Where were you?

 Some of you will no relate to this

    Sixty years ago tonight I was a 15 year old acne faced kid watching the Ed Sullivan show.

    Four lads from Liverpool were making their first North American singing appearance.

    I was not impressed.  

    They sang 5 songs. Google tells me they played All My Loving, Till there was You and She Loves You in the first set and I Saw Her Standing There and I Want to Hold Your Hand in the second set later in the show.

    The audience was composed of mostly teen aged girls, who screamed every time one of the lads looked their way or even moved.

    I found it all a bit silly, at the time.

    I was a Rolling Stones fan.  The album Aftermath was always playing in my room, much to my dad's disproval.  I especially liked Paint it Black with its opening guitar work and the amazing driving beat.  The Stones were bluesy and rock while the Beatles were not.

    The next day at school a boy showed up with his hair like the Beatles and everyone said he was being paid as a publicity stunt.  Even then we had conspiracy theories.

    But John, Paul, George and Ringo grew on me, and they grew on America and the world.

    I love the Beatles.  I still like the Stones, but I love the Beatles.

    I've been to Liverpool and the Cavern, where they played 300 times.  Actually, it is a recreated Cavern because the original was torn down.  But the new club is just like the old.  Staring at the stage I could almost see them playing to packed crowds towards the end of their Cavern days.  What a thrill that must have been to see them!

    They were funny, irreverent, good looking and incredibly talented.  They were so good, their music is still played by lots of artists.  And Paul and Ringo still tour. 

    Looking back at clips from the Sullivan show, it's hard to imagine Paul and Ringo in their 80s.  And it's hard to believe John and George gone.

    One of my favorite Beatles tunes is one from that first night.  I love I Saw Her Standing There.  Every time I hear it I can picture a 23 year old Ringo drumming away at the back of the group.  For some reason, I think that is some of his best drum work, but I know others will have plenty of examples of better drumming.

    Whenever I hear it, I picture the 4 of them at the Cavern, having the time of their lives. 

    Now, it's time to say goodnight.

Peace and Love

    

not me....no siree!

 I got phished today

    I did not take the bait.

    I got an e-mil from Pay Pal telling me that a charge for $888.88 was being made to my account.  If I did not this charge, I should click o the link below.

    Well, I did not make the charge and I did not click on the link below.

    But here is where it gets scary for me.

    I went to Safari and typed pay pal in the search box.

    A message came upon that essentially said my account was suspended due to inactivity and I could reinstate it by logging on to the merchant's website.

    I did not do that either.

    What I did do was go back to Safari and type in PayPal.com, which took me to the official PP page. Eventually I talked to an AI thing which could not answer my question and I get transferred over to a real human.

    I explained to her what happened and she checked my account.  The last purchase was one I recognized, so I felt safe. 

    We then had a nice conversation about phishing and how good some crooks are at doing it.  She also said I followed all the right steps in not answering, not clicking, and checking the real company.

    She sent me an address to send the phony e-mail to so the fraud division could dig into it.  But she could not explain why I got the message about a suspended account.

    The phising e-mail was very convincing.....had our name and came from customer service at pay pal.  

    Just another reason to be wary folks.

    And here's another reason to be wary.

    Ran into a friend at Walmart and she was very embarrassed.

    Seems she saw a woman she thought was her mother.  The lady was bending over one of the produce bins.  So my friend bumped her in the back end and said, "Oh, I am so sorry."

    Then the woman turned around and it was not my friend's mother.  

    Now she really was sorry and apologized a lot.

    I guess I am not the only person who does silly things.

Peace and Love

curtains

I went to see a play last night with Emily 

    We saw Come From Away at the Coronado in Rockford.

    It was a dang good show!

    Emily said this was her favorite  show and I can see why.

    It was upbeat, with somber moments, and lots of singing and dancing.

    But there were things I did not understand. Like the Irish accents and music, and the accents of some of the performers.

    Emily said Gander, Newfoundland, had a large Irish influence and it showed in. their language and music.  And the captain of one of the airplanes was from Texas, so that character always has a Texas twang.

    The story is basically set around 9-11 when thousands of flights were diverted to all sorts of airfields.  Gander had a large airfield and took in 32 planes with 7,000 passengers.  The town welcomed the people and provided food, shelter, and clothing during the time airplanes were grounded, which was 5 days or so.

    I have gone with Emily to a couple of shows up there, and this was the only one where I have seen a standing ovation.

    Again, the show brings out the curiousness of me.  These people travel, perform one night, then travel. to another town.  It has to be a hard life.  This cast reflected the passengers on the airplanes.....some people were older and had larger bodies than a typical cast.  I watched ass they danced and sang and was thinking  of all the times I have had to dance and could never quite get the moves down.  They truly are professionals.  How do they handle that type of life?  Do they have families?  Do they make enough money?  At the end of the tour, what happens to them?

    There were a whole bunch of Rochelle area folks there also, some I spoke to, some I waved to, and some I missed entirely but I knew they were there.  One friend I ran into has seen the show 4 times!  She also loves it.  Emily has now seen it twice.

    My only complaint is the Coronado needs to find a way to get people into the theater faster.  They wand everyone and check each purse.  With a huge crowd like last night, the show was about 10 minutes late starting and people were still coming in after the start because they had just gotten through security.

    Of course, people could get there  earlier too.  

    Let me tell you about dinner tonight.

    Went to Headon's, bought some Iowa pork chops and other meat.  

    Iowas chops are about 1 inch thick.  I brown them 4 minutes each side in a cast iron pan then put the in the oven.

    Julia had a work meeting.  She was downstairs

    During the browning period, the smoke detectors started going off!  Beth was running around, the alarms were ringing, I was scrambling from door to door getting them open, the alarms were still going off, I was turning on fans, I removed the chops from the heat and the alarms finally got quiet.

    I could just imagine what the folks in Julia's meeting thought.  She told them no big deal, dad was cooking supper.

   FYI,. they were very tasty.

Peace and Love

There was a large crowd going in

I love the details inside the theater....can't build them like that today!

After the show.....we talked to much!

Pig Butchering?

 No, this is not about meat or hog farming

    I know a little about both though.  Hog farming has a distinct odor about it.

    Once upon I time I was a pea picker for DelMonte.  Yes, me.  Ol pea pickin' Terry. 

    I would rouse myself out of bed, say goodbye to the wife, and ride off before sunrise.  We would all pile in a van and be driven out to the work area for the day.

    When we would pass a pig farm,  the driver would yell out, "You know what that's the smell of, boys?  MONEY!"  And then he would laugh.

    I also know pigs produce pork chops, bacon, sausage, and roasts.  Like I said, I know about pig farming.

    I also know the best tasting meat does not come from a lab, but from a black Angus steer.  I can taste the beef melting in my mouth as I write.

    But I digress.

    Pig butchering is the term being used for a swindle.  Con.  Fraud.  Scam.

    The FBI said citizens lost about $3,5 billion in this type of con last year.

    One buy, who was brave enough to have his name and photo used in the article, explained what happened.

    He met a woman on line.  The talked and had lots in common.  Over time, he decided he was in love with her and she with him.

    But.....and here is the big butt.....her grandmother was holding all her assets and would not release them.  Granny needed money in advance to free up the millions the love interest had.

    So she asks for money.  He sends her $10,000.

    Next, the love of his life asks that he invest money in a crypto currency web site to convince granny he was not interested in her for her money.

    So he cashes in his retirement account and  invests it in crypto currency.  $500,000.

    Not enough

    When he goes to his bank for a loan, the bank people say, "Wait a minute......this does not sound right."

    Then the FBI contacted him and said he had been scammed. The crypto currency website was a front, the business did not exist, and he was out his life savings.

    The guy is 62 years old.  He researched the crypto site and it looked legit, so he trusted it.  

    Pig butchering.

    I often get friend requests from attractive women that I don't know.  I don't accept them.  

    I often see comments on friends posts that say, "You sound like a very intelligent/nice/interesting person.  I would like to be your friend."

    Hopefully we are all smart enough, aware enough, cautious enough to ignore them.  

    My guess is it is all another form of pig butchering.

    The internet and Facebook can be great fun.  But there are dangers lurking in the water.  Swim safely.

Peace and Love

oh say can you see

 At this moment, not really

    This may be hard to read, at least it is sure as hell hard to type.

    I went to the eye doctor today for a 6 month check up.  My eyes are fine, maybe even better than last time, which is good news.

    But I had to have them dilated and right now, everything is bright and blurry.  Any spelling mistakes may not be caught by my superior proof reading skills....everything is a blur.

    Plus, I have a headache.  Maybe from too much light, I don't know.

    It was not a great time.  Julia drove me because I should not drive with dilated eyes.  I don't see that well to begin with.

    The appointment usually takes 45  - 60 minutes.  Today?  I left my 3 p.m. appointment at about 4:30.  They were fairly busy.  The waiting room was full of older folks, like me, all with a driver.  Julia used the time to run multiple errands and still had to wait for me.

    I do not eavesdrop.  

    But, sometimes you overhear things.

    I was sitting in the lobby, which was also pretty full, and there were 2 guys next to me.  Younger than me, but I don't know by how much.

    I really was not listening, but my ears perked up when the words "climate change" came out of the younger of the 2.  He said the polar ice caps were going to melt, end game a little chuckle.   Then he said "global worming.'

    But it was what he said next that gave me a fit.

    According to him, the hole in the ozone layer was not caused by chlorofluorocarbons in spray cans.  The government got rid of those, and the ozone hole has filled in.

    Nope...that is wrong.  The ozone layer was created when a chemical company launched a rockedt loaded with dangerous chemicals to dispose of  in space.

    Yup.

    He also said that he knows the world is going to erupt in war/famine/flooding/ or something else so he is thinking of buying a sailboat and going out onto the ocean to live.

    His friend said, "You know, there are pretty big waves out on the ocean."  The guy replied that was not a problem.

    Food and fresh water may be, but the monstrous waves will be ok.

    I was tempted to ask him who won the last election, but he had a cane.

Peace and Love

  

a short day

 This was kind of a short day for us

    I did not get to bed until a little after 1.  When the alarm went off at about 9, I turned it off.

    At 10:30 Jackie said it was time to get up.

    Now, that sounds like a luxury of sleep.  But it is not.

    It takes me about 2 hours to get Jackie up and ready for breakfast.  Do the time warp folks.  She was ready to eat about 12:45.

    By the time I ate,  read the paper on line,  and did 2 loads of laundry it was almost 3.  The sun goes down at 5:30, so there was little time for action on my part.

    Things I need:

    My printer to work.  Julia tried today, but had no luck.

    My basement to get organized.  I need to put away stuff I have just stacked.

    Better sleep.  Today I did not have much caffeine.  Last night at From the Heart I had a cup of coffee at about 9.  That was a mistake.

    Temperatures in the 70s.

    Last n night was an interesting night for a couple of reasons.

    I always say I don't know a lot of people.  I was shocked at how many people came up to me and said hi and I knew most of their names!

    What did my heart good was the number of former students who said hello.  Six of them visited with me, and they were all pretty successful in their fields.  I like to feel I had a small part of that.

    I cooked some steaks on the grill tonight.  Once again I forgot to bring the grill back into the garage and lower the garage doors.  But neighbor Eileen contacted me to let me know the doors were open. That was nice of her!  Keeps the rodents out of the garage.

    While I was cooking, I could hear the howling of coyotes and I did not have my hearing aids in!  They had to be pretty close for me to hear them.  They sounded like they were north of me, and there is wooded land there.  The howling and yipping is a cool, yet somewhat disconcerting, sound.  

    Aside from my little comments, not much is going on.

    Tonight:  To sleep, perchance to dream.

Peace and Love

Late night

 I think I missed Feb. 3!

    Jackie, Emily and I attended From the Heart in Rochelle.

    This is a fund raising night, with proceeds going to 8 organizations serving our community.

    There are silent auction items, raffles, drawings, live auctions and other fund raising activities.

    The grand finale of the night is a drawing for a really expensive necklace.  

    We have been going to this event for years and have never. qualified for the drawing.

    How it works is you buy tickets, you put the tickets in a jar on one of the tables, if your name gets drawn out of that jar you win the centerpiece plus a ping pong ball with the number of the table where the jar is.  Confused?  Wait.

    All the winners of the jar draws, I think there were 42, go to the front and the final winner is drawn.

    Well, well.....look at me!

    Not only did I win a ball, so did Emily!

    We were both in the running for the huge prize.

    Sad to say, I was eliminated pretty early.

    Emily made it almost to the end, but no winners in the Dickow clan.

    But it was a fun time.

    Speaking of winners, our own hedgehog made its appearance on Hedge Hog Day Feb. 3.

As you can see, the huge sun in the upper left caused the hedge hog to see his shadow and proclaim 13 days till spring training!

    I think he is right.

Peace and Love