Verna and Bob's Weblog

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Winter Solstice 2023

Image – an unusual snow day in Wickenburg (2014-12-31)

Solstice Notes

The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the winter solstice, which occurs on Thursday, December 21, 2023, at 8:27 P.M. Arizona time or 0127Z if you’re into Greenwich mean time. Today is the shortest day of the year with only 9 hours and 53 minutes of sunshine at our latitude here in Wickenburg.

We’re not expecting any snow of the magnitude depicted above this season. The snowfall in Wickenburg on New Year’s Eve 2014 was the most snow we have ever seen in town since we moved here in early 2011 when our house was finally completed. As a matter of fact, we can count our snow days on one hand over our nearly 13 years of living here.

Music Notes

The 61-key digital keyboard shown below is the replacement for an older version of the same thing that I’ve had since March of 2010 (and there were many before that). This one has much more capability and I have been enjoying exploring the different voices, songs and styles included in the unit.

I have been playing keyboards (without much formal training) since age 5 or so. I have messed with MIDI quite a lot although that isn’t my peak interest now. I’d much rather play favorites and try to compose some things now and then.

The new keyboard is a Yamaha PSR E373 which is still considered an entry level unit, but it has a lot more features than I probably can figure out how to use. I have an app for the Smart Phone which allows me to record sound and video from the unit. Maybe I will post some of it on social media and link it here one of these days.

Here is the new unit in my studio (a.k.a. Master Bedroom):

This is Yamaha’s Blurb about this keyboard:

The PSR-E373 features a newly developed tone generator that delivers stunning improvements in sound quality as well as high-quality effects. You can enjoy a comprehensive library of 622 instrument Voices perfect for playing in any genre you choose, as well as unique Super Articulation Lite Voices that reproduce the subtle nuances of stringed instruments such as the cello and mandolin that are typically difficult to emulate on a keyboard instrument, delivering realistic and authentic performances.

The old keyboard will be retired to the Motorhome for practice when we’re on the road.

December 21, 2023 by Astronomy Climate Entertainment Music Retirement

Sweet Sixteenth Blogiversary

Our first post on VERNABOB.COM was on July 17, 2006. We put up a couple of photos of us taken in our leisure time since we were still reporting to work in those days.

Now, after nearly thirteen years of retirement, we’re still going strong in our desert abode. We are currently in a phase of summer weather called “monsoon season” where it isn’t exactly a “dry heat” in the Arizona desert. Even so, we’re mostly indoors where it’s a nice cool 80° with controlled humidity. It’s very comfortable.

As we move further into our retirement years we plan to keep blogging here from time to time.

July 17, 2022 by Blogosphere Entertainment Retirement

2021 Wickenburg Bluegrass Festival

We attended the starting ceremonies of the Annual Wickenburg Bluegrass Festival today. We stayed for the first performing group (shown above), The Sonoran Dogs Bluegrass Band. They were very good, playing and singing. The combo included Bass Fiddle, Mandolin, Guitar and Banjo.

When The Sonoran Dogs finished their set, we went to the vendor area above the stadium and got a couple of souvenirs before heading home. It was a nice outing and we enjoyed some spectacular Arizona Weather with clear skies and 85° spring-like temperature in the middle of November.

The Festival continues for the rest of the weekend, but we were satisfied with our short visit this afternoon.

November 12, 2021 by Entertainment Leisure Retirement

Fifteenth Blogaversary

Roman Numeral Fifteen over a Saguaro Flower

Our first post on VERNABOB.COM was on July 17, 2006. We put up a couple of photos of us taken in our leisure time since we were still reporting to work in those days.

Now, after nearly twelve years of retirement, we’re still going strong in our desert abode. We are currently in a phase of summer weather called “monsoon season” where it isn’t exactly a “dry heat” in the Arizona desert. Even so, we’re mostly indoors where it’s a nice cool 80° with controlled humidity. It’s very comfortable.

As we move further into our retirement years we plan to keep blogging here from time to time. There will be a change in the blog format since we’re being forced to upgrade the WordPress blogging software to the latest version which is compatible with the latest version of PHP on our host servers. We may experience some outages as that conversion takes place.

The image above is of one of our summer saguaro flowers with the Roman numeral fifteen superimposed upon it. To see the flower image full size, click here.

July 17, 2021 by Blogosphere Entertainment Retirement

Breaking In a New Laptop

New Laptop

Both of our computers are getting older and, as a consequence, not able to keep up with the latest things we see online or from our accessories (cameras, etc.) which interface with the computers. We’re used to our current Windoze7© operating system and it will be a little challenge to transition to the W10 version, but we’re proceeding with it. Which brings us to the new laptops; hers is this one shown in the image above and is one we bought a couple of years ago and postponed transitioning to it. But now it’s full steam ahead.

The one shown on the test bed (literally a bed) is a HP 15.6″ Touchscreen 15-g059wm Laptop (AMD Quad-core A8-6410 Processor, 4GB RAM, 750GB HDD, Windows 10 64-bit) and is still available from Amazon Marketplace, although we bought this one at Walmart (whom we no longer patronize after their gutless cave-in on guns and ammo after the El Paso shooting episode). Her computer will be ready to go after I set up some of the fundamental things she needs, i.e. browsing, email, printing recipes, Fecesbook™, etc.

The laptop I ordered will not be here until Saturday, so I will not need to begin transitioning to it until next week, perhaps. The new one is also an HP: 2019 HP 15.6″ FHD IPS Touchscreen Laptop Computer, 8th Gen Intel Quad-Core i5-8250U up to 3.4GHz (Beat i7-7500U), 16GB DDR4, 1TB HDD + 512GB SSD, 802.11ac WiFi, USB 3.1, Bluetooth, HDMI, Windows 10. I ordered it from Amazon. My transition will be a little more involved since I have a large number of applications and several peripherals that Verna’s does not. I will get through all of it in time, I’m sure.

UPDATE 10/22/2019: As of yesterday, Verna’s new laptop system has been fully integrated into her desktop setup with a 22 inch external monitor as a second desktop. The transition was smooth and with few changes to the way she has to do things. The new operating system and the computer should make for faster loading on most applications and websites.

Integrated system

October 16, 2019 by Blogosphere Entertainment Nerdliness Retirement

Eleventh Blogaversary

Pruned Mesquite

Our first post on VERNABOB.COM was on July 17, 2006. We put up a couple of photos of us taken in our leisure time since we were still reporting to work in those days.

We don’t blog as much or regularly these days, well, because retirement finds so many ways to use your time and efforts otherwise. Today, I took off a major upright limb from the mesquite tree by the RV driveway. I pruned off the remaining low-hanging branches that were almost reaching the ground. Click on the image to enlarge.

July 17, 2017 by Blogosphere Entertainment Retirement

Avalon 1998

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