Rich Parker in Alaska @cajun_cheechako@qoto.org

Well, looks like Juneau, AK finally got our big snow. Started out fluffy and very wind-driven, but now it is getting sticky and heavy. I'm down with a cold, so not going anywhere, but loaned my neighbors my snowblower that I brought from Vermont. City was nice enough to send a plow down our street and block everyone back in with a giant berm. With over 12 more inches, the Neos I brought also came in handy. Might be brave later and open the hot tub ;)

Still trying to figure out how to properly add text description to pictures. Should I just use the 'sensitive content's icon and describe it there? Thx

Looks promising for more Auroras tonight (it's often too cloudy in Juneau, #AK)

Signed up for @WSJ - $1/wk & apparently it expired while I was on vacation & they automatically charged me $38.99 for another month.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to cancel online, you have to talk to a call center in BFO someplace. They cancelled my online subscription, but their 'policy' said no refund!
Beware, this is not a company I ever want to do business with again. ;(

I had to find a link to confirm what we were told, and it is indeed a true story.

"The head of a sugar plantation in the area blasted that blowhole apart back in the 1920s, on account, its salt spray was damaging the crop. This bygone bigger brother to the Spouting Horn could apparently send up spray a couple of hundred feet high!"

https://hawaiianislands.com/kauai/things-to-do/spouting-horn/

We had a wonderful time with my brother and his wife, at their house in Kalua, Kauái. A beautiful place, but memories of the intense colonialism and resource extraction remain.
One oddly poignant item - there is a place called Spouting Horn. Waves coming into lava tubes shoot spray far up into the air. Very beautiful - but we were told that one of the holes shot water so high that it got into the sugar cane planted nearby, so a foreman took some dynamite down to the spout and blew it up - widening and blocking it.
Seemed Iike such a perfect metaphor, for so much of colonial history in Hawaii ;(

Good article in Forbes about 'downing spy balloons'
Spoiler alert - can't do it with hunting rifles in Montana or Georgia ;)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/02/03/busting-that-chinese-balloon-is-harder-than-you-think/

I mean, really - how could you not love a US Govt agency named "All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office" ?
Pretty much covers everything, yes?

How can so many Republicans be so clueless/gullible? I'm sure they had sources to this information long before any of us 'common folk' did. It is either astounding stupidity, or incredibly evil disinformation, used to attack the President & our armed forces.
https://www.msn.com/en-US/news/us/u-spy-planes-snooped-on-chinese-surveillance-balloon/ar-AA17bdwL?ocid=sapphireappshare

At Allerton Garden we were told this is a replica of a fountain in Italy. It is designed so that if you sit quietly by the pulsing water your resting heart rate will slow down to match the pulses - about 55 bpm

So far, after almost seeing all of two seasons, this has been my favorite Ted Lasso quote:

"Boy, I love meeting people's moms. It's like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts."

Tremendous thunderstorms last night and this morning (Koloa, Kauái). Lots of lightning, thunder and rain. Haven't seen/heard anything like it since I lived out west (well, technically I am pretty far out west...). My wag of a brother noted that it was a 'chilly 75°F this morning.
(Windy app)

Mother hen and chicks - nice pictorial illustration of Matt. 23:37 for folks who have never been around chickens. Wild chickens on the beach.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

Brother & SIL treated us to an Allerton Garden tour, with dinner and fire-dancing. It was very cool, and in the middle of dinner (when the musicians asked if there were any special events) we realized it was the day before our 47th anniversary ;)
– at Allerton Botanical Garden

Cooking breakfast, cleaning house while our hosts are at pickle-ball clinic. Lovely sounds of classic Hawaiian music on the TV.

Life goal - black cat, in a chair, on the lenai.