Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:00 a.m. in "The City."

We have a current temperature of 59° as we drop towards an overnight low of 53° under either clear or partly-cloudy skies. I have seen both options on The Weather Channel website which I use for part of my report. That's why I often rely on personal observations, for example, when I go outside with the fur-children, or when I gaze out the Weather Window.

Much like the always accurate Weather Rock, when I see that the deck or the sidewalk is wet or snow-covered, or when I see that the Weather Rock  is swaying in the wind, or if I couldn't see the rock, I can get a pretty good idea of the current weather conditions. I thought for edification, I'd include this link to the USSSP, (US Scouting Service Project) site, that shows a Weather Rock and the explanatory chart needed for interpretation of the readings obtained from the rock.

http://www.usscouts.org/profbvr/weather_rock/

This morning, I am gazing out the WW and I am going with partly-cloudy. Later this morning, after the sun rises @ 7:16 a.m., the forecast calls for mostly-cloudy skies as we try to reach today's high temperature of 72° before the sun sets @ 8:07 p.m.

I was busy in the kitchen yesterday. I made that aforementioned stir-fry for our lunch and it was delicious. In fact, there are once again left-overs for another meal. I did use up all of the left-over rice, so that's a good thing. I also baked a loaf of light whole-wheat bread following a recipe that I found on the Internet. It turned out great, so much so, that Mary and I decided that it is a keeper.

The recipe called for only five ingredients and minimal handling. The recipe suggested that I use the Kitchen Aid™ stand mixer that Mary got me a few years ago. Then, it was waiting for the dough to rise, once in a bowl and once in a USA™ baking pan, my favorite, followed by 40 minutes of baking time @ 400°. The hardest part of the process was waiting for the finished loaf to cool.

I observed the passage of MMRR locomotive #2019 heading south @ 9:22 a.m. towing only one GTC, two DBTCs, eight CHCs and two DWTCs, one with a green anti-corrosive strip around its mid-section. All of the cars were in an unloaded state.

Later in the afternoon, after I was done baking, Ginger alerted me to the impending arrival of that same locomotive heading north @ 3:51 p.m. This time the cars were fully laden as they passed. In tow behind #2019 were 23 CHCs, 23 DBTCs, each of them very long and capable of carrying around 197,000 lbs. of hazardous liquid cargo, two GTCs, and two DWTCs. The sheer size of those DBTCs is exactly why I gave them the sobriquet Dreaded Black Tank Cars, or DBTCs.

We only went out twice yesterday, once to walk with the fur-children to The Bookman to pick up the Friday edition of the Grand Haven Tribune, and later to enjoy some adult beverages @ JWs. Otherwise, we were retired homebodies.

Baseball news yesterday was interesting. As you may recall, I was unable to report on the West Michigan White Caps opponent for tonight's 2nd round playoff game @ 6:00 p.m. I can now identify that opponent as the Bowling Green Hot Rods. The Hot Rods are an excellent team, but as I've often stated, on any given day, average teams can beat better teams.

Speaking of average, or in the case of the Tigers, below average teams, they used a walk-off home-run to defeat the Cardinals last night, 5 - 3. The Tigers have an AL Central, 3rd place record of 56 - 83, while the Cardinals have a 78 - 63 3rd place in the NL Central record of 78 - 63. At any rate, they Tigers and the Cards play again this evening @ 6:10 p.m.

My beloved, 1st place in the AL East, 97 - 45 Red Sox were looking good as long as starting pitcher David Price was on the mound. He recorded 10 Ks before being relieved. Unfortunately, the Sox' bullpen imploded once again and wasted Price's effort as the Sox gave back their early 2 - 0 lead and fell to the 1st place in the AL West, 88 - 53 Astros, 3 - 6. The Sox and the Astros meet again this afternoon in Fenway Park @ 4:05 p.m.

The 83 - 57, 1st in the NL Central Cubs, were rained out in D.C. for their scheduled game against the 69 - 72, 3rd place in the NL East Washington Nationals, aka, the Nats. They'll try again this afternoon @ 3:05 p.m.

We currently have plans to travel to Grand Rapids and see the 2018 Grand Valley American Indian Lodge Pow Wow @ Riverside Park. Part of today's events include the Grand Entry @ 1:00 p.m. There will also be exhibitions of dancing, crafts, and food. I am including this YouTube™ video provided by the organizers. It depicts the dancing and the Grand Entry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqoSkyOsb2w&feature=youtu.be

That should be enough for one day. Ciao.