Droogle
Do a search on what’s in your liquor cabinet. Results may vary.
Two freelance checks in two days. The VISA bill will be paid off and we have seed money for one of two major house issues: a new big-people-bed or 2/3 of the first floor sanded. Jen and I are going to sit down and decide what needs to happen first.
Does anybody have first-hand experience with a Sleep Number bed? We’d like to hear some anecdotal evidence to justify $1,500 for a mattress.
I pulled lunch out of the oven on Sunday and went looking for Jen around the house. Realizing she had gone outside, I found her in the garden, trimming back some of the dead brush around last year’s perennials. She’s been surrounding herself with gardening books since she got a new library card, and my family sent her home from Christmas with the entire horticulture section of Barnes & Noble. Lately I can feel her gardening neurons firing like firecrackers, and I think she’s been waiting to get outside in the dirt since the end of January. Our beds look a lot less barren than they did in February, because we now have crocuses sprouting like crabgrass, backed up by daffodils and some early scattered tulips. We have grand plans for our yard this year, but as always, the money situation means we have to be clever about our planting and landscaping. Jen somehow made $34.72 successfully spread out over the entire yard last year in time for the wedding, and I think she’s got similar excellent plans for this year. Hopefully that also involves my renting a jackhammer for a warm afternoon and pulling the concrete sidewalk along the west side of the house. (Thanks, Shelly, for the beautiful lavender, by the way.)
Meanwhile, a quick scouting trip down the back side of Beechwood Ave. revealed a major sewer installation along the property lines of our neighbors’ houses to the end of Rolling Road. Our house sits on the high side of what used to be a creekbed, and the southeast corner of our property line is the beginning of the low spot which continues down the hill. It looks like the County is going to dig up and put in a 4″ drainage system starting two houses down by the looks of the concrete junction boxes and corrugated piping stacked back there. We can only hope this will help dry out our corner of the property and remove the mosquito problem we suffer through in the summertime. Curious, though, is why they’re not starting in our backyard and our neighbors’, because he technically has a bog for a back lawn, and the area out behind our greenhouse gets pretty mucky after a good rain…
Our weekend was a very laid-back couple of days, involving some recovery time on Saturday, a scouting trip to Restoration Hardware, where we found a strong candidate for hallway lighting, viewings of Napoleon Dynamite (recommended) and Saw (skip it), and relaxation. Sunday I attempted to get some painting done after a grocery run, but quickly lost concentration and returned to my laptop to get the weblog running.
Overall, I’m very happy and impressed with MT so far. The novelty of using the web interface instead of booting into BBedit every time I want to post to the site hasn’t worn off yet, and it’s BEAUTIFUL to be able to edit one include file and have it propagate through the entire site. I’m happy.
And Linda, we are terribly sorry we missed your birthday.
I’ve not been using my camera these days for anything besides some random shots of the hallway which never seems to progress; it’s a real shame because there are things out there to photograph, but I’ve just not been seeing them. Today, through one place to another, I visited heather’s site (she’s also responsible for the mirror project) and through hers another good photography site. I started thinking about pictures again. I remember when I first got my digital camera and was shooting everything I saw—living in a photogenic area of the city made finding subjects easy. Nowadays, I commute blindly by highway, rarely stopping to search for interesting shots. Instead of just carrying my camera around with me, I need to start using it again. Additionally: How to rig an old digital to take a picture a minute for the old Kodak sitting on the shelf.
Continuing on another thread, I’m rooting for Jay to win tonight, but thinking that Kara will probably take the whole thing.
Helpful Design Link: Fontleech, a site chronicling free fonts for poor designers.
painted hallway, 2.23.04
This morning my neck is a solid chunk of concrete, thanks to the hibernation-mode sleep I got last night. The good news is that the hallway is primed upstairs and 95% ready for a final coat of bright white paint; the bad news is that the entire house is covered in white dust again. Meanwhile Penn has suddenly developed that wierd eye swelling thing where the inside of the eyelid blows up like a balloon and makes him look like a post-match Rocky. This means I’ll have to squirt medicine into his mouth (twice) and his eye once every 12 hours for the next week or so—I think the poor cat is ready to run away from home by now.
I think that’s my old guitar…but I don’t know the girl.
In the winter of 1986, my Dad drove me out to Mt. Kisco to look at a bass guitar listed in the classifieds. I’d just picked up electric bass after playing upright for three years, and it was time to find a beginner’s instrument. We walked up a flight of stairs to a dark apartment building and met with a longhaired, half-stoned dude who took us into his practice room. He had several guitars lined up and handed us the largest of them all, a survivor from the late 1970’s: an Ibanez Blazer, woodgrain with a black pickguard. It had the longest neck of any guitar I’ve ever seen (21 frets), it weighed more than a car, and it had deeper sound than a foghorn. I tried it out with a rudimentary blues line, feeling sheepish and embarrassed, and it sounded good. I don’t know what my Dad paid for it, but we lugged it back to the Rabbit and took it home. On this bass I learned to play, finding it was easier learn jazz than keep up with Geddy Lee (not that I didn’t try.) Later, I bought a Steinberger from my friend, finding its portability and size easier for college, and the Ibanez became second fiddle (pun intended.) Eventually, in the post-graduate purge, I “sold” it to a friend so that his wacky girlfriend could join an all-grrl punk band, and it passed out of my hands. I think the bass in this Microsoft ad could be mine, only because the pickups are white—we had the original pickups pulled and replaced by the music store in town, and for some dumb reason they gave us white—we never bothered to have them switched out. I heard that girl moved to Philadelphia and took it with her years ago, so imagine my surprise when I saw it again. It’s nice to think that maybe one of us got famous. (And thanks, Dad.)
Jen drove to the LP City last night after work to see her Mom, and got about ten minutes in with her before they threw her on a medevac chopper to Georgetown University Hospital. Mrs. Lockard is resting now, but things continue to seesaw between Bad and Nearly As Bad.
I bought the Eric Meyer book at Border’s this morning, paying the extra $15 just to have it now (quite a penalty, when Amazon is throwing in free shipping), but so far it’s pretty decent. I’d recommend having a good grasp of CSS before you start, as there’s stuff in the first chapter he’s hitting you with that you may or may not be familiar with. (The book assumes you have a working grasp of CSS and its properties, but haven’t really made the leap to CSS layout.) I’m halfway through the first chapter, and it’s a good study so far.
Unable to join Jen for what was planned as an overnight stay, I accepted the invitation of a couple guys at work to mountain bike last night, which meant I had to dust off Andre The Giant and try to locate all of my biking gear. We rode a reasonably easy trail up at Loch Raven, which predictably kicked my out-of-shape butt three ways to Sunday. (not to mention it feels like I’ve been kicked by a horse back there.) But it did feel good to get outside and ride again.
1956 Oldsmobile Holiday, Oella, 6.27.04
Jen mentioned something to me the other day that got me excited—she asked if we could go to Assateague this year now that we have the Jeep. Friends, I had completely put aside the idea of camping on the beach again with the Scout off the road; somehow it had never occurred to me that we have 4-wheel-drive again, and the possibility of camping was back in our reach. This week I’m going to blow the dust off the camping gear and set up an expedition for sometime in September.
Huh. Today at work they asked me if I wanted to go to Siggraph in August, which is a surprise; not being the #1 3-D guru here, I figured I was low on the list of priority conference attendees, but somebody above me thinks it’s important to have me there. Of course this means I need to rethink some of my plan for Jen’s birthday, but the thing I had in mind was going to have to wait for the weekend either way. There are some very interesting and possibly interesting exhibits to see.
Recap. Saturday: Had the Jeep inspected—it passed. Bought a ladder, tested ladder, returned ladder and bought a taller one. Cleaned the sprayer, primed and painted the east side of the house. Cleaned out the Taurus. Got some soft serve ice cream with the Wards. Sunday: Finished painting the house, had a tasty breakfast, bought a steel motel table, two camera filters and an Emerson 550 for $21. Drove to Dave’s house and enjoyed some good conversation, Indian beer, and new music (Thanks Dave!) Returned home to a delicious meal from Jen, and planned out a budget. This Morning: Registered and titled the Jeep.
Monday Learning Links. How to Pick a Lock. | MIT open courseware. | Bootable OSX DVD how-to. | Photoshop weathering primer.
There’s a big huge tent on our front lawn; it’s surrounded in mesh and fabric, and it lights up at night. There’s a pile of Andy Nelson’s Barbecue in our fridge for the rehearsal dinner. I have seven hours of dance music on the iPod for our enjoyment, from gypsy swing to Motown dance classics. We’ve hidden a trashbag full of cicada carcasses as far from the house as it will get, and hosed off the back porch three times in the last three days. (They keep coming back.) The cooler on the back porch is filled with cold beer. Jen’s bridal gown is hanging in her room with the door closed, and I have a crisp tuxedo waiting in mine (with some of the funkiest rubber/patent-leather shoes I’ve ever worn.)
The stage has been set, and when the rehearsal party has been fed, responsibility for everything will pass quietly out of our hands and into that of a higher power. Pray to whomever you like that there’s no driving thunderstorms like the one we had this morning; no sudden infestation of cicadas into the—knock, knock—otherwise clean tent out front (and give thanks that the tent guy convinced us that the backyard was a bad idea); no last-minute disaster that we’ve lain awake at night and not forseen.
Most importantly, pray that I don’t step on my beautiful bride’s neatly pedicured toes with my big rubber patent-leather paddle feet during our first dance (which as been changed to Louis Armstrong’s A Kiss To Build A Dream On).
A year ago this evening, I took the most beautiful woman in the world to dinner on a warm spring night in Georgia. We had wonderful food, sipping cocktails together, and the rest of the world faded from view. Walking home through the historic district, we passed through misty, tree-lined squares, holding hands and laughing quietly to ourselves. Crossing through Madison Square, I took advantage of the magical night and asked her to marry me. Luckily, she said yes.
Insta-Storm-Tracker-Central. Last night the NBC weather dork claimed it would be 88° and sunny; this morning the one good digital camera, but the other one is pretty lousy and therefore not worth taking with us. Jen has a very nice Nikon SLR, I have my trusty Minolta X-700, and we sat on the couch last night wondering if we should go buy a pile of T-Max and take one of the SLR’s with us. The complicating factor is the arrival of a freelance check in our mailbox today, which means I could spend some time hunting down and buying her a good midlevel digital camera… time I don’t have at this point. (In a perfect world, we’d get something like this and start investing in lenses, but…)
Update: We’re taking Jen’s SLR with us and investigating the option of ditching our return flight in Paris to stay an extra day or three. Stay tuned.
Update Update: flying coach one-way from Paris to Baltimore, with all the connecting flights included, is prohibitively expensive ($1,200+/ea) and nullifies out any extra cash we have—and that’s not including any kind of lodging. Anybody have any ideas out there?
While packing up to leave work yesterday, I got a call from Jen, who asked for an ETA. It turned out that Penn decided to jump on Geneva for no good reason, chomping her on the leg, drawing a frightening amount of blood and scaring the shit out of Jen. She quickly got Geneva bundled up and off to the vet while I returned home to clean up after Penn’s mess.
I should stop here and describe all the occupants in the House Of Cats for everyone to understand (and I’m sure Jen will have things to add here.) We have five:
Sage, A.K.A. Chocolate Love, Chubbo, The Big Man, Barry White. Big, black, and on your lap. Sage is the most mellow of the five, has the best personality, and keeps the others in line (mostly.) Saved from a dumpster in Texas many moons ago, he is the first of Jen’s family.
Geneva, A.K.A. Miss Thing, Pretty Girl. A teeny little barn tabby Jen rescued years ago; a fearless mouser in her prime, she doesn’t see so good any more. She has also become the target of my two teenaged hellions on account of her X chromosome.
Pique, A.K.A. Get Off, Peekaboo, Coaldust, Dr. Zaius. Possibly the dumbest of the five, he avoids all conflict by the sheer force of stupidity. His superhero power is the ability to seek out painful pressure points and full bladders by standing on them for long periods of time. He would probably stare at the sun and blind himself if he was smart enough to look up.
Penn, A.K.A. Mr. Ben, Shitbrain, Shut Up, Penndandy. I picked him up at the ASPCA when he sat in his cage staring at me and meowing repeatedly; I mistook stupidity for intelligence (a fault of mine.) Easily the most aggressive and self-centered of the five, he can be both a well-behaved fop and an insufferable prick at the drop of a hat. Alive only because of his good looks. (ASPCA name: Dandy)
Teller, A.K.A. Get Down, Telleropolis, Stony Ray. Adopted the same day as Penn, he has a quiet personality and big green eyes; he can be sweet and loving but sometimes belligerent as well. (ASPCA name: Raymond)
So, after cleaning up the pool of blood near the radiator, I put food, water, a litter box, and a towel in the front basement room and threw Penn in there for a night of solitary confinement. Because this is an ongoing problem, we are bringing him to the vet for a psych test and a prescription of Little Blue Pills; hopefully his attitude will mellow and peace will reign over our little kingdom for the first time.
Geneva is fine. The vet said that cats generally close right up after being bitten, and that it was a good thing she bled out (cleaning the wound.) We have two weeks of antibiotics and a painkiller to administer, which involves a towel, two people, a bottle of Bactine, and some kitty wrasslin’. She doesn’t understand why life suddenly got worse, but she’s taking it pretty well.
The Internet is slow today, or at least HaloScan is slow, which is bogging my pageloads down. So if’n you tried to leave a comment here and couldn’t, try again later. My peeps with iPods and iTunes should boogie over to Apple.com and download the iTunes 4.5 and the iPod 2.2 updater—it’s not offered in Software Update, so it won’t automatically load for you.
spending time shooting pictures instead of going to work, 4.26.04
This weekend was a blur of activity, from getting a coat or two of paint on the trim in the Pink room, to moving my bed out of the living room into the Blue room (my first night sleeping upstairs was peaceful and comfortable), beginning the purge of the front porch (all boxes will leave before the wedding), having dinner with a friend and her new beau, mowing the overgrown lawn, moving the Doc’s old workbench to the greenhouse as a potting stand, hitting church on Sunday to talk with the musician (who wasn’t there, so we ducked out of the service to buy groceries—sorry, God), putting more paint on the trim, and spending a quiet evening together.