February Blahs.

We were promised spring-like weather this week.  Ha, I say.  Not so fast.  Suddenly one awakens one morning and the ten day forecast has mysteriously been changed.  Cold.  Ice and freezing rain.  A snowstorm.  More cold.  Meteorologist paychecks are still drawn, despite the forecast being conveniently rearranged at the last minute.

Regardless of Spring or Winter, indoor activities continue here at the Homestead.  Deb continues to befuddle medical science, but she is still breathing, eating, and walking around.  I had my teeth cleaned last week, and I have now been ice skating 5 times without falling down.  There is also an indoor walking track where I skate, so Deb was able to do some laps there while I prepared for my winter olympics debut.

 

I have been thinking a lot about last October's hiking trip, especially the big hike to the Texas highpoint atop Guadalupe Peak.  Here are a few photos, previously unpublished, of that hike.  Looking at mountain hiking photos later on, I am always astounded that I was actually there.  Sometimes the hikes are so strenuous that memory of many views is completely obliterated, so that without photos much of the grandeur is not only forgotten, but personally disbelieved.  But the photos do testify that yes, I was certainly "there."

 

Even if I had only hiked to this point, the rewards were more than generous.  But this was still early on in my trek to the summit. 

Two panorama shots (six photos in all) giving nearly 360 degree views from the top of Guadalupe Peak.  Clicking on the photos should give a larger image. 

 

At least until astronomy weather returns I have taken up my pencil drawing hobby again.  I am just working with the basic shapes for now; squares, rectangles, cones and so forth.  But soon I shall be drawing elephants!  Watch for it here.  I am still making my way through the Spirograph set, still learning what each wheel combination can do.  The basic set gives hundreds of geometric designs, many of them worth colouring, but some time later, combinations of combinations will give a nearly infinite amount of possibilities.  Here are a few I created and like.

 

This one is pretty trippy.  I was getting nervous near the end, as the pencil had slipped on earlier attempts to complete this.

 

Some Spirograph work from previous sessions. The numbers refer to which wheels 

were used, and in which position.

 

In reading news, I am on my fourth and final Avon/Equinox authors' book for the month, after which I can resume free style reading.  Next up is a long novel by William Morris, a fantasy sequel to his House Of The Wolfings, which I read about a year ago.  It will be a long novel, and will likely take up much of my remaining February reading time.

 

In film news, we watched a strange little number from West Africa (Ivory Coast) called In The Name of Christ.  From 1993, it is about a man who craves power over other people, setting himself up as the cousin of Christ.  Using religion for one's own personal gain is hardly a new concept, but for western viewers this will be a refreshingly different take on a man who demands reverence and worship from his beguiled followers.  I could do without the pig slaughtering scene, and the one with a drowning chicken.  Christianity meets local pagan cults in one of its nearly limitless possibilities.  Parts are hard to watch, and despite being billed as a comedy by Mubi, it is hardly such.

 

Now showing on Mubi. 

 

Mapman Mike