Apple is releasing an updated version of their Airpods for the same price–$159, or $200 with the wireless charger. I wear headphones at least two hours a day, so these are on my list of must-have tech purchases this year. I cannot describe how annoying it is to deal with a wire catching on every damn thing–my messenger bag, my pocket, my coat, whatever I’m carrying–so this will be a godsend.
Years ago I was vacationing in Maine at a friend’s family beach house. Exploring the local town I happened upon a flea market where a guy was selling several old canvas bags filled with mismatched tools. I liked the markings on the front flap, two crossed rifles with a number, and the stenciled U.S. below that. I picked out the cleanest one, made sure it still had its leather strap attached, dumped out the shitty tools and paid the man $10, I think. I took it back to the house and scrubbed the grease off with a garden hose and some Pledge. For years I used it for various things, including a portfolio bag and my sketch notebook bag, and it’s currently sitting downstairs in a waterproof tote with other art supplies and my library of old sketchbooks.
For some reason this morning it popped into my head, and I did a little internet sleuthing on the train. Turns out it’s a U.S. Army field mess haversack, first manufactured in 1876, meant for carrying food tins and utensils. Over the years my leather disintegrated but I was able to retain both of the brass hooks, which I still have, set aside for new leather.
I’m not sure, and I have to ask Jen if she knows of anything else, but that bag might be the oldest thing in this house.
I’m dragging today. A great birthday night last night + a bad night’s sleep = unfocused bleary Idiot.
However, I did reserve a beachfront house in Delaware for a week in July with the Morrises, which makes me happy; this might be the first time in four years we’ve had something reserved this early, and the first time we’ve been beachside in three years. Now, if I can keep my GI tract from backing up like a faulty toilet, the family will be able to enjoy itself for the entire vacation.
We also got confirmation that we are official members of one of the neighborhood pools (the good one, not the snooty one). This involved waiting on a list for a year and a half, and purchasing a bond so that we can come and go as we please. As much as I don’t want to show my pasty white skin to the rest of the neighborhood (or show off my scar), I can’t wait to put a morning’s worth of work in on the house, rinse myself off, and then go jump in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. And Finn will be able to go with her friends whenever she likes.
Saturday we did a lot of errands, and after getting home we did a bunch of work in the backyard. Finn and Jen worked on shoring up and mulching the rear flowerbed while I looked over the rear of the greenhouse, which had blown out during the last windstorm.
When I’d removed the middle polycarbonate panel last spring I made it very difficult to replace due to the way the greenhouse was constructed: the panels slot into a thin channel at the top and bottom, and are sandwiched in between two vertical rails. Because I couldn’t fit the panel back into the top last fall, I sort of half-installed it and hoped it would stay in place, which it obviously didn’t.
I took the panels apart and reinstalled the two sides with new screws, and then thought about how I was going to work with the center section; ultimately I reinstalled the chickenwire plug and put the panel behind that to hold it in place. The eventual goal will be to cut the middle panel down to an 8×8 square and reinstall the top section permanently, then find a way to put the bottom half in as either a door or a removable panel.
While I had the back walls off I removed the insulation blocks from the south wall, which had been left over from before we moved in. It’s amazing how much more light gets in there now, and it’ll get even better after I’ve replaced the plastic. It also laid bare just how janky the footings are (the wood along the bottom in the picture above), so I’ve got to get on replacing those first when the weather is a little warmer.
Sunday we were invited to brunch at the neighbors’, and planned on making some egg nog french toast to bring. Jen and I made the nog from scratch on Saturday evening (result: it was tasty but it’s much easier to buy it at the store) and Sunday morning I cooked them up before we walked over. There were a bunch of families we haven’t seen in months, and while the kids all ran and played outside we adults ate and drank and caught up. Somewhere around 12:30 or so I noticed I had a pleasant day drunk on, and a little while after that I was convinced to have an Irish car bomb/cement mixer with a bunch of other folks (I declined the second one). We stayed until about 6:30 and walked back home, pleasantly squiffed, ordered a pizza, and kissed the rest of our day goodbye.
Which meant that this morning, my birthday, I was feeling a little rough when I first woke up.
From Lifehacker: new rules for traveling to Europe. There are some plans afoot for next year (subtle hint) so this is good stuff to know. Not quite a visa, but another form of authorization.
After several unsuccessful months of listing my tires on Craigslist, I finally got someone to come through with a real offer. Since August of last year, I’ve had several people inquire and then flake out, which isn’t really anything new for CL. I had one dude offer, then flake out, then pop up a week later offering $50 less, for months at a time. I was never that desperate to get rid of them, so I didn’t pay much attention to him. But it was slightly annoying.
This morning a guy stopped at the house to pick them up (thus allowing me to avoid driving up to Timonium to deliver them for an extra $20) and after a brief once-over and exchange of Benjamins we loaded them up into his truck. He’s got a YJ with some tiny little tires on it, and he sent me a picture of it after he’d had them mounted and installed.
Not too bad, although I dislike YJs intensely.
With that sale, I recouped 1/3 the original purchase price of the Scout. To celebrate, I ordered a new 3-core Champion aluminum radiator and an upper and lower hose. My cooling system has been ignored since I bought the truck, so it’s high time to look it over and improve. I’m going to buy a flush kit to clean out the cooling passages, drop the new unit in place, and finally get it hooked up to the overflow tank (the nipple on the side of the port came unbrazed and the overflow tube hasn’t been connected in 8 years). One thing I have to research is how much differently the aluminum unit is from the stock radiator; I’ve got to be able to install my fan shroud extender on the new unit and I have no idea if there are any bolt holes supplied.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I took Finley out of school to go snowboarding yesterday, and we had a blast. It’s really late in the season, especially in the face of global warming, to be expecting good conditions, but we got lucky. The weather was in the 70s by the time we got to Whitetail, and we stripped off clothes when we got out of the car. The parking lot was lightly filled, the rental lanes were empty, and there were only two people working the counter. We got set up with boots, boards, and gear (I had to stop and buy Finn a new set of board gloves) and walked outside into bright sunshine to wait for our first lesson. We had a half an hour to kill so I walked her up the short hill in front of us and explained that the day was all about learning board control.
In 2016 she did fantastic getting up on her board and transitioning, but the speed scared her and the only way she could control that was by skidding out and dumping herself, which got painful and frustrating quickly. We started by keeping the board parallel to the slope and working on heel-toe control to halt the board, and then mixed that in with a little speed.
There were only a few people waiting with us for lessons, two women who worked at the resort and Finley, so by the time we were at the top of the bunny slope we paired off with Stephanie, a wonderful instructor who worked with Finn exclusively on board control and transitioning together. I wisely wore my backpack so by the end of the first run we’d stripped off our coats, stuffed them inside, and spent the rest of the day in long-sleeve T-shirts and snowpants. We were both still sweating. We did two runs with her and by the end of the second Finn was smiling broadly and laughing. We said goodbye to Stephanie and the first thing Finn asked was “when can we come back here again?”
We stopped for some lunch and sat outside in the sunshine for a little while before heading back out to the slope. Here we tried taking the Magic Carpet, essentially a conveyor belt for skis and boards which is a lot less confronting than the ski lift itself. Finn fell at the foot of the lift, and scooted around the corner as fast as she could. She got flustered immediately and most of her first run down the mountain was filled with frustration as she forgot everything we’d worked on—to the point where she kept dumping herself and asked if we could go home.
I talked her through what she was feeling and reminded her that she wasn’t doing any of what we’d learned, and then got her to do two short runs down the hill without falling. She refused to head back up the magic carpet, and the dumb 16-year-old in the booth chose that particular moment to ask me for our lift passes, which I’d stripped off and put back in the car. Annoyed, I went back and got them but couldn’t convince Finn to ride it again, so we walked back up the tiny bunny slope and worked on her braking technique until we were both tired and sweaty.
By this time the slopes were almost slushy and we were ready to call it a day, so we returned our boards, peeled off our snow pants and hit the bricks for home. There was barely anyone left in the parking lot. By Frederick she was asleep in the seat next to me, her head up against the door of the car, her cheeks, nose and forehead bright pink from the sun.
I found this in a random picture thread online. Apparently this was a bakery based in Newark and was in business up until the late ’60’s or early 70’s. The cart above was electric, made by the Walker company. Below is a horse and cart from earlier days. I’d love to have that horse blanket; I might have to recreate that logo.
I’m really not on Facebook at all these days, but my account is still there. I had to pop in there to look something up this weekend and noticed Bennett had mentioned me in a post: apparently someone is selling a cab top that looks like it was painted purple the same day as my Scout. I’m half tempted just to buy it even though I don’t have a bulkhead to go with it (the section that sits between the bedrails).
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
