne
Charlotte is very suspicious of my visiting brother-in-law, who looks a little familiar to her but clearly doesn’t smell right.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Pablo Henry @DeionGottaSTFU
Girl Scouts just rushed me to buy some cookies, I told them I didnt have cash, this 8 year pulled out her iPhone and said “we take PayPal” ?
Germy
@Mnemosyne: I’ve never had a brother-in-law who smelled right.
satby
I also had to drive the teens around, and now I’m sitting in a Starbucks waiting to go pick them up in an hour. They were both sulking because I told them it’s the very last weekend I will drive them anywhere at the last minute with no advance request for whatever they’ve planned. We live 30 minutes each way from their school (22 miles) and I already blow 2 hours every day driving them to and from school. The least they can do is ask me if I made plans on the weekend before they just announce they said they’ll be somewhere.
#thingsIdidn’tmiss
Richard Mayhew
Eye appointment and kids to the playground
Mnemosyne
@Germy:
I like my brother-in-law, and he smells fine to me. But apparently Charlotte has higher standards.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Disgruntled former SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel supporter:
Of all the kinds of indignant rage to have, impotent’s the worst.
Calouste
@Aleta: I live in the (PN)West, and the only people I have seen wearing cowboy hats here are Texas expats.
Nate Dawg
MSNBC’s cockass correspondent is quite the eye candy.
bemused
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:
Brown’s wife, Connie Schultz wrote a piece this week, This Progressive Doesn’t Need Your Lectures.
TaMara (BHF)
@WaterGirl: Historic part of Longmont. Pretty much all of the central part of the city is designated old town/historical. It’s very pretty and active, but not fancy like the places that brick up the sidewalk and only allow foot traffic, like in Boulder.
Nate Dawg
MSNBC expects a Clinton win.
Cckids
This is shaping up to be a cluster. We’ve been in line over an hour; finally got in the door (it’s at an elementary school), now we’re shuffled into more lines so they can check registration. It’s heating up rapidly with all the bodies, and there’s no water, vending machines, or places to sit.
My spouse & I already had to grab a captain & insist they let people with canes, walkers, etc go to the head of the line, before they started dropping like flies.
WTF, Harry Reid? Why change from a primary to this? From the dozens of conversations I’m overhearing, it is universally despised.
Iowa Old Lady
@Cckids: Wow. Either you have hugely more people than expected or they’re grossly inefficient.
Chyron HR
@Nate Dawg:
You can’t spell “Democratic party establishment” without MSNBC and several other letters.
Suzanne
Went to weightlifting and yoga classes. Going hiking tomorrow.
Had a job interview yesterday. I think it went well. I am tired.
pamelabrown53
@pamelabrown53:
At # 43 I posted a comment and my kitteh helped: nmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm? part. didn’t see it be fore I ;posted. She is more vexing and worrisome than a toddler.
Ruckus
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
You do know that people only learn when they have the desire. The rest of the time what sticks is the flotsam and actual crap that floats in and out your ears. If all you listen to is faux news in the background and have the intellectual curiosity of a block of wood……..
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Cckids: How awful. They’re so lucky you guys were there to get them to put the people who need to be in front for mobility reasons up there. Terribly inefficient.
71.7F and sunny in SW OH. Mr. Q is off driving curvy hills in his new GTI. I’m headed to a Starbucks to help a grad student edit some submissions for her new advisor. I’ve got chicken breasts seasoned to bake for dinner, and left Mr. Q instructions to parboil potatoes if he wants them roasted also. I confess I’ll be just as happy if he offers to take me to our favorite restaurant owned by friends. (It’s in our top 3, but it is also owned by friends of mine who are now friends of ours).
Enjoy your afternoons and evenings, everyone.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Baud:
Getting a pedicure at this very moment, followed by manicure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chyron HR: Hell, except for Hayes and Maddow, MSNBC reflects if anything the left end of the Dem establishment. They’re the network of Scarborough and Greenspan at this point. (Ima go ahead and leave the bouncy ball of Id that is Tweety in a class of his own.)
pamelabrown53
@satby:
Dear satby,
#thingsidon’tmiss: being a teenager or parenting a teenager.
Cckids
@Iowa Old Lady: Can always be both. This is only the 2nd caucus, they changed in 2008 from a primary. Not much experience running it.
Though everyone in the line is very surprised at the turnout. And a little proud.
But if this stretches on till 3-4:00, as it very well could, the lack of water is going to be a huge problem.
Batgirl
@Cckids: dropped my parents off at a caucus sight with a cane and a walker. Huge line but found a precinct captain who told me to bring them to the front.
After dropping them off I went for coffee and saw some Girl Scouts. Told them to head down the street to the high school!
Benw
Feeling the Bern, as usual. Planning the revolution. Today’s agenda: fixing the guillotine (damn thing is still not working) and trying to get volunteers for the firing squad (sure people SOUND all committed to the cause but you ask for a few hours of revolutionary cleansing on Tuesday and everyone’s got plans).
Ruckus
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
But no, we can’t have that because ‘vote fraud’. So we’d better stick to the system that advantages retirees at the expense of workers and parents with kids.
/snark
That’s not snark, that’s the entire point of a caucus and absent “voter fraud”.
Us olds know better, we’ve lived longer, experienced more.
Now that’s snark.
Nate Dawg
They need to give the caucus boy his own show.
That hair! Wow.
Baud
@Cckids: I hope Baud! supporters are hydrated.
And not too liquored up.
Iowa Old Lady
@Cckids: Water would never have occurred to me as a problem, but here you better not be lining people up outside for the caucus in January or February.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (BHF): Ah. I was pretty sure I was in Old Town in Colorado when I last visited my family in Denver/Boulder, but it sounds there is more than one Old Town.
JPL
@rikyrah: haha.. I interrupted my cleaning to answer the door. Since I’m a sucker for girl scouts, I purchased thin mints and savannah smiles with cash. Both boxes of cookies went into the freezer. When my sons were little they assumed all cookies were frozen.
Orchid Moon
@TaMara (BHF): Thought that picture looked like the mountains we will be seeing from our neighborhood. We are moving to Longmont in the next couple of months. Love Old Town.
Glaukopis
Back from tai chi. Afternoon of chores, consulting work ( if there’s time), shopping, and baking. Then dinner with a friend. Busy day.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: well said
Felonius Monk
@Baud:
And consequently, us Baud supporters have to pee a lot.
ThresherK
My wife, who is always cold, just made the 200 yd round-trip to the mailbox to get Saturday’s offering. No, there was no expected parcel in it.
The weather is weird for February.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MattF:
It makes perfect sense if you distill out the similar identifiers.
TaMara (BHF)
@Orchid Moon: We need to talk about this. Exciting.
satby
@pamelabrown53: LOL
Orchid Moon
@TaMara (BHF): Would love to. New to the posting thing here,
how do we do that?