So ... I joined saintvi for a trip to a Wine and Canvas event in South Bend.

I've never been to one. Neither have I ever painted, although I do have some skill in cartooning.

It was a nice thing to do on a Friday, when her usual gal pals were not available. I guess one thing I did NOT expect was that women would outnumber men by 64 to 4.  I guess I figured there would be more couples.  In most respects, hanging out with a lot of women doing something creative is far more interesting than hanging out with a lot of men harumphing and story-posturing about hunting or cars.

There were at least two bridesmaid parties. The gal sitting next to me (at my left in the photo) was in one of the parties. She also won one of the two door prizes. I think both were women's wallets, so it was just as well that my number didn't get picked.

This is a selfie jut before finishing the background. saintvi's camera was languishing on the battery, so she wanted me to take a photo.

You can just see some lovely crackers, cheese, salami, and Ritz crackers that accompanied the wine.

I had two plates.

It was one plate to many.

Ugh.

Tongue was happy. Tummy was not.

This picture is a long shot of the room. It's kind of interesting how so many people can listen to the instructor give the same directions, and yet each piece of artwork is so unique.

This is a picture of my finished work. I am proud of it.

I would NEVER have been able to do this without direction, but I was pleased that I could use my own artistic eye to bring some nice shades and blends to the picture. I was particularly happy with how the waves and the sky came out.

I can definitely see going again.

But ... I need to learn to quietly sing popular songs. It seems that when a zillion women in are in the same room, and songs like "Your the One that I Want" from Grease are being played - they sing ... and they go: "YourtheonethatIwant ...Oo, Oo, Oo, OoooOoo."

It sounds like a chorus of backup singers.

As a point of trivia, I actually saw Grease when it was first released in the theaters ... before most of the women at Wine and Canvas were born.

"Oh, Oh, Oh, OOOOlllldd!!!"

LOL!!!

saintvi covered GeoWoodstock pretty well ... but I thought I'd add a couple of photos of my own.

Waldo at Woodstock

The vendor's booth was packed the entire time we were there. I suspect they made a lot of cash off the cachers.

Personally ... I thought the vendor who was selling prints of her Pinup Geocache paintings had some interesting stuff.

The bottom right-hand pic is actually a play on words for the uninitiated ... what that saucy wench is doing is finding a "skirt-lifter" geocache.

Pinups clash with Geocachers

Another, less racy product was hats. I saw a couple I was mildly interested in. They were a sort of weather-worn leather hat.

saintvi managed to snag one of the last of the ladies hats from the same vendor. All the guy's hats were gone by then.

Vi has a new hat

Although we weren't able to see anything colonial ... my hobby passion ... I did get to go to the top of a rock that Thomas Jefferson stood on while looking over the Shenandoah River valley near Harper's Ferry.  I was finally able to master the panoramic feature of my cell phone.  We live in amazing times.

Wish I could make it bigger ... but you get the idea.

And though our technology is amazing ... our world remains ever more so.

I sense a disturbance in The Force.

Thanks to Eugenia and SaintVi, I'm able to post on Xanga, again!

Now ... to hunt down and delete the 47 spam comments that are on old posts.

We've had a LOT of rain and cloudy skies. Prior to that we had almost no rain and warm temperatures. The result is that we are just now getting our peak colors in Southern Michigan, but not a lot of sunlight to make them brilliant.

Still ... here are a few nice photos.
(I think if you click on photos in this new environment, it makes them bigger.)

And ... I'll be in Charlotte, NC, next week. Wonder what it looks like there?

Backyard in November

Path in Buchanan, MI

Autumn Carpet

Geocaching in Buchanan in November

This is always such a subjective and hotly contested topic. Most fans consider "Wrath of Khan" the best ever. I think I'm with that crowd. "The Undiscovered Country" is probably next on my list, with the rebooted "Star Trek" in that top 3. I really loved STTNG, but I liked what one commentator said about those movies - "they seemed like extended versions of the TV show." I agree, I enjoyed most of them, but felt like the only thing they leveraged with a big screen was yet another way to destroy the Enterprise. (Destroying signature vehicles like the Enterprise, Batmobile, James Bond car, etc. is a theatrical pet peeve of mine.)

Some have contended that "Star Trek: Into the Darkness" is the worst ST movie ever. I laugh in their general direction. I thought it was very uninspired that they'd use Khan as their villain, but I give them a lot of credit "if you MUST" plagiarize earlier movies - it was well made. To the critics I say, "Watch Star Trek V - The Final Frontier again ... without getting up for breaks, without a computer or cell phone handy, etc. Watch it start to finish. It is well and pits below all the rest. Gag.

Opinion aside - let's see how they really DID stack up. First, we'll go with critical reception - experts ranking them by pure movie quality:

Critics:

95% (11) Star Trek
92% (8) First Contact
91% (2) Wrath Of Khan
87% (12) Into the Darkness
84% (4) The Voyage Home
83% (6) The Undiscovered Country
77% (3) The Search for Spock
56% (9) Insurrection
48% (7) Generations
44% (1) The Motion Picture
40% (10) Nemesis
21% (5) The Final Frontier

But what do critics know? I like to say that if you want to know what's really important in a person's life - look where their time and money are spent.

So let's follow the money trail. Where did we spend the most cash to watch these films?
I'll be a snobby American and just go by "Gross Domestic Revenue." (Most of us don't "get" foreign films, and the French loved Jerry Lewis, so there we are.) All values are adjusted for today's dollars, eliminating the inflation argument.

$274,311,200 (11) Star Trek
$260,212,000 (1) The Motion Picture
$229,227,500 (4) The Voyage Home
$221,206,000 (12) Into the Darkness
$213,118,700 (2) Wrath of Khan
$180,708,400 (3) The Search for Spock
$164,686,600 (8) First Contact
$143,280,100 (7) Generations
$142,092,200 (6) The Undiscovered Country
$116,707,600 (9) Insurrection
$104,420,100 (5) The Final Frontier
$ 58,440,700 (10) Nemesis

Interestingly, Nemesis is the only ST Movie that didn't make it's budget back on Domestic Revenue, although it did eventually turn a profit. So, we discover what we already know: Star Trek fans will pay to watch any ST Movie - no matter how good or bad it is, if for no other reason than to engage in these wonderful geek-debates.

Currently, I'm on night shift helping oversee the movement of spent nuclear fuel assemblies from our reactor vessel to the spent fuel pool.

The assemblies stay there until we finish our routine 18-month maintenance work, and then 2/3 of the 196 fuel assemblies will go back into the vessel along with another 1/3 that are new.

We are about to move about 5 an hour, so it takes us about 40 hours or so once things get moving (literally).

At home - the weather is GORGEOUS!!

I used yesterday to put up the Ozark Mountain Birdhouse I've been working on. Whether or not a bird actually uses it remains to be seen. But in any event, I like it as a decoration piece.

Chinese Ratzilla

This is a great little Halloween song!!
Krysten introduced it to me as she was playing the guitar. I think she sings it even better than the guy on this video.

Info-Graph of Gender Pay Inequality

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2013/09/19/the-geography-of-the-gender-pay-gap-womens-earnings-by-state/#undefined

Highlights:

New year, new statistics? Not for the gender pay gap, one of the most oft-contested numbers in gender equality in the workplace. For more than a decade now, the comparison between the median earnings of full-time employed men and women in the U.S. has remained a stubborn 77%–that is, women earn roughly 77 cents on the dollar when stacked against the paychecks of white men.

The latest data shows that number hasn’t budged—and isn’t likely to in the next Census.

While some of the gender pay gap can be explained by the types of jobs and industries women and men are currently working in, the chasm shows that those choices are often constrained—and that even when at its narrowest, the gap between earnings has far-reaching implications.

So how is it possible that Nevada–home to the city of sin, showgirls and legal prostitution—ranks the highest among states in terms of gender paycheck equality?

One word: blackjack. “Nevada is a state that’s biggest economic draws are travel, retail and entertainment,” says Maatz, sectors where smaller paygaps prevail. “A blackjack dealer’s a blackjack dealer.” She adds that gaming employees are among the most unionized. “Unions have always been very good for women in terms of getting their wages and benefits up to par.”