Box elder seed - close

Last post on box elder seeds.  (I promise.)

Today I took a close up photo of a couple box elder seeds so you can see what they look like.

Box elder seeds

Here are photos I took today of seeds from a female box elder tree.

Female box elder tree in snow

Here are a couple more snowy photos I had taken on Wednesday.  As you can see the female box elder tree is still holding on to most of its seeds.  A few days earlier, between the wind and warmer temperatures, I had noticed a few seeds on the ground here and there.  So it is getting closer to when the tree will drop its seeds.

Red windmill snow photos

More snow photos from Wednesday...

Snowy March pasture views

These are the snowy views I had this morning...

Trivia, my last week

Before I returned to Montana on February 10 I had one last night of trivia Wednesday, February 9.  Most people were again surprised to see me there as every week I had told them this had been my last week at trivia.

I again joined Darrel and Marvin on the SOL team. Darrel was little late as he had locked himself out of his daughter's car that he was driving that night.  Since Darrel was late it was a good thing that I had looked up the bonus question and found its answer.

Bonus: In 1955, from what city did the present day Oakland As baseball team move?

One had to be careful in the answer as in 1955 the Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City.  Then in 1968 they moved to Oakland.

There were only four teams competing this night as the Brewster team was not there.  Rod, Ed, Mark and Randy were there for the Funkymonks team.

My team was firing on all cylinders.  After the first round we were tied for the lead with the Rivits team.  For the rest of the rounds we led all the other teams.  In the end we won in a blowout having won by 90 points. And that was even after we had doubled down on the round with our lowest score.  We had four rounds where we had eight answers correct and two rounds where we had six answers correct.

4 rounds times 8 correct times 10 points each = 320
1 round  times 6 correct times 10 points each  =   60
1 round  times 6 correct times 10 points each  times 2 (double down) = 120
Bonus question correct = 20
Bonus for first place      = 100
Total points = 620

For the final round the question was:

Name 10 of the top 15 greatest movies as selected in 2007 by the American Film Institute.  The criteria for the selection was based on the film's history, critical acclaim, box office results and video rentals.

We got eight of the ten correct.   Movies 1 through 4, 6, 9, 13, and 15.  I had to argue for Star Wars as neither Darrel or Marvin thought it was top 15 worthy.  They pushed for Titanic based on box office at the number one movie though I had my doubts it qualified on the history or critical acclaim criteria.

Here are a few of the other questions:

1. What is the name of a the traditional male Japanese undergarment similar to a thong?  
2. What U.S. state ends in three vowels?
3. In what U.S. state did the movie Lilo and Stitch take place?
4. What male skater performed a triple jump in the 1952 Olympics?
5. In Morse code for the number 5 how many dots are there?
6. What sport has the term, "ball in the crotch"?
7. What material is in an Etch-a-Sketch?
8. During which U.S. war did sending valentines become popular?
9. True or False?  Shirley Temple earned $1 million by the age of 10.
10. True or False? Jack Nicholson is color blind.
11. Bug's Bunny's arch enemy is who?
12. The car company with the "Power to Surprise"?

Answers:

1. Fundoshi.  (No team got this answer correct).
2. Hawaii
3. Hawaii
4. Dick Button
5. 5
6. Billiards
7. Aluminum
8. Revolutionary War
9. True
10. True
11. Elmer Fudd
12. Kia

We had gotten 1, 6, 7, 8 and 12 wrong.

The week after I left it appears my SOL team had fallen apart. I see they finished in fourth place.  Darrel, what happened?!

Melting snow on a cold day

Our forecast low last night never got close to the predictions.  My thermometer had a low of only minus 4 F degrees.  Today the temperature got up to 10 F.  The strong wind that had blown for days now has quit.   The sun was out most of the day making it feel much warmer, especially when on the south side of buildings.  The sun is a major moral booster and a nice change from cloudy skies.

Even though the temperature was only 10 above, mid afternoon at the sun's peak, some melting was going on.  It is hard to see in the photo but water from melting snow was dripping off the roof quite a lot.

I also included a photo of the faded barn.  Really needs painting, don't you think?

I did a little shoveling of snow on the way to the corral.  Suddenly a fat mouse popped out from the snow.  Mice can't run quite as fast in the snow and the mouse is no longer among the living.  Elsewhere around the yard I seen signs of disturbed snow where mice has been out and about.

Neighbor's cattle

Thought I'd post a few photos of the cattle across the road at my neighbor's place.  I took these photos yesterday as the weather was decent.  I even got out my bicycle and rode four miles up and down the road.

The cattle are corriente cattle.  That's why they have horns and are a smaller size that typical cattle.

Then today I took a few more photos during the winter storm. Notice the mountains have disappeared. As you can see the 13 cattle have eaten lots of hay that was set out shortly before I took the earlier photos.

The weather today took a turn for the worse.  I woke up to new snow.  It snowed a bit off and on during the day.  Mostly the strong wind blew some snow around.  The temperature has slowly sunk all day.  The temperature is in the single digits now with a low predicted to be a little below 0 F tonight.  Then Thursday and Friday nights we are predicted to flirt with record low temperatures in the double digits below zero F.  Good old global warming you know.

Shedding bark

Today I noticed the large pine tree in the front yard had shed lots of bark over the winter.  This I know as I had cleaned up all the shed bark last Fall before the snow fell.  I guess it is part of the growing process for some of these pine trees as I don't notice other trees shedding bark quite like this tree.  On the other hand, this is one large pine tree.

P.S.  Don't let the bare ground lull you into thinking the snow is gone here. Far from it!  The area in the photo is of this large tree's rain shadow.

Mad mice

A few days ago when I went down to the basement to get something I heard furious scratching.  I looked to the basement window to see this:

Yes, a big fat mouse was trying to rip its way through the screen over the window - even though the window was shut.

I tapped on the window to scare the mouse away as it looked like it was damaging the screen.  The mouse ignored me and kept frantically tearing at the screen.

I had to go outside and get an ice chipper.  The ice chipper has a long handle. I didn't want to get close to a mad mouse.

I removed the plastic window well cover from the window well and the mouse dropped off the screen and ran around the gravel bottom of the window well. (I didn't show the gravel bottom to spare you the sight therein.)   It seems that once the mouse was in the well it couldn't get back out.

The bottom of the window well is loose gravel and I discovered how flexible a mouse's body can be.  Even with the sharp ice chipper it was like trying to cut a sack of jello.  The mouse ran around occasionally standing and cursing at me before I was able to get the mouse between the chipper and a hard place.

Once the mouse was dead I then noticed a terrible smell.  One to two dozen other mice had gotten into the window well and were unable to either get into the house or back out of the well before they died.

Holding my nose I cleaned the mouse bodies from the window well.

I will have to replace the screen in the Spring as the other mice had scratched and ripped and torn a hole in the screen from the bottom left corner.

Mice!!   The worst time for them getting into the house is either Fall or Spring.  The weather last week was decent and the mice were on the move.  So far, none have gotten in the house.  (Knock on wood).

It's a mystery

I had used the word 'disaster' in a previous post... maybe 'mess' is more accurate.  That is what I came home to.

Earlier I had mentioned all the snow in my driveway.  Add to that...

The next morning I went to my well to turn the water back on.  Hmmm... the light bulb I had left on for heat was burned out.  The space heater I use as back up was on but not running.   The temperature in the shed was above freezing but the floor of the pump shed was covered with a combination of water and ice. This doesn't look good.

I turned the water valve on to no effect. No water.

The water pressure gauge was at 58-60 lbs of water pressure.  I thought my pump was set to have 52-54 lbs as the maximum water pressure.  Also, when I left, before I turned the water valve off, I made sure to run water until the water pressure was 46-48 lbs as I didn't want maximum water pressure in case something froze.  Why was the pressure gauge showing 58-60 lbs?

In July of 2010 I had gotten a new water tank. Kyle, my well guy, had also rewired the pump's switch to move it from next to the pump to over on the wall by my electrical outlet.  It would much easier to access than near the pump at the back of my pump shed.

Here is what it used to look like.  The red and white wires are the electrical wires attached to the pump switch. The pressure gauge is 'whited out' by the camera's flash.  Behind the pump is not where I usually place the space heater - when I use the heater I place it by the pipes in the lower left of the photo.

Unfortunately when Kyle moved and re-wired the switch he accidentally changed it so that when the switch was turned off the electrical outlet was also turned off.  That meant I had to leave the pump switch to the "on" position when I left in December so that the light and electric space heater would have electricity to run.  I did not discover Kyle's side effect until I left to catch the train and went to turn the pump switch off.

So...

• water on the floor of the pump shed,
• no water in the house when I opened the faucet, 
• the water tank felt empty when I rocked it,
• a burnt out light bulb,
• a space heater that has not been proven to keep the shed warm when the temperature got real cold,
• a pressure gauge reading higher than I had ever seen, and
• a pump switch that had been left in the on position

All this led me to believe a pipe or something had frozen and then leaked when the temperature warmed up.  With the leak the pump must have keep running until it burned out.  The gauge had frozen and broke when the pump was going crazy.

Something similar had happened the Spring I came to take dad out of the nursing home.  Not knowing how things worked I only turned the water valve off when I left the previous Fall - I didn't know about the pump switch.  When I returned a glass jet on the pump had sprung a leak and was spraying water inside the shed.  I didn't know when the leak occurred but fortunately the pump itself was not damaged back then.

Now?  I called Kyle.  I found out he was out of state and wouldn't return until March.  With the economy so bad in the Flathead Valley he left the state for a while to make money as there is no work here.  Oh, great.

Kyle made some calls and he found me another well repair person: Mark.  Unfortunately Mark couldn't get to me until the next morning.  No one else was available so I had to wait.  Fortunately I still had water left in jugs that I had filled for use on my plants when I was gone.

Saturday morning Mark showed up.  He checked the pump and it was fine.  He opened the water valve and this time the water ran.

What?!

My guess is that the water line was frozen Friday when I opened the valve.  The temperature stayed in the 30s F Friday and through the night to Saturday morning and the pipe had thawed.  No ice and only a little water was left on the pump house floor even though I had removed the space heater Friday.

Why was the pressure gauge at 58-60 lbs?  Kyle had upped the maximum pressure when he replaced the tank last July.

I never had water on the pump house floor before so.. where did the water come from?  Who knows!  It's a mystery.

Why did the water line freeze even though I had a space heater in the pump house?  I have found that the space heater in a small space crowded with objects is not ideal.  The heater will warm the area around the heater but with little air movement the heat doesn't get distributed evenly all around the inside of the pump house.  At warmer temperatures this is not noticeable or a concern.  When the temperature plunges to minus 25 degrees F apparently the heater can't keep up on the temperature setting that is appropriate for above zero temperatures.  The heater kept the pipes by the tank warm enough but the pipe going into the pump house ground froze.

All the winters I have been here the temperature has only gotten to a low of minus 16 or 18 degrees.  When I am gone it has gotten to minus 25 this year and one year years ago it got down to minus 32 F.  That year I had frozen pipes in the well and the house as neither place was insulated well.  I did a major insulating job on both places after that and now the pump house will stay above freezing inside just on the heat of the pump running occasionally and the heat from the well water when the outside temperature is down to 10 above F.  I have kept the pump house warm with just a light bulb's heat down to minus 10 to minus 12 F.

Why did the light bulb burn out?  After all I put in a new bulb shortly before I left.  Either it was a cheap or defective bulb, or the power surge when I was gone that ruined my neighbor's stereo receiver also blew my light bulb.

So... it could have been worse.  My pipes could have been split, the tank ruined and the pump burned out.  So an $85 charge for nothing may not be so bad after all.


When testing the pump to make sure it cycled correctly I opened the sink faucets in the house to let the water run for about 10 minutes.   Later than afternoon when I turned the kitchen sink faucet on to wash something I heard water running under the sink.  I looked and found that the drain's trap had corroded and most of the water running out onto the cupboard floor.

What?!

The cupboard floor and house floor under the cupboard were soaked.  After fixing the pipe I checked the crawlspace to see what the water had damaged.  Year ago when insulating the house I had placed insulation under the house floor and now I was concerned the water ruined the insulation.  I found I had not packed the insulation around the pipes themselves so as to allow the air a chance to keep the pipes from freezing.  The pipes were so close to the house's outer wall that insulation can both help and hurt when it comes to cold.  So the insulation was ok.

In fact I saw no signs of water in the crawl space.  Where did the ten minutes of running water that morning go?  It's a mystery.

I had to replace most of the pipes under the sink as when I tried to unscrew the trap another corroded pipe crumpled and broke.

*sigh*

The good news was all the other pipes are ok.  I was concerned as I have doubts as to how my gas furnace worked when I was gone.   The night I arrived home I had left the house door open until I got all my bags inside the house.  By the time I was done the furnace kicked on.  I thought: "Good. The furnace is working."    I couldn't tell the temperature inside the house. All my exercise in moving my luggage had kept me warm.  It felt cold inside the house, but not freezing.  I had left the thermostat at 52-53 degrees when I was gone so I expected cool.  The batteries had died (of course) on my digital thermometer so I couldn't tell what the temperature was inside the house.

I went to bed right away as I was tired. I slept for a solid 12 hours other than getting up briefly during the night to get another blanket as I was cold.  In the morning after I found fresh batteries I discovered the temperature was 43 degrees.

43?!  What happened to 53?   And an inside 43 degree temperature was with an outside temperature of near 40 F.

I don't know. It's a mystery. 

Once I got my mail I checked my utility bills.  I had hardly used any natural gas.  Much less gas than last year when I was gone for a shorter amount of time. My electrical usage was higher.  Originally the house was only heated with electric baseboard heaters, even though I don't use them as they are inefficient and not good at keeping the house warm.  I have found that several of them can only be turned down but never completely off. My suspicion was that between the natural gas pilot light, the several baseboard heaters, and how well I had insulated the house they all kept the house from freezing when I was gone.  Or if the house got below freezing during the minus 25 degrees nothing froze and broke.



Speaking of other strange things... when came home I found several large dark brown spots on the floor below my oven's door.  The spots must have come from the oven door - but how and why?  This has never happened before.  It's a mystery.

My old refrigerator which normally makes all sorts of strange noises is now quiet.  It does run and is working well but no more chirping, squeaking, popping or other noises.  Why the change?  It's a mystery.

Even though I had my mail forwarded and stopped later, to my surprise I found a number of letters and other mail items in my mailbox.  They look to be from the week before Christmas.  Why? It's a mystery.

Once I finally unpacked later in the weekend I found that two of the three glass baking dishes of mom's that I had brought from North Dakota were shattered in pieces. Even though I had wrapped them in clothes and packed them well they got broken somehow.  Why?  It's a mystery.

No mice moved into the house when I was gone (even though I saw a large fat gray mouse outside the door the day after I got back), but I wonder if any ghosts did?

I heard that Saturday a freight train locomotive had come off the tracks near Glacier Park closing the train tracks that day.  So if I had tried to take the Amtrak train Saturday to come home to a well that was now thawed, that would not have worked.   Add in recent craziness on the train... Monday the Amtrak train was halted between East Glacier and Browning Montana after a Minnesota man, Hussein Hassan, who had been kicked off the train for being unruly, made a bomb threat that made Amtrak halt the train and evacuate everyone while they searched the train for 8 hours.  The train passengers had to sleep in the Browning school overnight before resuming their journey the next morning arriving in Whitefish 11 hours late. I am happy I wasn't on that train.
 
Had I mentioned that the main suspect in the killing of the four people in Minot a few weeks ago is a guy from Minnesota?

Those Minnesotans!

Train trip to disaster

Last Thursday I finally caught the train back to Montana.

The train was losing time all morning, and at its stop at Rugby, ND the train was an hour and twenty-three minutes late.  Amtrak kept predicting they would make up a half hour in the 90 minutes it normally takes the train to go from Rugby to Minot.  I didn't believe it.  I didn't get to the train station until 15 minutes before Amtrak's estimated arrival time.  I got my ticket and settled down for what I thought would be a 45 minute wait.  Surprise!  Amtrak made up the 30 minutes and arrived when they predicted they would.  Good thing I didn't wait longer before coming to the train station!

Since the baggage area is closed 30 minutes prior to a train's arrival I didn't check any of my luggage.  I was able to find a spot in a train car's luggage area for all my stuff. (My luggage cart was piled high with my stuff.)  I had to talk the train attendant in letting me board another car that had more luggage space for my stuff.

The train had more people than usual at this time of the year.  Usually it is a slow time of the year to travel and times in the past the car would only be a quarter to a third full.  This time it was over half full.  Still I was able to find two seats open together and never had a seatmate the entire trip.

Around ten people in the seats behind me were traveling as a group to Spokane, Washington.  Two women talked... a lot. They talked just to talk even when they had nothing to say.  On and on and on.  It got old fast.  I had quiet when they went to supper.  It must have been a good supper as later they were mostly quiet and the woman in the seat behind me even fell asleep judging from the occasional snoring.

Across the aisle from me was a young woman - college age I estimate - traveling back home to the Flathead Valley.  She didn't talk much, but during one long phone conversation she used the word 'like'... like every seventh word.  I guess it is a trait of the young people these days.  I remember when it was just Valley Girls in the 1980s that used 'like' all the time.

Near a stop at Wolf Point, Montana one young man ("man 1") asked another young man ("man 2") across the aisle and back a couple rows if he would keep an eye on his stuff as he was going to get a bite to eat.  Once the train left Wolf Point "man 2" got concerned and told the conductor that walked by that he was worried that "man 1" had gotten left at Wolf Point and he was asked to watch his stuff.  The conductor assured "man 2" that he wasn't responsible for "man 1's" stuff.  Later "man 1" returned from having a bite to eat in the dining car to the great relief of "man 2".  The two young men looked to be in their early 20s and prior to this I had thought of them as being intelligent adults.

Unlike prior trips few people got on or off across central Montana.  As usual, now that the oil boom started in western ND, more people than in the past got on or off across western North Dakota. Mainly young men.

Sweetgrass Hills.  I never tire of looking at them.

Sunset.  Below the sunset you can just barely make out the Rocky Mountains.  That is a jet making the white streak across the top of the photos.

Amtrak slowly gained time during the day and we arrived in Whitefish around 30 to 40 minutes late.  In eastern Montana I could feel the train was going faster than normal as the cars rocked back and forth more than usual.

Patti was at the station to meet me and drive me home.  It is good that her car is a four wheel drive as my driveway had plenty of snow on it.  She was able to make it in and out of my driveway using her four wheel drive.  While it had not been cleared since I left in December, the snow was not super deep.  But it was a combination of snow that had settled, thawed and re-froze, had blown in, and therefore it was heavy and dense.

Here is the snow near the end of the next day after I had shoveled part of the driveway. Clearing the snow was a pain as the snow could not be pushed and had to be carried.  The snow was 'slippery' and would easily slide off the shovel when the shovel was not held straight.

As for the 'disaster' part of the email, more on that in my next post.

Corroded pipe

Since my return to Montana was delayed I decided to fix a corroded pipe that goes to my brother's hot water heater.

It is the pipe on the right - the cold water pipe.  The pipe on the left - the hot water pipe - has corrosion on it but the leak that caused that corrosion stopped and dried up some time ago.  The cold water pipe is still damp in a small spot.

I took the photo after I removed most of the corrosion from the pipe.  Yes, I say 'after'.  The corrosion was so thick that it completely covered the short piece of pipe that rises from the hot water heater to the first coupling.  The corrosion had increased in width from the coupler to the top of the hot water heater.

I think the leak originated from the shut off handle, which can be seen near the hot water heater vent.   That made replacing the pipe trickier as I had to shut off water to the entire house and not just to the hot water heater as the shut off valve also needed to be replaced.

Another challenge was that I had to remove the vent that goes from the hot water heater to the furnace vent.  Before the vent could be removed I had to turn off the hot water heater and the furnace too.  Turning the furnace off when the temperature outside is in the single digits Fahrenheit is not ideal.

Initially I tried to turn off the value in the photo so I could work on the union joint first.  But the handle was so corroded I couldn't turn it.  Ok.  Turn off the water to the entire house, open the faucets to drain as much water from the pipes as I could.  And wait while the water slowly drains.

Once the hot water heater vent was removed I tried to undo the union.  Nope.  It was so corroded that it wouldn't budge.  The best way to start removing the pipe was to cut it.  Because the corrosion started below the top of the shut off value I had no worries about removing the valve. However, I had concerns that the coupler was so corroded that I wouldn't be able to remove it and the lower part of the pipe without damaging the pipe as it goes into the hot water heater.

So I punted.  The pipe is only damp in such a small spot I can wait.  Come Spring, when the furnace is no longer needed, my brother plans to hire a plumber.  That way if the hot water heater gets damaged the plumber can handle installing a new one.  I don't want to deal with installing the hot water heater as it is a natural gas heater and I feel better if a professional handles those pipes.

Change of plans

Last Sunday I was suppose to return to Montana.  When I went to bed Saturday night the train was a little over an hour late into Minneapolis, though Amtrak predicted they would make up time to be on time into Minot.  Sunday morning "Julie" was down and "she" couldn't tell my brother the train status when he called.

Grudgingly I got up and showered as the train may be back on time.

By the time I got out of the shower "Julie" had rebooted and was back online.  "She" claimed the train would be ten minutes late into Minot.

I heard that before.

I had my brother check online and use the starting destination as Grand Forks, ND.  The train left that town over an hour late.  I had my brother check  Devil's Lake, ND.  Over an hour late.  Rudgy, ND?  Almost an hour late.

Hmmm... I see a pattern.

Rugby is the last stop before Minot, and if Amtrak couldn't gain time in the ten hours since Minneapolis, I doubt they would gain much time in the ninety minutes it takes to get from Rugby to Minot.

I had time to check the weather in Kalispell.  The winter storm that was supposed to end that morning was now predicted to last until Monday morning.

Ohhhhh....

I didn't want to return home in a snowstorm.  Even though Patti has a four-wheel drive Subaru, I would be arriving late and after 9 pm.  I called the local Amtrak station and was told I could change my ticket for the same price.  The agent was busy with arriving customers and asked if he could call me back.  I gave him the info needed and my phone number and never heard from him again.  That afternoon, after repeatedly getting a recorded message when I called the local station  I called the national Amtrak number and was able to get my ticket changed to this Saturday.   The price of the ticket was not the same, but I decided not to argue against the extra $8.80.

I had a bit of a problem contacting Patti as she doesn't have internet at home and I forgot her phone number.  Or I should say her phone number's prefix.  Tammy, my girlfriend, called almost everyone in Montana whose phone number matched the last four digits. We were reduced to calling and leaving messages with two friends of Patti before I finally remembered Patti's correct phone number.


So, the plan was to return to Montana on Amtrak today.  In fact I was supposed to be on the train right now and over half way home.  And here I am in North Dakota.  The train was late leaving Chicago by almost 5 hours.  I think it was for the same reason there were no trains on Thursday: the snow storm between Chicago and New York.

Then Amtrak has consistently lost time last night.  They arrived in Minneapolis / St. Paul this morning at the same time they were suppose to arrive in Minot: 8:34 am.  Around ten hours late.  Amtrak has been slipping the estimated arrival time in Minot all day, going from 5  pm to now 7:45 pm.  I think it will be after 8 pm.

The weather here is around freezing so the precip that fell is icy and snowy.  Combine that with having to sleep on the train overnight and I changed my train reservation yet again.  This time to Thursday.  Hopefully that plan sticks.

Trivia, week 5

Wednesday night I surprised everyone when I walked into the Rivera Lounge.  Darrel and Marvin were happy to see me.  The other teams...

"We got to win tonight!  I can't go back to Montana until we win."   Then I explained the reason I was still in North Dakota and hadn't returned to Montana as I has planned.

We got the pre-game bonus question correct.

Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, once pitched a no-hitter while under the influence of what drug?

Since I don't know sports trivia I had to look the answer up online before the game started. The correct answer was LSD.


Round 1:

1. Of the continental 48 U.S. states, which of the following has the most northern state capital?  A: Minnesota   B: North Dakota   C: Washington   D: Maine
2. The Guggenheim museum is in which city?  A: Paris   B:  London   C: Rome   D: New York
3. According to an online survey, what item do homehowners fear the most?  A: (I forgot)  B: Door knob  C: Ceiling fan  D: Fireplace
4. For the following slogan, fill in the blank: "If gas pains persist, try ___"?   A: Imodium    B: Gas-x   C: (I forgot)   D: Volkswagon
5. Who said: "How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?"  A: Napoleon   B: Jacques Chirac   C: De Gaulle   D: Sarkozy
   

We only got six answers correct.  But that was highest total number correct and we were now tied in first place with another team with the remaining teams just behind up.  Of the above questions, the ones we got wrong were: 3, 4, and 5.


Round 2:

1. What is the name of the animal that Chester the cat thought was a vampire?
2. Who wrote "One for the Money" and "Hard Eight"?
3. Which 1990s grunge band had a 2009 hit with the song "The Fixer"?
4. How long do bull riders need to stay on a bull?
5. What are the Russian letters for U.S.S.R?

In round two we got eight correct and we got the most answers correct.  (The two we missed were 1 and 2.)  My team was now in first place by ten points.


Round 3:

Concert riders are lists of demands made by musicians to make them feel comfortable offstage. Match the demand to the musician or band who made it?

1. Four organic lip balms (not Chapstick)
2. Two competent and sober local crew
3. One man sized box of Kleenex
4. Juicy baked chicken, legs, wings and breast only
5. Hot air balloon
6. One box of Cuban cigars
7. Three oxygen tanks
8. No fast food or chain restaurant food
9. French candles
10. Two packs of Zig Zag rolling papers

     A = 50 Cent
     B = John Mayer
     C = Beyonce
     D = Kenny Rogers
     E = Amy Winehouse
     F = Jane's Addicton
     G = Ted Nugent
     H = Brooks and Dunn
     I = Ozzy Ozbourne
   J = Jennifer Lopez


We only got one answer correct!  The winning team this round only got three correct.  The only answer we got correct was for Ozzy Ozbourne. But we were still in first place with 170 points, but now were tied with our nemesis: the Funkymonks team.  We were twenty points ahead of the next team.


Round 4:

1. What character was played by Clayton Moore?
2. Of the Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har cartoon characters, what kind of animal is Hady Har Har?
3. The Erie Canal connects Lake Ontario with what? 
4. True or False?  More cards are sent on Valentines Day than Christmas?
5. True or False? Disneyland once banned men with long hair from their theme park.
6. What color is the bottle for Aussie hair products?
7. What does a protractor measure?
8. In the Winnie the Pooh stories, what is the name of the rabbit?
9. What state is the birthplace to presidents Reagan and Lincoln?
10. What is the first name of the Jonas Brother that dated Taylor Swift?

We got all of the answers correct!  Everyone on my team knew some of the answers, and together we got a perfect score.  Darrel's wife used the Aussie hair products and he and Marvin knew what a protector measured.  I knew what Hardy Har Har was and I eventually remembered which Jonas brother Taylor Swift dated.  That one I am not proud at remembering.  I do take satisfaction that it took me a long time to remember his name.  Darrel almost turned in the paper with my first and incorrect guess until I told him to wait a few minutes while I thought about it some more.

The next highest score was 7 answers correct.  In our excitement we then realized that we hadn't doubled-down this round and only got 100 points.  *augh!*  If this decision costs us the game...!   I wailed and gnashed my teeth so much so that Mark from the Funkymonks team got some Kleenex for me to cry into.

Even though one other team (Brewster) doubled-down this round they only got five correct.  So at the end of this round we were in the lead at 270 points.  Brewster, who had doubled down, was at 250 points.  Funkymonks was at 240 points.

We're looking good.


Round 5:

1. True or False?  Do men almost always get an erection when they dream?   The teams with women on them left it to men to answer, and us men said, "How would we know?  We're sleeping!"
2. What is the name of the famous bridge in Venice, Italy that was first built in 1181? 
3. How many solid color balls are on a pool table? 
4. What lives in the Dead Sea?
5. Who had the slogan: "Don't treat your puppy like a dog."?
6. What food did Goldilocks eat?
7. What river did Tom Sawyer float on?
8. Who did Bob Cratchit help?
9. In what state did the Unibomber live?

Everyone on my team and the Funkymonks team knew that I knew the answer to the Unibomber question.  We asked if we could get extra bonus points for naming the town or if we were his neighbor.  Nope.

Since I had been in Venice I thought I knew that answer: The Bridge of Sighs.  Nope.  Wrong answer.  We also got the puppy dog slogan wrong and the Dead Sea question.

So we got seven correct.  This time we had doubled down as it is dangerous to double down on the last round.  Two other teams doubled down too.  Funkymonks got eight answer correct and gained on us, especially as they had doubled down.

At the end of this round we still were in the lead with 410 points.  Funkymonks were breathing down our neck at 400 points.  The rest of the teams were at: 310, 250 and 200.  Even if the only team left to double down got all answer correct in round 6, they would only end up with 400 points total.  Funkymonks were our competition.  Fortunately Matt was busy bowling tonight and wasn't here to help the Funkymonks team.


Round 6:

Of the top 20 companies in the Fortune 500 in April 2009, name ten companies.

Darrel, Marvin and I each came up with a list of companies and then we negotiated as to what would be included.  We went with:

GE, Exxon, British Petroleum, Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Proctor and Gamble, IBM, Sony, McDonalds

We got five answers correct. The top score was seven correct, but it was not the Funkymonks team as they also got five answers correct.    We stayed ahead of them by ten points!  Score!  Goal!   Hurrah!   My team finally won the trivia game this week.   For once we beat the Funkymonks team and didn't finish in second place by a few points.   In the overall rankings for our region we are in second place behind the Funkymonks team.  We'll see how we rank after this week.

As our reward for winning Darrel, Marvin and I each got a $10 gift certificate for drinks and food at the bar.  Since I won't be here next week I let Darrel and Marvin have my share.  Even though I don't drink beer I joined Darrel and Marvin in a post-game drink and had a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade.


Answers:

Round 1:  1=C,   2=D,   3=C,   4=D,   5=C

Round 2: 1=Bunnicula    2=Janet Evanovich    3=Pearl  Jam     4=8 seconds    5=CCCP

Round 3: 1=B,   2=E,   3=G,   4=C,   5=H,   6=A,   7=I,   8=D,   9=J,   10=F

Round 4: 1=Lone Ranger ,  2=Hyenna,  3=Hudson River,  4=F,   5=T,  6=Purple,  7=Angle,  8=Rabbit,  9=Illinois  10=Joe

Round 5: 1=True   2=Rialto    3=Eight,    4= Nothing,   5=Purina   6=Porridge   7=Mississippi   8=Tiny Tim   9=Montana

Round 6: Here is the link to the following list.
    1. Exxon Mobil
    2. Wal-Mart
    3. Chevron
    4. ConocoPhillips
    5. General Electric
    6. General Motors
    7. Ford Motor
    8. AT&T
    9. Hewlett-Packard
  10. Valero Energy
  11. Bank of America Corp.
  12. Citigroup
  13. Berkshire Hathaway
  14. International Business Machines
  15. McKesson
  16. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
  17. Verizon Communications
  18. Cardinal Health
  19. CVS Caremark
  20. Procter and Gamble

Trivia, week 4

Frustration!   That's what I have.  And my team does too.  So close to winning!

Last Monday (the 24th) I again when to trivia night at The Landing Bar.  Al and Rod were not there so that hurt our team of: Darrel, Mona, Marvin and I.  Matt wasn't playing on Mark's team either and that hurt them badly.

My team did well but not quite there.  In game one we were well off the leading position as the two man team got 18 of 20 correct and we only got 13 correct.  In game two we were one point from "winning'.   Again the two person team got 18 correct, but as they won game one they couldn't win the prize of free drinks in game two.  My team had 14 correct but the winning team had 15 correct.

No trivia contest at the Landing Bar January 31 as it is Ladies Night with male strippers dancers.  Marvin admitted that last year when Ladies Night canceled trivia night he forgot and showed up to find a bar full of women.  Didn't take him long to realize what he had forgot!

Since it has not snowed the past week people got to clearing the snow off their sidewalks.  Therefore I didn't have to walk on the streets.  However Darrel and Mona drove by as I was walking and offered me a ride to the bar.


Wednesday night I went to the Rivera Bar for the Tavern trivia contest.  Darrel, Marvin and I were again the SOL team.  Rod, Ed, Mark and Randy were again the FunkyMonks team.  There were four additional teams there.

We again got the bonus question correct:

From 1956 to 1964, this forerunner of "reality television", with host Jack Bailey, offered to make woman a "what for the day"?

We knew it was "Queen".   In fact, Marvin's mother was on the show when she was in Minneapolis/St. Paul one time.  Darrel, being the youngin' of the group didn't know the answer off the top of his head.

Our team started off with a bang.  While the first round was a difficult round we reasoned out the multiple choice answers and ended with eight of ten correct.  We would have had nine correct but Darrel wrote down the wrong letter for the choice to the question: What Persian ruler was the son of Darius?   I - having watched the movie 300 - knew the answer was Xerxes.  Which was answer A.  Unfortunately Darrel misread how Marvin had written down the question answers and thought Xerxes was B.

Ok.  No matter.  We were in the lead with 110 points.


In round 2 we got seven answers correct.  We were now in a first place tie with the Rivitts team.

Then came round three.  Oy, yoi, yoi!   We really needed my girlfriend Tammy.  The question was:

Match ten months to ten different birthstones.

Darrel and I each knew our birthstones.  Marvin did not.  We had eight left to guess and we had no clue.  We randomly guessed thinking we'd get a few more answers right by chance.  We got all the rest wrong.   Tammy would have know most if not all of the answers.  She has a ring with the three birthstones of her daughters.  Later I quizzed Tammy.  I only had to name the months and she knew all the answers.  She didn't even need to know what birthstones were listed as the choices to choose from.

Augh! 

At the end of round three we were now in third place and tied with another team.  The first place team has 240 points and we only had 180 points.

Round four we felt good but only got seven of the ten correct.  What we got wrong:

• We guessed Cheyenne, Wyoming as the Rodeo Capital of the World.  Apparent it is Cody.    
• True or false?  An episode of Seinfeld had Kramer and Newman playing a game of Monopoly on a subway when a Ukrainian passenger knocked their board over.   The answer is false.  The game was Risk.  Darrel has seen the TV show episode and immediately remembered it.  However I believe he focused on the subway, who was playing and the Ukrainian.  He overlooked that the game was Risk not Monopoly.  That's the danger we all have fallen into when realizing we know the answer to the question.
• And Darrel and Marvin couldn't quite remember what STP stood for.  We guessed Superior Treated Petroleum.  The correct answer was: Scientifically Treated Petroleum
  

We were now in forth place.  Several teams had used their "double down" option and that moved them up.  At the end of round four the leading team was 360 points, then next was 300 points, then 260 and us at 250 points.   The top two teams had used their double down option.

Bad news.  Mark from the Funkymonks team mentioned he was going to get Matt.  Matt plays on their team except during the winter as he has bowling on Wednesday night.  Tonight his team bowling ended early and he was available.   We asked Mark to take his time in getting Matt.  Matt is very good at trivia.  Darrel even texted Mark when was getting Matt that Darrel wanted Mark to get him a hamburger from the A&W restaurant south of town.  Marvin wanted a snickers bar.  I decided I wanted a Papa Murphy's pizza and by the way, can you cook it before you bring it back?

Mark texted back to Darrel:    Dear Darrel,   FU!   Love, Mark.

An example how our teamed worked well together was on this question:

What famous economist was famous for the theories of the Invisible Hand and also Supply and Demand?

I knew the answer but could not remember the man's name.  My weakness: remembering names.  After describing all what I knew about the man, when and where he lived, Marvin after a few minutes asked if he also wrote "The Wealth of Nations".  Yes!  But who?  We waited and I thought and thought and all of a sudden his name popped into my head: Adam Smith.

Round five was good for us.  We got eight questions correct and also double downed this round.  This left us in second place with 410 points.  The leading team had 430 points and our Funkymonk competition was behind us at 400 points.  They also got eight correct even with Matt now on their team and they also had double downed.

The contest would depend on the last round.  The question:   Name the actor who played the title character in each of the ten movies listed.

We felt good.   We knew the answers to eight of the movies.  I could picture the actor to the other two movies but could not remember their names.  Darrel could picture the actor to one of those two movies but could not name him either.  It was so frustrating!!   I even knew that the one actor had three names and the other actor had an older more famous brother.  In the end we got eight correct and Funkymonks got all correct as Matt knew the answers to several movies that no one else on their team knew.

In the end the Funkymonks team won with a score of 500 to our 490.  If we had written down the correct answer letter to Xerxes we would have tied for first place.

Augh!!!  

For the 'which actors played the title role' question:

1. Little Nicky
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. The Talented Mr Ripley
4. The Island of Dr Moreau
5. The Truman Show
6. Ali
7. Shakespeare in Love
8. Napoleon Dynamite
9. Capote
10. Shindler's List

The answers:

1. Adam Shandler
2. Matt Damon
3. Matt Damon
4. Marlon Brando
5. Jim Carrey
6. Will Smith
7. Joseph Fiennes
8. Jon Heder
9. Phillip Seymour Hoffman
10. Liam Neeson

Neither Darrel nor I couldn't remember Phillip Seymour Hoffman's name.  And I couldn't remember Joseph Fiennes name.  His older brother is Ralph Fiennes.   Darrel had never seen the Shakespeare in Love movie was he doesn't watch chick flicks.    We also didn't fall in the trap of naming Tom Hanks for the Saving Private Ryan movie.  I wanted to go with Hanks as he was the biggest star in the movie but Darrel heard the question as: who played the titled character in each movie?  That would be Matt Damon.   That is also why Gwyenth Paltrow was not the correct answer for Shakespeare in Love.

Roof raking

With the recent warm weather (33 degrees above zero!) my brother raked snow off parts of the house and garage roofs over the weekend.  On Sunday I helped him rake more snow off the garage roof and part of the higher house roof.  We also raked snow off part of the widow's house roof across the street.

Here is a short video.

Tavern trivia, week 3

Wednesday night was another trivia night.  I again played on Darrel and Marvin's team (SOL) to even things out for team members.  Rod, Al, Mark and Randy made up the Funkymonks team.

This week our team got the bonus question correct so we did not start 20 points behind.

We started off strong in the first round with nine out ten answers correct and we were tied for first place.  For the question as to which of four animals had the best sense of smell I knew that bears had the best smell, even over dogs.

The second round was not so good as we only got five answers correct.  We were no longer tied in first place.

The third round was to match 10 drugs to their use.   I'm talking about prescription drugs now...  I knew a couple of drugs from caring for my mom and dad, and who doesn't know from the ads what Clariton and Levitra are for?  We got a respectable six answers correct.  And for the incorrect answer the uses were so similar no wonder we got then confused.  For example, one use was for "combats depression" (Elavil) and another use was "gives you a peaceful feeling" (Paxil).   We got these wrong as we had switched them.

Still six out of ten was not bad as the Funkymonks team has Randy on it and he works as an EMT.  They got eight out of ten correct.

At the end of round three we had 220 points, 40 points behind the leading team.

For round four we felt good about our answers and between Darrel and I, and Marvin flipping a coin, we decided to double down.  A mistake that cost us the game.  We only got six answers correct. In the late 1800s there were 10,000 pigs in New York City, not rats as we had thought.  If we had thought about it more we would have realized that 10,000 was too low of a number for rats.  Our doubling down had us now in first place, but not every team doubled down.

Round five was great for us as we got nine answers correct, the best showing of all teams.  All but one of the other teams had doubled down by now.  Even so we were just ten points behind the Funkymonks team who were now in the lead.  Man!  Round five was the round we should have doubled down!

Round five had lots of easy questions:

• Which drummer from the rock band Genesis became a successfully solo artist?
• Which non-flying bird lays the largest egg?
• Name the tire company who has a blimp?
• Who sang the James Bond song, "Live and Let Die"?
• What is the name of the sexual position where the man and woman face each other?   Boring! - which was shouted out - was not the correct answer.

Marvin knew six was the number of fouls before a player was ejected from an NBA game.

Finally the answer came to me for: name the book and movie series where the lead characters are: Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter?   The Chronicle of Narnia.

Darrel and I put together the answer to "What does the internet phrase ROTFLMBO mean?"  I knew the first part "Rolling On The Floor Laughing" and Darrel knew "My Butt Off".

The best I could do for "What Shakespearean comedy is about a case of mistaken identity?" was to guess "The Taming of the Shrew".  The correct answer was "Twelfth Night".

The last round was "Name 10 of the 17 movies Heath Ledger was in between 1997 and 2009".  Oh my.

Darrel and I came up with the two easy answers: The Dark Knight and Brokeback Mountain.  I came up with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.  Then a struggle to name more movies.  I then came up with The Patriot.   I knew Heath had been in the movie Casanova but couldn't remember the movie title other than it was a person's name.  Neither Darrel or Marvin saw the movie so they had to guess who I was talking about when I described the historical person I was talking about.  After some head scratching and a few wrong guesses, they named Cassanova.  Bingo!  Darrel and I both had seen 10 Things I Hate About You and remembered the story, but we couldn't remember the correct title. She's All That was not correct.  I also knew the movie story where Ledger was fighting battles as a knight.  The best I could do was guess Dragonslayer.  Wrong.  The movie was A Knight's Tale.  Once the answers were revealed I kicked myself for forgetting about The Brothers Grimm.

So all we got right were five.  But Funkymonks only got four right so that meant we were tied for first place at 480 total points.  However the host went over all the rounds' scores again and found he had under-counted an earlier round by Funkymonks by ten points and therefore they won the game with 490 points.  *augh!!*    So close!

Btw... round five answers were: Phil Collins, Ostrich, Goodyear, Paul McCartney and Wings, and Missionary.

Revolutionary trivia

Monday was another night of trivia.  Again I walked/ran the three quarters of a mile to the Landing Bar.  It was harder to walk on the streets than the cleared sidewalks.  The snow that remained on the streets was packed to a hard icy sheen.  As this packed snow was not flat, it made for worse walking than on ice.  For the few times I had to use the street I had to wait in a driveway for a vehicle to pass by.

Mona and Rod both showed up this night and they were a great help to Darrel, Al and I.  In game number one we tied for first place with two other teams with 13 answers correct out of twenty.  We went through three tie breaker rounds before we lost.  The tie breaker question was:

What state had the most revolutionary battles?

We guessed: Virginia, then New York, then Pennsylvania. Our rational was to guess big states.  The correct answer was South Carolina.  What?!

In game number two we placed in the middle with 15 correct answers. Sometimes for our guesses the obvious logical answer was correct; other times it was not.  We seemed to go 50/50 on our guesses this night.

For the "quarters" bonus question Mona got one correct and got a small blanket for a prize.  She would have won another quarters question except at the time she didn't have any quarters to play.  I didn't have any quarters as in my rush to get to the contest on time I forgot to bring money or my wallet.

Roof snow

Last night and this morning it snowed.  It must have been around four inches give or take an inch.  With a temperature of 7 F and little to no wind the snow was light and fluffy.  Too bad I forgot my cross country ski shoes back in Montana.

I shoveled off my brother's driveway and sidewalks.  I also shoveled off the driveways of the two neighbor widows.  And as I was on a roll and enjoying the exercise, I shoveled off part of the street in front of my brother's house.  I may reap the 'benefits' of all this exercise later.

So my brother had no snow to clear when he got home from work.  To make up for it he decided to use his snow rake on some snow from one part of the house roof in order to prevent an ice dam from forming when it warms up later into a freeze/thaw cycle.  He then used his new snow-blower to remove the fallen snow.

Here are few photos of the snow he raked from the roof: