Best.

My husband swears by “Hellmann’s”, or Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. I think I grew up with Kraft Salad Dressing, but once in a while Mom would drift away from the bargains aisle and buy us Hellman’s and we’d delight in its creamy texture when combined with peanut butter on a sandwich.

Hellmann’s Mayonnaise does not exist west of the Rockies, instead it’s called Best Foods. “Bring out the Hellmann’s and bring out the best” is “Bring out the Best Foods and bring out the best”. This is a result of two companies combining forces in the early 20th century. Urban legend states one of the recipes are slightly sweeter but I can’t taste the difference. My husband hasn’t complained so I doubt there’s much of a difference.

In a world where there’s a Circle K on every corner and a Walmart on the edge of every town and a *bertos Mexican Fast Food joint near every bar, it’s fun to think of a mayonnaise company that stays to its roots, and carries two different names depending on where you are in the United States.

Bring out the Best Foods and bring out the Best!

17 May 2022 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Music.

Last week Apple announced they are discontinuing their iPod product line. The last survivor of iPods is the iPod Touch, which is basically an older iPhone without cellular capabilities. Apple sold out of the last generation of iPod Touches shortly after their announcement.

Pictured above are our two original iPods. I bought my husband his first iPod, as shown on the left. That third generation iPod had 10GB of hard drive space, because why would he need more than 10GB of space for anything in 2003? The iPod was my husband’s second Apple device, which I gave him shortly after he moved to his “lampshade” iMac that I always adored.

The iPod on the right, my original iPod, had the minimum 20GB of hard drive space when it was given to me as a gift from my husband. I had discovered iTunes not long before and he thought this would be a nice addition to my technology collection. Little did he know I would go full blown Apple fanboy because of this iPod. It wasn’t long after that I purchased a refurbished Apple Power Mac G4 and the moved onto my first PowerBook, also with a G4 processor.

I’m sad to see the iPod line to go away; it changed the way everyone consumed music and was definitely a contributor to where we are today with technology. I’m happy to know that I have kept our original iPods locked away for safe keeping. I have no idea if they’d ever power up again. I might have to find the proper cables and a computer with a FireWire port to give them a spin again.

16 May 2022 by Macboy 0

Socialization.

Four out of five of us went to a friend’s house for a pool party yesterday. Earl agreed to stay back to take of puppies Lucky and Jinx. Chris and Mike were thinking of bringing them along for the party but the hosts have several dogs that aren’t particularly hospitable to other dogs, so Lucky and Jinx didn’t get to socialize.

But we did.

Joe and Aidan have a wonderful space not too far from us. Their home is cleverly decorated and they have a desert friendly jungle in their back lawn. We were very comfortable and enjoyed time in the shade, some time in the pool, and some time in front of the spread of food.

We got to chat with Matt and Homer and other party guests. It’s always good to see Matt and Homer, they have become very good friends since we’ve moved to Tucson and I enjoy their company very much.

It turns out one of the other guests, Jamie, is from Rome, New York and our paths have most likely crossed many years ago back when I was a club DJ. His partner is from Chicago, so we had much in common to talk about.

We had a very nice time in the desert sun, and I’m not sunburned at all today. It pays to stake claim to the shade whenever you have the chance.

15 May 2022 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Caturday.

Truman enjoys looking out the big windows we have throughout the house. Today he’s taking a gander out toward the gazebo, where hummingbirds tend to do their thing. I hope I’m not throwing him off his game.

14 May 2022 by He's A Feline. 0

So Busy.

We have a very big software migration project coming to fruition next weekend. The requirements have been all over the place, some of the testing team has been quite cranky, and the migration date has been pushed off a number of times. It looks like things are a “go” for next weekend. Of course they picked the weekend our friends Jeff and Mark in town for a visit.

I’ve been working many extra hours over the past few weeks, trying to keep up with all the demands of the job. I’m tired. And as I discovered when we first moved to Chicago, the business world in the United States is all about the Eastern Time Zone. Folks on the East Coast forget that a meeting at 8:30 AM there is a meeting at 5:30 AM here. Oh well, I guess.

I was playing around with a cheap webcam on my old Mac mini in my office and just took this photo. The workstation behind me in the photo is where I do all my day job work. I’m not particularly a fan of Windows 10 and there’s many times when I think, “I could do this much faster on a Mac”, but I don’t have that choice. My employer is in love with Microsoft.

It could be worse.

13 May 2022 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Escape.

I’ve been wanting to escape to our northeast for a week in pursuit of some severe storm chasing. My husband said he’s not really feeling the need to join me on this trip. With his blessing, I’m off for a week the first full week of June.

I’m really excited about this.

I think I’m going to fly to a destination and then rent a car to drive home, focusing on storms and back roads. My plan is to avoid freeways whenever possible.

I’ll be armed with a camera or two, some weather radios, some “real” maps, and a little more than a week of open calendar and open road.

I’ll be blogging about the experience when this takes place. Hopefully Mother Nature will be cooperative.

11 May 2022 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Flowers.

These flowers along our driveway always make me smile. I don’t need “signs of spring” to bring me out of a funk these days; the lack of snow from living in the desert achieves that for me naturally.

The previous owners of our home did quite well with the landscaping. We’ve had to make a couple of changes due to the intensity of last year’s monsoon but for the most part the landscaping company keeps our grounds looking lively and lovely.

10 May 2022 by Desert Life. 0

Retro.

Someone I follow on Mastodon posted this ad for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. The ad has some happy cats riding along on the train and this made me smile. I always enjoy these mid-century ads and other artwork, especially when shown in its original context. Memes are fun, but sometimes I the original more fun.

Plus, happy cats!

9 May 2022 by Geek 0

Ma.

My mother hates being called “Ma”. As kids we were always corrected to use “Mom” instead of “Ma”, usually through loudly executed dialog.

I talked to Mom this morning and wished her a Happy Mother’s Day. She was outside enjoying the Central New York spring weather with my nephew’s dog. As part of the CNY ritual, she was sitting in the garage with the door open watching the activities in the neighborhood. That’s what folks do up there.

Here’s a photo from 2019 that makes me smile. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

8 May 2022 by Fun and Games Dept 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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