Category: hobbies

  • Thoughts on House Finches

    Thoughts on House Finches

    This morning, I got a snapshot of a male house finch sitting on the back porch fence post. He’s a proud looking fellow. I saw the female a minute earlier but could not catch a picture of her. It’s spring; they’re probably a mating pair and we saw them last year. So, there will soon…

  • First Sight of Robins Today!

    First Sight of Robins Today!

    I caught sight of a couple of robins today and managed to get a fair snapshot of one. They’re casing our back yard for nesting sites. I’m also wondering if they’ll attack their reflections in our windows now that Sena covered them with plastic overlays last year. So far, they sit high up in the…

  • Fractured Numismatics

    Fractured Numismatics

    I saw this article on the web about certain coins (state quarters) that might be worth a lot of money. I just raided our piggy bank for pennies and other chicken feed a couple of months ago and knew we had some quartesr. As it turns out we have a couple of the year 2000…

  • Saw a Banded Red-tailed Hawk in Our Back Yard!

    Saw a Banded Red-tailed Hawk in Our Back Yard!

    I got a picture of a banded Red-tailed Hawk today in our back yard. It was pretty exciting. I can’t remember ever seeing one banded. I’ve gotten pictures of them occasionally, most recently before this in July, 2025. That one wasn’t banded. I checked on the web for any reports of who might be tagging…

  • Tango Boxing a New Hybrid Sport?

    Tango Boxing a New Hybrid Sport?

    Here’s how I got off on a tangent about Tango Boxing, which honestly did sound like a hybrid sport combining dancing the Tango and boxing, you know, like chess boxing, in a ring with gloves and sustaining head injuries and dancing the Tango. I was amazed when I at first misread something in an article…

  • Starlings and More!

    Starlings and More!

    Sena got a video of a large flock of birds flying around in the outlot beyond our backyard. We thought they were all starlings, but I couldn’t focus enough on individual birds to tell for sure if there were other species mixed in with them. I couldn’t even confidently identify a starling although I’m pretty…

  • A Few Thoughts on Calvinball Cribbage

    A Few Thoughts on Calvinball Cribbage

    OK, so Sena and I have been experimenting with a few cribbage variants in the last few days and I ran into this Calvinball comment on a Reddit cribbage thread about 10-card cribbage. Yes, people play that! I’m afraid to look on the web for 11-card cribbage although Sena asked about it. Briefly, 10-card cribbage…

  • We Are Muddling Through 7 Card Cribbage!

    We Are Muddling Through 7 Card Cribbage!

    We’ve been working pretty hard today trying to teach ourselves how to play 7 card cribbage. There’s not a lot of information on the web about the game. The gist of it is that you play to 181 and each player gets 7 cards with 5 cards to the dealer’s crib. You can have 4,…

  • I Made a New YouTube Channel Trailer!

    I Made a New YouTube Channel Trailer!

    I made a new YouTube Channel trailer today since it’s been a couple of years since I made the previous one. Thanks for watching! James Amos, MD (who prefers to be called Jim but his YouTube handle is @JamesAmosMD) is a retired psychiatrist who graduated from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, did his…

  • My Balls Glow in the Dark!

    My Balls Glow in the Dark!

    Here’s another video on head stall juggling, this time using glow in the dark juggling balls. They’re heavier and I drop more often. On the other hand, when one hit the glass top coffee table, it didn’t leave a scratch! It did make a heck of a racket, though. I did switch off between left…