Category: blahblah

No Beard

I shaved my beard off again last weekend. Knowing it would probably freak Ella out, I had her in the room and tried to show her what I was doing. She wasn’t too interested until the beard was gone, then she was deeply suspicous. The rest of the day she scowelled at me and seemed generally displeased.

When I gave her a bath that night, she sat in the corner of the tub a safe distance away, furrowing her brow at me in disapproval. I asked her what was wrong so she took her hand and moved it from one ear to the other along her jaw line. Not quite ASL, but I got the point. She should be consulted ahead of time in the future.

She’s probably right, too. Shaving is lame, especially without shaving cream. And we only need one baby-face in the house.

edit:
Alan sent me a link to a recent discussion on metafilter. Aparently the word describing the change is “shavenfreud.”

Waiter, there’s a mouse in my bottle

After Barley and I got home from our rainy walk this morning, we heard the slight sound of bottles clinking together. Sure, it was recycling day so the sounds of shopping carts and bottle collectors was normal, but this was a much more gentle noise, and it seemed to be coming from inside the house. Sure enough, there was a mouse at the bottom of our glass recycling bin. When I opened the cupboard, the mouse (which I’ve decided was male for the simplicity of referring to him as a him) slipped down the neck of a Full Sail LTD bottle and didn’t seem too concerned when I picked up the bottle. I felt a small bit of guilt simply for taunting the mouse, but I had to take pictures of the little dude.

Maus 1 Maus 2 Maus 3

Faced with what to do with the little fellow, I checked with Michelle, knowing she’d want to turn it loose. She did, so I walked him down the street, past the new Chinese lounge (tempting) to the condemned building and turned him loose in the field. I told him not to come back, but he probably will. That’s nature for you.

Painting Ego Shattered

Paint SpillI spilled my first can of paint on Monday night between Blackboard outages. I was at home with Ella, who was finally napping, and so I decided to put a quick coat of paint on the last window we installed. It was quick, but the server had to go down during finals. I set the can on the window’s ledge to go answer the phone and get the server going, then came back and bumped the can. It fell. Turned over completely and managed to land opening down. Luckily. There was spill and splatter from the fall, but I was able to flip the can back over with the newspaper holding 90% of the paint in the can. I was mortified. I’ve gotten so cocky about painting that I hadn’t even changed clothes. Normally I don’t even bother to put down any drop cloth, but did this time because the paint had been acting finicky.

Finally, a good reason to use latex enamel.

Bruce Lee lives

I finally found my first sidewalk decoration of interest in the new neighborhood. I’ve been looking, but haven’t been able to find any misspellings, and judging from how few concrete stamps there are, most of the neighborhood must have been done by the same contractor. Anyway, this gem is a few blocks my my place, and I took it back when it was light in the morning. The age of the cement suggests that was drawn in at the master’s height, if not shortly thereafter.

Bruce Lee

I can almost picture the scenerio in my head. Some kid just finished watching Enter the Dragon and was outside playing with his nun-chucks and saw wet cement. The clouds probably even parted and a ray of sunlight lit up the sidewalk, calling out to young Billy. Luckily, Billy knew who to immortalize. Good choice, Billy.

Strong Coffee

Last night I learned that I make strong coffee. After two of my relatives commented on it’s strength, I tried to defend myself by saying I measured out the same 1 tablespoon per cup that Michelle had told me to 6 years ago. Michelle corrected me saying that it’s supposed to be 1 heaping tablespoon per two cups. I was a little embarrassed at first, but realized that I’ve been double-making coffee for going on 6 years. That means all those Sunday mornings we’ve run out of coffee were for not. In fact, at an average of around $7.50 a bag, I’ve probably brewed away $1200 on overly strong coffee. I’m afraid to figure out how much extra creamer I’ve used as well. Damn.

I asked Michelle and Jason why they never said anything before, and they simply said “they like it strong.” I’m more of a fan of the new windows that could have bought, or a laptop.

So this morning I ushered in a new era of normal strength coffee. I poured the last cup of the double-strength from yesterday’s brew and nuked it for myself, then started the pot with only 2.5 scoops of grounds. Well, maybe closer to 3.

One mediocre step

I met with my thesis advisors on Monday, refocused, and I think that I’m lined up for takeoff. Or landing. One or the other. Anyway, after the meeting, I came home and wrote the first page of my thesis. Maybe first page and two-thirds if I switch to double space. A minute but meaningful step.

Hissing Mink

I did not get video of the mink trying to steal the fish, but I did get some video of it in one of the boats scrounging for food. We had pulled up the boats and were waiting for the float plane when the little bugger hopped from the dock into one of the boats. The mic on my camera was not equipped to register the hissing noise. It’s really quite frightening.

Katrina Cottages

I was looking through the Lowes flyer this weekend hoping to find a great deal on windows when I came across their Katrina Cottages plans. The idea is quite intriguing, but the there’s very little on the site that details what the total costs will be. It’s mostly just the plans for sale, and they’re being sold as replacement shelters… or vacation homes. The plans are rather simple, and the artistic renderings are somewhat attractive, but the photos on the website are a little less so. Maybe it’s just my aversion to the look of modern building materials.

I’m partial to the ideas at the Open Architecture Network, which seeks to be a cooperative/clearinghouse for shelter and structure ideas.