Taco Good Eats Tour

It wasn't actually a tour, but a taco eating fest. We each had at least 6 different ones.

Last Thursday evening on May 3, we joined our friends and an estimated crowd of 30,000 in Manchester, NH for the 8th annual Hippo de Mayo event. Billed as New England's largest Cinco de Mayo celebration, it takes place before May 5. It started in 2011 to encourage people to visit downtown Manchester, NH and attracted over 5,000 people the first year. Now, it's one of the city's largest annual events. 

We were first-time participants for this outdoor eating event that featured $2 tacos served al fresco on the street with 50 local participating restaurants. And, like everyone else, we walked from eatery to eatery during the 4 to 9 pm event. This was strictly a pedestrian event as the city of Manchester closed down Elm Street, one of its main roadways for the 4 hour event. 

Eateries charged $2 per taco with monies going towards a charity. No advance tickets were sold as the tacos were on a first-come, first-eat basis until inventory ran out. We arrived with our friends before 5 pm

These were not the standard cheese, tomato and beef tacos as we sampled pulled pork, eggplant, apple crisp, grilled cheese, fish, crispy chicken, sushi, and BBQ chicken tacos. 
Some of the more creative combinations included dessert tacos with chocolate, Korean tacos with kimchi, and Greek tacos with tzatziki sauce and French fries.

The event was sponsored by The Hippo, New Hampshire's largest circulation weekday publication with a net distribution of over 40,000. This free weekly publication is distributed Thursdays throughout southern New Hampshire at over 1,200 locations. 

It was a perfect evening with warmer temperatures (finally). We had a fun time and are planning to return for next year's event.

Many folks who celebrate Cinco de Mayo on May 5 are in the dark about the the history of the date. While it's sometimes referred to as Mexico's Independence Day, that's incorrect as that celebration is on Sept. 15. 

Instead, the Cinco de Mayo celebration marks the Mexican army's defeat over the French forces of Napoleon III in 1862, at the Battle of Puebla. Mexico had difficulty paying back war debts to European countries, and France had come to Mexico to collect the debt.

Friday Funnies

This load would really make a GIANT load of pick-up sticks.

Thanks for your comments on my recent camera flea market bargain. I used it to take these photos of downtown Nashua this week after sunset on a cloudy evening after with available light.

It will get more use this weekend. We're going to Boston for a (late) celebration of my Feb birthday, the VA house sale, and Grenville's recovery from a lingering seasonal cold.

Enjoy your weekend, Everyone.

Weekend Sale Finds

The weekend weather wasn't exactly warm, but at least it was rain and snow-free and just windy. A great day for the annual yard sale of the Nashua area Humane Society.The sale was in the warehouse of a former rubber boot factory which was chillier inside than outside.

There was an assortment of goods spread out on tables, some were individually priced and others items were group marked with signage. Sale items included children's clothing, tote bags, games and puzzles, fabrics, photo frames, books, CDs, sporting goods, movies and lots of housewares, crafts, and holiday items. 

It was a 2-day weekend sale from 8 am to noon. The best bargains were on Sunday when a bagful of books, CDs or movies were mix and match at $1 a bag (grocery bags were provided). Shown below are my book purchases, some for grandchildren and others. The pasta books have been added to my cookbook collection (for now). 

The CD selection while not as extensive was still fun to sort through and shown below are ones included in my bagful. Once home, several CDs were found to be duplicates of ones already in our collection, and others were not well-liked. The duplicates and un-likeables will be donated to the local library for its annual book and music sale.

My best "find" was this digital camera, which wasn't on my shopping radar, but who doesn't love a bargain — not me. It was marked $20 and sold for $5 as there was no assurance it was working and it hadn't sold on the first sale day. The package included the camera, charger, batteries, and memory card so it was definitely worth taking a chance. Online research showed that is was introduced in 2008, which makes it an "oldie" by today's digital photo standards. Features include a 7x zoom, image stabilization, and 10 megapixel. A drawback is the use of xD storage media, but 3 were included with the package.

Once the batteries were fully charged, the camera was tested and it is working. I'm going to try shooting indoors and outdoors later this week and will include the results in a future post.

Now that the weather is slowly warming up, there will be outdoor yard sales and flea markets in and around the area. 

Do you go to any if these — if so, what's been your best find? 

Friday Funnies

Taken quite literally . . .X definitely marked the spot square.

We're hoping for some sun here in Nashua, NH this weekend. While no rain or snow is forecast, the temperatures won't be very spring-like as you can see below. 

Luckily, we have alternate plans to spend part of Saturday morning at an indoor yard sale sponsored by the Nashua area Humane Society. This annual event is always well attended and it's been a couple of years since we last went to one — looking is always free and fun.

Enjoy your weekend, Everyone. 

Rainy Day Monday

Rain, rain go away was the refrain all day earlier this week. It could have been worse as neighbors to our north had "white" stuff and even some accumulation. There was only an overnight dusting here, which the rain (thankfully) washed away.

By late Tuesday afternoon, things were improving. The cloud cover was impressive as viewed from our 5th floor window.  

Hope the weather is better where you are. We're hoping Spring arrives before Summer.

(Thanks for your comments on the Edible Cake Contest at the Nashua Public Library. I've no idea which won top votes; there was no info on the library's web site.)

Eat Your Words . . .

Is an idiom that really isn't literal in the sense that someone could actually eat words. It mean to retract, regret or feel foolish about what was previously said or to admit that a previous statement or prediction was wrong. (For example, many people who were doubtful, he would win the election are now eating their words.)

The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain, yet it was a figure of speech even in playwright William Shakespeare's day. In Much Ado About Nothing (act 4, scene 1), Beatrice (really the character's name) asks Bendrick "Will you not eat your word?" and he replies "With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee."

Over the weekend here in NH,  not only could words be eaten, but entire books devoured. 

It's not as confusing as it sounds. Since the best place to (literally) eat a book is at the library, that's where I went on Sunday. It was the site of the Nashua Public Library's 6th annual Edible Book Contest which featured about a dozen entries, a few shown here.

There were several categories, first were children's books. 

Here's a couple more children's' book entries.

This entry in the adult book category was quite detailed down to a bloody hatchet.

Here's a couple of entries that were in the family category. 

Library visitors were encouraged to vote for their favorite in each category. The popular vote winners would be announced by library closing time. I cast my ballots but didn't stay to learn the final results. 

I admit to having wondered if any entrants later would actually eat their words books.

Friday Funnies

Only one title came to mind for this one — The Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Photo taken at Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) last fall

Forecasts are calling for rainy and overcast weather here in Nashua until early next week. Just yesterday, I spotted these colorful blooms, so maybe spring is (finally) on its way.

Enjoy your weekend, Everyone.

More on Blog Spam . . .

It ain't over, folks, so this is another post on blog spam. 
It's like a bad itch; you scratch it and somehow it returns.

Wanting to learn more about comment spam, I did online sleuthing to learn reasons for and actions bloggers can take. (That's what happens when I'm recovering from a cold and staying awake.)

Thanks to a fellow blogger who posted that some blogs, including mine, had been spammed. I'd deleted recent spam, but wasn't diligent in marking comments them as spam (now done) to avoid future repeats. 

And, I'd failed to re-check comments a couple days after a current post. Sure enough, I found spam that had been left after. This won't be happening again; an Italian proverb states:

When a man deceives me once, it is his fault; when twice, it is mine. Today, this is more popularly translated to: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. — Good advice !

Everything here may not be practical or applicable for all, but I enjoy sharing info.

What's comment spam?
Sometimes, it's an underhanded sleazy way for a spammer to hope for a free link back to their website by either copying previous comments or leaving a totally irrelevant  comment and a link. If a comment looks like unsolicited advertisement, it's can be spam.

Why it's annoying & why moderate it?
Blog authors take time to design a post they hope will entertain or inform or where they can share things of interest. "Real" commenters spend similar time reading such posts. 

Comment spam, if left unattended, could make it look like the blog author doesn't care about or read comments left by "real" commenters. 

It's even possible that not doing so could put readers at risk. If someone clicks on a fake link in a spam comment, a re-direct might lead to a malware site that could infect a computer with spyware or even a virus. 

You can be sure that not only will that person not return, but could alert others to avoid your blog. Wouldn't you?

How to identify spam
Comment links — be careful when you see links to other websites that you either don't recognize or suspect are not legitimate blogger sites. Avoid clicking on them.

Commenter names — many spammers won't use an actual name, but instead use SEO (search engine optimization) keywords like "best design company." If you spot a comment with no name, mark it as spam. The use of keywords in the name field of a comment without a real first and/or last name is almost always the sign of an SEO spammer. 

Relevant comment — is the comment related to the blog post? Generic platitudes like nice blog here, great capture, I have bookmarked it, keep posting, your site looks amazing can (but not always) can possibly be spam.

Not all comments like this are spam. "Real" commenters may leave similar ones due to time constraints, yet still want a blog author to know they've visited. Perhaps, you've received some from regular readers. In those cases, you'll need decide about its validity.

Inappropriate language — English is the most common language and a comment that you don't understand could be spam.  However, even on English language blogs, those from other countries may comment in their own language. You may well need to use your own judgement in many cases. 

There are two major blogging platforms. Wordpress offers plug-ins to combat spam comments through several third-party systems (at added cost). Blogger offers several built-in features. It's the only platform I've used, so here's some of them. 

Limiting spam in Blogger
Avoid anonymous comments — Log into your blog dashboard and go to Settings > Posts and Comments. You'll see an Option called Who can comment? Instead of Anyone, choose one of the other options: Registered User, User with Google accounts, or Only members of this blog.

Turn on comment moderation — This step takes time, but many blog authors do it to maintain the integrity of their blog. Go to Settings > Posts, comments and sharing and you'll see the comment moderation option. If you set it to Always and enter email moderation requests to — it prevents any comments from being posted without your approval first.

Receive comment notification email — Go to Settings > Mobile and email where you'll see a field for comment notification email. You can enter up to 10 emails, separated by commas. This option will notify you whenever a comment is left.

Enable CAPTCHA verification  — Most spam bots can't surpass CAPTCHA verification. Go to Settings > Posts and comments. You'll see an option for word verification. Enable it, by clicking to Yes and then Save settings. Now to leave a comment, someone will first have to complete a word verification. Be aware that not all commenters may like this additional step especially when reading and commenting on multiple blogs.

Websites implement CAPTCHA codes into registration processes because of spam. Those crazy numbers and letters are a way of checking if the person registering or trying to comment is a "real" human being as opposed to a computer program attempting to spam the site. (CAPTCHA is short for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.)

To check comments
Click Comments > Published
Under the comment, click Delete or Spam to move it to the Spam folder.

To manage comments in Spam, click Comments > Spam
Comments previously marked as Spam will be sent to this folder. You can delete them.  

You can check the spam folder not only to see what's been found, but also to make sure that no "real" comments went there in error. If you find one, click Not Spam and it returns to the post comments.

As the blog author/administrator, you can delete or mark a comment as spam, even if it's already posted — nothing is forever — especially spam.

What method(s) do you use to monitor comments — any of these?

Spammers Begone

A special thanks to fellow blogger, William, from Ottawa Daily Photo for the heads up on recent spam comments. I had recognized a couple as such and deleted them, but neglected to backtrack further. After reading William's post, I backtracked and found others. These comments have been deleted and marked as spam in blogger. Also, while checking comments in the spam folder, I found comments from fellow bloggers that were authentic and not spam, those have been restored.

Here's what William posted (I hope he will not mind that I am repeating his warning):

Note to my fellow bloggers, especially those using Blogger as your template. The last few days have seen repeated instances by one spammer, probably using two or more names, pulling the same Thai spammer routine we saw some months back. Co Coya is one of the names being used (Sam Nang being another), and the method is copying and pasting the comments of others (or text from your own posts) and adding in links, including in what looks like Thai spelling for their spam - which is the same page in both instances. 

I've seen it in my blog as well as several of yours, as well as another one going by the name Vaiybora and spamming another Thai page with the same technique. I encourage you to delete any comments from them, but also to report their profiles to Blogger as spam. To that spammer (or those spammers), I recommend you do the universe a favour and take a long walk off a short pier.

As William suggested, I also urge fellow bloggers to delete these comments and report them as spam.

Fooled by Mother Nature

What do Easter and snow have in common?

Very little, except this year when the holiday coincided with April Fool's Day, Sunday, April 1. Mother Nature got the message a bit late, and played a weather prank 24 hours later.

Thanks for the well wishes for the Easter holiday. We hope your holiday was happy. 

As in previous years, we were in RI to enjoy some fun activities with the grandkids. This year we arrived early to attend grandson's science fair. His project was on salinity. 

An egg hunt and egg coloring were highlights on Saturday. Everyone created some colorful eggs.

 

Easter Sunday we traveled to CT for a family gathering and holiday celebration. And, there was another egg hunt, organized by Grenville's aunt Anita.

Youngest granddaughter celebrated the holiday with her  family at home.

Easter in CT is traditionally a time to celebrate family members with birthdays in March and April. The celebrants (all cousins) gathered for a group photo. 

Soon enough that beautiful weekend weather was a thing of the past. Monday morning was quite a different situation as seen in this 9 a.m. view from our RI hotel.

This was a wet snow that clung to the trees creating a winter wonderland. The photos, which were taken in color, have a monochromatic look.

The 90-minute drive from Warwick, RI to Nashua, NH, was like driving in a blizzard in some areas. Thankfully, the temperature was warm enough so the highway wasn't snow-covered or very busy. We had left after the morning rush hour commute. By the time we reached Nashua, there was hardly any snow remaining on the ground.

Now that Mother Nature has (hopefully) had the last prank in New England, we hope she'll surprise us again and, this time, with some spring-like weather — soon, please.

Thanks for the well wishes for the Easter holiday & we hope you had a good day. 

Today is my "baby" brother's birthday. This was on a much earlier celebration (I'm on the right).

 Happy Birthday !