bloviation extrordinaire
OK, I’ll make this short and sweet… the big V was straightforward, I was told the anaesthesia needle would be “something I would remember”, but it was painless – the only lingering memory I have is of the noxious smell of my cauterized vas…
BYE BYE MY LOVELY SPERM! You served me well. Now don’t anyone ever accuse me of holding back on the details of my personal life. :P
We had a great time on our whilrwind trip back to Florida.
It was a little rough starting out – Owen graced us with a present no more than a couple miles out the door, and we had nothing to clean it up. We stopped at an old auto parts store and a kind man gave us some old towels. Next, we realized that we didn’t have enough working cigarette lighter outlets for the cooler AND the VCR, both of which were absolutely necessary for survival on the 12-hour trip. So we had to stop at another auto parts store, and pick up a lighter y-adapter. By that time it started pouring out, and I blew a fuse plugging the cooler in in the rain. Back to the parts store! Bought a pack of fuses, figured out the fuse system on the van, and got it all humming – we even got an extra-large pack of shop towels to finish cleaning up after Owen.
Once we got out of town, we drove straightaway to Disneyworld without any more real hitches. We arrived at the Park the next day for beautiful weather and short lines – the week before Thanksgiving is a great time to go. Lunch at Tony’s was fantastic – the vinagrette glaze was to die for. We finished the day with some great fireworks.
The next day we headed deep down south into Florida to see all our kin. It was great to catch up with everybody. Dan, Corey and I stayed up into the night playing Jedi Academy every chance we got.
After the days in Fort Myers flew by, we headed up to see Andrea’s dad in St. Pete. It was good to catch up with him, too.
I’m sure there’s more I’m missing from all the time this site’s been down. I’ll try to add more here as my feeble brain recalls it… after all, that’s why I do this blog thing – write it all down, or it’s lost to me forever! :P
The neighborhood got together for a “How To Host A Murder” party on New Year’s Eve, aka Larry’s birthday. It was a hit! Larry stormed around as the captain, yelling “don’t call it a boat, it’s not a boat, it’s a ship!” and “I don’t remember what I was doing, I was drunk at the time…”. Scott was decked out in a racing jacket and gloves, and Greg played out the accusatory investment banker perfectly. All the ladies were “dressed to kill”, which played out perfectly, as they all ended up running brothels or being romantically linked to the deceased.
| To cap it all off, the role of the murdered host was played by none other than… Michael Jackson. Perfect casting! |
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Everybody had a blast, and we hope to do it again some time soon.
Snapshot from the webcam of a truck that’s tracking the storm:
Just refresh to see the latest shot, or bring up the official HurricaneTrack.com page that refreshes for you.
UPDATE: Storm was no problem here in Raleigh, hope everyone else is doing ok… Here’s my favorite animation, from NASA satellites…
Our most recently inducted family members Julian and Simon, being feline, desired a place to discretely excrete. But our dogs wanted none of that! Thinking fast, I recollected the experiences of our good friends and “cat people”, brother and sister Ken Etterman and Kimberly Welch. Both have had DECADES of feline/canine interaction experience in a full house environment, leading them to the same conclusion:
| Step 1: Pick a room with a door for the litterbox. Any room will do, as long as it’s OK to always keep the dogs out of it. | |
| Step 2: Attach a small hook to the inside of the door frame, as such: |
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| Step 3: Tie a slipnot in a thick short string or rope, as such: |
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| Step 4: Tie the other end of the string around the hook, as such: |
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| Step 5: Slip the loop of the string around the doorknob, and adjust the slipnot so that your cat(s), but not your dog(s), can fit through the door, as such: |
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| Step 6: You and the cats can come and go, the dogs are verbotten! Enjoy! |
Tried to use one of those fancypants Windows DVD players but it turns out I can’t play a freakin’ DVD if I haven’t happened to have manually disabled my video-out on my video card. How sad is that! DVD *PLAYERS* have to go to great lengths to make sure you aren’t doing something as simple and fundamental as sending a video stream to an output jack. That’s like your car having an automatic refrigerator scanner in it to make sure there isn’t beer in your fridge before you go off driving somewhere. It’s so sad that it’s come this far…
I didn’t even think the video in/out was working on my Gainward video card. Hooked up my video camera to my tv-in jack and got this. At least I had a little fun in the end…
I actually did it a couple weeks ago, but felt no reason to comment until things stabilized. I give it two thumbs up. No serious discomfort, even during the operation, which took all of about 10 minutes. My eyes are a bit dry at times, the only down side. Within 20 hours I had 20/20 vision, after one week I tested to 20/15. Cost less than $2k, and I could finance the whole thing at 0% interest. I can now wrestle with the dogs and girls without nose dings! :P
Go do it!
We all took naps around 3 o’clock on Saturday while one of the kids from the neighborhood cut my lawn. (thanks Kelly!)
Then we got up around 5 and gathered up the troops. We took a blanket and a picnic dinner to the NC Art Museum’s amphitheater to hear the best guitar player on the planet lay down a wall of sound for two solid hours.
He was everything I hoped and expected, starting off with jazzy sounds, mixing in 15-year-old classics from my first exposures, rocking 12-string slides, and a beautiful darker tune in some minor key called “Industrial Park” (but he said the name in German hehe). All mixed with his droll disjointed ramblings that kept a permanent smile tatooed on everyone’s face – whenever we weren’t laughing out loud. We heard about everything from reincarnation to watermelon liberation to martian hibernation – something about a guy named Frizz Fuller and his crazy lyrics… “Martians at the window… And you in my arms… take down your antennae, don’t broadcast your charms…” And the whole time he’s just dinkin’ away on the guitar…
We brought the binoculars, and for the second half we were just a few dozen feet from him. I zoomed in on his hands and tried to figure out his playing technique. I couldn’t see a pick or a slide, but his dual melody-rhythms and walls of full twelve-string chords kept flowing out like he was using four guitars. So I guess his hands are just melded with his guitar, as I always expected.
Dang, that was fun!
It was great fun having Grammy Boop stay for the summer. We all had a blast improving our swimming (no more floaties!), playing Lost Cities, and watching the new kitties make themselves at home. Can’t wait for next summer so we can do it again!
Looks like we may be becoming a “cat” family, in addition to being a dog pound. We bought 2 large air purifiers this week. It’s just so crazy it might work! Stay tuned… and if you want to adopt you better hurry up! (pleaaaase?? :> )