fire fly nights

now when i am out in the evening i am in the midst of the crazy flight of fireflies. even though they are small and the light is very tiny, their sparkly selves are hard to miss. little missionaries of cheer in the rushing darkness. i once read a book about the greek experience that put forth the idea that the great ideas of greece, democracy and all that, was the result of the absolute clearness of the air. i have not been to greece so cannot attest to the air, but i have not every seen a cloudy picture of greece. i guess you wouldn't do that...take pictures of cloudy weather, if you wanted tourists to come. in england, well, not that many really clear bright sunny days. so how important is light, and where the light is? you cannot see the fireflies in the daylight, i am not sure if they actually fly around in the day time. Christians are to be lights. surely the brightness of the light partially depends on where you are. does it shine any less in goodness than it does in darkness. it is easier to notice in the night, but does it shine less in the day?

what life has come to

well, if you look at the link you will see a picture of ge's new engine. and links to pictures. i am so excited.... i saw a very long stack train go by the other day with 6 new engines. wow! i need a life

caught in the middle

several times as i have been walking home i have heard this scolding from up above. i finally figured out it was a bird which i think is a female oriole. turns out she has been fussing at a school who has been wandering around the tree where she has a nest. tonight she was in the tree above the squirrel and i was below. poor squirrel.... no where to go. at least the bird couldn't dive bomb him as he was in the branches of the tree. i am sure everyone feels like the squirrel at their work sometimes. bosses up above pushing and scolding and those below with expectations of behavior and performance. caught in the middle.

old dog new tricks

Ideas for cover of bulletin for next year. In the past it has been just one color, on shade of one color in fact on white. Looked kind of 50's. I used some backgrounds from the yearbook program and then added text and pictures. The one with the most color has a photo I took of the road into the campus on the right side of the layout. WHat do you think? The white lines in the blue one have been excised!!!

phantasmagoria

so, here i am in lincoln, sitting in a funky coffee shop when a notice a pair of leather sandals......and that they are worn by a young man accompanied by a young girl in flip flops, jean shorts and a white T. i am young again....notice, i didn't say pretend, or imagine....i am. i had a pair of leather sandals hand made to fit my fit up on the hill in boulder in a shop called phantasmagoria. i am young again with all those hopes and dreams laying ahead of me. thick hair, skinny bones, and reading lord of the rings for the third time and reading carlos castenda and looking up and seeing someone else reading the same book and in the same place in the book, and those gorgeous flatirons just outside of anywhere i am. and eternal sunshine. and funky shops.

well, i may have skinny hair and thick bones now, but there are still dreams ahead and my mind is not as old as my body. i am getting my passport renewed and putting on my walking shoes, not sandals this time but crocs

ps when i was young there were no funky coffee shops in lincoln, but a lot of funky in boulder.

loft ....maybe, maybe not

this is the hallway ... the little window in the left wall is left over from a pharmacy that used to be there. can you imagine going up stairs that are one and half stories tall to get your medicine?
the door to the left goes to the bathroom. unfortunately the original door was torn off.


the wall straight ahead is part of the wall of the next building over. it has kinda cool finish and texture when you peal off the wall paper. it would be the east wall of the eating area.



not sure who's rear.... but anyway, the dining area wall is to the left and you are looking straight into the kitchen area. someone already lowered the ceiling. thinking about putting corregated tin on the ceiling.... maybe... door to kitchen is against wall. could use it for the missing bathroom door.



the windows are on the front of the building. they would be replaced. the area to the right is the dining area and to the left is the living area. i didn't take pictures of the bedrooms because it was too dark. !!!! thinking of resistance heating, or heat pump, demand water heating, and pex plumbing., insulating to the max. will have two sets of french doors on the back out onto a deck. the front door...which is on the side of the building still has a glass on it with the words lawyers office on it... cool. the mail slot has been nailed shut. the stairs up are in a narrow passage between two buildings. will get estimates and a structural engineer to look at it.

two old ladies

you just don't know what will happen when you get two old ladies out in the back yard on mechanical equipment! don't know how i got the underline on! i have that feeling about running the three wheeler. if it stopped, jay had to start it. i never was out of first gear. but i did know where the breaks where! we went up and down the field picking up junk from an old car junk yard. when they took out the cars etc., they just covered the small stuff up with dirt, but just like rocks the stuff heaves up in the spring. we found hubcaps, trim, brake drums and pads, lots of rubber stuff like belts and trim around doors, a girl's purse---empty--but no snakes or animals. we filled three little trailors with stuff. the trailor was hooked behind my sister's four wheeler.





it was fun.... don't think i will ever go very fast on one of those things though....very tippy. even though it wasn't very sunny, my nephew thought i should wear a hat. his property goes down to the trees. he did offer once to let my sister and i put a trailor on it. he already has a nice one at the top of the hill in the direction we are looking.

flying ears

once again i am in the black hills, and it is rainy and cold. that probably explains why the hills are so green that they look black from a distance. during one of the breaks from rain, the families gathered on the ball field to put up advertising signs on the boards of the back field. the men used there power tools while the women stood around and chatted. the kids were all over the field. at one point my great niece had put her mini dachshound --spotted splashy black and white with blue marble eyes--- into her little doll stroller. he was sitting up and belted in as she when flying across the field. his long ears caught the wind and were sticking out straight on either side. a little faster, a little bit bigger ears, and he would have taken off.

to life

just trying to do that carpe diem thing... usually think of doing big things in famous places. but since i am in the middle of the flat plains i have to be creative. that means taking time to consciously appreciate even the small things like two sleepy cats in a sunny window. a little house finch pair started to build a nest on top of my porch lite which gave the cats a thrill. haven't seen the birds lately though, must have been too stressful for them having cat eyes watching them all the time. cats really know how to waste a day....napping here and there. there is a little straw basket with a snuggly blanket in it by my computer which was originally for the white cat because he likes to help me when i am working or playing. he is a little heavy to hold in my arms while typing, hence the basket substitute. however, the black cat took over control of the basket so now i have both of them around....helping. sometimes the black cat just hangs out in the basket when i am not around...likes the basket better than me... oh sigh.... anyway, three times now he has fooled around and managed to slide the basket off the table with himself in it. doesn't stop him though for getting back in. either really gutsy, has alzheimers, or is a few whiskers short of cathood.

trains and tracks

we expected to find something similar to the website....but we only could see bits and pieces of the yard and the engines and cars. we stopped at the first thing that looked like an office and asked where the viewing stand was.... they all laughed .... said it hadn't been built .. in a politcal battle about who was going to pay and who was going to benefit. so what we found was the following.






well you can see that you can't see too much from here. but we were able to see the little hill they created to push cars up and then let coast down into the classification yard. one by one and two by two the cars slowly pick up speed until they are somehow slowed down with much screeching and sent onto one of the many trains that are being built. they just sort of ghostly glide down the tracks. none of the ones we watch jammed into a car so i assume an engine has to come along and crunch them all together.

we finally found an overpass for cars and people and got out and walked to the top to take some pictures from above. still couldn't see a lot, but could see more. unfortunately my digital camera was full, but took some with my 35 mm. supposedly the yard is big enough to hold 3800 football fields. i couldn't prove that from what i saw though. glad i stopped by though.

we also stopped at buffalo bill's ranch. great house... could use a little work on the hall wallpaper...doesn't look authentic.... looks like kitchen stick on shelf paper. but i could be wrong. the horse barn was great. lots of harnesses, saddles, and great pictures. got to walk up to the hay loft.

i wanted to see the famous canteen of ww2 but it has been recreated in a museum.. i thought it was the original... oh well...

it was still a fun trip with friends :)

also on the way stopped at a neat little resturant. serves taco bell and pizza hut stuff. looks ordinary from the outside but decorated western style inside.. they did a great job. it is just off i80 at gothenburg and worth a stop.

visitors

today i have a visitor helping me with my blog. georgia lives next door with her parents, her brother, and her dog, well her mother's dog--molly. we are planning to go and visit bailey yards in north platte --the world's largest classification train yard. it is owned by union pacific. will let you know how it turned out. taking my digital camera. i hope they let me take pictures. they might not because of 9/11. and security issues. we will see. i might just have to stand out back of my house and take pictures of trains going by and pretend they are in bailey yards. ha ha.

birds in the tree

today i looked out my east window and saw redwing blackbirds sitting in a tree of unknown species, but with bright red coats over new leaves. what a picture. beauty is everywhere... you just have to look.

other people's cars

every once in a while i drive someone else's car...which i really hate. it takes a while for my body to learn something... don't learn things that are physical automatically. my ski instructor didn't think i was ever going to make it down any slopes ....ever

so when i drive someone else's car it takes a while to adjust to the brake... a few stops after everyone lunges against the seat belt... a while to stop putting my left foot on the nonexistant clutch .... fortunately most of the riders don't see that... and adjusting the sound of the motor to the speed of the engine.

today i drove a load of kids to lincoln in the ancient school van. it is such a joy.
it doesn't ride to badly, the engine seems good, but it does have a few quirks. there is no pointer on the gear indicator... so you have to count to right selection. not to much of a problem because you don't do too much sifing with an automatic. the other little joy is getting it started. you really have to put your wieight and strength into turning the key to start it. it starts right off if you can turn the key. not made for old ladies. everything else works fine. it is a lot quieter than driving the jeep with its cloth top. most of the kids were tired enough to fall asleep and they all had their own cd players and ear phones so i didn't have to listen to their music. ! :)

transplants & roots

it is the rainy season. our biology teacher managed to transplant 4 little evergreens before the rains started. there are little red flags usually associated with gas line markings on campus where more trees will be put if.... rain stops ...time to do it.... etc. i put out some wish flags in my front yard for bushes and a some trees. i do not like looking into my neighbor's front windows ... or they looking in mine. it looks like i will probably have to dig the holes or at least start them and hopefully shame someone to help the old lady... shame on me.... oh .well--old age ought to be good for something. plants around here need to be transplanted during the first few weeks of spring to get a good start... too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. in coloraod you could tranplant things almost any time during the spring, summer, or fall if you knew what you were doing.

it is also easy for people to be transplanted to colorado...any time in your life.. i came in my twenties and lived there during the middle of my life and raised my kids there. it called to my sould before i went there... especailly boulder. i am not there any more but my roots are still there. i didn't realize how much i am still there until i bought a pair of shoes the other day in kearney. they are green plastic sort of like garden shoes.. corcs... no one on campus has a pair. although a boy from connecticut has a pair of clog sort of shoes that he wears all the time. close.... anyway i started wearing them to school... they are so comfy and the seniors who took their senior trip to glenwood springs and denver said....hey all the people in colorado were wearing those. .. as they looked at mine in a 'i'll never be caught dead in those kind of look" i love them.. i may not be in boulder any more but boulder is still in my spirit. :)

sand hills trip tic

the first time i made the trip from the platte river valley, i was taking students west for break. it was september. no weather problems and i would get to see my sister on the rez. i was loaned a car which was okay. however, just at sunset it started to snow. quickly it developed into a full blown blizzard and i had to have the remaining student roll down the window to check out intersections and road signs. the window stuck down! which was okay because she had to tell me if i was on the road, but it was really cold for her and for me. after driving 15 and 2o miles an hour forever, i finally made it to my sister's. going back was pretty normal and the mechanic guy at the campus where my sister work temporarily propped the window back up so it was warm.

next time i made the trip it was summer--no problems--well except for the heat. each time i have a car i promise myself that the next time i buy a car it is going to air. but if you buy not during the summer time like i seem to do, i always forget. and it seems sort of silly to buy air when you buy a wrangler. next time.... i alsohad to gage when to get gas as i didn't know exactly where the stations were. driving through the middle of the sand hills is not like driving on the interstate..

the best part of the trip is always observing the sand hills themselves. i think they are the best part of nebraska. the shapes of the hills that vary from long and sweeping to funky little pop-ups with sand cuts allow the eye to see far into the horizon. and i love the way the grasses change color. expecially blue stem which turns a wonderful red rust in the fall. for probably 1/3 of the trip the road follows burlington tracks. towards evening on this last trip i came over a hill and saw a swath of rust blue stem following along beside four sets of characoal tracks.

then there was the thanksgiving trip. it was a lot of fun being with my sister and her family but the trip back was a stresser. i left around five to try to beat the storm, but it started to snow seriously around murdo. after driving in icy conditions at a snail's pace and twirling off the road two or three times i gave it up and spent the night in broken bow. i should have known better, driving at thanksgiving is always risky.

this trip is only slightly risky as far as spring blizzards. i don't know what the trip home is going to be like, but the trip up was stressful. driving a jeep wrangler in wind with 50 mile gusts is tiring. usually don't drive too fast in those conditions. then outside of thedford i drove in to clouds of swirly white stuff. deja vu... thought it was going to be the blizzard experience all over again, but it was only a little stretch of sploshy stuff. after that there were only a few rain spots and the wind died down until i hit the hills. it was windy all day and it is supposed to be windy today, but last night it was clear for a little bit. who knows what the trip back will be like.

trips are always an adventure and a little bit of excitement along the way is not going to stop this old lady from checking out the country. besides if everything went smoothly, were would be the edge?

my march madness

it is march....in like a lamb out like a lion the irish month ie st patrick's day
murphy's law is in full effect
the bus has broken down 3 times in the last three weeks.....big time ...engine rebuild 2x
everyone has the flu or something just as bad
our 77 year old volunteer who comes to work everyday was home sick
our boss has been essentially out of town for 3 weeks due to unforseen circumstances
& an evaluation is being set up...i have no power to pull the paper work in
the yearbook is due next week and the seniors... half my staff... the important half...
have been gone for 2 weeks and they have a term paper due
i need a new job that pays real money
so if the stress wise .... if march came in like a lion... does that mean my life will become lamb like by the end of the month? at this point i don't care about the weather!

i am going to make a nice cup of coffee and read a dick francis book and escape

book report

every once in a while i go on a dick francis jag, even though i have read most of them at least twice, some i have read at least five times. they are always a good read. fonner park is not quite newmarket- where i actually saw a race- nor is it as great as aksarben, but it is racing.

at the beginning of the month i read show of ashland. it is an okay book but will not keep it. just doesn't have staying power. but the mystery book was great. there are more in the library so will try to read some more of those. but i probably won't buy any. i picked up a copy of the last juror by grishom.. so that will be my next book.

great stores

this is a treasure...john wayne cycle shop in grand island. just downright cool. i found it quite by accident. the school decided to declare february cancer support month so i was buying yellow livestrong wrist bands for the kids and this is the store that sells them. i didn't look at the prices. there are cool posters on the walls also but none from the coors classic.

racing in the muc

dairy workers think there job is hard... how would you like to ride two to three races in the mud having mud slather your face about an inch deep, tear off layers of throwaway covers on your googles, and still try to get your horse that doesn't like to run in the mud---horses don't like mud in their faces either, mostly--to the finish line. at least it was over 50 degrees. saw offspring of secretiat...handsome horse but didn't win. the center of the track attracts geese with its little pond. make lots of noise when the wheel around in the sky but the horses don't seem to mind! i had fun.... no mud in my face but did drop my program in a puddle. i think if you are just having fun you just need to pick the horse by name. works just as well as looking at the program.

tic time

i think people have forever tried to make sure the tic times--those moments you never want to forget - or shouldn't forget--are somehow bottled for future use. whatever the image it is never as sweet as the moment. after getting my jeep's oil changed this morning i stopped by the race track. it was chilly but not too, around 10 and the horses were just coming out. i sat there in my jeep listening to classical music watching huge canada geese fly little sorties around the track pond and fractious colts and fillies take their morning schooling. tic time. spirit revival.

it was truly school time for those four-legged aristrocrats. they have to learn how to run at a certain pace and change leads...you could tell some did not like the lead change as they came around the corner they were skipping and tossing their heads, but the jockeys were still in their seats and strong in their requests.