Randy’s Blog

You might recall that part of why I got a trail cam a few years ago is because food in the bird feeder was mysteriously disappearing in large quantities over a very short time frame. See this post. I was hopeful the cause was a Sasquatch, and that I would get proof of its existence. After several years of watching the trail cam videos, it pains me greatly to say that the food disappearance likely has nothing to do with Sasquatch, and everything to do with birds.

Having accepted this fact, I check the trail cam much less frequently these days. I did check it this morning, though, and of the 28 videos it had captured in the last 12 days, here are the notable ones.

First up, a couple of ducks have discovered the food that falls underneath the bird feeder. I think this is the first time I've seen ducks here.

Next is a black and white cat that briefly made an appearance. It walked right in front of our basement window. I can't help but wonder if our black and white cats (which are inside-only cats) saw it.

And finally, there's this hilarious video. Not only did the squirrel fail to climb the pole, but it also got a rather rude surprise from a chipmunk!

This morning I saw two sandhill cranes waiting to get into a local rec center. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it's closed on Friday, though.

It's always fun to see (and hear) sandhill cranes!

I'm currently reading a book about precognitive dreams; it's called Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from your Future. I stumbled across it at the employee bookstore, and was excited to find it. I recognized the author, as he previously wrote a book called Time Loops, which I haven't read, but which received a lot of high praise.

Anyway, the book has gotten me thinking about a few dreams I've had over the years that turned out to be true. I've documented a couple of minor instances previously; see my Cherry Cordials Alert and Darkhawk posts. In this post I want to share another instance that might not count as precognitive, but I still found it quite funny.

Close to two years ago, on the night of May 28, 2021, I dreamed that I was at a conference. I asked the man next to me what his name was; he replied Royc. I looked at his nametag and saw it was spelled just like that: Royc. When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was "How funny, there was a typo in my dream. It left out the letter 'e' in Royce."

Out of curiosity, though, I searched the web for "royc", and the first results were about a soul singer named Roy C. I listened to the first song of his that appeared in the results... and it was one of the funniest songs I'd ever heard! I listened to a few others, and found another song that was hilarious! I don't know why I didn't blog about this at the time.

So, if you don't mind a bit of adult humor, let me recommend these two songs by Roy C. The first is called "Peeping through the Window":

And the second is called "Infidelity, Georgia":

I hope you enjoy them as much I did.

As far as the book goes, we have precognitive dreams thanks to quantum physics, where sending information back in time is entirely possible. From what I understand so far, my future self was so entertained by these two songs that it sent Roy C's name back in time via my dreams to ensure that I discovered them!

Last week my trail cam captured a rather grim video: a coyote chasing down a rabbit in our backyard. Fortunately, the final seconds of the chase are shrouded in darkness, but it sure seems like the coyote is closing in on and about to catch its prey. If you turn up the volume you can hear what is, perhaps, the cry of a rabbit as it gets caught. I know it's the circle of life and all, but man, I feel bad for that rabbit.

Here it is:

And a few days later a coyote wandered up close to the trail cam, in daylight hours. It may be the best coyote sighting my trail cam has recorded:

I just searched for "do rabbits make sounds" and the first result includes this text:

The sound of a rabbit screaming will send chills down your spine for two reasons. First, it sounds eerily close to a terrified child. Second, rabbits only scream when a predator is chasing them down or they are dying. It is never a false alarm when a rabbit screams.

Sadness.

RIP little rabbit.

This winter has finally turned snowy! We've gotten several rounds of snow the past week and a half, with the biggest coming on Saturday, when we got nearly 6 inches! I've been dutifully measuring snowfall each day and reporting my totals to CoCoRaHS (I've mentioned this citizen science project a few times in previous posts). It's fun to see how my measurements compare to others in the area.

When it comes to weather around Chicago, Tom Skilling is the go-to meteorologist. He's the chief meteorologist for WGN TV, and has been the most popular weather forecaster in Chicago for pretty much forever. He's basically a celebrity, known for his love of weather. That really comes across in the WGN weather blog, where he has an "Ask Tom" article each day, and generally geeks out with all kinds of weather information.

For example, here is a fun fact: Today on the WGN weather blog, I learned that this January Chicago received only 18% of possible sunshine, making it the cloudiest January on record! The records began in 1894. It's also the 2nd cloudiest month ever in Chicago! That's the kind of geeky weather fun Skilling provides. (Here's a not-so-fun fact, though, that I learned today: Tom Skilling's brother was CEO of Enron during its accounting scandal and spent over a decade in jail.)

I mention all of this because sometimes Skilling will report CoCoRaHS totals on the weather blog, and sometimes my measurement makes the report. It's very cool when it happens. This morning, though, one of my co-workers said that during last night's TV forecast, Skilling showed McHenry as having gotten 11.1 inches of snow in the last 9 days. My co-worker wanted to know if that was from my snow measurements. I didn't know, so I looked up my data, added up the totals, and discovered I had exactly 11.1 inches! It really was my measurement!

I eventually found the video of the forecast, but I couldn't find a way to link to it. So instead, here's a screenshot of Tom Skilling himself pointing at my snow totals for the last 9 days!

How cool is that!

For at least the past month, if not longer, every time I've gone to the store to buy pet supplies I've seen these little collapsible cat cubes for sale. When collapsed, they form a small cat bed:

When expanded, they form a little cube that cats can curl up inside:

Even though I really wanted to buy them, I resisted. It's a slippery slope because there are so many cute cat accessories out there that I want to buy.

Fortunately, my patience paid off. I went to the store the weekend after Thanksgiving, and there was a big display of these cat cubes with a sign saying they were 60% off. My will power collapsed, just like the cubes, and I bought two.

Shortly after I got home and set them on the floor, both cats went inside:

Now they sleep in their cubes on a regular basis, and it is adorable. As I typed this, I realized I hadn't seen Chili in a while. I went upstairs and he was curled up in his cube. I am so glad I bought them, and extra glad I got them on sale!

Finally, I am happy to report that Jalapeno has become a soccer fan thanks to the World Cup. He was really into the France-Poland game this morning! Here is a short video of his enthusiasm:

About a month or so ago I was vacuuming the house in preparation for Wendy's parents coming for a visit. I don't remember what I was thinking about, but I must have been a bit hungry, because I turned off the vacuum and said to to Wendy: "Isn't there some kind of crunchy, cheesy snack called Conquistadors?"

Wendy was using her laptop right then. She did a quick search, and discovered that there's not one called Conquistadors, but there used to be one called Cornquistos:

That's exactly what I was thinking of! I have no idea why it popped into my head while vacuuming, but it did, and it led to a trip down memory lane.

First of all, Cornquistos came out in the 1980s, and are no longer made, which is a bummer. They had a crunchy corn shell with Mexican-flavored fillings, like nacho cheese, taco, and picante. They're similar to Combos, which are still made, but Combos use a pretzel shell and are not nearly as good, according to Cornquistos fans.

Secondly, there are a couple of memorable commercials for Cornquistos. One uses the slogan "The corn crunch with fillings that say... Olé!":

And the other commercial, which is where I must have gotten the conquistadors confusion, features CORNquistadors on an airplane, on a quest to bring Cornquistos to the United States ("One crunch and you're conquered"). Click the link below to watch it; I couldn't get it to embed properly.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x926s4

The funny thing is that I don't even remember if I liked Cornquistos! But I figure I must have, and I wish they were still made so that I could try them again.

Anyone else remember them?

In a recent blog post I wrote about 2 wild turkeys Wendy and I saw last month during a walk around our neighborhood. It turns out that was just a prelude to even more turkey excitement! (I've already shared most of the pictures in this post with family and friends, but I wanted to document it on my blog for posterity.)

A couple of weeks ago, we had unseasonably warm weather for early November. It was late afternoon, and I was working from home with all the doors and windows open so I could enjoy the weather. At one point I decided to look out the window, and I saw two wild turkeys in our backyard! They were eating the food from our bird feeder that had fallen to the ground.

I ran downstairs, grabbed my phone, and starting taking lots of pictures and videos. Our cats were super interested, as you can imagine! The turkeys were right outside our basement window. At times they were only a few feet away from myself and the cats.

They hung around our backyard for nearly 30 minutes! At one point they walked up onto our deck; one of them flapped its wings to sort of fly/jump up the deck steps. I ran upstairs to get a better angle, but I think I scared them off the deck. Then they wandered into our neighbor's yard for a bit, and I thought they were gone for good, but they wandered back into our yard again. After a while they disappeared to the side of the house and were gone for good.

Here are some pics of the event, starting with some very interested cats:

A cat-turkey stare down!

I really liked this picture, because if you look closely, you can see cats, turkeys, a squirrel under the feeder, and a bird at the feeder: 

And finally, here's a video of the turkeys:

It was a very memorable afternoon!

The weather was so nice today that I decided to take the afternoon off and rake the leaves that had overtaken the yard. I took these photos before I started:

And about 2 and a half hours later I took these photos:

Now I am quite tired!

A couple of Fridays ago, Wendy and I went for a walk around the neighborhood during lunch, and we saw 2 wild turkeys!

I was super excited to see them, because I've never seen turkeys in our neighborhood before. For Wendy, it was a routine experience, since she often sees turkeys on her commute to work.

I don't know why the turkeys crossed the road, but I do at least have video evidence of them doing so:

Exciting!