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I think Spectrum is having a lot of issues tonight. Hopefully they get it solved tomorrow.
Compliant/Complaint
Oh the difference transposed letters can make.
You are most welcome. The only better way would be a chance to visit in person the actual museum(s) and places to see them in person. I remember my first visit to the Louvre Museum and actually seeing the Mona Lisa in real life. Or the other artists' works on display in the early 1970s. I love museums.
Sacred/Scared
On Museums: I'm particularly impressed with large, detailed paintings. I've seen The Hallucinogenic Toreador and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus at the Dali' museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. I've seen all five of the wall sized Thomas Cole paintings of The Course of Empire when they were on display together during the early '90s at the National Museum of Art in Washingon. Incredible detail. Also at the National Museum of Art in Washington is the Dali' painting The Sacrement of the Last Supper occupying the wall of the landing of the grand staircase on the east end of the building. All interesting as images on paper or screen, but to stand in front of the originals occupying the entire wall, or in the case of the "Course of Empire" the entire room, adds the correct amount of awe.
Note: Use the zoom tools provided at the Course of Empire page to browse around the scenes and find all the little people.
!
Edited to add: Not quite as large, but still impressive are the four scenes from Thomas Cole's The Voyage of Life. Again at the National Museum in Washington and in their own room.
Clever!
Yeah, we're blessed with a lot of really awesome museums in Minneapolis and St. Paul; they get some incredible stuff touring through aside from their own collections. Unfortunately, trips to the cities are a bigger risk than I'm eager to take these days. So we do our best with what we've got.
I loved the museums in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Athens, London, Paris, and in small towns in England around where we lived in East Anglia, Oklahoma's small local history museums, and the Mojave Desert ghost towns. My son's favs were the Toy Museum and War Museum in London and the ghost towns.
...complaint:
...well now it is our turn out here in the northwest as wildfire season has kicked off with a monsterous "bang". The most noteworthy and newsworthy situation are fires which broke out around Spokane WA which have combined to destroy over 700 homes and buildings. There are also massive fires here in Oregon and Utah (none of which have yet been contained).
As we head into a hit spell, winds have shifted out the east sending a massive cloud of smoke blanketing the areas to the west (Portland included) with a thick smoky haze and unhealthy air quality indices The conditions are forecast persist the rest of the week.
Was feeling the effects yesterday noticing a shortness of breath which cleared up about a half hour after I got home. It also didn't help the situation that there was major structure fire a few blocks away on Sunday that left a strong smell of smoke which lasted into Monday. I have kept the windows closed and fan on high just to circulate air despite 90°+ temperatures (near 100° for tomorrow) and have masks at the ready for when I need to go out to the nearby market.
Due to an unusually and extremely dry winter, spring, and so farm summer we've been having the entire region is like a tinderbox and under an extreme fire treat for the next month and a half. It just takes one cigarette butt tossed out a car window or some fool shooting off fireworks (the latter happened several years ago) to spark a serious blaze,
On Museums: During my motorcycle trip around the country back in '95, I stopped in Utah at the Dinosaur National Monument museum. Inside the main exhibit hall, in air-conditioned comfort, away from the 100F degree July sun, was a long inclined wall of dinosaur fossils neatly, partially extracted for easy viewing in-situ. There were other complete, assembled skeletons there also, but the wall of bones stick in my memory. Also, that was the place that I again dropped my motorcycle.
I had parked in the paved parking lot, and had put down my kickstand instead of lifting the heavy bike & luggage up onto the more sturdy double risers. I came out of the museum to find my motorcycle on its side, with it's top heavy assemblage of luggage and camping gear laying askew. The large BMW was a bear to get upright when unloaded anyway, so I had to remove the extras to get it back upright, then repack. The sun had made the asphalt soft, and the kickstand had poked completely through, pinning the bike down until I wiggled it free.
It was there that I decided that I needed a heavy, flat metal plate to slip under the end of the kickstand to avoid a repeat of that problem. Soon afterwards I found a suitable piece of iron about 2x3 inches that had a hole in one end, tied a spare shoelace to it, and when stopping on uncertain ground, could hold the string and swing the metal plate down under the kickstand while still sitting, and retrieve the plate easily after getting back on.
I kept that metal plate with me for all the years afterwards that I had the bike.
Do you we have access to a suspended particulate mask? Most of the ones made for viruses are good. They'll stop most smoke particles.
Keep breathing!
John
I'm so sorry... it'd been a bad summer for fires,
You didn't say what sort of masks you have, but if you just have baggy blue surgical masks, it might be worth your while to upgrade to an N95 or similar. I find the 3M Aura N95s to be quite comfortable, and they tend to seal well for most face shapes. Often cheap on Amazon. (And certainly cheaper than lung issues.)
On Smoke in the Air: A couple of nights ago, it was cool, and the bedroom window was open, I woke in the middle of the night and smelled smoke. Momentary panic, then realized it was just Canada still burning. Thinking about you in the northwest US. I keep expecting to hear you're surrounded by fire, or a tidal wave has risen and wiped Portland/Seattle off the map, or a volcano has covered y'all with ash, or all three things at once.
Los Angeles/San Francisco may burn or slide into the sea, but at least they don't have volcanoes. The high northeast may get consumed by biting insects, trampled by moose, or covered in snow/ice. The southwest may die of thirst. The northern mid-west may get obliterated by the Yellowstone super-volcano. The Mid-Atlantic may drown in the hurricane graveyard, or everybody die while driving if it snows an inch. Florida may get scoured by hurricanes or drowned by rising ocean level. Alaska? See far northeast, but double it and add bigger bears. Hawaii? Death by tourist overflow, i.e. paradise lost syndrome (same for Florida). The midwest may dry up and blow away or get carried to the Land of Oz by full grown tornadoes, but we, here, in western NY, just have lake-effect snowmageddon, baby tornadoes, and Canada burning.
Luck of the draw.
Museums. Hmmm...
I went to the Ripley's Museum - does that count?
I was about 15 or so, roughly (very) a century ago. The headquarters of Mr. Ripley were in St. Augustine, Florida, he died in 1949 and in 1950 his estate opened the first permanent "Odditorium" there. That was the one I went to with my parents and an uncle. Very cool.
Now the headquarters are in Orlando, with like one of the largest Museums they have there. And there are now Ripley's museums just about anywhere there are tourists.
"As of 2026, Ripley Entertainment owns, operates, or franchises over 100 attractions in 10 countries, including Canada, Mexico, and across Europe and Asia."
I knew about the one in Gatlinburg, Tennesee (my state but in the north of east Tennessee, I'm way south of there closer to the Georgia border), although I've never been to that one.
Dang, I really had no idea how Mr. Ripley's "acorn" had become such a "mighty oak".
A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
Semi-Compaint:
Dancing. I don't get it. I mean, I understand the importance of dance in primitive cultures. But why are there people still dancing here? Most of us don't believe in the "magical" aspect of tribal dance.
I mean I once learned to "clog-step" southern square dance style once in high school trying to get close to a certain girl. It didn't work. Maybe that was my critical moment with dance and why I find it borderline offensive.
So in conclusion:
I love music and experience it with my ears, not my feet.
I physically at almost 73, am incapable of dancing.
Dance bad, music good.
On Dancing: When I was around seven my parents would take me to square-dancing at the local firehall on Saturday nights. Apparently it was big time fun in the mid-50s. But it was a traumatic experience for me. They never gave me any pre-instruction, just grabbed me into the square. Arghhh..., big people turning this way and that, grabbing my hands, shouting instructions, laughing at my mistakes... I never caught on. I have NEVER danced since then. Any type of dancing. I avoid all dancing at all costs. Completely ruined me for dancing. I don't even do the "Trump Tango". Music good, dancing bad.
And from an earlier conversation, after being trapped in a small boat while being eaten by mosquitos, and facing a large, angry, dying, fresh-water Barracuda (i.e. Muskellunge) with long pointy teeth in a head as big as mine, I was permanently ruined for fishing.
..thank you for the concern, yes I do have good multi layer masks (one is sitting beside me at the ready as I have a meeting to go to today.
Woke up this morning to an ochre sky with a sun as red as the one on the Japanese flag, They say that Portland has is the firth worst air quality in the world right now, A few years ago it was worse when there was a massive fire in the west end of the Columbia Gorge that was stared by teenagers shooting off fireworks which spread so fast it threatened 150 hikers (who had to be rescued) The smoke was so thick it turned city into a "sepia world" and ash was falling like snowflakes.
Below is photo I took during that fire. No photo-shipping as I used a skylight filter to cut out the UV as twell as counter pre set image correction on my phone (don't have a 1,200 USD iPhone). This is what it actually looked like to the naked eye.
Dancing's like any art form... not for everyone, but divine for those who enjoy it. And those who don't enjoy it can just... not participate.
Personaly I find it beautiful to watch and would love to learn to do it better than I can someday. Partnered dancing was the one unit in phy ed I was ever good at. I was part of a Scottish Country Dance group for a few years as an adult until life and logistics got in the way. It was an absolute blast.
No desire to ever date again, but having a bestie (any gender) to go out ballroom dancing with? Sign me up.
I would imagine that the inclination to dance came first, and people attached magical significance to it afterwards. There's nothing mysterious about dancing; at its most basic, dancing is a natural response to hearing and connecting with music. Even people who don't like to dance still tend to have some kind of physical reaction to music they like.
Case in point: kids. They just dance because music exists and so do their bodies and their joy. :)
True. And although I don't stand and dance, I do wag my finger or tap my toe in time with music that has a rhythm that resonates with me. And I do sometimes mock conduct a symphony when in private. But in public, all my exterior motion is extremely subdued and instead, internalized.
Non-complaiont: The computer is now up and running normaly.
Complaint: I had to buy a new 4 TB hard drive and it cost almost $300
Non-complaint: My computer tech was able to clpone the old drive onto the new one and install. He only charged me $65.00. So no lkoss of progams or data.
I think I usually dance involuntarily, if music is playing or I'm thinking about certain things. The only time I dance intentionally is if somebody nags me to do it or if I'm trying to impress what I think is a potential suitor. Usually, the dancing that I'm not aware of goes better than the dancing I'm aware of. I wish I was aware of it long enough to remember what my body was doing so I could reproduce the movements when I'm doing it intentionally.
Yep, even I have been known to tap my toe, but break dancing is all I can do now - if I dance, I break. (Drum roll, cymbal crash)
Now maybe if I could dance like Fred Astaire.
Dancing is just another way of expressing yourself, usually expressing joy. Look at kids when they are excited about something, they jump up and down spontaneously, or run around in a dancing way. The cows are also dancing of joy when the are let out on the pastures after a long winter in the stables.
Non-complaint: There was no need to do an uptown trip today, and my budget is still screaming, but I went anyway. Quick trip. Breakfast at the hole-in-the-wall beanery, in the decrepit mini-mall. But afterwards it was again too early for Chinese takeout, so I toddled two building up the street to the Wendy's and took advantage of their limited time special of a $1 Frostie (a frozen ice-milk type thing in a cup that you eat with a spoon, the drink not the cup). I hadn't been to a Wendy's in years. Mmmm... faux chocolate milkshake. Memories.
I loitered in Wendy's for about an hour until 10:00AM then toddled back one building to the Tim Horton's. Picked up a couple of plain donuts and a blueberry muffin to take home. Then toddled one more building back, to the decrepit mini-mall and checked on the Chinese takeout on the end. But it still wasn't open, so I toddled (getting mightily sore and pooped out from toddling by that time) to the other end of the mall to the Subway and purchased a footlong sub-sandwich to take home. Then toddled back to the Chinese take out again but it still wasn't open, so I gave up and toddled back to the middle of the mini-mall waited in the hole-in-the-wall beanery for my Uber to come, and just came straight home. Was too pooped out to go grocery shopping. Got home and discovered I'd finally received the invitation to our 60th high-school reunion. Yay! Time was getting short, only one week to return the RSVP. I've already sent the RSVP and check.
Complaint: My mailbox in front of the house is rusting away faster than I anticipated. It may not make it to even winter.
Non-complaint: I noticed the house neighbor guy pulling the garbage bins back up the driveway to the back of the house and arranged for him to get another new mailbox, just like their own new one and install it. Yay, no more soggy mail.