Some Blog Site

Up until now, most of my YouTube watching has been things like car repair examples. And then my kids would borrow my phone and my YouTube recommendations switched over to Dude Perfect. That wave ended and now my phone and laptop recommend Minecraft videos to me.

But I’ve discovered a part of YouTube that I like watching for myself – Dry Bar Comedy.

Apparently they have an app too, as their videos all end with a plug for that. But I’m holding to my philosophy of not downloading any apps to my phone, so they’ll have to be content with my watching their videos on a website.

Side note: YouTube did something recently so that now I can watch videos only with my phone in landscape mode. YouTube never had a problem with portrait before, but something changed on their end because I know nothing changed on my end. At least there’s still a way for me to watch YouTube. Other sites, such as Vimeo, do not work at all on a stock iPhone 5s.

Back to Dry Bar Comedy: I appreciate their mission to provide clean comedy. They want it to be family friendly. But that doesn’t mean all the acts are good. I do believe all the comedians comply with the letter of the law – no profanity. But in my book there’s more to family-friendly content than avoiding certain words – there are certain topics as well. And most of the people on Dry Bar Comedy seem to fulfill the letter and the spirit of the law. To me, the spirit avoids things like potty humor.

There are some acts that cover some marital topics and are done well (funny and not vulgar) but may be a gray area. For example, those would be fine for a 40-year-old married guy to watch, but would he want to watch it with his kids? That’s a judgment call for each family. But at least with Dry Bar you have a much higher chance of finding something to watch with the family.

There are a variety of styles also. My favorite for style and content so far is Daniel Eachus. Also very good is Jeff Allen. Bob Smiley is funny but his style is a little too hyper for my tastes. And there was one guy who had some funny stuff but his style was distracting – he kept looking down and to the side as if he was reading some notes.

There was only one guy (Andy F) so far that I just stopped the video and went on to someone else. His first bit was amusing (British and Southern accents) but then he got into potty topics (with hoarders and cats) and I started thinking “that’s gross” rather than “that’s funny” so I decided not to waste my time with him since there are plenty other things to do that I wouldn’t regret watching.

Now it is time for another PSALM.

Gamma made this one, like last time. This one was titled “Cool Guy” by him.

Now only 144 more to go.

I took the younger two kids raspberry picking, as is a somewhat tradition around here.

They actually did a good job picking berries and filling up their baskets. They each got a basket, as did I. So we ended up with 3 baskets full of raspberries.

Bonus points for noticing the golden raspberry in the basket.

The boys preferred picking the golden raspberries, so their baskets were about half golden half red. Mine was the one pictured above – only one golden berry.

The kids are old enough now so that they pick well and don’t make messes. The 3 baskets were just under $40 – that’s at $5/lb, up from $3.50 about 10 years ago. With that many berries, the boys ate a bunch for lunch and dinner that day, we made jam and canned 8 small jars of it, and froze over a quart of whole berries. Eventually our own berry patch will become larger and more productive and we’ll get our berries for free.

One fun distraction the boys had while picking was a “baby mouse”.

It said it was either a full-size mouse or baby something-else, because it was too big for a baby mouse. Gamma and I thought it was too small for a baby groundhog. I think we settled on something like a mole. He just sat there kind of shaking and not doing much else.

Now on to the pro tip promised in the headline.

A lot of times when people declare something to be a pro tip, that’s just a catchy way of saying they have a method that works well. But as a former professional raspberry picker, I can say this is an actual pro tip.

Pro Tip: Look under the branches

Here’s an example from this trip. Gamma asked me how I was able to pick so many more berries than they did. So I showed him how to find berries. Most people just walk along and look for berries and stop and pick when they see some.

Here’s a shot of what the plants look like as you walk along and look at them.

How many raspberries do you see there? One, maybe two.

What do I see there? Lots of potential. I reached down and grabbed a plant at random and lifted it up and showed Gamma.

The berries like to hide out under the leaves. It’s a pretty good camouflage.

Why don’t more people do this?

1. The plants lean over due to the weight of the berries, so you must bend down in order to reach them. A lot of adults don’t like to bother their backs, so they skip this part.
2. The raspberry plants have small thorns, so they are pokey when you grab them to lift them. A lot of people don’t like to handle minor pain, so they skip this part. My advice: don’t grab the plants roughly – a gentle lift will make it so the thorns don’t puncture your skin. Also, get a leaf in between your hand and the stalk.
3. There are lots of bees about, as most fruit-growing operations have beehives to keep the plants pollinated. Many people are afraid of bees, so they skip this part. Yes, the bees are there, but you can bump into them and they don’t mind.

On that last point: I’ve taught my kids that honeybees and bumblebees are friendly – just don’t hurt them and don’t threaten the hive and you’ll be fine. I showed them how you can pet a bumblebee when it’s on a flower – we’ve each successfully done so. Not that I want them actively seeking out bees to pet, but just trying to teach them appropriate responses. No reason to freak out if a bee flies near you. Now a hornet or yellowjacket on the other hand – look down, look up, make sure there aren’t others.

In case you were wondering about my former career picking raspberries, your wait is over. In high school, a summer job I had was at a raspberry farm that offered both you-pick and pre-picked raspberries for sale. The pre-picked berries cost a little more per pint, and that was because I (and some other local students) were paid to pick them. And our pay was by the pint, not hourly, so the incentive was there to be productive.

Maybe a better term than “pre-picked” is “already-picked”, or just “picked”. I’m not a fan of the pre- prefix being attached to things that aren’t actually before. What are the berries before they’re picked? They’re still on the plant. They weren’t selling berries on the plant – they were selling picked berries. Or maybe we-picked, because it pairs better with you-pick (or U-pick if you are frugal with the letters on your sign).

A few months ago, we had the announcement of the 2020 NFL schedule, but I forgot because I was distracted by world events. Now that we know who will play whom and when, we can start predicting wins and losses, just before the season starts.

I keep my predictions over at Some Fun Site. View results of previous football seasons.

2019 Summary

Last year, I predicted that

• Atlanta Falcons = 5-11
• Cleveland Browns = 8-8
• Denver Broncos = 3-13
• Jacksonville Jaguars = 16-0
• Philadelphia Eagles = 11-5

How they actually did was

• Atlanta Falcons = 7-9
• Cleveland Browns = 6-10
• Denver Broncos = 7-9
• Jacksonville Jaguars = 6-10
• Philadelphia Eagles = 9-7

Well, I got all the digits correct for the Jaguars, just not in the right order. For the other teams, I at least got winning season or not winning season right, for what that’s worth.

(more…)

Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these is a tweet.

• I think you could take the debate from when any particular state decided to start or stop making motorcycle helmet use mandatory (for those riding motorcycles), replace “helmet” with “mask” and “motorcycle rider” with “person in a public space” and you’d get a pretty close approximation to today’s Covid-19 transcripts.
• I see the NFL players can get paid for sitting out the season due to reasons of coronavirus. Good for them, but what about us NFL fans? Can I get something if I sit out the season?
• Why does no one ever have to do something goodly? It’s always along the lines of “I need a chocolate bar real bad” or “I have to go potty really badly”. If “badly” indicates a substantial desire, what would “goodly” indicate? Side note: there are small children who do a bad job of going potty, but that’s not what they meant.
• One thing that annoys me is that any paperwork that asks for my health insurance information never uses the same wording that’s on my insurance card. The paperwork will ask for policy number and account number, but I have group number and subscriber ID. Or vice versa. There are so many terms that they rarely line up. I would like a standardized format. On the other hand, I’ve learned it doesn’t really matter which number I put down, as long as it’s on my card.
• The best Blizzard at Dairy Queen is the French Silk Pie. They took it off the menu a while ago, but the good locations will still make it if you ask.