Inside Out was a great movie

We saw Inside Out on Saturday.  I think we had the same thought as many, to go see a movie on a rainy day.  The 12:30 and 1:30 showings at Brandwine Town Center Regal were sold out when we got there! We went to the Penn Cinema Riverfront in Wilmington at 1pm. I guess that bodes well for the Inside Out that it is so popular on week 2, though I also wonder if rainy days are good for summer blockbusters.

The movie was even better than I would have thought from the millions of trailers and promos on Disney channel.  The idea of seeing inside someone's head to see the thought process and the interplay of emotions is a clever one, and I think the movie used it too good effect.  As others have said, having a common language to talk about emotions and what motivates us helps in conversations with 6 year olds (and 46 year olds), and also provides some good comedic fodder.

As with every Pixar movie, there was enough loss and poignancy to make even the most hard-hearted person break into tears in a public movie theater,  Even when you could see it coming the loss still got you.  As for me, I had one takeaway (spoilers).

Remember Bing Bong...

And now for something completely different.

What's with all of the trees?

Is four posts in a row about trees down due to two recent storms enough?  Please comment if you want more or less or this is just right.

It is just that the trees down was one of the more interesting things happening that I could get an interesting picture of, that we can "oh, wow!" over without including deep commentary.  My biggest worry is that I personally can't just look at a tree, factor in the past, current and upcoming weather conditions and tell you whether it is going to fall.  As a person who lives on a lot with many trees close to my house, this is somewhat worrying.  I am sure it will be fine.

I hope some of the next posts will be on other topics.

Tree down across the creek

This tree broke from its stump and fell down in last night's storm. It is across the creek from us.

You can see it broke off partway up the tree.

Tree down across creek

Neighbors across the creek told us about this tree that fell down in the storm last week also.

It looks like it snapped off halfway up this tree which has been rotted out at the bottom for years. I am surprised it took so long.

Another tree down from this week

This house on Weldin had a tree fall onto the house earlier this week during that storm. For two days it was just laying there, but now they finally covered the affected part of the house.

It's always amazing to me that the tree looks perfectly fine until it falls over and brings that huge flat part if the routes tilting up with it.

I would imagine that there is a deeper root that goes into the ground for a big tree like this, but it always seems that the roots are flatter and shallower.

One more tree down from last night's storm

This tree fell last night during the storm. Lynn saw it fall on her drive home in the storm. It is just on Baynard up towards Marsh Rd. in Carrcroft.

You can see it crushed the little pool they have outside.

It is harder to see from the front that the tree also destroyed a room on the side of the house.

Tree down at the end of the lane

Two trees with a combined root system fell down in the storm and winds last night. I might have heard it but it is four or so houses down the street. I thought I heard cracking limbs but thought it was falling branches closer to me.

Lynn is standing for scale. The trees just missed the house on the other side and fell to the right of the garage of the person's house.

We had no trees fall in our yard, just branches so we consider ourselves lucky.

REMED8 Pennsylvania license plate

Perhaps the owner of this PA license REMED8 driving on I476 in Delaware County is an environmental engineer. That's my guess.

Deer on the creek

We almost never see deer in our backyard. This us maybe the second sighting. Whirdly took this picture yesterday on the rainy day. Just as long as it doesn't start eating my vegetables in the garden.

Lilies and potatoes

The Asian lilies are in full bloom!

These are the flowers from the potatoes we planted. I hope as much effort is going to growing potatoes underground as these flowers above it.

The day lilies have begun their rise and bloom as well.

Bright Yellow Mushroom

This bright yellow mushroom is growing in the mulch near the creek. it is about three inches across. I have not identified it yet.

Who let this car off it's LEASH?

Who let this car off it's LEASH? Captured this license plate in Delaware yesterday. I am sure there are hidden meanings we all are not privy to.

Shellpot Creek this morning

It is obvious that I am fascinated by rain because it makes Shellpot Creek fill up. I also have a very comfortable spot to watch it from inside the solarium.

Today's creek was only slightly elevated because it had rained early this morning. I think the garden needs the rain so I'll take it.

Cut off by crazy woman

This lady cut me off yesterday on my way home from work on the dreaded Tyler MConnell bridge on Rt 141 northbound.  The notorious bridge requires the northbound travelling traffic to go from two lanes down to one, the left lane. to go over the two lane bridge.

I am aggrieved if I move into the left lane because then the right lane people try to squeeze in ahead of you as the lanes end.  If I stay in the right lane then I have to squeeze in and become what I despise.  I suppose we  need to fill up the lanes and then alternate at the end.  All of this is aggravated by the light at the end of the bridge at the DuPont Experimental Station that let;s traffic go out of the Station onto the bridge.  To stay on Rt 141 north bound traffic must make a left.

I would have the light remain green for us northbounders making the left and only allow right turning traffic out of the Station from 4pm to 6:30pm on weekdays.   They also need to build another bridge there somday so it is four lanes going through, but there probably isn't the room.  More than 25,000 cars go through that intersection a year! (.pdf link to report)

So I post this pciture in my public forum to shame her bad driving.  Also you can't have a rosary hanging from your rear view window if you are not going to drive like a Christian or like Mary would.  Seems a bit hypocritical, and I am an expert on that.

10 year Anniversary of The Honest Hypocrite

This week is the ten year anniversary of this wonderful blog, The Honest Hypocrite!  I can barely remember that at the time I was reading a number of favorite blogs, BoingBoing comes to mind, and I loved that the relatively still new to me (several years) form of the blog produced new and interesting writing every day just for me to read.  I loved the chance to participate by commenting.

My girlfriend at the time (now wonderful wife of many years) was also a reader and lover of blogs.  We would chat, and still do, about the things that we had read that day on the internet.  I always had some comment about something I wanted to see or have done in a certain way and she said well why don't you start a blog then, and inspired by her and some other blogs, I did.

It helped that Blogger provided a free and easy to use platform.  And because of that I learned a smattering of html and grew more open to contributing to things like Wikipedia and wikis in general. It wasn't that far of a push to be on Twitter when it came out and Tumblr to grab honesthypocrite before someone else did.

Blogging caused me to write essays like I hadn't since high school.  I am sure my high school English teacher would be proud.  I hope writing blog posts, tweets, e-mail, vine and youtube video scripts, Wikipedia article edits and things I haven't even heard of, are part of the writing curriculum now.   This blog has waxed and waned over the years.  I have tried to fight the tendency for it to be just a set of links and to write about topics that I care about.  I have enjoyed including some mathematical, scientific, or data analysis as part of the offering because they are things that I like and writing about them helps get it out of my systems and helps to order my thoughts.

I'll probably never get back to the heady times of 50, 30 or even 20 posts/month like in the early days. There are so many other places with more visitors to post to.  Tumblr gets the pictures and the commentary to share with the various TV show fandoms, Twitter the tweets, facebook the friend and family stuff, wikis the research, blogs the comments.  I certainly consume more than I produce anymore.

Family has taken some time from this hobby while providing both more and less things to write about.  I have become aware of wanting to respect others privacy, writing about me is one thing, writing about them is another.  Besides if they want they can do it themselves.

I don't suppose I will ever stop, and certainly this anniversary will prompt me to reinvigorate my efforts.  It will be time for some retrospectives as I continue.  Thank you for reading.

TWOACES license plate in Delaware

Is this TWOACES license plate in Delaware a poker reference (most likely)? A tennis serve reference? A two top pitchers in baseball reference?

Fruits of the garden

The first edible radish. I have been eating the radish micro-greens left over when I thin the radish rows, but this is the first actual radish.

This tiny strawberry is from our first picking of the season, most are
much larger than this one, but the first ones are sometimes so tiny. Wait until you are bigger to ripen, strawberries.

Late spring clematis and iris.

Some arbitrary mileage milestones

A round number.

An interesting repeat.

Getting up there in miles for the Prius.