ScatterSplatter - Blog

Last evening I was lying on the couch watching the Phillies game. They panned the camera to show a very colorful sky near their sunset. I thought we wouldn’t have as nice of one since the weather had moved well off to our southeast. I did keep an eye on the window, hoping to see something good, but I wasn’t seeing anything. Molly noticed a glow outside, and she went to see if our porch light was on. I glanced up and saw the glow myself, so I grabbed my shoes and phone to go see it and catch a…

This spring we really didn’t plant a garden. Plenty of things came up, and we never got around to it. Like usually happens, though, we had numerous tomato plants that grew on their own from fruits that fell, I guess. That is kind of a neat surprise game when it happens. You know that they are tomato plants but don’t know what kind. This year it is cherry tomatoes of some kind. We had a couple of different kinds last year. I love the fresh ones in my salads. I have not gotten to eat any this…

I have posted about my angry hip that took squats away completely, or at least weighted ones, for about a week, among other things. Last week I failed hard at what should have been manageable weight. My hip definitely feels better, but I decided to lower the weights a good bit this cycle. I was back and forth on that over the weekend. What’s three weeks? If all goes great, I can make a bigger jump after that back to where I should be. If not, I am still getting work in. Getting work in with…

Early this morning when I noticed it was getting light outside, I went out to grab the watering can to water the hanging baskets. The garden itself I am not bothering with since we should get plenty of rain tomorrow. While I was out there, some subtly underlit clouds caught my attention. I had to set the watering can down to come upstairs and grab my phone to get a picture. As much as I love a bright and colorful sunrise, I truly enjoy these more subdued ones more. Something about them. They…

This morning I woke up very early after only sleeping really a couple of hours. I fell asleep during the baseball game last night, but that was more like quick naps. When I got up, I did not feel rested at all. It was warm and very humid. I knew I wanted to get my back squats in after we got home from the grocery store. The store is always so draining to me. Although I just did not feel like heading out to lift, I knew I had to get it done. I was so overly sweaty, and the floor was slippery…

Last night I slept pretty well. I did wake up this morning after having a very strange dream. It was not good or bad, but it was one of those dreams that will linger in my head. My mind has been so full of clutter the past few months, though, and it seems to be getting a bit worse. Just doing the best I can to stay out of my head too much. Aside from the off feeling from the dream, I was feeling pretty good this morning. It was still warm but maybe slightly less humid than it has been, so as I…

Last night I was up fairly late watching the Phillies find new ways to lose. Too many double plays. What the fuck did Kevin Long do with Arraez? Dude was hitting like crazy, and he gets here and immediately hits inconsistently at best, like the rest of the Phillies. I don’t understand how Kevin Long keeps his job! I woke up feeling tired but pretty decent at the same time. It was a tad warmer and more humid when I got up, but nothing like the earlier parts of this summer. I was drinking my…

Last night I didn’t sleep nearly enough. I stayed up to watch the Phillies. I am starting to think that Philly sports are not good for my nerves. Of course I will continue to watch them, though. After I woke up and drank my coffee. Sadly, I just missed my girlfriend before she left for work. I enjoy drinking the morning coffee with her. It’s the little things in life that truly matter, and that’s a prime example. At least it felt okay this morning. A little humid but not bad. We had a bit of…

After relaxing a little when I was done with my squats, I glanced at the radar before getting a shower. Earlier there had been a cluster of thunderstorms well to the west. They held together and were in York County then and warned. I postponed getting a shower and went outside to enjoy it. The bark was worse than the bite. I did get some neat pictures of the storms as they were moving toward Lancaster County. Being on the sunnier side of it since it was still morning gave a more unique look to…

A little over a week ago, I stepped in a hole next to the curb getting out of the car and jammed my hip good. It got angry as that day went on. I can’t tell you how annoying it is that they half-ass everything around here to save a dollar. As last week went on, it was feeling better, and my hamstring that had gotten very tight was twitching and releasing. Yesterday I debated about getting my squats in, but it was hot and humid by the time I was ready to head out and do it. Instead of the…

Recently I have been thinking about the fact that I really haven’t seen any rainbows this summer; therefore, I haven’t posted any. The timing of the storms hasn’t been right for one and stuff like that. I actually had thought of it yesterday morning when I was checking the milkweed for caterpillars. I know monarchs have visited. Storms began approaching and pulsing in intensity slowly from the west early this evening. The section that went over us weakened some before congealing into a line…

Last night I slept ok but not really long enough since the Phillies game ended later. The humidity after the heavy rain had me wound up too, so it took me a bit to settle down after going to bed in that air-conditioned bedroom. I woke up pretty early too. It was so humid when I left the bedroom it hit me like a wall. While I was drinking my coffee, it got a bit foggy outside. Once I was done drinking my coffee, I decided to get changed and go out into the home gym to get my presses in. This…

Every day, all day long, for the most part, there are some kids from down the street that hang out on the corner. All day long the make trucks beep. Trucks coming from one direction tend to be right about in front of our house when they see it, so it’s right out the windows. All day. You would think the novelty of it would have worn off. Then again, they have the truck doing it at the bus stop fairly early in the morning. We watched the same kids messing with the neighbor’s garage, which is…

I had been using HostBilby to run this site on a VPS, and the service has been great. It was cheap and reliable, and I didn’t pay much attention to it. A little over a month or so ago, I used my card in a vending machine at a hospital, and I knew my account was going to be very close to going negative. So I logged into the account to check it out. I noticed a small fee that had something to do with international fees or something. That sent me into an immediate reaction that I was being scammed…

Several years ago we were walking through a garden center and noticed they had some hibiscus plants. My girlfriend loves their flowers, and I like them too, so we picked it up. As a bonus, it is a hardy variety, so we have it planted in the front yard, and it has been coming back each year since. Each year the bush seems to get a little bigger and more full. There also seems to be more flowers too. This summer is no exception. I wasn’t sure how it would be with the very dry periods and high…

This morning when we walked over to the train station to catch our train home, it was fairly nice and very sunny. We walked into the train station with a little over an hour to spare. It’s always neat seeing so many people in there that are coming and going places. The Acella and North East Regional trains always have such long lines and tons of people getting off too. Keystone does too, and there are always loads of people coming up the stairs when it arrives from New York and Jersey. My mind…

My sister had said she wanted to walk to the old city neighborhood on Sunday morning, so we joined them. It was a really nice morning. Sunny and much less humid than yesterday. I have always loved history and stuff like that. When I was little, I really didn’t appreciate it because there was so much I just didn’t see. With age, I have learned to thoroughly enjoy it. The neat thing about walking over to this part of the city is that now I have very deep roots over here. I just wasn’t aware that…

We met Saturday morning and then went over to Reading Terminal Market to grab doughnuts. The line was too long, so we got breakfast again. I had a pork roll sandwich. You just don’t see that around here. I noticed this neat sculpture right near our hotel as we started walking west. Government of the People Sculpture We started walking west from the hotel. She wanted to go to Love Park and stuff. We were there for geocaching, but I don’t think my girlfriend and I ever got a picture. Now we have…

This is how the weekend with my sister started coming together. My girlfriend and I try to get to a game when she has off in the summer. She has to do her vacation late in the fall, so we planned on this week. She had taken off work late last year when the Phillies schedule came out, thinking we could either see them play the Mets this weekend or try to see Ohtani next week. We thought this might be an important series, but the Mets totally and completely suck ass this year. When we were…

This will be one of several posts with some pictures from our trip to Philly. The air quality was awful this morning, and it smelled like smoke. I got a WOD in before getting a shower, and don’t ask me how I did that. We packed our stuff and walked over to the train station with plenty of visible smoke. The sun started barely making it through the smoke, and visibility improved slightly as the morning went on, but it was still pretty bad by early afternoon when we headed to the train station to…

It started the other day with smoky skies. Air quality was fine since it was staying well above the ground. Yesterday there was a lull with clear skies. This morning it smelled like smoke. I am not sure if that was related to the wildfire smoke making it to the surface or the overuse of fire pits around here. Either way, it was strong enough to burn my eyes. The air quality was bad according to my weather station. Dawn showed a light haze, but there was plenty of smoke in the sky. It took a…

The past several days have been the hottest period I can remember. We had four days in a row where it got above 100. Many years we don’t really get over that point, but it has happened several times recently. It seems that normally when it gets so hot, the humidity has to drop a bit. The other day some drier air did mix in, but aside from that afternoon, the dew point has been between 70 and 80, making for very humid conditions and a high heat index. It was the worst that I have felt in a long…

A little over a year ago, I upgraded my phone from the old Note 20 to a Pixel 9 Pro XL. I don’t miss all the Samsung crap that is installed, and I never used the pen. The only reason I bought that phone was because of the larger screen. It served me well for years until the charging port started getting wonky. That was really the only reason I upgraded. I thought about getting it fixed, but I knew Samsung was going to stop security updates this year, so I bought the Pixel. In almost every way…

I woke up feeling pretty good this morning. It was a little cooler and less humid too. There was a decent breeze and the light rain outside sounded nice so it had me in a good mood. Bench press felt great. Well great for what bench press can feel. It is not a lift hat I enjoy or even thing is all that useful. I only do it for balance. If I had to press I would rather to strict presses anytime. The weight felt heavy but the movement felt good as I warmed up and worked my way up through the sets.…

This morning I woke up feeling pretty good. It was humid, though, so I was eager to get my squats in as soon as I thought would be a reasonable hour to do so. The air conditioner is not in the garage window yet and I don’t see myself needing it anytime soon. We have just had a few humid days so far this year. Today was one of them. I drank and enjoyed my coffee while browsing the web a bit. About 7:30 this morning, the garage was bright enough from the daylight that I decided it was a good time…

Over the winter I had been debating on whether to get the firefly petunias again or wait and look for them locally. I noticed that the company had created new ones that they called trial or something. These new ones had colored flowers instead of the white. They had solid pink ones and white and pink striped ones. The girlfriend loves pink so I had to get those. The company also claimed these new ones would glow brighter and grow more vigorously. I can confirm that they glow much brighter which…

Today it is much cooler and much less humid than the past few days. Saturday wasn’t that humid, but we had places to be so I just got a quick workout in before that. I have been hitting WODs a bit harder as my soreness is all but gone. Not really going overboard with it I would say but definitely bumping both the intensity and weights. I felt good this morning, and the cooler air had me ready to get out into the home gym to get under the bar as soon as I was finished with my coffee. At about…

I think I had mentioned it before, but a couple of weeks ago I tweaked my hip by tripping over the kettlebell I believe, while carrying 40 pounds. At the very least, I twisted my knee doing that. It hurt a lot the first couple of days but felt better as I rested and did a little moderate or light intensity stuff on the bike or rower. Last week it felt good. I knew we had a Phillies game to go to later in the week, so I took off that week from lifting since I’d be on my feet a lot down there. I…

Over the past week or so I have been doing straightforward, just-move-type WODs. They were either slower bodyweight-type workouts to just keep moving. I have also been using the rower or bike at a moderate pace again just to keep moving and get some blood flowing. Each day my deep core has felt a little better. This morning when I got up, I had very little tightness, and yesterday morning I had a little short-lived tightness. Yesterday I grabbed a 20-pound dumbbell and did one of the on-ramp…

Last week I had such a great week lifting, and everything felt amazing. Fast forward to Thursday evening. We were walking to Joy’s for supper and a couple of drinks when my foot hit one of the many pushed up sidewalks in this town. My ankle rolled, and my knee gave out. I didn’t fall as my core saved me. I twisted it, though, and it felt like fire shooting up deep in my core on the side I twisted. It felt fine afterward. A little stiff but fine. Jump to Friday: I was walking up to the house and…