It took eight months, but we’ve finally published a tribute to Ariel, the lovebird who shared our house with us for over 12 years.

3250 words, 16 photos and four videos seems like a lot, but it doesn’t do justice to the size of his personality, or the gap that his absence leaves in our lives.

You can read all about him here, then come back to this post to comment.

On January 27, 2010, the eyes of the world were focused on one man, waiting for news of what they would be talking about – indeed, what they would be OBSESSED about – in the coming year.

Barack Obama presents the iPad at his State of the Union speech.

The day was kind of a blur, but that’s how I remember it.

;-)

—-

Obbie

Our friends keep inviting us to join Facebook. They’re all there, merrily keeping each other posted as to what they’re up to, while we stay on the outside, out of  the loop.

So feeling tempted, I sought a concise and unbiased assessment of the Facebook phenomenon, and settled for Wikipedia. It was there that I was reminded of the reasons we’ve shied away from social networking sites in general.

On this blog, we have full control over the content of the page you see (at least to the degree that I’m capable of wrangling this beast). On a social networking page, the host site may pollute your page with ads. They may comb the content of your conversations for hints on what ads you might “respond” to.

Worse, the history of Facebook is a long litany of breakdowns and outages resulting in the exposure of personal data. We also have a problem with the way they’ve played fast and loose with privacy policy. 

Maybe at some point Facebook will evolve into a more stable platform. Some day they may have more respect for the personal content they’re entrusted with. If that day ever comes, we’ll reconsider our position on Facebook.

Until then, if you want to keep up on us, you’ll have to do it right here. And if we’re not forthcoming enough, you could actually send us a message and ask us a question. It may be Old School, but it works.

Happy New Year!!! May it be the best one yet.

In honor of the new year we’ve put together a new Whirling Rainbow podcast – Whirling New Year. It’s a tasty mix of funk, jazz, rock and world that should put a smile on your face. And it might make you get up and dance too. It’s 1-1/2 hrs. long.

Listen here.

Playlist.

We hope that you enjoy the show. Feedback is always appreciated.
———–
RoZ & Obbie

This is what our back yard looked like two months ago. We had not yet had our first frost, so we were still harvesting tomatoes, purple pole beans, assorted peppers, and a few forms of food growing from the ground. Two months to the day after this picture was taken we had to deal with a back yard that looks like this….

Last weekend, we received a series of pictures and videos from a family member in Houston. They were reveling in the “snowstorm” they were experiencing, a “snowstorm” that consisted of ice crystals more than snowflakes, and added up to what to us looked like a pathetic dusting.

So…

Do you wanna see snow?!?

I’LL show you snow!!

And then Obbie will have to shovel it….

so that we can get to the garage…..