I looked out the window this morning, and there was snow on the ground. Winter is in theory a three month long season, but in Michigan it starts mid November, and really lasts through April, almost half the year. I am starting to think about heading to Florida. Right now our plan is to go at the end of the year.

The Lions have lost all ten games they’ve played this year. I’m pulling for a perfect season of zero wins, sixteen losses.

I’ve done a lot the usual stuff in the last week, including photography class, tai chi, computer club, and a guitar lesson with Jeff. I enjoy that stuff well enough, and it adds a minimal amount of structure to my life, which I need this time of year.

On Friday we to the coffee house at Gilda’s Club. They had a lot of the usual performers there. There was one young man who played the piano, and he was excellent. As solo instrument music goes, there is nothing better to listen to than good piano music.

Saturday Phyllis and I went mall walking. It was a miserable rainy day, and the place was crowded. At least we got some exercise.

Sunday we got together with Morris for breakfast at a new family restaurant that just opened near us. Morris was in pretty good spirits, and we enjoyed getting together with him. After breakfast we went across the street to a new hardware store that was having its grand opening. They were giving away free toolboxes, coffee, and donuts. The place was doing a pretty good business. The toolboxes were red plastic that measured 12 by 6 by 4 inches. I got one, but I have no use for it. Maybe I’ll think of something. I don’t think it would bring much on Ebay. They did have some paper stuff on sale at really good prices, and we got some of that.

I’ve been playing around with Gimp, a photo editor similar to Photoshop. The main advantage of Gimp is that it is free. The main disadvantage is that it is not very intuitive, and is a bit difficult to use. There were tutorials for it on Youtube, which helped a lot. Anyway, below is a picture of my family as characters from the Wizard of Oz.

A happy belated Halloween to all of you.  We once again decided not to observe the holiday.  We went out for dinner instead handing out candy.

My cousin Jeff asked about me giving him guitar lessons.  I said sure.  He came over last week, and I showed him some stuff, including some chords.  I mentioned that if he wanted to go shopping for a guitar some day, I would take him.  It turned out that we went that very day.

We went to Guitar Center in Southfield.  Guitar Center is to guitars as Big Lot is to electronics, only it’s a much smaller store.  They have a lot of stuff there.  A sales person approached us, and we told him we were looking for a first guitar for Jeff.  He showed us several options, explained the differences, and then left us to look around on our own.  We went into the room with acoustic guitars, and I picked up and played a few, including the one Jeff ended up buying.

In the back of the acoustic guitar room they had the more expensive guitars.  I was a bit afraid to pick up one of those, but the salesman encouraged me to do so.  So I picked up a $3,000 Taylor, sat down with it, and began to play it.  I’ve always known that some guitars sounded better than others, but I couldn’t believe how much better this guitar sounded than what I am used to hearing.  It almost sounded like it was plugged in, and was playing itself.  It certainly was better than my talents merited.  I don’t need one of these, but I enjoyed playing it.

I bought some guitar strings while I was there.  I also got a capo for Phyllis.

We’ve had some better than average weather here.  I rode my bike to the zoo on Saturday.  I liked by bike ride better than zoo.  The zoo was very nice though.  The place was very empty.  I almost had the place to myself.  I took my camera.  Our assignment for this week is to take pictures of something black.  I didn’t get any pictures that were of any note.  I did run into one of my classmates there.  She said she saw another member of our class there earlier.  

We stopped by to see Morris on Saturday.  He has been out of town a lot lately.  He seemed to be doing well enough.  He gave us a bit of some chili he made.

A couple of milestones passed last month.  I retired six years ago last month.  By the end of the year, I will be retired for 10% of life.  It doesn’t seem that long.  This blog is also over six years old.

We discussed going to Florida for the winter.  As of now, we plan on leaving after Christmas.

Yesterday we went to the Detroit Institute of Arts.  They had a special exhibit there, Monet to Dali.  These are works from the Cleveland Art Museum.  It was a pretty impressive show, and we both enjoyed it.  I saw Irv Miller from the retirees group there.

Tomorrow is Election Day.  I am predicting and hoping for a bid day for the Democrats.  Happy voting to all.

I’ve started mall walking again.  I’ve been twice this week.  I’ve been needing exercise, and while the weather hasn’t been horrible, it hasn’t been nice enough for me to want to do much outdoors.  The mall walking isn’t all that awful, it just isn’t as interesting for me as walking or biking out of doors.  They are currently set up for Halloween at the mall.  They have a haunted castle set up where they put on a kids show.  I haven’t sent the show yet, but in past years I’ve found it to be tough to sit through.  In a week or so, the haunted castle will be magically transformed into Santa’s castle.  Funny how Santa, ghosts, and monsters share the same space.

I typically have the radio on while I am home.  I mostly listen to the classical music station, but I also listen to couple of NPR stations for news and such.  All three of the stations are having their pledge drives now, also referred to by me as their grovel fest.  I find the constant badgering for money on radio to be even harder to take than it is on television.  So I’ve been listening to the Canadian station, CBC radio 2.  This station does play classical music from 10:00am to 3:00pm.  This station used to be pretty much all classical music, but they changed format in the fall.  The classical program they have is fairly good.  After 3:00pm, I switch to the Internet channel they have for classical music.  They play good enough stuff, but there is nobody who tells you about the music, gives you news or weather updates, etc.  As I understand it, the pledge drives are supposed to carry on through the weekend.  Until then I’ll be listening to Canadian radio.

Other than the things are about the same around here.  Phyllis is still under the weather, but she is still able to do stuff.  She’s back to visiting her mother again.