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July 29, 2005

Walking The Dog.

For the last week, Jen and I have been dog-sitting for our neighbors up the street. Their dog Ros is a beautiful, good-natured Doberman who likes to run in the park and chase squirrels. We've been taking her for walks twice a day, and after the initial dread of waking up early was gone, I started looking forward to it. It took us a while to figure out her rythyms: she didn't eat anything until Jen figured out that she liked having company. She doesn't like walking on grass-she prefers the sidewalk. There's a particular spot in the park that seems to agree with her delicate sense of modesty.

It's really interesting what you notice differently about the neighborhood when you're out waiting for your dog to finish examining the base of each telephone pole. There's the fellow down the street with an enviable garden in his front yard. His privet hedges are immaculate. Behind that, the lawn is full of huge flowering bushes and plants, in that effortless but hugely difficult rambling-English-garden sort of way. His gladiolus are tall, healthy, and straight, blooming endlessly in multiple colors. Ours are crooked, confused drunkards who get the crap beat out of them every time it rains. I wish I knew what his secret was to gardening.

There's the newly finished house next door, which, rumor has it, was purchased for more than we paid for our house, gutted, and rehabbed. It looks good in a bland sort of way. They replaced slanty cedar shingle with faux-shingle vinyl siding, which looks too clean for my taste. The windows are all big and new, but they're the kind with fake mullions that are too narrow to fit the lines of the rest of the house. Strangely enough, I like the garage best—it hasn't been altered from its original condition, and it features an old-school 'no parking' sign and bubble thermometer above crooked barn doors.

Up the way towards the park, the people who bought one of the larger houses in the area decided to enclose the property with one of the strangest fences I've seen in a while—an X pattern in wide planking, backed with green chicken wire. The house is was beautiful last year, but I'm sensing a slide into mediocrity—they saw fit to park a mildew-covered popup trailer in the front yard...wait a minute, who am I to be casting stones...?

Last night, we decided to lengthen our usual route by walking down the trolley path to Opie's for some ice cream. The evening was cool, the sun was behind clouds, and the trees were filled with birdsong. Ros ranged out ahead of us, and I told Jen about my discussion with a bank regarding a home equity line of credit. From what the guy on the phone told me, our house has appreciated a lot more than I'd thought it might, and he was more than happy to extend a generous amount of money at a rate that surprised me. Depending on what two other candidates say today, we'll be on the road to a new kitchen by Thanksgiving (Turkey Day is the yearly deadline for any Lockardugan renovation plans).

Ros sat at our feet while we contemplated the true meaning of new appliances, eating chocolate ice cream and enjoying the simple pleasures of the evening.

Posted on July 29, 2005 10:55 AM | link to this entry | Comments (4)

July 28, 2005

ISO.

Does anybody else out there have the problem I have? The one where a particular song or melody gets stuck inside your head and plays on endless repeat until the next song comes around? Perhaps it's an odd quirk of my particular A.D.D., but this has been around for as long as I can remember. For the past week, it's been 'Oye Como Va', the Santana version. (We heard the Mambo Kings play it last Saturday, and it's been stuck upstairs ever since.) Sometimes it's wierd shit, like the aforementioned 'Philadelphia Freedom' (A POX ON YOU, REGINALD DWIGHT) and sometimes it's pleasantly surprising—last week, I had some Carole King rocking my personal Wheels Of Steel—but usually it's just annoying.

Simply listening to other music won't erase the song. I've had iTunes on all week, and probably listened to a couple hundred songs since Monday. Nothing knocked it loose—I'd walk out to the car in the sweltering heat, and there it would be, ticking along happily like a busted jukebox.

This morning, I heard 'Speed of Sound' by Coldplay as I was flipping through channels to find CNN, and I listened to it as I collected email. I think Oye Como Va may now be gone, replaced by the warbling of Chris Martin, but I'm not sure.

Posted on July 28, 2005 11:29 AM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

July 26, 2005

The Decision Is Final.

Apple just updated the Mac Mini—$600 will get you 1.42GHz, Bluetooth, 512MB of RAM, Airport Extreme, and a combo drive (I've already got a burner in a tower.) The iBooks got pretty much the same configuration, but the 14" model has a SuperDrive.

That right there is just a no-brainer. Now, I have to figure out which one I need worse....

Posted on July 26, 2005 5:30 PM | link to this entry

"Someday, Tito Puente Will Be Dead..." *

This weekend's general grind of work, work work was interrupted by two bright shining lights: Our first Netflix rental, which happened to be The Life Aquatic, and a Saturday concert at Oregon Ridge with the Mambo Kings.

I'd recommend the movie to anybody who likes the offbeat comedy. Bill Murray is fantastic, as always, and the movie is full of the strange otherworldly vibe that Wes Anderson specializes in. The touches of detail throughout the movie (look for the poster of Bill Murray running with the tigers) and goofy one-offs still have me chuckling to myself (I can still hear Willem Dafoe saying, in a German accent, "He's got hydrogen psychosis, the crazy-eye!")

The Mambo Kings are a quintet who play traditional Latin mambo, and for this concert they were backed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. We spent the afternoon packing a cooler full of food and drink, met up with J and M for the ride over, and staked out a spot on the hillside overlooking the bandshell. Oregon Ridge can be blisteringly hot or chillingly cold, but last Saturday it was pleasant and warm. We have to send a shout out to Laurie Lorie for the blanket quilt she made us as a wedding present—it was perfect for sipping (OK, well, guzzling) vodka tonics on the grass. Thanks! The concert was fantastic, featuring some original compositions as well as covering the theme to West Side Story, some Dave Brubeck, Tito Puente and Carlos Jobim tunes, finishing up with Gershwin under fireworks. This was an excellent way to spend a beautiful evening with my beautiful wife.

* Bringing it all back home, here's the title reference.

Posted on July 26, 2005 3:44 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

July 25, 2005

Character From Ireland.

Here's one of the first of the B/W 620 pictures I had developed last week. There's a bunch on Flickr right now (which is unfortunately pig-dog slow this morning) with more to come as I scan and clean them up. I'm thrilled with the results, although I'm hoping that they develop a little darker than they scanned. The camera did an incredible job—there's a bit of blur around the outer edges of the frame, but that adds a little character, in my opinion.

I'll upload more pictures as I scan them. As you might guess, it's time-intensive, and this weekend we had our hands full.

Posted on July 25, 2005 12:00 PM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

July 22, 2005

Old School.

I picked up four rolls of 620 film from the developer this afternoon. Three of the rolls are from Ireland, and one is a leftover roll from two years ago that sat in the camera until I opened the back without checking, and exposed three of the frames. Our regular developer disappeared sometime in the last two years without a trace, so we had them done at a different lab which won't print contact sheets for large-format film. I've looked at them through a lightbox, and they look very pretty. I'd scan them and post them here, but HP decided to make their slide adapter fit only 35mm film, so I have to wait until I get home to use the 5-year-old UMAX scanner in the basement. Sorry, folks.

It's funny to see pictures from the old roll—I'd loaded three different cameras with film to see which one took the cleanest pictures (the Duaflex II, hands-down) but forgotten about the final roll. It starts with two blurry shots of Geneva on Jen's apartment deck. Apparently this camera's lens is designed for landscape-style photography and not detailed closeup shots, which is unfortunate, because she's really cute. Blurry, but cute. The next shot is (I think) of Lakewood Avenue during a snowstorm. Or, it could be taken during a very, vey sunny day. I can't really tell. The road is almost black, as is the sky, and the trees are bare. What a lovely subject for a picture! (What the hell was I thinking?) After that is a shot of my back porch, with some very small plants, before I put up the wood walls. It's amazing how ghetto the place looked before stuff actually started growing back there. (I thought it would be one of the main selling points for the house until two dumb chicks stopped to look at the house, and one said to the other, within earshot, "OOH, a backyard! You could knock that wall down and put in a parking pad! That would be great!" Memo to you, Dumb Chick: Shut your hole. I didn't take your offer, and it was higher than the other one.) The next shot is of the Scout parked in front of the house, looking south down Lakewood Ave. Again: Ghetto. Like, West Virginia Backwoods Ghetto. Here's a picture of my broke-down truck. Directly following that is a picture of the tree outside my front door (I must have been feling arty that day.) The final three shots are of the Pagoda in Patterson Park, taken during a walk with Jen in the springtime. These are actually kind of interesting, because they're shots of something interesting. Unfortunately, the third one was obliterated when I opened the back of the camera.

So, don't fear, dear readers: I'll scan the negs this weekend and post the best ones for your perusal. There are some good ones in there. Seriously.

Posted on July 22, 2005 2:38 PM | link to this entry

July 21, 2005

Hire This Man.

Yeah, buddy. Good times, man, good times.

In other news, thanks to the lovely Claire for beers and conversation last night; it's always good to meet new people and swap war stories. Sometimes it's surprising how much shared experience there is between relative strangers.

I'm super busy this fine Thursday, so this is a short one. Go drink a cold beer, kick back, and relax, everybody.

Posted on July 21, 2005 3:45 PM | link to this entry

July 20, 2005

Go To Hell, Blockbuster.

I signed up for a Netflix account this afternoon. I'm going to make this here Internet work for me, dammit.

Posted on July 20, 2005 4:00 PM | link to this entry | Comments (5)

Most Boring July Ever.

The thrills just keep coming from Idiot Central, folks. It's getting sort of pitiful, really. There's nothing to report on with the house, because, well, nothing has been done to the house since we paid somebody to do it. The garden is growing despite our best efforts to ignore and kill it. You might say it's a victim of its own success, really. There's an eggplant about the size of my fist, a green pepper begging to be used in a Cuban recipe this weekend, and several new tomatoes starting on the vines. Our grapes are filling out and haven't been carried off by the birds yet.

Looking at my weblog entries from last July, it's obvious we were very busy. For my part, I was fixing the pantry, buying/donating a car, building a DVD presentation of our trip to Rome, finishing the thank-you cards from the wedding, attending studio drawing class, finishing up the first phases of a website redesign, and working on the linen closet. I think I may have been painting the house by this point as well. Shit, just reading about all that stuff makes me tired. What the hell have I accomplished this July? Nothing. There's freelance work, sure, but for whatever reason right now it feels like all I do is freelance work and I still don't have enough money to buy a proper pair of sunglasses.

Meanwhile, my dream Scout is for sale in fucking Seattle. If I had the Scout kitty available, I could fly out there, pay for the truck, and afford the drive home, but it's just not happening. We live on the wrong coast.

Posted on July 20, 2005 10:37 AM | link to this entry

July 19, 2005

Looks Like The Ennui Has Hit Us All.

I think everybody's bored with the internet these days. Ms. Lis is looking for questions, as is Todd; Molly seems to be fighting off the boredoms. So I'll try to make my stupid questions as interesting as I can.

If you could put two people in a ring and have them fight to the death, who would it be and why? (Neil Diamond vs. Barry Manilow? Your shop teacher vs. your math teacher? Charles Nelson Reilly vs. Paul Lynde?) Who would win?

What's the last life lesson you learned, and why did it take so long?

You have a vehicle with a full tank of gas and an empty weekend. Where are you going to get away from the (heat, people, job, family, ex) within a 250-mile radius of where you live? (and what are you driving?)

Sum up the thing you wish you could go back and do over in your life with one word.

What's the dumbest thing you never got caught doing?

What should you have accomplished in life by now, according to the 18 year old version of yourself?

Posted on July 19, 2005 9:57 AM | link to this entry | Comments (5)

July 18, 2005

This Is The Post Where I Don't Talk About The Weather.

...because, chances are, where you are it's just as fucking hot as it is here in Maryland.

I don't really have much to write about today; it was a quiet weekend of laying low and getting stuff done, so there are no stories about plane rides or rock concerts or commando raids or celebrity sightings. There was a lot of nose-to-the-grindstone freelance work happening, and Jen got her portfolio pretty much finished (it looks beautiful) as well as three boxes of business cards (thanks Shelly!), so there's some serious forward progress happening.

I will say that I'd have to formally extend my recommendation for the Sleep Number bed, based on our experience over the last two weeks. We've slept heavily, peacefully, and fitfully—something I never would have imagined possible six months ago. (That is, not both of us, at the same time. In. The. Same. Bed.) We're still sorting out some of the minor issues unrelated to the bed itself (the air conditioner that seems to spit water at us from outside, which is unpleasant, and the lighting situation) but overall, we're digging on the new arrangement.

(I'd post some weekend photos here, but they're on the CF card sitting on my desk at home.)

Posted on July 18, 2005 10:37 AM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

July 15, 2005

Oh, And By The Way...

I have a vivid memory of riding on the giant, vinyl backseat of my mother's '66 Buick Special one fine afternoon as a child of about five or so. We were cruising through the parking lot of our local grocery store with Mrs. Greame in the front seat, on some kind of errand. For some reason, I was thinking about the concept of age to myself in the back seat, and realized that I didn't have all the information. When their conversation lulled, I asked, "Mom, how old are you?"

The women waited a beat or two, and my mother turned to Mrs. Greame, probably with the I-don't-know-where-this-is-coming-from look on her face.

"Nineteen," she replied, and both women broke up in laughter. (Mrs. Greame had the kind of laughter you couldn't ever forget; she also liked to say "Ta-ta!" when leaving a room, followed by that same laughter.)

Of course, being five and very naiive, I ignored the laughter, took this and stored it away as the Gospel Truth. I think I was probably about twenty-three before I did some math and realized that she was fibbing in the way that you do around your friends when your kids ask a strange question.

Happy 39th Birthday, Mom.

Posted on July 15, 2005 11:34 AM | link to this entry

July 14, 2005

Yet Another List Of Random Stuff.

Really, I'd like to write something more involved, but things are pretty busy around Idiot Central these days. As you may have gathered from the inconsistent Ireland trip reports, I'm a little backed up right now. Professionally, I'm busier than perhaps I've ever been (when measured in the sheer number of open projects—however, the Sky Pilot has seen to it that certain things ebb and flow with a rhythm that makes each one a priority at a different time. Of course, now I've just jinxed myself) and personally, Jen and I are just as busy. I can also see that a recent post made in the heat of the moment to a certain telecommunications company seemed to strike a nerve with the audience here.

I got a stack of new music from my friend Dave; The latest New Order album is a CD full of suck, further proving that Pitchfork, while a reliable guage of new music, is not infallible (and quite often crap). The latest Audioslave album is pretty underwhelming, as were the singles I heard from the debut album. It seems to me that Chris Cornell is a singer waiting for another folk/blues rock band, and the RAtM guys are waiting for another pissed-off screamer. They are a band built for power, not for the slow introspective stuff, although they're competent enough. It reminds me of when Dave Navarro joined the Chili Peppers—they were two tastes that didn't taste great together. Also: this review was worthless, you stupid, pretentious emo prick. Next up: New Sleater-Kinney, Motörhead, American Music Club, and CKY. I'll let you know how the ROCK sounds.

I finally pulled about 2 gigs of crap off the Powerbook here last night and archived it to DVD, and she seems to be running a bit faster now. Perhaps only having 1.2 gigs free for a swapdisk wasn't that advisable after all. (Where did all that crap come from, anyway?)

Here's a shot of our resident celebrity, the wild Catonsville parakeet. He sat on the branch and clucked and sang while I got about ten feet away and shot his picture. Obviously he's comfortable around people. Meanwhile, his gang of birds cleans us out of at least a feederful of seed every day. I think we've created a monster here...

Posted on July 14, 2005 1:54 PM | link to this entry

July 13, 2005

Dear Cingular Wireless:

Fuck you.

Posted on July 13, 2005 3:04 PM | link to this entry | Comments (11)

Trip Log Part Six.

Picking up where I left off....

We got up for yet another Irish fry breakfast in the room downstairs, and then walked down the street to the Catholic church for Sunday mass. I think we were both probably hoping for an old creaky church with character, but we got a newer (I'd venture mid-'50's) building that was obviously meant to hold hundreds. The service was also meant to get the faithful in and out the door, after a lengthy appeal for donations. It was fun to hear the service delivered in a thick Irish accent— it was sort of like watching a kung-fu movie you've already seen dubbed poorly in English.

Before leaving, we checked out the town's main landmark, Cahir castle. The castle itself is beautifully restored, and visitors are allowed pretty much the run of the place. Within ten minutes of entering the grounds, we were climbing the battlements and found ourselves in the outside towers overlooking the town. (The ten-year-old in me would have flipped over this.) Unfortunately, we were also sharing the place with a German couple who closely resembled Paris Hilton and one of the Gotti Boys. To give you the idea: Ladies, when you know you're going to be crawling through a 16th-century castle, it's a good idea not to wear a white plastic miniskirt with a hem above your ass. Because I might wind up climbing behind you on one of the spiral staircases, and I don't want to have your skanky German hoo-ha an inch from my face.

North of town lies another local curiosity: the Swiss Cottage. Built by the local landowner for his wife to entertain and play peasant in, it's a mismatched, one of a kind house that's been restored as close to original as possible. We paid our entrance fee and joined the tour. It's worth a look if you have the chance, but I wouldn't go out of my way just to see it.

From Cahir, we continued north to the Rock of Cashel to see the ruin of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was billed as one of the most picturesque ruins in Ireland. We parked once in the town below the Rock, realized just how far away it was to walk, and then moved the car up.

The ruin is magnificent. It sits at the top of the hill overlooking the entire valley, and it's surrounded by old leaning headstones. On a normal misty, rainy Irish afternoon, I'm sure it would be picturesque, but on the day we visited, it was breathtaking—the sun was shining and there were only a few fluffy clouds floating past. We hitched a ride with one of the tours and heard about the history, then wandered outside to take in the view on our own. All around the base of the Rock there are grazing meadows, and we were surrounded by the sound of sheep softly calling to each other.

After a good long time at the Rock, we jumped back in the car and aimed for Kilkenny. Jen took the wheel of the Opel for the first time—she respectfully requested skipping the chance until we were safely away from Cork—and only scared me twice. (By this time, I'd scared her about thirty times.) After making it into town, we got directions to our B&B and checked in. Having the afternoon to wander through town and scope out a place to eat, we took our time and checked out the sights.

After looking for a half-hour or so, we came upon a swank-looking hotel/restaurant and stopped in for a bite to eat. Again, I had high hopes for our meal to come out looking like what had been described on the menu, but was presented with the most disgusting bowl of penne pasta I've ever seen. The Irish need to learn a little something about the science of cream and cheese sauces. However, the beer was cold and tasted good, and we retired to the bar for another drink. One drink became two, and soon we were pleasantly buzzed and had forgotten all about the lousy meal.

Our quiet conversation was interrupted by a heavily tattooed fellow at the other end of the bar who was making frequent and colorful use of the F-bomb, which punctuated his conversation in the place of conjunctions, verbs, and nouns. He stuck a finger in the face of our bartender and threatened a good old Irish beatdown to the entire waitstaff, going so far as to call the female bartender a F-ing C-t. At about the point where any self-respecting American barkeep would have introduced Tattoo Man to the business end of a baseball bat (and five minutes past a call to the local cops), Tattoo Man declared that he was "more F-ckin' Irish than YOU" and demanded to shake hands with the offending bartender. He and his posse of three drunken football fans then made a huge show of leaving, but not without kissing all the children in the bar.

We offered a drink to the bartender, who politely declined, and he told us the three choirboys had been drunk on arrival—in his words, "they were so droonk they fell in the doorway." The ruckus had been started when they cut Tattoo Man off and asked him to leave.

Then, we were hailed down by an obviously wasted local woman, who engaged us in a sweet but rambling two hour conversation about the Yorkshire Ripper, her books, Rod Stewart (this was, in fact, her entree to the conversation: "Are you here to see Rod Stewart?" yelled halfway across the bar) and Kilkenny.

After disengaging ourselves from that tiring experience (trying to follow the conversation of a drunk is like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks) we took the other exit from the restaurant and hustled back to our car—but not before taking some pictures of the castle from the bridge.

Posted on July 13, 2005 2:03 PM | link to this entry

A Few More.

I love Lewis Black. Here is a funny, funny man, who is angrier than I am, and whose language makes my potty mouth look sound like Miss Manners in comparison.

A hearty, heartfelt FUCK YOU to the suit at Adobe who decided to bust the Apple—H command for "Hide Photoshop". I estimate you've destroyed about 20% of my productivity. I hope you got a nice fat bonus, you prick.

I got my first comment spam through Moveable Type last night from some home mortgage company. Luckily, MT emails me whenever I get a new comment, so I was able to ban the IP and delete the comment in about three seconds. Still, that crap is annoying.

Some of the gloop I was encountering on my Powerbook, I think, was due to the lovely iChat application doing something stupid. Like eating up all the available processor cycles so that I could get dumb chat messages from stupid college students. So it's now turned off for good. Can you tell I hate Instant Messaging?

Posted on July 13, 2005 11:31 AM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

July 12, 2005

Random Thoughts, or: A Tuesday Brain Dump.

Finally, after a request by the lovely Ms. Goatwax, I switched out Trebuchet for Arial as the body copy on this here site, and made it a point size larger. Goodbye, foo-foo typeface.

Over the last couple of weeks, my Powerbook has gotten really slow and gloopy. Redraws, switching between programs, or using Photoshop for anything more than simple pixel-pushing have all gotten unacceptably slow and gummy. It could be that SuperScout here has just gotten tired in her old age—according to this site she was manufactured in April of 2000—but this is getting a little ridiculous.

I think it's going to be difficult to find somebody to adopt Penn. Looking at some of the local adoption sites, there seems to be a backlog of adoptable cats. I'm a lot worried about leaving him at a Petco for the afternoon by himself, like some of these organizations suggest. This whole mess sucks and I'm really depressed about it.

Seems to me that the Democrats (otherwise known as shrinking violets) need to get serious about things. Why isn't anybody seriously leading a charge to have Rove prosecuted? Um, he's like, the main Republican power broker in Washington, guys. It's about time one of his dirty tricks gets him in trouble, no? And, please do it before they shut down Public Broadcasting and make the stupid Patriot Act permanent, OK?

After sending over an arborist to look at the tree which divides our property yesterday, my neighbor bumped into me in the driveway this morning. We chatted briefly, and he turned to me suddenly and asked, "Do I smell alcohol on your breath?"

Dumbfounded, I said, "No, sir, I don't drink in the morning." I won't repeat here what I wanted to say, even though I don't think he's ever seen the internet. Nevermind the fact that I was getting into my car when we saw each other. What the fuck?

I'm seriously considering selling my Scout. She's been sitting in the driveway for the past two years rusting, all because our garage is a piece of shit and I can't afford the repairs needed make it useable. (If it actually had a cement floor, that would be one thing, but it doesn't.) I can't afford to buy a new fiberglas tub—if the last five years have told me anything, it's that that's not going to happen—and the pipe dream of having somebody restore the body for me remains just that—a pipe dream. It would be one thing if I had been able to store her two years ago before the rust got exceptionally bad; if gas prices were still $1.50/gal; if the exhaust hadn't fallen off at a point when finances were very slim; or if I'd been able to find somebody willing to tackle the bodywork.

The aforementioned neighbor's son offered to buy her on Sunday when he showed me where he thought the property lines were (and he smelled like alcohol, thankyouverymuch), but I'd rather sell it to somebody I could trust her to, like the guy around the corner on Hilton who has a running '78, or the Scout guy in Annapolis who'd at least be able to part her out correctly.

I'd like to have a running convertible of some kind as a third car, and a used Miata is looking better and better all the time.

Night three on the Sleep Number bed seemed to go pretty well. We're both sleeping soundly (although I'm sleeping less heavily than I did before). I'm still at 50, and it seems to agree with me.

Long-delayed props to Steve for a free Flickr Pro account via the Mobtown Shank. Thanks much, friend!

My ankle is still tender and sore, but much better than the weekend of the 4th. I'm not going to be doing any ladder climbing this coming weekend (at this rate the house will be completely painted by 2014) but there are a million other things to be done that'll keep me busy.

Posted on July 12, 2005 10:24 AM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

July 11, 2005

Do-Nothing.

This weekend, through an unspoken agreement, my bride and I did about as little as we possibly could. Sure, we hit the Hahn Ah Reum (sp? who cares) for cheap vegetables and the Lowe's for some discounted plants, but otherwise we subsisted off leftover food from the party last weekend and laid around the house.

Saturday morning we tackled the Sleep Number bed, which was out on the front porch in four boxes waiting to be assembled. We had to run out and pick up a Hollywood frame for it after we realized it wouldn't fit in our existing frame. The base is basically a big plastic Lego set that snaps together, and the top half is a glorified air mattress. Stick in some foam, zip it up, inflate to the desired pressure, and you have a bed. I'd like to say our first night was a dream on a cloud, but it felt more like insomnia in the Arctic. Repeated attempts to fine-tune our Sleep Numbers proved fruitless. (When sleeping flat on one's back, the Sleep Number is, say, 50. When sleeping on one's side, the number goes to 55, which is harder than 50, due to the change in surface area on the air chamber. This little fact is not publicized by the salespeople.) This morning I think we both slept much better on the new bed—not having the air conditioning blowing directly on my face and using a comforter made a difference for me, at least.

Sunday we farted around in the backyard gardening and generally did as little as possible. We did try to measure out the boundary lines of our property to see if we're on the hook for removing the huge dead tree on the back corner of our property, and our measurements came up about ten feet short of the trunk—which made me feel great. Later, our neighbor's son stopped over and tried to show me where he had surveyed the land in one of his previous careers, and in his memory, the pegs are behind the tree trunk, placing the accursed thing directly on our property. I'm just going to have to break down and hire a surveyor to get the official word, and then sell some plasma to afford a treecutting service. (A fellow came over this afternoon to look at the tree in the driveway, which he quoted us $1500 to trim back. Right. I'll stop off and make my first blood deposit this afternoon.)

It looks like one of the 100+ gladioulos we planted is finally blooming, and there are two more on the way. However, the rest of the crop is still sort of leafy but not throwing up flowers. However, there's an eggplant starting in the greenhouse, as well as the first of (hopefully) several tomatoes.

Posted on July 11, 2005 4:20 PM | link to this entry

I Almost Forgot...

Remember when I was talking about shark attacks a week or two ago?

Posted on July 11, 2005 1:55 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

July 8, 2005

International.

I found a link to the entire collection of Live8 performances available for download as separate files this morning. (Look on the sidebar to the left.) Having just gotten back from Ireland two weeks ago, and having missed the Dublin U2 concert by three days, the recent events in London just bring me down completely. Without getting too maudlin or stupid here, that shit sucks. In view of the effort and intentions of Live8, the idea that a bunch of assholes could target innocent people again to make a political point is just sad.

I don't know if Live8 had the same political and international impact that Live Aid had in '85; I know that the BBC documentary Jen and I caught in Ireland on Live Aid did a great job of reminding us just how much the world stopped to watch, get involved, and make a difference—and that feeling seemed to be missing this time around. Maybe it's because I'm not plugged into MTV or the music scene (or because I'm not in High School anymore) but it just didn't reach me like it did when I was 14. Did anybody else have this feeling?

That having been said, it's great to see Pink Floyd onstage together again; Dave Gilmour looks wierd with short white hair, but he sounds a million times better than Roger Waters. Bono needs to take those stupid nail salon sunglasses off once and for all. Richard Ashcroft sounded great with Coldplay. Paul McCartney doing "Helter Skelter" stood the hair on my neck up. I'm still having a hard time with Chris Cornell and Rage Against the Machine, but it wasn't too bad. (He can scream with the best of them, but he has a problem with the whole 'spitting venom at the Man' thing.) Green Day sounded tighter than a snare drum—props to them on their latest album. The sound feed in Toronto was the worst I've ever heard. Who was the tone-deaf tool singing with Stevie Wonder on Higher Ground? I can't say I was otherwise all that interested in the U.S. lineup—(*cough*)Linkin Park(*cough*)Maroon 5(*cough*)Toby Keith(*cough*)—and what's up with "Tami the HIV Positive Muppet?" I'd like to make a suggestion to the Henson folks: if we want to teach tolerance for other folks, we should probably concentrate on teaching our kids how to live with ASSHOLES first. Let's try "Chip, the Conservative Christian Republican," or maybe "Jasmine, the Ex-Sorority Girl Pharamceutical Rep."

Just a suggestion.

Posted on July 8, 2005 12:28 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

July 7, 2005

Future Proof.

Today is one of those days I wake up with a random song stuck in my head, courtesy of an overactive subconscious. This happens to me on an average of about 4 days every week, and it gets annoying quickly, as the songs are usually bad ones. This morning's Soundtrack of Doom: "Philadelphia Fever" by Elton John.

The Fourth of July party was successful this year; Jen and I worked hard to get the house ready for visitors, make food, and stop to enjoy ourselves. Friday we put off the inevitable one more day and I took my bride to see Episode III, which we both enjoyed. Saturday and Sunday we moved furniture back into the living room (for what felt like the 15th time), organized all the piles of stuff that had been thrown in random places before the floor sanding, and attempted to make the kitchen look as pleasant as possible. During one of my trips outside to the garbage cans, I found our sleep number bed stacked neatly on the exam room porch (we have two small porches off the back of the house, and the exam room porch seems to be the Universal Deposit Area For Unannounced Deliveries) and moved it inside. It could have been around this time that I pulled the Achilles tendon, but I don't know for sure.

The parade itself was longer than last year's, and the overall tone was a little more PC than last year's: there was no POW-MIA float with a bamboo cage and coolie-hat, AK-toting 'Vietcong' guard. The huge Reagan stuffed puppet did not make a return appearance. However, the Governor and his lousy hair showed up with a gaggle of sign-toting supporters and three Secret Service Suburbans in tow (no doubt scanning the crowd for hidden Catonsville sleeper cells) and there was a 'float' sponsored by a local Gentleman's Club: a six-wheeled, shit-brown Hummer H2, followed by the Hustler Honey or whatever they call the local talent, astride a Harley chopper with a huge "FOR SALE" sign on the side. There's nothing like free publicity, even when your model is three sizes too big for her leather ass-chaps. A wholesome family event, indeed.

Overall, though, the parade was fun, and it felt good to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the day.

* * *

I finally took five minutes to figure out why the detail popups on my design pages weren't working; some bad CSS implementation and a gremlin in the HTML b0rked the script, so the page hasn't been working for about six months now (d'oh!)

Posted on July 7, 2005 2:51 PM | link to this entry | Comments (5)

4th of July Parade

I uploaded some select pictures from the 4th of July parade in Catonsville this morning, and I'm just now getting to mentioning them here. Thanks to everybody who came and we hope you all had a good time!

Posted on July 7, 2005 11:18 AM | link to this entry

July 6, 2005

Benched.

This weekend was a blur of preparation for the annual 4th of July parade barbecue on the Lockardugan Great Lawn. The challenge was to get everything ready for the party and put our house back together in three days' time. I'm pleased to say we got it all done in time and had a great afternoon to boot, but there was one casualty: I pulled my Achilles tendon at some point on Saturday as I was moving furniture around. Sunday morning I woke up to a swollen ankle and a day of hopping around on one foot.

I wish I could tell you exactly how it happened, but there was no Joe Theismann moment when I heard it pop. The nurse practitioner couldn't really tell me much yesterday, so I have an appointment to see a 'specialist' today who can diagnose any major problems. In the meantime, I'm not driving anywhere (it's the right foot, naturally) so I'm playing hooky.

Posted on July 6, 2005 9:02 AM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

July 1, 2005

Trip Log Part Five.

Hung Over On The Auld Sod.

Saturday morning Jen and I woke with some pretty serious hangovers—the beers, mixed drinks, and shooter had all conspired to lay us pretty low. We staggered downstairs to the restaurant to have some breakfast, then back usptairs to shower, and made it to the checkout desk with five minutes to spare. I got on the house phone and made a reservation at a B&B in Cahir for the evening, and we got on the road at about 1pm.

Because of the late start, we didn't have much time or range to sightsee, so we picked an easy destination and stopped at the Lismore Cathedral and Castle. The Cathedral is off the beaten path and very quiet; we were two of only a few to explore when we were there. The grounds of the cathedral are sectioned off so that the tourists don't trample the grass around the headstones, but the interior of the church is peaceful and cool.

Walking down the street, we found the Lismore Castle after some hunting, and gained admittance to the gardens. (The castle is owned by the Duke of Something-Or-Other, and predictably, he doesn't like tourists wandering through the halls.) However, the gardens are open to the public, so we ventured inside and walked the grounds. It's the garden (and the yard) you wish you had—acres of exotic and not-so-exotic plants growing in plots that made sense, but weren't overly planned or maintained—the whole place had the air of a fashionably overrun English garden. We got to climb one of the gatetowers from the original outer castle wall and peek over the edge (this would have been a dream come true for a 10-year-old Bill, let me tell you) as well as look in the windows of the castle (lots of drywall, unfortunately).

From Lismore we headed further north to Cahir, where we were pleased to find our B&B choice was an old-school storefront beautifully rehabbed into a private residence—best of all, it was walking distance to all the local pubs.

After checking in, we asked for a food recommendation and were pointed to a local pub which featured food better than the standard fare, and got seats at a table in the cozy bar section. I'd have to say this was probably the best meal we had in Ireland (in my opinion); tasty food served well with good beer. Returning to our room, we fell asleep to a documentary on Live Aid and Sir Bob on the Beeb which lasted at least three hours. (This is where Jen got the phrase "Feckofffeckofffeckoff" stuck in her head. Good times.)

Posted on July 1, 2005 12:39 PM | link to this entry

June Top Ten IK Search Terms.

idiot king - Duh.
cash is king logo - This one I don't get.
squirrel movable pvc garden - Right, I can see that, I guess...
frigidaire air conditioner annoying beep - Heh, I don't remember writing about all these together, but it makes sense...
idiot - Again, duh
diy casette adapter - I don't remember writing about this either...
soul coughing idiot king - Once more, with feeling: DUH
kill the wabbit metallica - Ha ha
disposable digital video camera - Must have been on the linkblog
blisters tickling itch - Eeeeeewww.

I guess I should be happy it's not pr0n search terms or sales links or other crap like that, but I'm not writing about any of those things, either.

Posted on July 1, 2005 11:35 AM | link to this entry | Comments (2)