Whether or not to be worried or relieved at the news that our neighbor’s nasty three-color 1980-something Dodge Caravan was “stolen” from their driveway this afternoon sometime between 4:30pm and the time I got home.
I wonder if it’s in the same place the bass boat wound up after the repo guys showed up with the wrecker at 12:30 in the morning last fall.
-and-
How it might be possible to crawl through both time and the TV, back to the David Letterman show, to personally kick the shit out of every member of the “Kaiser Chiefs”.
American English dialect test
50% American English, 25% Yankee, 25% Dixie. Go figure.
I hustled myself in to the doctor’s office early on Saturday morning to see somebody about the posion ivy. Since Thursday, the itch had expanded further to areas I hadn’t noticed before: down my right leg and across the hipbone, in the webbing between my left index and middle finger (precursor to the dreaded Blister Fingers), and up and down my right arm, which was already resembling the flesh-eating virus. I met with a kindly Italian doctor and he quickly prescribed some Prednisone (cough be damned) and some topical skin cream, which has the consistency of axle grease. (this was, however, the easiest and quickest doctor’s visit I’ve ever had; in 45 minutes I had been treated and was driving home with my prescription.)
Jen and I have been planning out our priorities over the next couple of months, trying to sock away money for various projects around the house. Command Decision Number One was giving up on the IKEA bed until Jen gets her back and nerve issues worked out. I’m going to have to strap it to the roof of the Jeep and try to return it this week without taking flight on the Beltway—big fun. The floors downstairs have climbed back to priority one; with our tax return and a little boost from our bank accounts, we’ve got enough to cover the first floor and stairs. Next up is our often-dreamed-of anniversary trip, which we’ve been putting off thinking about until, well, we hit the lottery. We decided to scale back the dream trip to Italy and think modestly. Doing a little research online, we found a preplanned seven-day bed-and-breakfast tour through Ireland and plane fare for less than half the cost of a trip to Venice, and decided to go for that instead.
My ability to do any heavy lifting outside is still curbed by the creeping crud, so we took Saturday afternoon to look at plants and start planning our yard for the year. I bought a bunch of PVC and roughed in the basics of the irrigation system in the greenhouse yesterday, and had the chance to meet another set of neighbors behind us (the ones who just put an immense addition on to the back of their house, and who were gracious enough to give me the tour.)
I’d better get over this stupid rash soon, because the weather is much better now, and I have a ton of work to do around the house before it gets too hot.
Adobe Buys Macromedia
Can this be true? DAMN.
Napoleon Dynamite Toys
If I was the “action figure” buying type, I’d be all over this. Sweeet.
Memory Maps Meme.
via Google Maps and Flickr. Here’s mine.
I’ve been dreaming of using our greenhouse for actual growing purposes ever since we stood out in the backyard and saw it for the first time. When we inspected it, I knew it would need a lot of work. The owners had left us a pair of rain barrels, one potting table, a selection of clay and plastic pots, and one empty greenhouse with a busted heating fan, questionable electrical system, and half-disconnected irrigation pump. Being a closet engineer, I’ve been dying to get to work on this, and Jen has been wanting to use it for growing stuff since last spring.
Since move-in day we’ve cleaned it up and found that the electrical system works fine—the flourescent lights need new bulbs and possibly new ballast—but the irrigation system made no sense. As far as I can tell, there’s a weird pump above the door which used to be hooked up to a water line which then pumped water between the two sheets of plastic which cover the greenhouse. It’s either that, or it vented something out into the air…but I can’t tell how or what.
Update: I think I finally figured it out. It’s an air pump, and it used to inflate the layer of air between the two sheets of plastic. Somehow, I guess, this increased the R value of the structure and kept things warmer.
The heater is still powered, but makes a frightening screech when it’s turned on. It sounds like a rusted or thrown bearing.
Last weekend I took a closer look at the outside of the structure and found out how the plastic is kept in place. It’s a simple tension system, where the plastic is fed into a channel on the frame, and a long strip of aluminum is then fitted into the channel over top, then gently tapped into place. They then sealed it with pounds of silicone caulk, which will have to be removed, but that’s a small matter.
Today, because we’re not getting hammered by income taxes, I took some of my IRS money and ordered a bunch of stuff: four lengths of UV-rated greenhouse plastic, a trio of 1 GPH misting nozzles and their respective PVC fittings, a hose-to-PVC connector, and a drain valve. My original idea was to use copper and PVC together, and drill small holes in a length of 1/2 PVC to mist, but I decided to spend an extra $15 to test out how the nozzles work. The rest of the PVC is off-the-shelf stuff, and should be another $20 or so. It should be here next week, and I’ll keep you up to date on the progress.
Australian Camper Home
I’ve always dreamed of having a self-contained RV, but this is crazy.
I took some time last night to update a bunch of stuff here at Idiot King Central; Search results will actually resemble the rest of the site and are listed in a format more pleasing to the eye. Most (if not all) of the links on the left are now correctly pointing at their destinations, especially in the Archive sections. I re-arranged the main archive page to fit the output from MT, and tweaked the search bar design a bit for aesthetic purposes. I’m still playing around with the comments design, so that may change a bit over time as I work it out. Overall, you should notice better gas mileage, hear a dialtone every time, and enjoy a 12% decrease on your electric bill.
iTunes Affiliate program
I’d sign up for this, if I thought I could earn more than $1/mo.