Date posted: May 16, 2011 | Filed under photo, porch | Leave a Comment »

6-1 crawl gear makes pulling dead bushes a very simple task.

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: May 15, 2011 | Filed under Scout | Comments Off on Afternoon at Work.

John McCain to Bush apologists: Stop lying about Bin Laden and torture.
The Idiot to John McCain: You’re about four years too late. Nice try, though.

Date posted: May 12, 2011 | Filed under politics, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

Sometimes people ask me about how I created my….
As someone who struggles every day with getting my design/carpentry/mechanics/parenting/husbandry to be where my ambitions lie, this is the best bit of advice I could read.

Date posted: May 12, 2011 | Filed under art/design, Inspiration, life, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

Dribbble: It’s called “show and tell for creatives.” Nice.

Date posted: May 10, 2011 | Filed under art/design, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

On Saturday morning, Mr. Scout and I ventured down to beautiful Jessup to buy some metal. We’re going to make bumpers for our Scouts, and we needed raw materials to get started. Based on measurements taken from a plan I built in Illustrator, some nice bluehaired ladies in a dark bar-enclosed shed sold us lengths of box steel and plate, and we loaded up the truck with our booty. This place was a picture straight out of 1960, from ancient brick and wood paneling to the yellowing xeroxed cartoons taped to the walls. There were no computers in sight; our order was transcribed into a three-ring notebook and estimated with a calculator. Mr. Scout told me he’d priced out the materials online and what we got was dirt-cheap, which makes me feel good. Now to find the time to get over to Chestertown to start building it all.

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Later that day, I bought some underlayment for the bathroom and began the tiling process. Sadly, this meant the sink and toilet had to be removed, at a crucial time for our household: Finn is on a potty-training program which means we have to get her upstairs every 45 minutes or so before she leaves a puddle somewhere on the floor. She’s doing really well, though; there were only a few accidents and she woke from both weekend naps completely dry. She’s also sleeping in her big-girl bed, which is a huge step for all of us. Saturday and Sunday morning she peeked in our room before dawn and woke me quietly, and both times she was dry—this after about 8 hours of sleep. Then I’d hoist her into our bed and she’d thrash around between us until I took her downstairs; clearly I need to get to sleep much earlier if this is how the pattern is going to change.

The underlayment went down quickly and with minimal fuss.

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Waiting for the adhesive to cure, I finished off the kickplate, top trim, and other bits of carpentry and slapped a first coat of gloss white on as much as I could see clearly at 11:30PM. Mr. Scout brought a 1/4″ router bit with him, and we quickly milled a piece of wood for the space between the two right-hand windows. He also pointed out that I’d been using the wrong gauge nails in my pneumatic gun, which is information I could really have used about two months ago. (Thanks, Mr. Scout!)

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Sunday morning Finn and I let Mama sleep in as long as she wanted, and we all spent the morning together before I got started tiling. It went in pretty easily. Mama suggested laying it with the points facing inward, so the hexagon shape stands out in the pattern, and I think it was the right move. We have a bit more trim work to do, and I need to cut about twenty pieces in half for the threshold, but we’re almost ready for grout.

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Date posted: May 9, 2011 | Filed under finn, friends, house, photo, porch | Leave a Comment »

Last night I left work and picked up my old college friend Chris at a downtown hotel and drove into Federal Hill for dinner. We’ve been meaning to get together since we connected up on Facebook a year ago. He hasn’t aged a day, looks fit and tan, and it felt like we picked up where we left off 15 or so years ago.

I’ve been getting the feeling that I should reach out and connect back up with old friends lately. I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people, and even worse at admitting that to myself. Facebook is great for that sort of thing, but there are a few folks who haven’t been lured to the dark side yet; a little google-fu will (hopefully) change that.

Date posted: May 6, 2011 | Filed under friends | Leave a Comment »

(Conversation after breakfast this morning):

Finn: Can I have dessert?

Mama: You had dessert. You had fruit.

Finn: No, that’s healthy.

Date posted: May 5, 2011 | Filed under finn, humor | Leave a Comment »

Mama: Finn, do you want anything to eat?

Finn: No. I want something healthy. I want ice cream.

Date posted: May 3, 2011 | Filed under finn, humor | Leave a Comment »

Reading about OSL’s death this afternoon, I’m reminded of a chapter of Mark Bowden’s Guests of the Ayatollah, a book about the Iranian hostage crisis. The Desert One Debacle tells the story of the failed rescue attempt in 1980, an event that streamlined U.S. Special Operations and increased the chances of success for risky assaults like yesterday’s.

Date posted: May 2, 2011 | Filed under history, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »