The snow in my front yard is almost gone. It hasn’t snowed in a couple weeks, but the remnants of 100″ over the winter are still melting away. As the ground is slowly revealed, I’m realizing it might just be better to have snow covering it instead.
I noticed a few streaks of torn up grass and dirt when the first hints of ground started to appear. If anything, I thought it was just dirt separating as the melted snow eroded it. I was told that’s not the case. Apparently mice were busy under the snow all winter making those tracks.
Little mouse tracks here and there aren’t a big deal. It happens, the grass will grow back. But now I’m finding that the problem is really extensive in my front yard. Not only are there many tracks under the snow, but there was also a huge network of tunnels in that snow. Apparently they made a nest there. There’s grass all over the place, turf dug up, and little clumps of dirt and grass made into nestballs of sorts.
That’s all well and good, too. But then last night I found out one of those mice may have gotten into the house, specifically the basement. Off to Home Depot I went (after Target, which didn’t have rodenticide devices).
I set the traps last night and they’re still empty this morning. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
I stayed at the Marriott Copley last week in Boston. It wasn’t anything amazing, in fact it was somewhat dreary and antiquated. It felt like an old, fancy hotel where doorman and bellhops would be around every corner. It wasn’t, it was just a Marriott.
I did have a room on the 27th floor, though. It had a very decent view. I grabbed a couple pics through the dirty windows so you can have an idea of what it was like as well.
One other thing to note is the valet parking charge was the most expensive I’ve ever seen. $40 a night. Whew.
“What’s the difference between an Airbus and an airplane?”
My MEM -> MSN flight was canceled on Friday, so Northwest issued me a voucher to Holiday Inn Mt. Moriah. It was pretty gross.
The halls reeked of cigarette smoke, and the hallway carpet was peeled up at spots. In fact, it looked like it was in the midst of renovations, but it wasn’t. The bathroom cabinet obviously hadn’t been cleaned in a while, the furniture was gouged, and the clock radio hadn’t been cleaned recently as well. My room was non-smoking, but the room across from it wasn’t so smoke wafted into my room.
Would you stay here?
Think about these two things:
I saw Billy Joel last night at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. He was excellent. I think he was better by himself than with Elton John like he was the last two times I saw him, actually. He was able to play more songs instead of having to share time with Elton. Not that they’re not an amazing duo…
Highlights from the show:
Billy Joel always ends his concerts with “Piano Man.” It was funny that the person a few rows behind me didn’t know that, though. After the obligatory “good night, thank you Milwaukee” at the “end” of the show, Billy came out for three more songs. Each time the guy behind me thought that the show was actually over. He was yelling and screaming about how “He can’t do that! He has to play ‘Piano Man’”. They did eventually play “Piano Man”, of course, but it was funny listening to the guy who thought he didn’t get what he paid for.
One overall impression about the concert was that the songs sounded almost exactly like they do when they were originally recorded. I like that. I like variations on things, but I don’t like the song to stray too far from the original. Even the instruments sounded just like the originals.
I believe this was the last concert for this tour. No reference was made to that, so I’m not entirely sure. I’d like to see him perform again; hopefully that happens. He’s not too old, right?
Lots of snow hits a big city? Perhaps it’d be easier to just tell us which city it is instead of making us click the link? Or perhaps the link-clicking is what they’re after. I don’t like it.
I noticed something odd at the Hillary Clinton rally in Madison on Monday. No one was allowed to bring signs in (the same went for Obama supporters when he was here last week). I can understand that because signs are large and whatever, but I can’t believe something else.
Hillary campaign staffers provide not only the official-looking Vote for Hillary signs, but also the homemade-looking signs. Yes, the “Results not Rhetoric” and “I [heart] Hillary” signs that look like Susie Homemaker made with posterboard and markers on her suburban kitchen table were actually made with posterboard and markers by a Hillary staffer in a suburban between campaign stops.
To the viewer at home, these signs look like genuine homemade signs that people toiled to make for the purpose of presenting their heartfelt message to the world. In reality, they’re carefully crafted messages that the campaign shoves into people’s hands. No doubt the person holding the sign agrees with the message on it – the people holding them are there, of course, to support the candidate.
