We’re back on the air with DSL as of this afternoon; the nice technician called my cellphone from the pole and asked me how many lines we have in the house. Apparently the wire that was supposed to be hooked up to a certain part of the panel was not; the reason for the outage is still unexplained. Whatever the case, I don’t care—I’m sick and tired of Panera.
There’s been little progress on the porch since Saturday other than a long session with the shop vac, which makes working in there much more enjoyable. I have a pile of fresh new lumber and an itch to start rebuilding, but I need a consult before I can get started.
8 quick Photoshop tips to improve productivity. Some of these I’ve known, but some are very helpful.
Sweet! Club-level Orioles tickets on Wednesday, and it’s supposed to be 65° and sunny!
I’m sorry I didn’t write to you last week, when you were an apple, but it was a busy week for the three of us. You’ve now been to three baby showers that aren’t your own. We went to a restaurant for the first time since January and had a meal as a family without making Mommy feel like she’s been pounding shots of tequila on spring break. Your legs are growing longer! Outside, the tulip tree in the front yard is blooming, and the daffodils are exploding all over the place.
The warmer weather means I’m doing some research on new cars for getting the three of us around, because the Lockardugan fleet has a total of four doors for two cars. You see, we own two perfectly good, working, dependable coupes that are completely impractical for taking you anywhere, which means that one of them will have to go. As sad as I am to get rid of one, I’m looking forward to a new car. I’d like a full-size American pickup, but I’m setting my sights smaller, on something like a Honda Fit or a Nissan Versa. I know it’s not a sexy as a BMW or a Land Rover, but I don’t think you’ll notice the difference from the back seat.
Then, there’s car seats. At the Target the other night, we looked at the latest models, and I doubt I can get some of those things through our front door, let alone into the back seat of an automobile. Consumer Reports had an article that has me completely freaked out about any kind of car seat at all, because apparently all the good ones are made in Europe, and eight out of ten seats tested didn’t protect the test subject in a side impact. Avocado, I don’t want anything to hurt you, so I hope you can forgive me for the crash helmet and Nomex fire suit you’ll be wearing until the age of three. It’s cool, though-I’m going to do it Evel Knievel-style, with the cape and the scepter and everything.
We had a little scare with our insurance policy this past week, too. Your parents have insisted on employing themselves in the most economically sensitive industry imaginable, which means we pay stupid amounts of money to make sure prescription drugs don’t force us to declare bankruptcy. It turns out we have deductibles for each of us as people, and both of those combined equal the family plan. So Daddy has to fall down some stairs and charge up the hospital bills before they’ll take care of you. Do you see how much I love you? Now, let me show you how to dial 911 on my cellphone again.
Even though we’ve shopped a lot for other babies, we haven’t started buying stuff for you yet. You’re going to be a suprise, but we’re not letting that determine specific colors or themes. I think we’re going to make the front bedroom yours, which means we need to find a place to store the crap that’s in there right now-you’d think with all the room we have in this house we’d be able to find a place for some beds-but things have gotten a lot tighter around here lately.
Your father has been busting his ass to get the front porch fixed up before your arrival, and every day brings a new challenge. Like the ceiling joists, for example. The guys who put them in weren’t familiar with a tape measure, or building codes, or complicated stuff like that. No, they just toenailed a bunch of two-by-fours into the side of the house and stuck a roof on top, which makes the fact that it hasn’t collapstigated once in the last eighty years an architectural miracle. I admit, the tempation to vault the ceiling is very strong, but I want to call in a friend who knows some more about building to see exactly what’s possible before I get my hopes up. Whatever the case, it’s going to take a little more time than I’d hoped.
At this point, Europe is looking better and better all the time, kid—public transportation, sturdy car seats, socialized medicine, a ban on corn syrup, and one Euro is worth an entire house. And, they know how to make good beer. Think you’d like to learn Italian?
What a frickin’ disaster. I’m going to be hanging lots of new studs and beams this weekend, and become intimately acquainted with the laser level. Good times.
I’ve been getting tons of spam here in the last few weeks with offers to help me increase certain parts of my anatomy. It seems like every time I clean a bunch of spam out, I find more that have gotten through. I don’t need any of these things, because I’ve got something that’s relatively cheaper and more useful, and which leaves me feeling like, well, more of a man: a borrowed F350 SuperDuty pickup.
It’s wider and longer than the average pickup, which makes navigating our neighborhood something of a challenge. The sadists who relined our local grocery store parking lot designed it for cars the size of mopeds, which makes docking the Ford there an impossibility, and any trips to the store a carefully considered operation. It takes one and a half parking spots, no more, no less. Getting it parked properly is something that instills a sense of pride, though, because the turning circle is measured in miles, not feet. It seems to carve its own way through traffic with ease. Fear of an oncoming red wall of doom will make even the most aggro of highway warriors back off and make room for merging; I’ve tried not to abuse the privilege, honest. However, this did not dissuade the blind, deaf, and soon-to-be-dead-by-his-own-hand guy in the Honda this morning, who decided to merge right into my lane at 65mph, slow down to 25mph, then merge blindly right two more lanes onto the offramp, with feet to spare. (Dave, your brakes are working perfectly, but my heart is five years older).
Getting in and out is also something that takes a certain amount of physical grace: one does not sit down, one hauls oneself up into the cab and throws one’s ass towards the seat. The interior is cavernous, like sitting in two large La-Z-Boys levitating ten feet over the ground. It’s a new experience leaning down to hand the toll collector my money. The controls are big and beefy, meant to stand up to gorilla lawncare professionals and furniture deliverymen.
And the hauling capacity? Jeebus, I could rave about this thing for hours. I’ve moved a total of a ton and a half of debris from the house (figuring 1/3 ton for each load) where drywall was stacked to the gunwales, and the truck shrugged off the weight. Lining up at the dump next to the little Rangers and Nissans is comedic; I could fit their entire vehicles in the bed of the Ford.
We’re still working remotely from the local Panera because the crack Verizon repair team can’t get off their asses to fix our phone line until next Wednesday. Meanwhile, the clutch on our commuting vehicle blew up yesterday, stranding Jen on the side of the road. No word on the damage to the car or our bank account yet, but when the repair bill, taxes for 2007 and projected taxes for Q1 of 2008 are paid, we’re going to be left with pennies to rub together. Let us hope the news gets better the further we get into April.
Update: It’s only the shift linkage, which is a $500 repair and not a $2,000 repair, thank Jeebus. And, it was Wednesday, not Tuesday; this is what happens when I don’t have my internets.
Last night I was given a very appreciated hand by Clifford’s dad Dave in demolishing the last portion of the ceiling, bagging the insulation, and removal of the huge air conditioner hanging off the back porch. However, the weatherpeople on the teevee lied to me and said it would be sunny today, which it’s…not.
Bitchin’ atomic-age wallpaper. At $71/roll, it’s not cheap, though. (via)
Thanks to Verizon, our phone and DSL at the studio is down yet again. So we are commuting to the local Panera for connectivity yet again. So if you need to get in touch with us, email is probably not the best solution.