December 29, 2011, it's my brother's birthday, I think I'll call him . . . . .   And we've passed the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and now the days will be getting longer, good. This is the gloomiest time of year, I mean the darkest as far as sunlight. That's why they put Christmas at this time, to cheer us up. And now I'll try to up load one of my favorite paintings, this is by Vincent Van Gogh. It's titled "the potato eaters".  These people in the painting lived in the Netherlands, and it got dark early, there wasn't much sunlight in the winter, just like what we got now. And they didn't have electric lights, that's why it looks so dark in the picture. I think this was around 1880 approximately + or - 5 years. And they didn't have computers or tv or even radio, duh. I wonder what they did on those long dark cold gloomie nights.
        I really like this picture, when I look . . . I almost feel like I am going to that place and time, almost like I'm there visiting.