A Year in Pictures

One more year down. One more years semi-documented in images. 

Some are new to the blog. Some maybe have made an appearance on Facebook or Instagram. Some never seen at all. These don't fully encapsulate the year, but just some fun or artsy-like images I have taken over the last 12 months. 

January 2021 - my actual first pic of 2021.  It seems ominous at best. 

January 2021 - cystoscopy.  It was ominous - at best!

January 2021 - Georgia on My Truck. 

Well.....not my truck.  She lords over all she sees. I'm assuming. She shows up on our Ring doorbell every single night. 

January 2021 - Moderna #1. 

I was so happy to get it and yet felt guilty that I got it before others. 

February 2021 - Flooded.

Offices all flooded, would work three weeks from home. 

February 2021 - Be Mine

Shep has Valentine's Day

February 2021 - Moonrise on a frigid day

February 2021 - Sunset on a frigid day

March 2021 - Everyone is masked. Or should be. 

March 2021 - Drunken Gnome Barbie

April 2021 - Not as exciting as you'd think. 

(pssssst - I made sure the 'c' was missing')

April 2021 - Covid lampost. 

April 2021 - Customer of the Week

They didn't even comp one lousy iced tea for that honour - but I did make their IG feed

April 2021 - Caffeine with Mike in P-town

May 2021 - Blobby: the druggie

May 2021 - Blobby in P-town with besties Becca and Morty

May 2021 - ....and one without Becca

May 2021 - dinner in P-town with Mike and his husband, Peter. 

Love them both. 

May 2021 - Provincetown Brewing Co. 

June 2021 - Chocolate Silos

June 2021 - Patriot or Leatherman. 

I mean - it's a guy in leather playing pool, right?  It's not just me who is seeing this. 

June 2021 - When Shep met Harriet

July 2021 - hanging on the Cuyahoga

July 2021 - extensive work on the backyard beings. Shep is supervising. 

July 2021 - Coolest dog at Bow Wow Beach

August 2021 - Little Italy public art

August 2021 - B&O Railroad Museum, in Baltimore

August 2021 - 22 original columns from the U.S. Capitol out at the National Arboretum  

It was very neat to see. 

August 2021 - beach vaation

August 2021 - frolicking in the Atlantic

September 2021 - best. store. name. ever.   ....well, if you vape. 

September 2021 - a. men. 

September 2021 - a. fucking. men. 

October 2021 - warts.  ugh!

October 2021 - escorting some folks out of the backyard

October 2021 - I made 710 stop the car for this. 

Seriously. leaving the casket at the curb.  W.T.F.?

October 2021 - sunset. zero filters. It was wild!

October 2021 - she's like Lewis. Maybe Clark. 

October 2021 - snippet from our first book club selection in years: 

the Heart's Invisible Furies

November 2021 - choo choo. 

All aboard the Recycle Expres

November 2021 - Natalie. 

I've fed my niece's fish often, but never seen Nat'lie. My niece "claims" she was always there. 

November 2021 - Indeed. 

Dry. Hard. Painful.    .....then shoot his mother in front of him, before turning your aim at him. 

The billboard was taken down the next day. 

December 2021 - well, you don't see this everyday

December 2021 - .....or this. 

December 2021 - Solstice

December 2021 - unfocused. but pretty. 

December 2021 - the Christmas Story House. 

On the walk there, a guy at a stoplight yells about Shep, "YOUR DOG IS ADORABLE". 

.....he wasn't wrong. 

December 2021 - signing out for the year. 

Thanks for joining another year of this little journey.  ....be it as it may. 

A Year in Music

I don't feel that 2021 was a stellar year for music. I mean, it was ok......at best. But anymore, I feel a bit stunted in my music hunting abilities. There are very few standouts that I have for his year. In good conscience, I can't even really recommend anything off the new Foo Fighters disk. 

Actually, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss get top ranking.  There is no second.  Or third. Not this year. I wasn't feeling it. 

Raise the Roof is far from perfect, but it has some perfect moments, and that is more than most releases I got this year. 

Songs

Not just because Plant & Kraus have the top disk, they also have the top song for my year. "Quattro (World Drifts In)" would have been my top song even if their disk wasn't.  This is kind of more what I wanted of their entire album.  Muted harmonies and almost no rhyme or rhyme scheme. I'm loving it. 

 

I didn't love the latest Crowded House disk. There are a few good songs on it, but fair songs for a normally great band are less than fair. But I thought "To the Island" was inventive and catchy. 

And Garbage's last disk was morose for the most part. I get it. 2020-2021 was tough. BLOTUS. #metoo, Black Lives Matter.  Shirley Manson & Co take on a lot of these, some with more success than others. But I kind of liked "This City Will Kill You". 

Aimee Mann's disk, late in the year, was a tough sell. And a tough listen. But she had highlights, like "Give me Fifteen". It's well structured and a good vocal. 

Technically, the Watkins Family Hour is a 2020 release. Sue me! There are a number of good songs on the disk, but I kept coming back to "the Cure" - and this was written and recorded before Covid was a thing. 

While technically I didn't pick anything from the Foo Fighter's last disk, they did release the Dee Gees (Dave Grohl), Hail Satin :  six covers of songs from Bee Gee's. They. Are. Excellent.  Some of them a bit too spot on. 

Here they to "Shadow Dancing", which they did write and produce, but it was a hit for Andy Gibb, not the Brothers Gibb.  Drummer Taylor Hawkins takes over the vocals. 

So - I have no idea what 2022 will bring. Who knows, maybe I won't even make it to a 2022 Year in Music post.  Gotta leave the door open...........just in case. 

Web

I'm totally somewhat psyched for the Webb telescope. 

Sure it is a decade late a few billion dollars over budget - what isn't? 

All the headlines say how better it is than the Hubble - and in a way it is, but it's not quite a comparison, as they are looking at very different things, and for very different things.  And where as we've had the Hubble for a bit, I think this thing has a 6 year life expectancy. 

Still - what it is supposed to do it awesome. 

While we won't start seeing images until mid-2022, the idea is for Webb to peer back in time, hopefully to the beginning of time, up to and including the Big Bang - which I think you can see on TBS at any given hour of the day. Oh, that Sheldon!

So far so good. The launch was flawless, which wasn't a given considering it went from South America. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard of a launch from South America! The sun shield is deploying as I type this. So many things still for it to do before it can think about working - each step vital to its mission. 

I look forward to the completion of set up and then the data that starts coming back in June. 

Song by: the Roots