Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Sunset with spider:

Share one with your loved one.

I got this in my email box on Tuesday:

Yeah, as a savvy investor in Powerball tickets from time to time, I didn’t fall for this because I know the drawings are not held on Tuesdays, but on Wednesdays.

Also, I am not that kind of an idiot.

Although I do call myself an “investor” in lottery tickets. Because honestly, they pay out only slightly worse than the stocks I pick on my own.

Buy the cheap mall store stocks, Brian J. Retail is coming back real soon, I swear.

In case you’re wondering, I did not win this week. And it cost me less to lose than my investment in Wet Seal did.

VIDEO: Tourist captures ‘ghost sighting’ at Gettysburg battlefield, sparks debate.

Back in the 1990s when I was under the influence of the Anita Blake novels, wherein vampires come out of the shadows and get legal protections of a sort, I thought what if a ghost on a Civil War battlefield became aware of his surroundings and got legal protections?

It did not go as far as some of my books went, with anywhere from just a title page to several chapters stuffed into an old Microsoft Word document on a PC long ago. Just the idea.

Maybe I should take it up again. Perhaps I could sell a dozen copies.

(Link most recently from Knuckledraggin.)

Walmart tends to have racks at the front of the clothing sections with seasonal merchandise tied to upcoming holidays, probably including Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day/Independence Day (flags and whatnot can apply to both), Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and probably a bit of New Year’s Eve.

Starting when the boys were just coming into school age, I’ve often picked them up a Halloween shirt. None of the other holidays; only Halloween.

For many years, I bought them matching shirts–that is, shirts with the exact same design. Generally a pumpkin-themed shirt and not one of the more daring designs with zombies or anything. I didn’t want to frighten them or their classmates–later, the younger kids at their Lutheran school.

When younger, they often delighted in having matching clothes and would sometimes wear the same thing to school, including their Halloween shirts.

The penultimate purchase or two, I bought different designs for them as they’ve gotten older and have their own independent styles and want to be differentiated from their sibling.

However, this year, when I was at the Walmart for more practical needs, I saw that the Halloween shirts were out, so I again bought them the same design.

As is the wont, I picked these up when they were in school, and I put them in their shirt drawers without commenting on it. They discovered them, and although they no longer squee with delight when they find these things, they have both worn the shirts several times in the first week. The youngest will wear the shirt year-round and not just during Halloween if the past is any guide. Maybe the older one will, too; he didn’t like the last design, two skeletons where one is holding the other’s spine with the caption, “I’ve Got Your Back.”

You know, when they were younger, I could delight them with surprises like this. New shirts, new socks, new Spider-Man sheets on their bed. Now, they’re more sophisticated. They still enjoy these things, but they can’t squee any more as they’re young men.

Or so I tell myself as I still like to get them little gifts from time to time as a sign of affection.

I’ve been to Wisconsin Dells a couple of times in the last couple of years–and intended to go again this summer, but. So that plan was deferred until next year, hopefully.

Although I had an inclination to, I did not attend the Tommy Bartlett water-skiing show because it was always there.

Not any more:

After nearly seven decades, the Tommy Bartlett Show in Wisconsin Dells announced Wednesday it will close permanently due to business losses during the pandemic.

In April, the owners of the water-ski, sky and stage show made the decision to close its attraction this summer due to restrictions on large gatherings.

By “No more,” I mean, maybe.

After all, the company owns a lot of attractions and property in the area. It’s possible that they’ll change their minds next year if the property doesn’t sell and tourism comes roaring back. But who knows.

Full disclosure: Although I never saw the full show in the Dells, I am pretty sure I caught parts of the group performing on Milwaukee’s lake front during Summerfest.

(Linked link seen on Instapundit, but I did see the story on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Web site first.)

So what am I to do with this?

The instructions are to click all the squares with fire hydrants.

But none of the squares have more than one fire hydrant in them. As a matter of fact, no single square has a single fire hydrant in it.

Is this how it knows I am human? Because I ignored the stated instructions and followed the implied directions.

So I made my first trip to the YMCA since February.

In February, my oldest son and I were taking the triathlon prep class ahead of a projected April Y Not Tri indoor triathlon, so every Monday and Wednesday we ate far too much sushi before going to the Y. The lad would shoot some hoops before class whilst I would do some weightlifting. This was back in February. The before time. We skipped the last week of the classes before everything got cancelled because the early signs were that the Pandemic would be something like the beginning of The Stand.

But it wasn’t, and the YMCA remained closed for a while. Then they opened it up without locker rooms and with some onerous restrictions. So I stayed away.

This week, I realized that I had not really been for a run or a bike ride on a weekday since the boys restarted school, so I have been thinking about a return. My beautiful wife mentioned that Planet Fitness, of which she is a member, asks you to wear a mask when you come in and go out, but when on the machines and whatnot, you don’t. I hoped the Y would be the same. First, though, I had to get some new weightlifting gloves as I used my most recent pair as biking gloves for the Olympic duathlon last spring, and the garage is a black hole.

So I stopped at the sporting goods store that has no guns left and three dumbbells (no barbells or weights) left).

As I explained on Facebook:

I stopped in the sporting goods store today and tried on several pairs of weightlifting gloves before I made my selection.

I am more fastidious about weightlifting gloves than 95% of the clothes I buy (if they’re on the top of the stack and have the right basic size, plus or minus a size, take it!).

I am much more fussy in a hat store, however.

Today I went back to the YMCA. It was early in the morning; I went before sun up, and I would rather wake up before I gym-go, but the current schedule is not conducive to a later visit. It was, as it is purportedly at Planet Fitness, just mask in and mask out; only employees and volunteers were wearing masks on the workout floor. I did my normal interval warm-up without sprints and did a couple of weightlifting exercises–biceps and triceps–followed by a mile on the treadmill. I was going to joke on Facebook that it’s been so long that I had trouble opening the heavy door to the facility, but the amount of engagement I get on Facebook (or that I give on Facebook) these days doesn’t make my quips worthwhile. So I will share them with you.

It’s true, though: I only did about 60% of the weight that I could at the beginning of the year. Maybe not quite that low; my arms have generally been slower to progress than my other muscle groups. But still, a bit humbling. But it is very important to start low when coming back as the corner muscles–the stabilizers in the elbows, shoulders, knees, ankle, hips, and so on–atrophy faster than the big topline muscles, and if you try to do too much too soon, you can hurt the small muscles which will put you out of action longer.

I am looking forward to getting back to the weightlifting. It’s been seven months since I lifted weights. I have run and biked a bit, and I have done a couple of martial arts classes, but the running and biking builds endurance, not the explosive bursts that Mark Rippletoe thinks are important and that one needs for martial arts classes.

Check back with me next week, though, to see if I’ve made it back.

Want to instantly upgrade your home? Give it a name

As you know, gentle reader, I refer to my current spread as Nogglestead because I planned to be more successful at gardening and orcharding than I have proven to be. And as the archives of this very blog attest, I named the home we had in Casinoport Honormoor. Strangely enough, we did not name the house during our brief interlude in Old Trees. Perhaps because it would have been pretentious to name a little ranch house in that town of very old manses indeed (probably the presumption of pretentiousness did not stop me–it never has before), or maybe because it would have had to be in ALL CAPS because we lived right on the Interstate.

But I’ve not wanted to upgrade my home.

I just read enough English literature that it seemed the right thing to do.