I wasn’t able to really do much in the basement last night because I was out with a bunch of the guys from work at the Padonia Station for a few hours. Had a good time talking to Jeff and Nate, and had just enough beers to make the trip home fun but not dangerous. I got the shelves and all the trim molding stained; now I have to steel wool them once and add another coat.
Whew. Back from CT and a trip back into time- the first time I’ve been back up to the old Dugan high-school era homestead in about 3 years- that was a trip through time. Some random thoughts about the journey:
- Mahopac has not changed.
- The area in a 60-mile radius around New York City is still the Land of Classic Rock. I heard “Hysteria” by Def Leppard twice in 2 days on the radio. Basically the choices for radio up there are one of three: classic rock, sports talk, or latin dance music.
- County Adjustment Bureau is still as ugly as it was when I went to college, times two. We drove up and peeked in the driveway: there are lots of tractor trailers parked in there, but I took it as a good omen that a Scout 80 was parked over in the driveway.
- Ridgefield is still as rich as I remember it.
- The leaves driving back through New Jersey on Sunday were absolutely incredible.
Today I’m going to hit the Home Depot and order the carpeting I’ve been waiting for for 2 months. They’re having a special, with installation, where the padding is free. I took measurements last night and got all the relevant info I need. I also need to get the stain today and begin on the woodwork; once I get my paycheck I’m also going to pick up the wood for the stairs and get those installed. Luckily the side shelves, which were cupped slightly after I installed them, sanded down smooth and look clean. So after the underside caps are stained, I’ll install them and finish off the side walls. I also am going to measure the junction box at the store, cut down a piece of sanded plywood, and mount it on the wall in the closet. Then we can start the wiring…
Salon is no longer listing its main news stories for free- they’re putting them under the Premium service, so if you want to see good reporting by them, you have to shell out $30 or so. Now, I’ve been reading Salon for about the past four years. I love the magazine and have always supported it, talked it up, and browsed/read it daily. But in this economy, when I have to rationalize and justify a $15 bottle of wine, $20 worth of paint, or full gas tank in the Scout, I don’t have $30 to offer. Too bad. I suppose I’ll be looking at them a lot less now.
I read today that the guitarist from Limp Bizkit is leaving the band. While I wipe away a tear from my eye, I sit and meditate on this thought: What makes Fred Durst so important that his views on the tragedy in NYC are quoted in the paper? How did he and the pretty-boy guy from the Goo Goo Dolls get so famous and talented that they were allowed into the recording studio to do a cover of ‘Wish You Were Here‘ in memoriam? Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a cool idea (and a great song) but, man, was that bad. Those two dudes can’t sing.
Perhaps the guitarist just go so damn sick of Fred’s whiny voice that he couldn’t stay in the band? That’s my personal opinion.
I’m driving up to Conneticut tonight to stay with the Switzers, Mom’s friends from way back; the four of us are going to the wedding of one of Renie’s friends from high school back in our home town. That should be interesting. It has, however, been the first time I’ve seen my folks since, I think, June, so I’m really looking forward to that.
I’m tired.
Just heard about the Anthrax scare in New York at the Sam’s Club. I wrote to Jen: Kind of makes you think, though- Osama has no way of getting his ‘message’ out without the Western news media, namely, CNN. What good will it do if [he] starts trying to kill off the news media? On the other hand, he has everybody’s attention again. And, is Tommy Thomson, ostensibly Health & Human Services Secretary, a big lying sack of —-? I think so. I really wish the old 1970’s bulldog incarnation of Mike Wallace had just crucified this dude on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago.
Today I am in a funk of some kind, an unexplainable bad mood that I can’t shake this morning. I’m trying to get a bunch of things done before I leave this weekend for NY, and Sophie’s coming in to town, while a great surprise, comes at a bad time for me right now. There’s too much happening and I can’t keep up. I think the other part of this is that she stayed with Rob and Karean last night and we’re going to Kevin & Kelly’s place tonight- two houses that never seem to be dirty, smelly, or unkempt. It’s hard to follow in the footsteps of Metropolitan Home and Martha Stewart and not feel like my place is a dump right now.
I got the Tortoise back last night as well. After $100, she runs a hell of a lot better and tracks straight on the road again- let’s see how long it lasts this time. At least the idle is fixed and constant again. After we picked it up, Jen and I went to Peter’s last night for some dinner and had a good time- I love that place.
Funny quote from a fucked company‘s CEO to his employees:
Simply put, we spent $25+M is cash and amassed over quite a bit of debt, while generating just over $1M in revenue. A couple years ago, this was not necessarily a prescription for failure because there was almost unlimited access to capital for big long-term strategies.
Here at work and freezing my butt off. This is colder than Saturday night in the freakin’ tent. I’m wearing a T-shirt, long-sleeve cotton dress shirt, and an X-large Champion sweatshirt and I’m cold. My feet are freezing. The heat at the house came right up this morning, the first I’ve had to turn it on this year.
Camping was cool this weekend, besides having it rain on us for most of Saturday. I should have some pictures to post if/when i get the film developed (probably this week.) Sophie is in town this week and my house is a dump, and I also have to go pick up the Tortoise tonight, so it’s a good thing we got 12 hours of sleep last night. I’m feeling like I’m not going to have enough time to get everything done.
We spent a weekend with Pete, curator of the Squished Penny Museum in DC. He’s a real funny, interesting guy, and he does a mean Worcester accent. Don’t fuget to putcher beahs in tha crispa drowa.
FuckedCompany says that Accenture is laying off 7,000. I hope JP is OK and that he’s able to jump before the axe falls.
Getting ready for the camping trip this weekend; I have four blankets lined up and both sleeping bags packed; I was up making burritos (8 beautiful round specimens) and getting a tub of Guacamole together. The camping tub is packed; my bag is packed, and there are three gallons of clean water in the Scout good to go. Today at lunch I’m getting the Scout Jiffy-Lubed in prep for her adventure; other than that I think I’m ready. I have the unmistakeable feeling that I’m forgetting something-I figure that’s because usually I pack four billion pounds of food, but this time I only have the burritos and some snack foods. Hopefully the food other folks bring will be enough.
Jen is battling a cold and trying to recover for the trip; I hope she can come along but I’m terrified she will be miserable and sick if she does come. I’m crossing my fingers and praying to the great Sinus God of the sky to provide divine intervention on her behalf.
I found this interesting page on Google(the bestest search engine out there) about search trends for past weeks. Fascinating information, some of it. Wish I could remember what the command is to find what strings people enter to find this site. As of April (Dan still hasn’t fixed our webtracker to update my logs) it was scratchboard, ih scout II, scratchboard art and bill dugan.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Yesterday was a pretty interesting day; I went to the paper show with Jen at the B&O museum in town last night, and met up with a few people I haven’t seen in a while. Jason and Shelly are still at Gilden, and doing well, but I think they want to get out as soon as they can. They look good and sound happy otherwise, which is good news. I talked to Jon for a bit too; he sounds OK, although I think he’s worried about the future of web design, as everybody else is- he has a good shop going but I think he’s wondering when things are going to pick up again. I saw a girl I worked with at Supon and talked to her for a bit- she had no idea what had happened with the layoffs and was laughing when I told her the story. The show overall was pretty good, although not as lavish as last year. The giveaways were good but not great, and our friend Shaun at Art Litho sounds pretty dour about the future, based on all the folks he’s talked to lately.
Update on the Cidera layoffs: The Marketing VP and most of the toadies got axed a few weeks ago. Apparently they have about 40 people left to run the whole thing…whatever that is. Like I said before, it’s probably two people in the NOC, thirty-seven people trying to sell anything they can, and some unlucky fool running the place. Oh, and Brad, my old buddy from back in the day, got a job with the first company I ever hosted with. Small, small world.
I found this site on Builder.com for using homesite; there are a bunch of tips and tricks that I’ll have to look at a bit later.
Gotta buy me one of these. Tomorrow, i think.
12:02PM – OK, here’s the deal. Some people really get off on those cheerful, ironic, peppy Canadians calling themselves the Barenaked Ladies. Brandon- err, Jason Priestley, the Biff dude from 90120, liked ’em so much he directed a full-blown movie for them. The band had a few jingles that got picked up on the Alternative Radio, which basically means Columbia or Sony or whomever owns their mortal souls, jammed about half a mil into every A&R guy who then jammed $50 and a line of blow into every regional Program Director at every Alternative Radio Station (which basically equates to, in my opinion, some bald 40-year-old middle manager pulling a fax of Acceptable Songs off a fax and typing them into the DJputer) and thusly we were subjected to their peppy happy jingles every waking second of the day. Now, one of their happy jingles made its way into a Mitsubishi commercial (You know, the peppy song that starts by some nerd saying “Eyyyyyyyyyiiit’s been…”) and is on heavy HEAVY rotation throughout the 50 states on every major TV channel. Let me be clear: I don’t like the song. I like even less that it plays at least twice each hour.
I am a simple man. I shut off my satellite because it cost too much and I didn’t watch it. I just want to see some simple mindless TV (no problem there, really) but without that damn song in my head.
As for Mitsubishi, I was never impressed with their cars, and after my buddy Jason’s experience with you and his Spyder, like hell I’m ever gonna consider buying one of their cars.
I was able to get a bunch of stuff done in the basement last night; looking at it this morning didn’t reveal any major changes, but a lot of my time was taken up by cutting and fitting the finish trim to fit as best I could. Both side shelves are cut, fit, and tacked in. The closet interior is framed out save the mullions for the doors. The kickplate all the way around the room is tacked in with the exception of the one piece on the northeast wall. I installed the other access panel for the water shutoff, and the second stairway light, as well as swapping out the bad wallplate switch. Mostly what remains is buying or milling a bit more wood, sanding, and some massive staining and polyurethaning. There’s some finish painting that needs to be taken care of, another round or two with the caulk gun, and a bunch of touch-up in the stairway, but we’re drawing closer.
I also had the pleasure last night of hearing five short blasts from a ship’s horn, clearly audible from the front basement window. That was great. I love living near the water.
This is some sad news… I suppose I’m going to have to upgrade sometime to Win 2000- probably my next machine. I love my NT though. I guess I should really worry about getting myself a new Mac before that happens, though…
Update on the Scout: I called the owner, and told him I need some time to get the cash together; He’s completely cool with it, and told me to give him a call when I can move on it. He was ready to bring the title home to me in a few weeks. So I just have to bust ass to get the cash together. The Tortoise had another (this will be #3) bad tire; Mike switched it and swapped rims (apparently the right front was not the only rim to be bent- the right rear was too) and cleaned the throttle body out, which should take care of the bad idle.
I found some pictures of some clean Rallye Scouts from the 2001 IH nationals; at some point I’ll post them up here, just to keep myself motivated. The one to the right there is the first, and the spitting image of the one I’m looking at, save the running boards and white spoke wheels.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Hmm. What’s happening today? it’s a beautiful morning this morning. I woke up (that was hard to do today) and made some coffee, played with the cats, and straightened up the house. After a hot shower, I went downstairs to inventory what I need for the basement this week (which, given the camping trip, will be a short one) and just took stock. Hopefully the rest of the stuff I need will be inexpensive- the last big outlays I see will be the carpeting and the stairs. (maybe I can rip the stairs partially out tonight- hee hee!)
I have to call the guy about the Scout today and Mikey about the Tortoise as well; he hopefully has fixed both the idle and the pull to the right, which will be wonderful.
I have also noticed, that despite what could possibly be the best commercial for a convertible ever concieved, filmed, and presented, that nobody who owns a Volkswagen Cabrio ever puts the top down. What’s up with that?
I also found out last week that Cidera laid off another 40 or so people a few weeks ago. At this rate, they have five Senior Exalted Vice Presidents and a janitor left in their employment. What a mess.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Well, let’s see. I had a busy weekend; on Friday I went in to Mercy hospital for what is called an IVP, which means they put you in a hospital gown, pump you full of iodine and take pictures (X-rays) of your pelvis to see if your kidneys look OK. All the while you A. have a needle stuck in your arm, B. it’s cold, and C. the iodine is making your eyeballs itch uncontrollably. After the IVP I went upstairs to have what is harmlessly called a cystoscopy, but which in reality means they swab your johnson with a freezing cloth of Betadine, and knock you out so that they can feed a stainless steel hose up your urethra and take pictures. Apparently I am OK; there is a small spot on one of the x-rays which could be a kidneystone or just a spot- they’re going to tell me this week.
Jen took me home and took care of me, which meant she baked me a delicious Shepherd’s pie and a blueberry pie, but because my stupid range is so junky, it didn’t cook all the way through. Jen was really crushed about that, and I felt horrible. Saturday we did some running around and dropped the Taurus off at Mikey’s place, and picked up the pictures of the Scout his friend has- more on that later. Jen and I were distant from each other on Saturday because I had shut down on her Friday night, but we talked it through Saturday afternoon and came together for a really good Sunday- we spent pretty much the whole day relaxing, spending time together and napping. It was a crappy day yesterday, so we just sat on the couch in warm socks, played with the cats and enjoyed the fact that we didn’t have to go outside.
The Scout I’m talking about is up in Wisconsin, and I learned about it through Mikey, who has a beautiful restored Bronco, and knows I’m into Scouts. It’s a ’78 Rallye V-8 with air, it’s maroon, and it’s beautiful. I’m going to scan the pictures and post them here to look at today. Now I have to figure out how to raise about $3K to buy it and transport it here.