Storm clouds over Walmart Market

Well, here's the end of another week. Where does the time go? And why do I ask rhetorical questions?

It has stormed quite a bit over the last week. Monsoon can be exciting for locals in Tucson. I've written about this in past summers (and even earlier this summer). The weather is so nice most of the time in this area that a simple thunderstorm throws the population into a frenzy. I suppose some flooding, power outages, down power poles and trees, and a little mayhem can do that.

This weekend, I enjoyed my day off on Saturday with some napping, a visit to Walgreen's to pick up a prescription, and getting some work done for the show on my laptop while watching TV. Today, I spent a few hours doing some yard work (at least it was in the 90's as opposed to over 100 degrees), then a trip to the grocery store. Anthony stayed home again today so I had to muddle through solo.

I'm doing some multitasking while writing this. Listening to the police scanner, monitoring Twitter traffic on @whatsuptucson, and watching "Ozzy and Jack's World Detour" on the History Channel. It's a pretty interesting show, I'd recommend checking it out. Jack Osbourne has turned out to be an interesting, well spoken guy in his adulthood and Ozzy is still a fascinating guy after all these years. The episode I'm watching is them visiting the Alamo in San Antonio. Ozzy was apparently banned from there after he urinated on the property in 1982 and they're visiting to clear up the record about what really happened.

I shot a few photos of the brewing storm clouds while standing in the parking lot at Walmart Neighborhood Market today at Broadway and Camino Seco:

Storm clouds brewing at approximately 7 p.m.
looking southwest from Broadway and Camino Seco

The view looking east from the parking lot
at Walmart Neighborhood Market

Same view southwest as above but after I finished
shopping for groceries (approximately 7:30 p.m.)

Ken Carr Photo Art: "Palm tree and swamp cooler on my roof fall in love at sunset."

I call this "Palm tree and swamp cooler on my roof fall in love at sunset." I shot this photo with my iPhone 6 Plus when I got home from the grocery store tonight.

Sunset photo shot from my front yard on July 24, 2016
looking up toward the house

Pirate's booty tastes like sweat and poo

I seem to write most often on the weekend. I suppose that's because it's when I have the most time to do it. It's certainly not because a lot more exciting stuff happens on the weekend. My life isn't that exciting in my non-working hours.

I spent another four hours today in the 100 degree heat doing yard work. It seems to need the most work during the summer when it's the hottest. One of my co-workers asked the other day why I don't pay someone to do it. I'm stubborn, and don't like paying for something that I can do myself. And, a little bit of exhaustion, heat stroke and sunburn is worth it to save a few bucks.

Anthony stayed home again today when it came time for our usual Sunday dinner out and grocery shopping trip. I had dinner alone at Arby's and then hit the grocery store. It's never as enjoyable going alone as it is going with Anthony, but he's getting ready to start back to his job at the school district and now has a second job with the Pima County Library and needed the time to get ready for the week ahead. My solo trips to the store will probably become more frequent as he manages his way through some long work weeks.

This is where Anthony would have been sitting
at Arby's if he came along for dinner.

My angus beef, three cheese, and bacon sandwich
with curly fries at Arby's

Thomas Limited Edition Salted Caramel English Muffins
I've eaten English Muffins that brown before but that
was because they were in the toaster too long.

Finally! Little Debbie Zebra Cake Rolls (which are awesome)
and Zebra Brownies have made it to Walmart
Neighborhood Market

Hostess Milky Way and M&M Brownies.
The Milky Way brownies topping looks the same
when it comes out of one's butt

I'll bet a Pirate's Booty tastes more like sweat and poo
than it does aged white cheddar.

Someone ate some chicken out of this package
and left it with the garbage bags.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The chicken eater also had dessert.
A few of these ended up on the floor and looked like
someone had stepped in poo.
Nooooooooooooooo. Ewwwwwwwwwwww.

A salad left with the Oreos.
A customer obviously made a wise decision.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo.

A pickle was left with the Oreos.
Also a wise decision.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I bought these Choco Chip Oreos.
My co-workers like to try these limited edition cookies.

Roundup weed killer left on the floor of the store.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Photos from the TV show - July 19, 2016

A few photos from the TV show this week:

Lesson if you are on a TV talk show:
Sit back in your chair.
Sitting on the edge facing your interviewer
results in it being very difficult to
get camera shots of your face.

Here's what The Bachelorette does to Leslie

A wink and a smile with the Manhattan Dolls

I shot a photo of Guy Atchley shooting photos

Intern Nieco made some new friends.
I'll bet he went home after this
and took a cold shower.

Reese's Creme Puffs and a new laptop

The big excitement for me this week was the purchase of a new laptop computer.

I've had a beautiful looking white HP laptop that I purchased in 2009 and it lasted a long time (seven years for a laptop is about 100 years in technology years). I got it when I still worked in radio and I scheduled hundreds of hours of music on it back in the day, built my social media presence on it, edited photos and video, and a long list of other activities. It was an expensive investment for me at the time (around $500) but I felt I needed it to better do work for my career. In the last few years it's been on my desk in my office and I used it to monitor Twitter throughout the day among other tasks.

I bought a second one a couple of years ago and use that one primarily at home and the other one I transported back and forth to work.

The white HP finally was showing it's age last week. The fan in it started running at full blast in my air conditioned office at work and did that all day even though I elevated the machine to give it the best ventilation. My co-worker Alex explained that it was likely the thermal paste in it was failing. That is apparently a substance that is on the CPU to disperse heat and works in conjunction with the fan to keep the computer cool.

I could either dump a bunch of money into getting more thermal paste put into the machine or retire it and move on to new technology. I chose the latter.

The new laptop I purchased is freakin' sweet. It's got a 256GB solid state drive, so it doesn't use a fan to cool it. There are no moving parts inside. The solid state drive (basically a giant flash drive) also works faster than a traditional hard drive. The new laptop also has 12GB of RAM and has no problem with multitasking and is super speedy. The new laptop also does a few other interesting things I've never seen before including facial recognition to log me onto the computer and I just have to move my hands over the keyboard for the backlight on the keyboard to turn on automatically.

I'm happy with the purchase. I never like spending a significant amount of money on something but I've been so impressed with the new machine that I feel like it was worth the investment. I'm typing this blog entry on it!

In other news, Anthony hasn't been feeling well all weekend so I went to the grocery store alone today. It's not as fun, but that's sometimes how it goes.

The weekend's over, back to work tomorrow with a shiny new laptop!

At Walmart Neighborhood Market....
someone put this candy with other candy.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo. 

I brought Anthony home a surprise from the store:
The Reese's Crème Puffs.
He was really excited, I hope he likes them.

Zebra Cake Rolls and boxed wine on the floor

It's the end of another weekend.

I caught up on some much needed sleep on Saturday and stayed home. Today (Sunday) was the busy day for a weekend. I spent five hours outside in the 106 degree heat doing yard work.

I usually do yard work solo because if both Anthony and I did it together and we collapse from heat stroke, Lucky would be without a father. Someone needs to be in their right mind to dial 911 as well as be alive to let him out to pee. So, I endure the work and Anthony checks on me occasionally to make sure I'm not dead. It's a pretty good system.

Five hours of near heat stroke to trim the bushes in the yard, chop the grassweeds (it's not totally grass and it's not totally weeds), pick up the dog poo from the week (that only took about ten minutes, he only poops once a day so there were about half a dozen piles to pick up), and spray the lot for weeds. The property is 9000 square feet, the house is 2000 square feet, and the grassweeds occupy approximately 2000 square feet. So, that leaves 5000 square feet of area that needs to be sprayed where weeds aren't supposed to grow. We're in a lull during monsoon right now so it's a good time to do it and have the weed killer be effective before it rains again later this week.

I gave Lucky a bath, a shower for me and a 30 minute nap, a trip to Target to buy Little Debbie Zebra Cake Rolls (they're like crack they're so addictive, I swear), followed by dinner at Church's Chicken and then a trip to the grocery store. After that, I had to get some work done from home for the TV show on my laptop and now I'm writing this blog entry. A pretty full day for an old guy.

Little Debbie Zebra Nutty Bars, Cake Rolls and Brownies at Target..
The cake rolls are beyond delicious.

Anthony in his Ironwood Ridge High School t-shirt
chowing down on some Church's Chicken

I hope they find a cure for this uncured hard salami
at Walmart Neighborhood Market

A distant cousin of Puff Daddy

I found Dory!
Aaaachoooo!

Boxed wine on the floor of Walmart Neighborhood Market.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Emoji pillow on the floor, tongue side up.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Body wash on the floor.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Parsley left with these 30 packs of beer.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

An abandoned shopping cart blocking an aisle.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

4th of July burger bonanza

I fired up the barbecue grill to make a few burgers for Anthony and I since it's the 4th of July, and that's what we do in the good ol' U-S-of-A. This was after I spent a large part of the afternoon doing yard work in the 100 degree heat.

I bought hamburger patties at Walmart Market that were mixed with cheddar cheese and bacon. I'd buy those again without hesitation, they were delicious. I may be a lame cook in an actual kitchen but I'm a pretty good hamburger cooker on a barbecue.

We've had a break from monsoon storms for a few days. There was still a pretty sunset anyway. (Monsoon storm days tend to bring the most spectacular sunsets of the year in my opinion).

One of the things that disappoints me about living in this house is that we don't have line of sight to any of the dozen or so fireworks shows around the Tucson metro. So, staying home means listening to distant boom boom boom without any of the visuals. Poor Lucky hates fireworks so he couldn't stop trembling for a couple of hours until the noises subsided.

Happy 240th Birthday America!

Bacon and cheddar burgers on the grill

They were really delicious.
Two kinds of meat and cheese in one patty.
Whoever thought of this deserves a raise.

Pretty sunset on July 4 as seen from my backyard
looking over the smoking barbecue.

50th birthday cookie

I turned 50 years old today.

It's the kind of milestone that's a little bit depressing and a little bit exciting. It's depressing because there is little celebrated in today's culture about reaching 50 years old. I did have a note on my Facebook timeline that I'm eligible for AARP membership. That is kind of sucky though.

The exciting part is that I have managed to stay alive for 50 years. Not everyone can say that. And, I'm still in decent physical condition. Everything still works (and I mean everything, if you catch my drift) the way it's supposed to except I have a little high blood pressure which requires popping a pill each day to control. Doing yard work takes it out of me a bit but I tend to do it when it's ridiculously hot outside so that's more my own fault than old age.

I haven't started yelling at neighborhood kids to get off my lawn but we don't have a lawn so there may be an explanation for that which is not connected to old age.

Anthony made it a nice occasion by getting me a giant birthday cookie from the Beyond Bread bakery (Back Dough), $50 (one dollar for each year I haven't died), and a nice card made out of wood. I like wood.

Here's hoping I'm still writing this blog and shooting photos in another 50 years. Knowing how technology is, I'll just have to put a hat with wires on my head and it'll type what I'm thinking. That could be kind of dangerous, this blog may turn kind of naughty if what's written comes directly from what I'm thinking.

Ken Carr 50th birthday cookie

Posing next to the Ken Carr 50th birthday cookie
with the candles lit.
We got the 5 and 0 candles instead of 50 individual candles
because burning the house down sounded like
a terrible idea.

Yes, I'd like cash for my birthday (or any other occasion).
My t-shirt kindly points that out.

I'm blowing.
It didn't take much for a bag of hot air like me
to blow out two candles.

I tried eating the cookie whole but it was too big

So, I stuck my finger in the cookie instead.
Sounds like a date I've had.