…or whatevers. Nothing really going down here. We got some good stuff for presents…a new camera for Connie and a Roomba for her…hey, she wanted one…and a new tripod and fancy head for Neil.Also got some new bike shorts and tops, slippers, and assorted stuff. 

I can report that the sous vide duck that then got crispied on the grill for Christmas dinner was pretty spectacular. Neil took the skin and fat off and rendered it the day before then we used some of the duck fat to sous vide the duck breast and also to make the roux for the creamed pearl onions we had along with the duck and sweet taters. Dessert was cheese cake since we wuz full by that time and we had a nice bottle of wine to go along with it all.

We ended up sending 2 presents back…Connie’s slippers were the wrong size since she and Neil failed to communicate as the sheriff in Cool Hand Luke said way back when…and Neil’s tripod came with the spike feet for mud and dirt. They weren’t indicated on the “in the box” section on the web site so Connie ordered them and we ended up with 2 sets as they were actually included…so we sent those back as well.

We also got new iPad Airs…Connie’s earlier model Pro than Neil’s one was at the end of it’s battery life so she got a new one from him…and as the IT guy it’s illegal for him not to have a new one as well so he bought a pair of them. We sent the old ones back to Apple as trade ins…we’ll get a total of $440 back on them once they’re checked in.

Dinner today will be Cornish game hen…although in the US of A they’re really just young chickens rather than actual game hens…Ima not really sure what the difference is…google says that it’s a young hen that is a cross breed between a Cornish chicken and a White Plymouth Rock chicken…so maybe these really are those and not just a young chicken…anyways they taste like chicken. Neil brined it for a day…then spatchcocked it…that’s a fancy cooking term that means he split it down the breast only ad laid the two sides out flat. Onto the smoker it went about1230 and when it gets up to almost done he’ll put it on the grill for a few minutes to crispy the skin and make it delicious instead of just chewy. We’re having turkey stuffing alongside it and another nice bottle of wine…this one is Mondavi Butter Chardonnay so hopefully it will be good. Then we’ll tune into the Alabama vs Notre Dame playoff semifinal game…luckily the Rose Bowl…which has been translated to Texas by the way…is the early game and it starts at 1620. The other semifinal starts past 2000 and won’t be over until past midnight and we’re never up that late. We had some merlot dessert wine last night…tastes really more like port than dessert wine…and have the other half of the small bottle left for later on tonight.

Ok…let’s get to some pictures…we got a bit o’ additional wildlife this week…nothing we haven’t seen before but at least one of them is the first appearance outside our lanai.

These first three were taken with Connie’s new Nikon Z50 mirrorless by Neil…it’s about half the size of her old D7100 DSLR and with 2 lens giving her a huge increase in focal length so that she has some telephoto capability…and with 2 lens it weighs less than her old D7100 with just a wide angle zoom.

These two were done using the auto area auto focus mode which amazingly enough figures out what subject you actually want to be focused on most of the time.

Over to some taken with Neil’s D7500 and the bird lens…this is a female Anhinga and while they’re pretty common down here this is the first one at our pond.

Tricolor heron.

Anhingas dive under the water to hunt and sit on the bank or branches a lot to let their wings dry out.

One of our resident Great Blue Herons…this is the non skittish one and you can see the mating plumage hanging off the front in some of the shots.

While he was getting the shots above this squirrel attracted his attention about 40 feet away on our side of the pond.

Interesting things found on the net.

More math nerdism…what is it with those people.

This is a countdown to 021.

Yeah…I know it’s the Fibonacci sequence…but so what?

Cyas.