A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

mother nature

Mother Nature nipping at the bottle

I firmly believe Mother Nature is drunk.

The past couple of days have reached the 80s. In late May in Upstate New York.

I’m not complaining.

This winter, we had the lowest amount of snow ever.

Not complaining.

The spring has been up and down with rain, cold weather, some snow, and some incredibly warm weather.

Still not complaining.

But damn, this is weird stuff. Nothing seems to make sense. And it makes me wonder what will happen. Does that mean next winter we get like 150 inches of snow? I hope not.

The weather has been crazy for sure, but hopefully it doesn’t mess with our world as a whole too much. I’m sure, if you look over time, these things happen. As long as there isn’t a big freeze or the world sets on fire, I can deal.

And I’ll try not to complain.

But Mother Nature? Get off the bottle!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Ahh the spring… please stay!

Could the spring finally be here?

Here’s hoping for it.

This has been a pretty brutal winter. From snow to bitter-cold weather, I don’t recall a winter this bad in our area in a long time. We’ll sometimes get snow or the frigid temperatures, but it’s not often each are so prevalent at the same time.

It was so bad that I didn’t even worrying about finding a geocache. In fact, I haven’t found one since the end of January. And disc golf? Forget about that. I don’t even know the last time I threw a disc and, until the health situation is covered, I don’t know when I’ll throw one.

Alas, it didn’t much matter. This winter was awful.

Hopefully this is a sign to come.

I usually don’t mind going out and doing a few things in the winter. I can handle the cold and, depending on depth, the snow. But when they are both there and you add in the shorter days of light and it can be depressing.

Then, when we hit the time of the year when spring is supposed to be here and winter keeps hanging on, well it’s not easy.

Not one bit.

Now that my foot is fixed and appears to be on the mend (outside of this picc line), I am chomping at the bit to get out and do something. And the weather looks positive, too, with it being in the high 40s/low 50s for much of the 10 days.

I need to get active and outside. The schedule can be tougher, but I need to find the time. I’d like to hide a bunch of new geocaches to get others out and finding them. I’d like to also break out the camera and just go take some photos. I haven’t done that enough in 2014 and really need to get back into it.

This is going to be a different summer than the past couple, being I’m employed. It’s going to be nice to walk out of work and know there’s daylight to do something and know your day isn’t just applying for jobs and trying to make ends meet.

Well, I think I will always be looking to make ends meet!

As long as the area softball league keeps going and everything, I look forward to that this summer, too. It will be my 25th year (sheesh!) playing softball as I started when I was in high school.

But first, the spring.

It was 66 when I left work today. Here’s hoping this is a sign of the season finally changing.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Go. Away. Mother Nature.

Sheesh.

Why is it when I have a little weekend trip planned, the weather gets all stupid.

I’m supposed to be going to Pittsburgh this weekend, leaving as soon as I’m done work on Friday. As per normal, I planned geocaches for the way down and while there.

The forecast? I bet you can’t guess.

OK, maybe you can.

Some snow. Cold weather. It seems like if I drive straight through Friday night, it should be OK. But there’s some snow coming in Friday night/Saturday morning. That kind of makes the morning difficult.

Now, I got a massively good deal on a nice hotel. So if I have to chill and relax a little extra, I can do that. But I have plans, so I want to be able to do them.

The worst part is it’s looking like snow showers and such throughout the weekend. That’s not bad to deal with when kind of being in one spot. But I want to get around a little. And if all goes well, there’s an event Sunday night. I’d be heading home after that — so leaving Pittsburgh at about 11:30 p.m.

If it’s snowy and such for a 5+-hour ride, that’s going to stink. Especially because I am planning on being home by 5 a.m., sleep for a few hours and then start a whirlwind day (I have it off) of three appointments (dentist, eye doctor, regular doc).

So, come on, Mother Nature, throw a guy a bone here.

It is still just Wednesday night, so I’m sure things can change for the better. Or the worse. But with hotels already paid for (Priceline) and tickets for one event on Saturday night already purchased, it’s a trip that’s happening or I’m eating a few bucks, which I’d rather not do. So, it looks like I’ll be attempting this and hoping for the best.

I won’t lie, though. It would be awful nice if Mother Nature could change things up. I’ll take bitter temperatures. Just no snow, please. At least not until I get home.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

 

Hey Mother Nature — get away from the bottle!

Apparently Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor?

After dousing our area with nice to hot weather for a week or two, she showed her teeth once again. On Mother’s Day, it was extremely cold and windy. That made any attempt at the annual golf outing that day tough. Nine holes was all that was accomplished. The sun was starting to pop out at the end and it was warming up, but still way too windy.

Monday comes and it’s quite cold again. I went out for a few things and saw a few flurries. I laughed it off.

Flurries on Monday may have not looked like this, but it sure felt like it!

Driving back a couple of hours later, I went through stronger flurries. Boy, that was fun.

A couple of people in the neighborhood covered plants last night.

Why, you may ask?

A freeze warning! Seriously. Something in the 20s was possible. Oh joy. I saw frost on my car last night before turning in for the night. That’s always nice.

Especially in May.

Apparently, according to the local news last night, our area set a record because we got a trace of snow. That hadn’t been done on May 13 before.

The latest we’ve (well, Binghamton area) has seen snow?

May 18.

Hopefully that record won’t be broken this year.

Today is slightly blue skies with some clouds spread out. The sun is shining. But it’s only supposed to reach the mid-50s.

That’s a start.

Maybe Mother Nature will get off the bottle yet. It’s obviously clouding her seasons.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Notes from my Noodle: Sept. 27 edition

Fall colors are starting to show up in the area.

The colors have come.

Probably a little sooner than I would have liked, but they are coming. With the rain we’ve had and then the cold temperatures we had over the one week (we had some frost warnings), things have sped up.

I went out Saturday to snap a few shots as the weather starts to make the turn. The looks of things so far makes me think we could have some good vibrant colors this year. Last year, the colors seemed duller than normal.

One of these weekends, I’m going to try and get out and find a couple of spots to take some foliage shots. Not sure where I want to go yet, but I have a few ideas. We’ll see what happens.

How are the colors near you? Changing yet?

***

I found the one good thing about being unemployed.

Any travel plans you have, as long as there aren’t reservations and such, can be changed quickly.

See, I was supposed to leave for the Jersey shore today. When I went to bed last night, the weather didn’t look promising. When I woke up this morning, it was worse.

There wasn’t 100 percent chance of anything, but I don’t like odds when it’s beyond 60 percent.

I was set to go down today and come back Friday morning. During that time, I was going to chill on the beach a little, do some photos and meet up with a cousin to do some night photos in the Atlantic City area.

Alas, Mother Nature is, as usual, being a bitch and playing games with my plans. So, I’m going to roll the dice and see if I can outfox her. If not, I’ll get wet either way, so whatever.

Being I was going to stay at a house my aunt and uncle own, I called them to see if it would be OK if I just went down, say, Sunday and stayed through like Wednesday of next week. My aunt said there would be no problem with that and also noted that it’s no fun at the shore when it rains.

I can deal with one day of rain. Heck, if I could capture a lightning storm on camera, that would be wild. But it’s a high percentage chance of raining tonight, tomorrow and Thursday.

Ugh.

So I made the decision to say heck with it for now and go down Sunday. It’ll be October then. As of now, the weather looks good for those three days that I am looking at. Not to say that can’t change, but I’d rather take my chances with that. If the rain slips to the weekend and all, I’m still going to go Sunday. I’m not going to keep pushing it back. But with nothing scheduled for next week (I have plans this Friday, so I had to leave early down there to come back), I can kind of take my time coming back Wednesday and such.

The bonus is that the place I wanted to go to get chowder is in fall hours until it closes for the season Oct. 9. Those fall hours include Sunday, so I’ll be able to go there and get my dinner the night I arrive.

So this is my call to Mother Nature. Please help me out. I want to be able to stroll the beach and just enjoy being away for a couple of days. If I wanted to be couped up in a house watching TV as it rains, I can do that without spending the money to travel!

***

I won’t be doing it in the next month or two, but I think I am going to merge this blog and my photo blog. It seems almost silly to have both as the photo blog really doesn’t get enough traffic.

Still, I’ve had that photo blog for a long time, so it’s hard to make the final decision to pull the plug.

I am going to be weighing the options in regard to it.

My initial thought is to bring the two blogs together here. Basically what I’d do is publish a photo daily (maybe just five days per week). The photos would be automatically scheduled to publish at about midnight each day. They’d stay up until about noonish, when I’d post the normal blog entry. That would give at least two posts per day.

Curious what people think about this change? Is it a good idea to merge the two?

I’m not fully convinced I am going to do it. As I said, I am connected to that photo blog. I just haven’t decided yet which way I want to go. If I do make the change, it will probably be a slow move and likely wouldn’t be until the change of the year.

***

Speaking of photos, I’m looking forward to this trip to the shore. I don’t get to do photos of beach settings too often. I am hoping I’ll be able to get at least one sunset and maybe a sunrise. With the water, it always makes for fun.

If I get a clear night, too, I might venture out and see about trying to do some star chasing, too. We’ll see. Not sure what the moon schedule is for the next few days.

For those of you who have shot in the beach setting — anything I should look for? I want to find some cool images.

***

The Phillies reached 100 wins for the season tonight. Awesome.

Now it’s time for the postseason. Two more games in the regular season (and they mean something to the Braves, so the Phils need to play it out… get some momentum) and then it’s time for the postseason.

I’m ready to watch this run. I just hope it’s long and ends with the team’s third World Series title!

***

Reminder! Contest going on! I am holding a contests this week. It runs from Sept. 25- to 12:01 a.m. Oct. 2. You can see all the details on the contest post. Enter for your chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!