I added Wim Wenders to the Alphabet Project today, after a three-week absence brought on by activity and paying work. There is a “V” in the works, but I decided that adding something was better than nothing.
Yeah, the indian summer here in Baltymore is over. We’re now back to the low 90’s with typical Maryland humidity, which is to say, wet like a sponge. The beginning of June was idyllic, and I only wish I’d gotten out and taken more advantage of it. This weekend saw the long-awaited continuation of 2004’s outdoor projects—I finished reglazing the living room windows and replaced the storms. I cut in the rest of the siding on the South and West sides of the house, as well as scraped and painted a ton of exposed wood on the porch. By the time 5:30 rolled around, I was hot, tired, and ready for November.
I intended to get the first rain barrel installed in the southeast corner of the house today, but gave up on that pretty quickly after 5PM. The trick is to elevate the barrel so that gravity will do the work of irrigation for us, which means building a platform to put it on, diverting the gutter around a corner and into the top of the barrel (literally, a square peg in a round hole) and fitting an overflow valve. The hardest part will be the gutter portion, based on what I’ve found at the various Home Superstores around town, because there isn’t anything made for this particular application—which means I’m going to have to get creative with PVC and flexible tubing. Then again, I could just buy this peculiar-looking contraption, or perhaps this even stranger-looking thing.I think I’m going to look some more at Lowe’s first, because neither of these things allow for getting around a corner.
Ten good reasons to keep religion out of politics. Because we elect assholes like this, who are dumber than a box of hammers. Perhaps you should spend a little more time reading your Bible and understanding it instead of trying to ram it down our throats, Congressman. (For the record, I had a brainfart and forgot Kill and Adultery, of all things, but I remembered the other eight. I’m a heathen.) (Youtube link)
I found this comparison of 14 flux core MIG welders via the MAKE: blog this afternoon, and it’s like an answer to my prayers. I’ve always wanted to weld some more—my experience was limited to some very basic lessons taught by my roommate Pat after hours in the sculpture lab at MICA—and there are many things I’d like to be able to do/build/fabricate given the time, money and equipment. Besides, I think real men should know how to weld. Meanwhile, the site is now in my permanent RSS feed. Any site that recommends a pocket knife as a Father’s Day gift is OK with me.
According to Technorati, only 55% of bloggers post after 3 months of existence. Huh. I’ve been doing this since 2001, give or take a month or two. I do agree with the point about quality vs. quantity, but I also have to admit this blog’s purpose is as much to unclutter my brain as it is for anybody else to read. (ups to Mike)
Huh. I just noticed the search template here on Idiotking was completely hosed. It’s fixed now. Sheesh, you’d think I did this for a living or something.
Publish calendars without .Mac in iCal. I haven’t tried this particular solution, but I’d wager it works. I’d rather have webDAV working on a local server here at the office, but I’ve never had luck getting it to work. Not for lack of trying, though. This could be cool, if it works.
The setup: Waiting for our bread to warm, in front of the kitchen TV, watching a promo for the earth-shattering Matt Lauer/Britney Spears interview (a high water mark for modern journalism), my beautiful wife says:
“Cover up your boobs, you dumb slut.”
Later, she turned to me and said,
“Seriously, Matt had to see that shit. Do you think he told her to take the gum out of her mouth before the interview?”
This morning, laying in bed clearing the sleep from my eyes, I decided to begin a daily bike ride I’ve been planning since August of 2004. Last weekend, I pulled both my bikes out of the basement and inflated the tires, checked the chains, and tested the brakes. They’re now hanging out in the garage on hooks, where they should get more use and will be easier to access.
This morning’s ride took me southward to the edge of the Patapsco Valley State park, which is walking distance from the house here. The weather has been unseasonably cool and dry for June in Maryland, cool enough that I’m kicking myself for not taking advantage of it two weeks ago. Come August, I’m going to be getting up at 5:30 to get in a half-hour’s ride before I melt into a puddle of slag in the bike lane.
I used to be a pretty avid rider when I lived in the city and worked for Johns Hopkins—not a spandex peacock riding a $3,000 carbon-fiber spaceship, but an avid rider who biked to work every day and got in at least two mountain-bike rides a week at my peak. I haunted the local bike shops for used parts to upgrade my rides. I had a set of city wheels for my beater bike, and got to where I was pulling as much crap off the frame to lighten the bike as I could. I used to have rider’s legs and a decent cardiovascular system, which meant I could climb the hill from the Harbor to Eutaw Place without feeling winded, and I could hold my own on the hilly singletrack of Avalon. When I quit Hopkins and started working outside the city, my riding dropped off dramatically, and in the last two years I’ve been on my bikes a total of five times.
Today it felt like coming home, even though I was on my mountain bike for what is really a road bike’s ride. The air was crisp and fresh, the birds were out, and I explored a section of the park I’ve not seen yet. Along the way, I stopped to read a park map and spied a whitetailed deer and her foal creeping through the woods not 50 feet away. We stopped and looked at each other, and in the blink of an eye both were gone as quietly as they’d come. The ride back home is just right for someone as out-of-shape as me; lots of climbing with landings in between to catch one’s breath.
Along the way, I happened upon the only other running Scout I’ve seen in the area, a tan ’78 not unlike ours, parked in a driveway nearer the park, chocked with a 2×4′. If the time comes when I’m ready to give up Chewbacca, I know who to approach for a good home.
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In other news, I got an email from a fellow who publishes an online magazine, asking if he could use some of my Bimini photos to accompany a story he wrote about the island. He also mentioned that the Compleat Angler, a bar/hotel we drank at while we were there, and a historic landmark of the island (Hemmingway preferred to stay there when he was on the island), burned down in January. I can’t tell you how sad this news is, and how devastating this must be for the local economy—there aren’t more than five bars we saw for tourists to visit on the south end of the island, and the Angler was hands-down the one with the most style and panache. On the heels of the plane crash last December, this is just awful news.