I'm not sure if this is significant or meaningless...
Welcome, friends, to this blog's 500th posting!

I suppose it's an anniversary of sorts; even though I've slowed down in terms of "posting frequency", but in the thirteen months since October 2005, I've posted 500 times here in this blogsite! If you go waaay back in my archives, you'll see that at times, I was posting 2 or 3 times a day; if I'd kept THAT up, I'd have close to 800 posts by now. So what's the reason for my posting slowdown? Is it some kind of "maturity" process? After careful deliberation, my answer is "naaaah". Although, sometimes the constant negativity I seem to exemplify in my writings does get kinda old after a while.

Is it "burnout"? Not totally, although posting DOES take time, especially when you're as "retentive" as I am; every punctuation mark has to be JUST RIGHT, and even then, I won't have fully described something, or if I do, I'll refer to that something in an oblique way, and then I have to go back into "edit" mode and do some fancy rephrasing. Posting takes time. Sometimes I've spent over two hours on a post. BEFORE I begin the editing process. Even though this blog doesn't fulfill any real objective, I suppose that if I'm gonna hang my wash out on the line, I wanna make sure it's been laundered...so I edit, Edit, EDIT until I've gotten it right. And then I might read that posting a couple weeks later, and slap myself on the forehead because of something ELSE that maybe I shoulda changed or revised.

Does "life itself" interfere with my posting frequency? Just lately, yes. If you scroll down one posting, you'll see I posted something else only a few hours ago. I wouldn't be posting so soon, except that, I did want to note my 500th posting anniversary before I forgot. So now I've gotta come up with something intelligent when I don't really have anything to say. And that...is the hardest type of post to write. Or, like the TV news-guy once said, "I may not know what I'm TALKING about, but I SOUND like I do!" But since I've reduced blogging, I'm noticing I take a lot of evening naps in the ol' La-Z-boy; or there's time to listen to those CD's I recently bought, or perhaps time to dig into the Beatles collection a bit more. Gosh, I may even start going to BED before 2am! The world as we know it MUST be ending.
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Oh, the weather outside is frightful dept.: Looks like it's that time of year again. One word sums it up, and that word is "BRRRR!!!" The first meaningful snowfall of this year, down here at the 2100-or-thereabouts elevation happened yesterday, but I'll bet the ski bums are happy. Me, I was planning on being GONE by now, but the selling-my-house process has become a fairly convoluted procedure. Things are moving along. The appraiser's coming out Tuesday. Yep, I have a buyer. So Far, that is.


I Googled "Coeur d'Alene Snow", and up popped this picture. So I assume it is a genuine Coeur d'Alene snowplow. Exciting, huh?

I read in the paper today that one of the local ski resorts has built a new chairlift, 300 feet further up the mountain. The extra altitude was added because of the warmer winters we've had over the last few decades. I was thinking about that...the article said the average winter temp rises a degree each year. So maybe that means that in 300 years, ski areas all over the place will begin to run out of "mountain". I can just see it now..."Mt. Everest Ski Tours". And its advertising slogan? That's easy..."The Last Place To Ski On Planet Earth". And of course, "Mt. Everest Ski Tours" will be a division of Hagadone Hospitality. Would you have it any other way?
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Musical meanderings dept.: This next section will prove exactly how "out of it" I actually am. I bought some CD's from a friend of mine a few weeks ago, and among those, I chose some NEWER MUSIC. I used to listen to all the groups back in the 70s and 80s, but I've lost touch, so I decided to try and get current again. So, this evening/morning, I've listened to CD's by groups I've never listened to; among them, Silverchair, Counting Crows, Blind Melon, The Iguanas and Chumbawamba. New, stuff, right? Well, to me it is, but actually it AIN'T...

The Silverchair album came out in 1995, eleven years ago. The Counting Crows CD was released in 1993, thirteen years ago. Blind Melon put forth their CD in 1992, fourteen years ago. The Iguanas, a sort of latin-rock band, issued their CD in 1994, twelve years ago. The Chumbawamba CD is the most current, having been issued in 1997, only NINE years ago. So, maybe I'm not as much of a "hep cat" as I thot. Meow. Oh well, the music is new to ME, anyway. Of course, I don't have a cell-phone, and I wouldn't know what to do with an Ipod, either.

The times are not only a-changin', they're zipping by faster than I can keep track of. By the way, the Chumbawamba CD ("Tubthumper" is the title) is most unusual, kinda quirky with a lot of cool effects. How about that...me liking Chumbawamba. I can just hear it now...today's kids are saying, "Chumba-WHO? They're OLD SCHOOL." Well, I have to remember that The Beatles' "Paperback Writer" IS a 40-year old song this year. Ack. I should know...I have the record. "What's a Record?", one of today's kids would probably ask me...
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Actually, I DID get a CD that came out THIS YEAR, 2006. Of course, it's by The Who...the group is down to two over-the-hill geezers and sidemen...and Roger Daltrey is sounding OLD. His vocal cords are becoming fossilized. And Pete Townshend can barely hear anymore. And he's bald. Both are future residents of the "Rock and Roll Rest Home". Wasn't it Townshend who wrote, "hope I die 'fore I get old"? Somewhere, some newspaper guy has written ol' Pete's obit in advance, just waiting to pounce on that lyric phrase!