weekend wrapup

So did you see in the news that Mr. Sunshine John Edwards had an affair? Dude, I tell you what, I've lost all hope in politicians. They are all buggery turds. Give me another 10 to 15 years and I'm going to figure out what I have to do to run for office. Hopefully once I figure it out I'll follow through and run for office.

We found this ice cream shop down the road that serves Tofts ice cream. Tofts is the best ice cream in the whole world, in case you didn't know it already. It's made in good old Sandusky, Ohio and is another fine Ohio product just like myself. So on weekends we walk a mile down to the ice cream shop and back and it is awesome. The two mile round trip melts the guilt away.

We went over to Ukie's apartment this weekend and saw Cloverfield. Sweet flick! I highly recommend it. I thought it was written very well.

brain fart

So yesterday I'm in my garage talking with neighbor #1, the cop. We are chatting away and neighbor #2, the lawn expert stops by to drop off some books on perennials and landscaping. Neighbor #2 and I are yacking a bit and I feel I should introduce Neighbors #1 and #2.

"Hey, Neighbor #2, do you know.... (insert long awkward pause here were I look Neighbor #1 directly in the eye, stand there with my mouth open waiting for my tongue to kick into action) ...umm. Thank God they finished up the introduction for me because my brain just...stopped...

Now that's an embarrassing brain fart.

It's better than..."this is my wife, umm....what's your name again?" --that's never happened!!

Anne Geddes drugs her models

More flower boxes. One more for the wife, two were supposed to go to the wife's brother and fiancee as a wedding gift, but then I thought about it and thought I should give one to my mother in law since she gave the plans for the boxes to Amanda and I wondered if that had some subtle undertones......so one for the wife, one for the mother in law and one for the brother in law (and I don't think any of them read this so the surprise will be at the delivery).

Anyway, here they are with my underpaid model.



He is underpaid because he can't stay focused on the objects that the photographer wants to take pictures of and instead tries to eat sawdust and paint chips off of the driveway. Tangent: let me tell you what I'd like to do to the previous owner of this house for painting the garage floor....I want to THROTTLE her for it! Ever since the first time we parked in the garage paint chips have been coming up and it really grates on my girdle that I'm constantly sweeping them up.

This pose worked until he realized his rear end was wedged into the flower planter box, which means he can't move and resulted in the last photo down below.




So I'm convinced Anne Geddes drugs her models, because mine is hardly ever cooperative.

Ha, here's the really funny part....to do the legs I took a 1x6 piece of cedar decking (expensive, not something you want to make mistakes with) and ripped it lengthwise (the rip was off center so I could make L shaped legs). I had to do the ripping with a circular saw, which is tough because there is no guide to make sure your cuts are straight. Whereas with a table saw it is a piece of cake.

So I get finished and I'm cleaning up the garage and there is some leftover pegboard that I found in the shed from the previous owner that I used for my man area. I didn't need the rest of it and was giving it to my neighbor and while we chatted I told him how tough it was to rip the legs with a circular saw. He pointed out to me that he has the same saw that comes with an attachment and I should check the box that it came with....."wait, you mean this?"

Neighbor: "Yea, see it slides right in the front there."

Blood and bloody ashes Moraine. All those headaches and I had the tools right there in front of me. Bollocks.

workbench

I built myself a little workbench in the garage. My man area is now growing from the basement to this nook I've made for myself out here. I'm pretty pleased with it because it only cost 3 dollars to build (the wood I scavenged from various places) and that was for the screws to put everything together. Well, the cabinet was 30, but still, I think that's a pretty cheap work area. I just added some pegboard to the wall under and to the right of the cabinet. Now I just need pegs to hang my stuff up and I'll be all finished.

It got its first use this weekend because I supervised Sergey building a coffee table. It was much easier working waist high instead of squatting and working on the floor.



X supervised as well, he's good at that!

true story

So we went to a soccer game last week and had a great time. Here's a funny story I forgot to tell about what happened afterwards....

Leaving the stadium we are driving through neighborhood streets that aren't so nice. Traffic is pretty heavy but we are moving. Amanda, Sergey and I are having a good time chatting when we happen upon a little boy (10-12 maybe) dancing on the sidewalk shouting at the cars. I shout out the car window at him:

"IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!"

I was laughing. Amanda rolled her eyes and I think Sergey chuckled.

But that's not the funny part! Still stuck in traffic, we come up to an intersection where we don't have to stop but the cross traffic has a stop sign does. We go through the intersection bumper to bumper as a local motors her way up towards us. I hear the (I'm guessing here) Mom say to the son "No, we can't do that, tomorr' you have to go to Church." She then passes us and someone in the intersection pulls out and startles her and I hear her say "You M*TH*RF*CK*R!!".

Whenever I hear her words run through my head it doesn't stop being funny...

"No, we can't do that, tomorr' you have to go to Church............You M*TH*RF*CK*R!!"

what color is your thumb?

You aren't going to believe this crap. So we keep having visitors over to our house and we are overjoyed at the gobs of green goodness growing in our garden, however, there has been a slight hiccup. I've realized that my green and banana peppers have been looking a little funny. By 'funny', I mean, the seeds that I planted weren't growing up to look like the starter pepper we put in next to our tomatos.

I keep holding my breath thinking that one day they'll match up or suddenly they'll sprout a little pepper and everything will be fine and I can rest assured that I am indeed growing peppers. So we have a heavy rain and now the peppers have fallen over and are now growing along the ground. What the deuce?!

So the in-laws visit over the weekend and my MIL mentions that those peppers look like pumpkins. Dude, no, I distinctly remember picking up bell and banana pepper seeds from Ace. Then we have some friends over for s'mores saturday night and I mock my MIL's comment about them being pumpkin vines. Dude, no. I can see the package of seeds in my head. Not pumpkin!

So this morning over breakfast it dawns on Amanda that last year when we carved pumpkins we threw the insides into the compost pile. Months go by and I use my compost pile to fertilize my new garden. Aaaaaah ha!

Anybody know a pumpkin salsa recipe?

So now I have 9 tomato plants, 1 pepper, and 10 pumpkin vines.

Angels and Demons

I just finished Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. All I can say is, wow, I didn't see that one coming! I thought it was a pretty good book, but it seemed quite predictable through the middle of the book.

Here are some of my thoughts floating around in my head after reading it:
1. I wish I knew more about art. I sure would like to make time to read more about Michelangelo and DaVinci and Bernoulli. Eventually I'll pick up something on art and read it...maybe.

2. I don't understand the hub-bub surrounding Dan Brown's books. Specifically, why there was such bad press about this book and the DaVinci Code. I'm Catholic and these books don't offend me. If anything, they've increased my faith and make me want to learn more about Catholicism.
Did I tell you, that when we lived in The 'Nati (when The DaVinci Code came out) we went to Mass one weekend and the priest had a visit priest give a homily touting his book "100 and 1 things wrong with The DaVinci Code"? I don't know if that was the specific title, but it was the biggest waste of a homily. I was so angry and irritated that they would waste time over a work of FICTION! What's next? JK Rowling the Atheist?! Good grief. Is their faith so weak that they can't handle a work of fiction? Or is my faith so weak that I fail to understand how and when I should defend my faith? No clue what the right answer there is.

3. Better than Angels and Demons, better than The DaVinci Code, is another book by Dan Brown called Digital Fortress. I liked the characters better and I liked the adventure better. The author spent more time writing from the bad guys perspective which I find much more entertaining. Lately I've been entertained more by cunning deceitfulness than charming heroics.