| After several minutes of deliberation, I've decided that blizzards are the most annoying weather emergencies. The category of weather emergencies I am considering includes tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, severe thunderstorms, fog, ice storms, and sandstorms. (If your favorite weather emergency has been left out of my category, please let me know and I will modify it. The category, that is--not the weather emergency.)
On Monday we had a blizzard. The blizzard lasted about 24 hours, dumped somewhere around 18 inches of snow, caused multiple power outages (some lasting over two days in rural parts of the county), shut down pretty much every highway in the eastern half of the state, left four-foot drifts in my driveway, and gave me a pretty intense case of cabin fever. Work was canceled for two days, and while I'm all about days off, I'd rather not spend them shoveling a path to the outside world.
All of the items I listed in the previous paragraph are annoying. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and ice storms are generally destructive, with hurricanes generally causing the most widespread damage and ice storms causing lots of shit to fall down without the high wind factor. That's not annoying. That's flat out bad. I don't know much about sandstorms except they look cool from a distance and probably could do some damage to the paint job on your vehicle or your lungs if you were unable to take cover--also bad. Blizzards don't look cool at all; they look like misery. Thunderstorms are the most awesome weather emergencies that exist, which by definition makes them not annoying.
You never hear much about people getting trapped and dying in blizzards. That's because there really aren't surprise blizzards. There are warning signs even when dealing with fast moving storms. There's usually plenty of warning for a person to take cover, get some extra propane, buy some canned goods and shovels, etc. In an extremely dire situation one could create a shelter out of the snow itself. You also don't hear very often about things getting destroyed in a blizzard. That's because things mostly don't get destroyed; they get buried. And then you get to dig them out! It's like hunting for buried treasure where the treasure is the sidewalk.
Blizzards are the only weather emergencies that have ever mocked me. I had about 25 bulbs coming up before the storm came; now I'll be spending tomorrow afternoon digging them out. I hate, hate, hate shoveling snow. Especially four feet of it. I can't recall how many times I reset the clock on my microwave--I hate resetting clocks. Actually, I'm pretty glad our power outages were timed just right so that I didn't sleep through any alarms or have to make any meals on the barbecue. I would not want to grill during a blizzard. I guess the mocking could have been worse.
Fortunately, we don't get blizzards very often. That's good because they annoy me. I don't think we had any last spring and we only had one the spring before. Yes, I meant to type spring--that's when we usually get blizzards. Spring is a pretty silly season around here. Speaking of which, guess what the weather forecast is for Sunday night? (Hint: another blizzard.) Gah. Enough mockery and silliness! Who's ready for summer? | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
| | Time: | 10:27 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/bouncy.gif) w00t |
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| Coworker: The Steelers and the Cardinals? That is going to be SO BORING.
Me: No way. It's going to be awesome.
AND IT WAS! Steeler Nation 1, Cardinal Subdivision 0. The Cards' fanbase jokes never get old! HA HA! Nah, no hate for the Cards here. The Steelers are just, you know, far superior.
(BTW, there's still a jar of jam wanting a home. Keep in mind Stacks is a mining engineer, which means he does things where mines are. Also, I don't generally fly to places I can drive to in a couple hours. Expand them searches!) | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| *From the road, Friday, Jan. 16:
Did you know that McDonald’s charges you for internet access? I don’t know if this is true at all locations, but it sure is at this one. That’s about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. It’s almost worth paying for if you’re stuck for two hours in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere waiting to meet someone. Except..no, not really. I’ll just type for a while and post from somewhere that has free internet access. Like the hotel I’m staying in. It’s only 70 miles away. Normally I’d spend my time driving around and checking out the scenery, but I’m in a rental car and have some sort of mileage limit. I think. Although that may be out the window entirely considering I just drove 70 miles and need to drive back. Also, off-roading in a rental car might not be the greatest idea.
My second choice would be to find a park somewhere and chill for a while, but it’s about 25 degrees outside. I’d read a book but I didn’t bring one. I suppose a public library would also be an option...
This silly computer is highlighting grammar mistakes! Ack. I hate configuring new computers. It’s telling me that contractions are errors. BTW, Windows Vista isn’t nearly as terrible as everyone says it is. It’s definitely dorky and lame and annoying in many ways, but not completely inoperable.
In any case, I’m in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. There are some nice mountains to look at. I’m a big fan of terrain that isn’t flat. I’m here on Accompaniment of Stacks Duty and he told me yesterday to meet him for lunch at eleven 70 miles from where we’re staying, so I was well on my way into the middle of nowhere when he called at 10:30 and said we were meeting at one instead. Normally I’d have pulled off at some exit, but there was only one before I got to town and it was a rest stop. I know better than to hang out in rest stops along major trucking routes by myself. I could also have driven back but I’m not one to erase forward progress.
As many of you know (or at least can guess by my writing style) I don’t really edit my posts as I’m typing them. I kind of just type and go with it and only do major editing in rare cases where I’m typing about one subject and things lean toward being coherent. And since I’ve got some time to kill, and maybe you do too, maybe I’ll just write this thing with little clues so you can guess where I am! Wow, that’s so lame. So far I’ve given out lots of clues. I’ll have to be a little creative here…there are some unique features about this place that would totally give it away if I mentioned them, so I’ll have to avoid mentioning those.
Lately I’ve been thinking of several things. First, I’ve been thinking of what sort of flowers and vegetables I would like to plant this year. I like vegetables. A lot of people hate vegetables and wonder why the best tasting foods are the worst for you. I find it better to convince oneself that vegetables are the best tasting foods, but I guess not everyone has this sort of control over their taste buds. I’m not even sure if I do; it might have been my mother when I was a child.
Ever get the feeling you were raised in a manner that differs from other kids? I don’t really get that feeling; I am 100% sure that I was raised in a manner that differs from other kids. This is another thing I've been thinking of lately. We spent many vacations traveling to various middles of nowhere rather than populated places. We also lived in various middles of nowhere rather than populated places. I think this is why I am so tolerant of locations like this one. Anyway, we used to do a lot of rock hounding both at home and on vacation. I once had a collection of “pretty rocks” and occasionally I’ll still pick one up if I see one I like. I haven’t made any specific trips to go rock hounding, though. I wonder if all kids pick up rocks.
I also don’t go on can walks like we did when I was a kid. I absolutely hated can walks. We would take plastic grocery bags and go on walks through town and through the desert near town and pick up aluminum cans. Then we would crush them, save them, and cash them in. I remember taking them to Phoenix one time and getting over a hundred dollars, maybe two, but I still hated it. I was probably ten or eleven at the time, just old enough to be embarrassed about walking around looking like a bag lady. We didn’t really need the money, either—my mom was just extremely frugal. (Frugal is a nice word—if you ask her brothers and sisters they’ll tell you she was the cheapest person they ever met in their lives.) I think it’s still a reasonable way to make some extra cash if you need it, but I’m pretty thankful I don’t need the extra cash.
We also picked up and saved all of the loose change we found, which should come as a surprise to no one. I’ll still pick up a penny if I see it, but I don’t think I look as hard as I did when I was a kid. Maybe there’s just less change lying around since more people use debit cards and credit cards these days.
I’m pretty stoked about the Steelers winning the Super Bowl this year even though they haven’t done it yet. Or gotten to that game yet. And how ‘bout them Cards? I can’t say I saw that one coming. Some people think it’s weird that I support a team that isn’t geographically close to me at all. These people think that associating oneself with a team based on something other than physical distance is absurd. If that were the case I couldn’t have an association with any team at all since I live in the middle of nowhere. FYI, in Wyomin’, most folks are supporters of teams from either Denver or Minneapolis and most folks only follow football and baseball as far as professional sports are concerned. This location is closer to a professional sports team than the home-land but it’s not a team I'm very inclined to root for.
I still have another hour to kill. If I were bored this often I could provide you with more crap to read than you could ever imagine.
This place is getting busy and I think I’m hogging space. I’ll be back in a bit to type further.
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Aha! Bizzack, but it’s been more than a bit. It’s been about eight hours. I drove to some BLM land and took pictures of mountains. I guess if your first inclination when you get to a place is to find some BLM land to hang out at, you’re probably weird. Then I ate a Fire Burger for lunch, drove Stacks around the countryside, and headed back to the larger, more civilized town. Then we drove around and looked at stuff and things and the biggest HOA-governed neighborhood I’ve ever seen in my life. Then we did something that would totally give away the mystery location if I told you what it was, and then we ate some delicious food. It was the first restaurant I’ve been to that gives you spaghetti (in addition to four or five other items) as a side dish with your meal.
If you are the first to guess where the bulk of this was typed, I’ll send you a jar of homemade raspberry jam. Just what you always wanted, right? It’s pretty tasty and apparently goes well on ice cream, as a coworker who is on his second jar has indicated. Ahoy, amigos!
*Back at home, Sunday:
Boy, am I glad we flew into Gillette and had a 10-minute drive back home rather than the usual five hours when we fly into Denver. I'm in the middle of watching this silly game, and while I'm glad Philly decided to make a game of it, I'm a little worried as I'd like the Cards to win. In any case, I've got additional ball to watch and you've got your work cut out for you figuring out where I was on Friday. I'm not even sure it's possible to narrow the location down completely, but it's worth someone other than me giving it a shot, right? Hehe. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Honestly. -17 degrees? I'm pretty sure I'm dead. The air is so cold that Panda choked on it, and Panda LOVES the out-of-doors. Tomorrow it's supposed to get all the way up to -3. I can't wait. Wish my toes luck.
Love,
G | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | The Dream Academy--Life In A Northern Town | | Subject: | so warm | | Time: | 07:14 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/creative.gif) fuzzy |
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| Hmm..a six-month plus hiatus. One might wonder what I’ve been doing for the last six months. I’ve primarily been sucking balls at time management. You see, I have a terrible time getting my ramblings somewhat coherent when I only have five minutes here or there to spout them into some word processing program that will actually remember them (unlike my brain, which has developed some sort of selective memory thing). Even then, I still have to remember the names of files which contain ramblings. I am reasonably successful at this at work (both time management and file naming), so it makes little sense that I can’t seem to do it at home. Maybe I am taking separation of job and home life a little too far.
I’ve also been here and there, including Rocky Point, the Bay area, the Big Horn Basin, and a couple of trips apiece to Colorady and Montany. (All of these locations, by the way, are awesome. Actually, the Big Horn Basin kind of sucks if you're anyone other than me or a handful of other folks I know, since most folks don't have family there or spend time working there and it leans toward the more extreme end of po-dunk, a generally undesirable trait in locales for most folks.) I spent copious amounts of time musing around my yard and additional amounts of time on never-ending home improvement projects. More time still has been spent playing with little Panda and many kitchen experiments have taken place. Rather than summarizing all those things in great detail, I think I’ll summarize some things I’ve learned from them:
1. Bloody Marys are awesome. Awesome for drinking in the park on a Sunday, awesome as a vitamin supplement, awesome as a meal. The more Tabasco, the better.
2. If you are alone in the middle of nowhere and you stumble upon a mass of animal bones and fur scattered amongst beer bottles, you should probably get out of there, even if it’s clear the leaver of beer bottles isn’t around. The whole place is just creepy at that point.
3. If your cat eats six bees in one sitting, pukes them up, and starts playing again five minutes later and has no bee stings in her mouth, she’s probably fine.
4. If you're making some raspberry preserves (the kind without fruit pectin added), they will solidify better if you add some currants.
5. If you are sliding down a snow field toward a river which is below additional snow, and you do not know how thick this snow is or exactly where the river is (i.e., stopping sooner is better), do not try to use your bare hands to stop despite the natural instinct to do so. They will become numb and raw and difficult to maneuver when you need them for rock scrambling five minutes later.
6. If you are walking on a very narrow path along a vertical rock face and there is a dead mountain goat below you that has fallen off the cliff above, you should probably consider whether climbing on this rock face with numb hands is a good idea, considering an animal which has evolved to perform this very task has apparently died doing so. Then proceed with caution because if you go back, you'll fall down a snow field.
6a. Regarding (5) and (6) above, it never hurts to be over prepared when someone tells you about a really cool "easy hike". Those big-ass dorky manboots you have will come in handy. So will that jacket you didn't think you'd need in the middle of summer.
7. In the mountains there are a lot of places where an ATV will go but a Honda Accord will not. I managed to stay out of all but one of them.
8. Don’t draft Carson Palmer in your fantasy football league. If you do, trade him before he gets injured. Also, it's a good year to stay away from any member of a team that has "Seahawk" in its name.
9. Wine tasting makes me feel very good on the inside.
10. If you are sealing tile and grout, don’t make a big smudge in the sealant and let it dry that way. It will look like ass. Literally. Like someone sat in the grout while it was drying.
With that, if anyone else would like to share things they’ve learned since I last typed on this here thing, or in general, feel free. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Flogging Molly -- Float | | Time: | 12:25 pm | | Current Mood: | and so it goes |
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| Panda thanks you for her birthday wishes. She would have typed this herself but she doesn't have thumbs and therefore has trouble with the space bar.
In any case, there are many fantastic, exciting things going on in my little world. Most of these things involve warm weather and plant growth. Today I'm going to focus a bit on plant growth and provide a bit more insight on my nerd-hobby and its origins.
I like vegetables. I always have. When I lived in Arizona, vegetables were large, plentiful, and delicious. A lot of vegetables in those parts are grown in Arizona or shipped from nearby locations such as California and Mexico, so they often spend less time in shipment and are more fresh in the store. I'm not sure what sorts of fertilizers and whatnot the farmers put in the ground for these vegetables, but they're comparatively good sized and generally taste pretty good. They're also relatively inexpensive.
Fast forward to Wyomin', where pretty much nothing is grown locally, all the vegetables come from far, far away, and prices are super-high. The tomatoes taste like nothing and the bell peppers are small and shriveled. We can't get sweet potatoes most of the year. As a child my parents (and grandparents, and most of my aunts and uncles) would grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and I had been used to reasonably good produce in the store, so I was extremely disappointed. Thus my farmer blood started boiling and I was forced by genetic predisposition to start growing my own vegetables.
Last year I went and bought me some tomato and herb seeds to see if I could try growing a thing or two. It was mostly a disaster--I didn't seek much information on growing things and I now know I pretty much did everything wrong. I also set the seedlings out on the deck to get some sun and tripped over them, sending all the little seedlings flying off the deck into the grass below. Everything died. I thought maybe I wasn't cut out for this plant growing thing; maybe I don't have enough patience. Maybe I'm naturally inclined to kill things.
Then some spring rains came and the entire yard exploded into a jungle of trees and flowers and weeds and grass and raspberries. We bought the place in November after it had snowed, so as far as the yard was concerned, we just knew there were a bunch of big trees, a lawn, and lots of unidentifiable sticks. It turned out that a couple hundred (no joke) of the then-unidentifiable sticks were raspberry canes, and there was much bounty during the summer. It then occurred to me that if I could grow a thing by doing nothing, I could probably grow a thing by doing something.
About this same time, my folks came to visit and my dad pointed out that one of my trees didn't look so good. I started researching tree diseases and determined what the problem was and how to solve it. I learned a lot of things about plant disease in general during the process, and it was fascinating. One plant subject led to another, and I started learning about soil and nutrients and plant identification and what sorts of things I could grow in Wyomin'. I gathered specimens of the mystery plants in the yard and took them to my coworker (a vegetation specialist) to identify. Flowers grew and I found them very foncy and nice to look at. I started fixing the plant problems I was aware of and figured out how to take care of the existing plants in the yard. I was having a pretty good time with my little nerd hobby. Then I figured I might as well try growing a thing or two of my own. Since it was fall, I got some bulbs for fall planting and put them in little holes in the ground.
Now 'tis spring, and by some miracle these little bulbs have sprouted and one is even blooming (a snowdrop). I'm pretty excited about this one flower. I don't think I've ever grown a flower all by myself until now. I took about a billion pictures of the little flower like it's a firstborn child or something. Here's one:
Awww. What a cute little booger. Hopefully some of my other bulbs actually bloom--it's common for some bulbs not to bloom during their first year, so I won't be too disappointed if I don't get an arseload of pretty flowers to marvel over. I kind of like having flowers around. They make the yard seem like a living place, not just some extension of the house where a barbecue goes and you occasionally talk to the neighbor over the fence.
I've also got many vegetable seedlings under a grow light and I put some carrot seeds in the ground yesterday. Nearly all of my grow-light seedlings have germinated and quite a few of them are getting leaves and looking generally healthy, unlike last year where I had a few sad-looking stems that probably wouldn't have made it even if I didn't kick them off the deck. I'll let you know how it goes.
I'll also try to drink more beer and report on my findings of taste. I cut back for a while because I generally felt like ass and that seemed like an obvious way to help things, and also after I turned 25 I found my body doesn't handle alcohol like the good old days. Now I've struck a balance and can have a few without immediately falling asleep. Still, I think it's fair to say that growing up sucks. But that's a discussion for another day.
Speaking of discussions for other days, I've had some trouble coming up with things to discuss for the past couple of uh, years. Any suggestions are quite welcome. And with that, I'm out. Happy 24-Hour Period In Between 4-20 and Earth Day, y'all. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Today is Panda's birthday. Panda is two years old. In celebration, I present Panda with her cloaking device:
Now that's some cute Panda. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Time: | 07:25 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/happy.gif) w00t |
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| The New York Giants are fucking fantastic.
Now, I wonder if a case of Plaxico Burress magic ankle (I presume this is an official medical term) would have the same effect on me as it does on Plaxico Burress... | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | suckage | | Time: | 10:08 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/blank.gif) blank |
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| Know what happens when I promise more frequent updates? Pipes freeze and I have to deal with them. Ah, the joys of homeownership. Fortunately no pipes broke, but we do have a nice chunk of drywall ripped out of the utility room. On a good note, Stacks and his buddy finished texturing the drywall in the area we destroyed last year, so things appear to be manageable. Actually I'm lying; the whole thing is totally unmanageable as far as I'm concerned.
Saturday I spent some time working on tree removal. It's rather sad to have to remove a tree, but I'd rather remove one to save two than save one to kill three. This tree has a nasty case of fire blight. Fire blight isn't curable, you see, and is usually taken care of by pruning below the blighted areas. In this case, it's spread so close to the trunk that the tree will be pretty much impossible to salvage. It's a crabapple and I have two other healthy crabapples that I'd like to keep healthy, so I figure taking the diseased one out is the best bet. It's still rather depressing to have to cut down a tree for that reason, though. The previous homeowners didn't do a very good job of regular pruning on this tree, which is sort of odd because they did a pretty good job on the rest of the yard. I think some regular pruning could have helped the tree; the branches that rub together are hot spots for disease. Me having more tree maintenance knowledge at an earlier date (about six months earlier than I obtained it) would also have helped, but there's not really much that could have been done there. I would like to have finished the tree project this weekend, but the 60 mph wind gusts annoyed me too much.
Speaking of wind gusts, the National Weather Service put out a blowing dust alert on Saturday. They also warned about blowing and drifting snow Sunday but not Saturday. It seems to me that the snow warning should have happened Saturday and the blowing dust warning Sunday, since the snow is on top of the dust, and the dust should not be a problem until the snow blows away, but what do I know (besides that I am tired of these severe weather alerts)? Hey look, another one! I wonder what it says.
How very encouraging. Thanks, Accuweather. Did you know the temperature here dropped 40 degrees in 3 hours? That would probably explain the severe weather alert.
On a more positive note, I have another tree that robins seem to like. I count 29 robins in this picture. That's a lot of robins in one tree.
Some people say that robins are a sign of spring. I say these people are lying. Oh well. I don't mind these birds hanging around. They keep Panda entertained, which in turn keeps me entertained.
Anyway, back to the subject of me not typing on this here thing as often as I should. I read an article today that got me typing. The article is about how multitasking makes us stupider and how we aren't wired to do more than one thing at once. It's not exactly a revelation as I put a reasonable amount of thought into the subject, and it's no secret that I'm not much of a multitasker myself. Sure, at the work-place I have many projects to work on and many small tasks to complete, but I don't do them all at the same time. I generally don't switch back and forth between them, either, because I don't get anything done that way. I know this and I work around it. I bust out some rapid-succession action. No big deal.
The problem comes outside of the work-place, where I have many tasks I try to accomplish at the same time and wind up failing to accomplish anything. For example, right now I'm trying to type on this here thing and search for lighting fixtures at the same time. The sentences must come out complete and the lighting fixtures must be reasonably priced. I can't imagine trying to pull crap like this at the work-place, yet I do it constantly in my free time. Did you know that I've been trying to create this here post for the last three days? And I type two sentences, get distracted, and come back a few hours later? Can you tell? I can. Christ, I haven't had a cohesive thought in years.
When I was but a wee child, I could focus on anything. I picked things up rather quickly. These days, if I have to spend more than a couple minutes on a particular thing, I don't pick it up. I'm one of the people from the article who is getting dumber. I don't delve into a particular interest and write about it because I don't take the time to delve into any interests. It's not that I don't have the time; I just haven't spent my time wisely for a while now. (I have all the time in the world. I live in Wyoming.) When I say I have nothing to write about, I'm really not kidding. I've got about as much conversational prowess these days as a rock. Maybe even less. I'm like those retarded kids they mention in those job-hunter articles about how Gen Y needs more stimulation than the Baby Boomers. I don't really need stimulation, though. Inspiration would be kind of nice. So would sleep.
In any case, I didn't mean to get all reflective and self-deprecating and whatnot. My apologies; I'm not looking for sympathy or anything of that sort. Perhaps next time I will have better news to report on the weather and cat. Maybe I'll have found some fixtures for a reasonable price. Maybe I'll get all these tiny pieces of my brain in some sort of order. I could assemble the edge pieces and dump all the rest in the middle so they CAN'T GET OUT. Yes. That would be a start. In the meantime, I think I will have a nap. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Red Elvises -- Rocket Man | | Subject: | Weirdberries and Ale | | Time: | 08:11 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/sleepy.gif) too much corned beef |
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| HA! I'm back, and after only four days. I kept my word, you see.
A while back I discussed my insurance company and their inability to recognize me as a separate entity from Stacks. A couple of days ago, Stacks got a bill for my eye doctor appointment, contact lenses, and prescription safety glasses. We have the same eye doctor, but there is no reason for them to associate us with one another aside from having the same address. Stacks was a bit annoyed but I found it mildly amusing. I have no intention of forcing him to pay the bill, of course. I just wonder how these things come about. I know from experience that the mass mailing/database connection things that automatically match and print names and addresses on envelopes and bills and whatnot don't always work correctly if you have duplicate fields, so it could be an honest mistake. Or someone in the office was like, "Do we send it to the husband or the wife?" and someone else was like "I don't know; my husband does all the finances. Math is hard. Send it to the husband." (Not that only women work in doctors' offices. Although I have never seen any men other than the eye doctors working in this particular office.) Both are feasible. Ah, well.
My eye doctor is awesome, by the way. He told me that engineers are usually the worst patients because they can't ever decide whether 3 or 4 is better and they have to see each one 50 times in order to make a decision. I thought that was funny. (At least half of the eye doctors I have ever been to are awesome. The guy I went to as a teenager used to ask me if I had 50 boyfriends yet. I also thought that was funny and not creepy for some reason.) He also gives me free samples of contact lens cleaner and eye drops to try, which is nice. I am sure that they do that for everyone, but he told me that people seem to like a certain lens cleaner even though there is no scientific proof it is better than any of the others, so I ought to try it as well. It was nice that he mentioned there is no scientific proof it is better than any of the others. It also turns out that I prefer that particular contact lens cleaner.
I mentioned in my last post that I would discuss an additional couple of ales that I tasted recently, the Kelpie Seaweed Ale and Grozet Gooseberry Wheat Ale from Heather Ale Ltd. I have discovered a couple of things. First, I really need to consume two or three of any given beer to really be able to determine why I like it so much (I assume that I will like most beers since that has been the case in the past). Second, gooseberries apparently belong to a category of berries that I like to call weirdberries. Weirdberries is sort of a misnomer since the berries are really more obscure than they are weird, but obscureberries sounds stupid. Many people have never heard of gooseberries. I don't think I tasted anything gooseberry-related until I tasted the Grozet Gooseberry Wheat Ale. I'm still not sure I know what gooseberries should taste like, since the fruitiness in this particular beer was barely detectable. But maybe that is what gooseberries are like. Chokeberries (another weirdberry) are that way. Perhaps I should grow a gooseberry bush and find out. Anyway, my point is that the Grozet is a reasonably tasty beer, but I would need to sit down and have a couple before I could get in my little crazy "zone" and tell you all what crazy-ass childhood memory comes to mind when I drink it.
The Kelpie doesn't taste like seaweed, although seaweed is used during the brewing process. It tastes like awesome. Reminded me of dark chocolate. Wasn't too heavy after a large meal, either. I don't remember much about this beer since I drank it so fast due to its deliciousness, but I'd highly recommend it. And I'd like some more.
Well..that was lame. I'm so out of practice. Jeez. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Leonard Cohen -- First We Take Manhattan | | Subject: | bank of the suck | | Time: | 06:45 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/cold.gif) yuck |
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| Last updated 9 weeks ago? Yikes.
In other news, the holidays are over and I am relieved. Nothing stresses me out more than said holiday season. The purchasing of items one normally would not purchase, the crowded stores full of materialistic consumer-yuck cheer, the families wanting their child and the person their child bangs on a regular basis to spend every waking vacation moment with THEM ONLY and no other family, the horrendous weather, the expectation for you to buy more expensive things since you have a regular job...yes, enough is enough. Hopefully I don't have to purchase any items I normally would not purchase soon, and hopefully the weather holds up occasionally.
I bought some Christmas lights and the instructions said to handle with care because the cords are covered in lead paint. I will try not to eat those Christmas lights. That is my New Year's Resolution.
Actually, I don't have a New Year's Resolution. I'm attempting this, though. I may or may not post my entire list. I haven't finished it yet. It turns out that 101 things worth doing in the next 2.5+ years are a lot of things. It also turns out that in my adult life I have become a List Creator, mostly because I forget things if I don't write them down. Also, the consulting industry requires one to prioritize things and re-prioritize them on a regular basis, as well as finish things that one starts. I realize there's a pretty big lameness factor associated with identifying goals and ways to achieve them thanks to the self-help movement and recent trends in business management (some of the IBM commercials I've seen lately do an accurate job of making fun of this), but I don't care too much. I don't need motivation so much; I just need stuff to keep me busy and something to remind me of what that stuff is. Which is why I keep my list in the bathroom drawer. I can re-read it every time I have a release of waste materials.
I will share a couple of list items. One is to update this blog more often--I'm aiming for an average of once a week--which means I best find some things to type about, eh? I've also pledged to try 30 new beers. In the last 24 hours I've had three, which means that perhaps I have set the bar too low. Or perhaps I should try instead to limit myself to 30 new beers. Yikes. I actually don't try that many new beers--largely because I don't usually have this many days off in a row, and before last week it hadn't occurred to me to try some "new" beers and make it a bit o' fun.
Anyway, once upon a time I drank some beer and wrote a beer review on this here blog and at least one person liked it. I only say 'at least' because only one person commented, but it seems that others commented in Real Life. I don't remember, though, because it was three years ago. Let me revisit that post momentarily....
..ah yes. I really hate reading my old posts. I used to be so much cooler. This post will not be nearly as cool as that one. But enough Bygones. Since I've decided to write more and try more new beers, it only makes sense to write about these beers.
While browsing the internets one day, I found the Historic Ales from Scotland gift pack from Heather Ale Ltd. and decided it sounded interesting and I should attempt to find this gift pack in Real Life, which I did. First I tasted the Fraoch Heather Ale, which was sort of tough to stomach. It wasn't at all unnatural or fake-tasting--more like gnawing on the wrong tree. There must be tastier trees out there, right? I've gnawed on tastier plants in my own back yard. Perhaps this one is an acquired taste and I did not acquire enough Heather Ales. It's hard to compare to anything because I've never tasted anything quite like it.
Next I tried the Alba Scots Pine Ale, which was awesome. I was expecting something horrible after the Heather Ale, but it turns out I like the taste of pine and spruce. For some reason it brought to mind this nerdy thing I used to do as a kid.
The local newspaper used to print basic house plans with little descriptions as a syndicated thing and you could send money to the architectural firm or whatever and get the full set of blueprints if you wanted to build that house. I never really noticed it until my dad showed me one of the house plans because it was a huge ass mansion. He explained how to read it and after that I would read the paper just so I could see if there was a cool house plan. I used to cut out the cool ones and I had a collection of them. Once in a while on family vacations my parents would let us each pick out a magazine to read on the road and I would get a book of house plans. I had a pretty wild imagination back then and I would think of living in these huge mansions with libraries and knights' armor and arcade games and stained glass windows and stables with ponies and other nerdy/multicolored/shiny items that I was into back then.
I'm not sure why the pine ale reminded me of that. Maybe because we were living in Arizona and Utah at the time (where we didn't have trees) and all of the house plan pictures showed trees, so I would picture them as being built in the trees. Or maybe the way the paper in those magazines smelled. Or because the vacations on which I would read those magazines were to Washington and Oregon. Anyway, the beer didn't remind me of any pine-scented house cleaner or car air freshener or candle or whatever that you can buy these days. It was tasty. Earthy, like a walk in the forest. Or my yard, since I have a pine and a spruce. I suppose at 7.5% ABV I could down a few of these and my yard would turn into a forest. That would be pretty cool.
This weekend I will be back to discuss Kelpie and Grozet, and perhaps some other stuff and things as well. My apologies for being boring and nonexistent lately. I'm working on a remedy. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Belle & Sebastian - This Is Just A Modern Rock Song | | Subject: | cheesery and pie | | Time: | 12:02 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/thoughtful.gif) monkey |
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| And here it is..the post you've been waiting for!
You can skip to the end if you want because it totally sucks. It's a disappointment. It usually is.
Me and Stacks carved us up some jack o'lanterns the other eve. Bet you can't guess which one is mine:
Hint: It's the creepy one.
I never carved jack o' lanterns as a kid. We always drew on the pumpkins with markers and then let them sit for a good while. They last longer that way, after all. I think the first time I carved a pumpkin was in high school or college. Hence I'm not very good at it. I think a kid could handle a knife if an adult showed them the proper way to use it...
One thing a person becomes exposed to while working in the mining industry is the vast expanse of safety rules that exist thanks to various government agencies (MSHA/OSHA) and companies wanting to keep themselves out of trouble. (I don't work in underground mines, which is where most of the recent disasters--at least in the U.S.--have happened.) It seems to me that folks who work in mining and have children do one of two things: they either a) are quite good at recognizing things that might be hazardous to the kiddos, but allow them to learn about the hazards on their own, or b) raise retarded helmet-all-the-time bubble children who are exposed to 50 times as many "safety" rules at home as the parents are are at work. I think my parents tried to protect me quite a bit, but you can only do so much, right? A kid has to fall off their bike to learn how to not slip on the gravel and drink too much to learn not to drink too much (or to drink a lot of water first...). What's the worst that happens if you carve a jack o'lantern? You lose a finger? SEW IT BACK ON!! They have the technology these days. In fact they had the technology when I was a child, because I know someone who cut off a good part of a finger while carving a pumpkin. Had I carved a pumpkin or five as a child my current jack o'lantern might have been much more ornate. Like Stacks's.
Anyway...the safety requirements at my work-place aren't too bad, but I recall a former employment situation where everyone was required to report "near-misses", or things that could have happened but didn't. Then people would have big meetings about things that didn't happen and how they could be prevented. One of the main problems was that rocks on the ground caused tripping hazards and people could SERIOUSLY BE HURT. Rocks. In a mine. Of rocks. ROCKS!! Move them all! Remove the hazards! My GOD.
The other day I was having some lunch with Stacks and we happened to be seated behind some military personnel (USAF, to be exact) at the restaurant. Recruiters, I'm guessing, because I have no idea why else they'd be in Gillette. Anyway, one of these guys was very, eh, talkative, and went on about several unrelated subjects in no particular order; however, every three or four subjects would somehow related back to the military. At one point he said something to the extent of "I saw an F-16 fly over Mt. Rushmore and that's how I knew this place was OURS, OURS, man. Nothing can take that away from us."
In other words...the GIANT FUCKING HEADS OF FOUR U.S. PRESIDENTS weren't enough? Giant heads carved into a mountain? I'm pretty sure if you require a fighter jet over some obviously American symbol to feel patriotism you're clearly getting off on the jet, not the obvious symbol of America that doesn't need a fighter jet to resemble America unless you're a crazy person. (That sentence there made no sense, but I think you get the point.)
The guy went on to praise Rapid City, the home of Mt. Rushmore and Ellsworth Air Force Base. Rapid City is actually kind of a dump, but whatever. The surroundings are nice but the infrastructure could use some updating and the people are sort of off...
One time a guy came from Rapid City to sell meat door-to-door. I bought some meat because I needed some at the time and it was clearly more convenient than grocery shopping...also it was half off..anyway, he told me how he wanted to move his meat sales out of a van business to Gillette but couldn't find office space. He asked to come inside so we could look at the meat on my kitchen table and I told them I did not have a kitchen table and we would look at the meat on the doorstep. We compromised by looking at the meat while it was in a cooler in his meat van and I decided it was worthy of purchase and bought some. That is absolutely a true story; I could not make up such a thing.
I bought my car in Rapid City. The finance lady at the car dealership had a picture of her and her husband in front of a B-1. Stacks asked her about the photo, and she said, "Oh! That's the bomber that hit SADDAM'S house!" She couldn't have been more proud. I couldn't have been more creeped out. I bet she didn't know he had more than one house.
Anyway, F-16 man went on for a while and made my favorite comment of the day: "I've found that the best way to find the best local restaurants while I'm traveling is to ask the locals. Man, those locals know where to eat!" Well..NO SHIT. Man, never has so much knowledge been conveyed in once sentence. Knowledge about what a moron this guy is, anyway.
Went to my first NFL game last week..I'd say that was pretty awesome-tastic. Except for the fact that the Steelers lost (to the Broncos...what a disaster), but one can only ask for so much. Me and Stacks sat by each other and rooted for opposite teams. The hardcore fans are quite amusing, especially the ones that scream crazy ass shit constantly. Also, the big horsey statue above the big screen at Invesco Field has a gigantic cock n' balls, in case you didn't know.
Speaking of football; namely, the kind that isn't real, here's to hoping Miami continues its string of suck as I've got half of my eggs (i.e., way too many if the Giants lose) in the Giants basket this week thanks to injuries and byes. Here's to hoping. Wish upon a star, or perhaps a Magic Ankle.
And there you have it...1000% pure awesome. Okay, not quite that much, but I took a stab at it. In any case...Panda loves you! | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Zachariah and the Lobos Riders - Alcoholiday | | Time: | 12:38 am | | Current Mood: | cold |
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Aw, balls. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Rilo Kiley - Close Call | | Subject: | none..NONE! | | Time: | 09:31 pm | | Current Mood: | blank |
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| Ever see so many statements that are just wrong combined into a bizarre height-of-wrongness concoction that makes you wonder how a species like ours continues to thrive? Check this out--it works with any elongated vegetable.
It's September..that means I've been here a bit over two years. Good GOD. That's all I can come up with on that subject.
Lately we've had some weather that is indicative of fall. I don't like this because it causes spiders to move indoors. The other day I found a wolf spider in my sock/underpants box (No, I don't own a dresser. I own a box. Still.) which was rather massive. Earlier this week Panda chased another large one across the floor, and last weekend I pretty much flipped my lid when I got out of the shower and looked in the mirror and found one on my face. My fucking face. Me, naked and defenseless (okay, I was wearing a bathrobe, but there's still the Orifice Factor. I don't think this needs further explanation.), with a spider on my FUCKING FACE.
Ha, speaking of weather, you'll never ever guess what happened after I got my hail damage fixed. Not in a million years! I'll put the answer at the bottom. With a STA.
(..I had this professor from France for one of my upper division math classes. He would derive equations on the board and when there was some more important intermediary equation he would say, "I will call this equation STA!" and put an asterisk next to it. Then he would derive some more and reach another intermediary equation and say, "I will call this equation DOBLE STA!" Yeah, that shit is awesome.)
Livejournal has this welcome page thing that says the last time you updated your shiz. Mine says six weeks ago. Six weeks and this is all I could fucking come up with. It saves your typings, you see, and I put in about a paragraph a week. I suck. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| The other day we were sitting in the McDonald's drive-thru and I noticed a big, black SUV of some sort in front of me with one of those television screens so the kiddies can watch movies in the back seat. Now, I'm not a big fan of these things because it seems to me that kiddies most likely watch plenty of television at home and don't need the vehicular television supplement. This is especially true in long trip/family vacation situations, as the idea of vacation should be to get away from the everyday--television included. There are also many sights on the open road, and even if there aren't, there are plenty of games to play (find all the license plates from different states, anyone? How 'bout some mad libs?) with the co-travelers.
Anyway, McDonald's drive-thru. In Wyoming, license plates are issued by county, with the number 1-23 on the left side:
http://www.15q.net/us5/wy04.jpg
In this particular example, the license plate is from county #2, which is Laramie County. In the McDonald's drive-thru, the television car had plates from county #17, which is Campbell County. Gillette is the larger (by a large margin) of two towns in Campbell County. Therefore the folks in the aforementioned vehicle were most likely from Gillette*, and it appeared that these kids could not travel ALL THE WAY TO MCDONALD'S without watching television. A movie, no less (Flubber, I think).
I've heard the argument from parents that the television in the back is nice for shutting the kids up and allowing the adults to have some peace. It also makes the kids retarded. I don't think these people should be having children. If you don't want to spend time with your kids, or you're so shitty at parenting you can't make them shut up for five minutes (or five hours, or five days--my parents were awesome), or you're willing to numb their minds and turn them into bumbling retards in favor of some temporary "peace" for your selfish ass, you probably shouldn't have kids. You should get your tubes tied, or your hoses severed, or whatever sort of plumbing interruption applies to your particular gender. I think a campaign should be started to kick these sorts of parents in the shins when they commit asshattery in public or semi-public locations.
I suppose one could take things to the opposite extreme. We had television growing up, but there were limitations on how much we were allowed to watch. Also, my mom was of the opinion that Hard Labor Is Fun. She told me that once when I was nine or ten or so. That was about the age when my sister and I started having to do the dishes and the laundry and haul large chunks of sandstone around the yard to build walls and stuff. And sleep in till 8am on the weekends so we could get up and pull weeds. I'm not convinced all that is required to raise an individual who is willing to work a little and doesn't have quite the damper on the noggin', but it's certainly one way to do things. Oh--and math flash cards (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) are a fun toy. Not boring educational crap. A fun toy. So are maps and National Geographic Magazines. Remember that.
In any case, berries. I have some berries. They grew in my yard. They are delicious. Check it out:
I've also picked one more plastic container and one more green bowl worth of berries since I took that picture. And I took one other plastic container from before then to Stacks's folks. If anyone wants some raspberry jam (or other concoction--but jam can be sent in the mail..w00t), let me know and I'll see what I can come up with. I've got few currants too. Mmm, berries. They're pretty tasty when added to the pancake batter.
You know what else is tasty? Crested wheatgrass (that's the stuff in the middle on the other side of the fence). I'm not sure how to describe it except perhaps one of those plants you might see a cowboy in a western movie chewing on. You see it quite a bit in reclamation seed mixes. Apparently cattle like it. Cattle and I. I like it too. If you drive down my street you'll know which house is mine; I'll be grazing in the front yard. I'd say I've lost my mind, but I say that every time I type on this here thingy. I'm not sure how many times one can legitimately lose a mind.
*Pretty much everywhere in the county is within an hour's drive of this particular McDonald's. Even if they were driving in from the Montana border, it still wouldn't be necessary to plop the kids in front of a movie. Lame. Make them count antelope or read the latest Harry Potter book or Playboy or something. Flubber? Jesus. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Gordon Lightfoot--Early Morning Rain | | Subject: | it goes around | | Time: | 10:46 pm | | Current Mood: | tired |
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| Sometimes I wonder if anyone else out there ever gets the feeling that the music they listen to has some sort of correlation with the events thereafter. For example, I feel as though I have crappy days when I listen to certain albums on my drive to work and good days when I listen to other albums. By albums I mean songs, because I can only fit about 1.5 songs in during my drive. In any case, I am curious as to whether anyone else notices the same correlation and/or agrees with the notion that we are all trying to use obscure coincidental items to try and exert control over areas over our lives which we have ultimately have no control over. Anyone who doesn't shall receive a bit of admiration from me, as I'd sure like to be rid of some of these wee irrationalities.
I went out to do a bit o' work in the garden and was quickly attacked by mosquitoes, so I went down to the Wal-Mart and bought me some bug spray. It smells all flowery and shit--and this is the plain old ordinary Off!--and I'm a bit disappointed. Bug spray is supposed to have a certain smell, sort of piney and extremely chemical-like and ultimately, when mixed with sunscreen, 1000% pure reminiscent of summertime. In many cases change is expected, but the scent of bug spray? My heart is breaking with that one.
In sadder news, my grandmother (mom's mom) passed away last week. My dad called my aunt from his mom's house to tell her they were coming to visit not knowing anything was going on and it turned out Grandma died earlier that morning. He called me. I called my aunt. "Mama went fast," she said. Eight years ago (this week, no less) we called my other grandma (dad's mom) from Wyoming and found out my grandpa wasn't in very good shape, and he died while we were visiting.
My parents headed over here first instead and we drove over the mountain to where my mom's family lives last Sunday. My family doesn't get together much; mostly just for funerals. It's sort of depressing in that sense, but everyone usually has a good time. All the aunts and uncles are retired now. Grandma was 94; my oldest aunt is 75. My dad only has one year left teaching full-time. Time passes. We gathered at my uncle's, then my aunt's, then the farm which my uncle sold to my cousin (after my mom bought it from my grandparents, then we inherited it, then sold it to my uncle). Coors Original/Natural Light, Milwaukee's Beast, MGD, respectively. She was in a nursing home; her health had gone downhill for a while. No one was really surprised, but death is sad and somewhat shocking nonetheless. Everyone says they ought to keep in touch better than they do, but does that really happen? I'm pretty bad about it myself. Le sigh.
Most everyone is well, though, and things will go on. I wonder, also, if anyone out there ever feels "genetically compelled" to do a certain thing. For example, my grandparents homesteaded and had a farm. All the kids worked on the farm, and vegetables were grown. My uncle retired from the fire department and started a gardening business. Everyone has a garden. We always had a garden growing up. My dad's parents also like gardening a great deal. I always did things in the garden as well as a child, such as weeding, watering, etc., but I didn't really do any of the planting or pruning or that sort of thing. Anyway, my point is that I sort of feel "genetically compelled" to do some gardening myself. I'm not sure "genetically compelled" is the right term, though, because it sounds sort of negative, like I was engineered in a test tube so that I enjoy certain things or something. I quite enjoy playing out in the plants and trying to grow things (and I'm not just telling myself that). Had my family not been avid gardeners, though, it probably never would have occurred to me to grow shit.
The last folks who lived here were pretty avid gardeners themselves, so I "inherited" a well-stocked yard. It's amazing how out-of-control these crazy planties can get when you turn your back on them for a rainy weekend, so I've certainly got my work cut out for me. But I like playing out there, so it's not too bad. I tried starting a few tomato plants but I accidentally tripped over them and kicked them all off the deck and they all died (really--I'm that good) so I'm thinking I'll plant for next year this fall and next spring. I think it was helpful to see what all is actually growing out there as well before I start getting very crazy and making things my own. And what do you know--a flower is actually growing out there:
Sorry, can't resist. I'm not sure if I'm more proud of the flower or the fact that the picture isn't blurry. Some other flowers are growing out there too, but I can't get too out of hand putting up all these silly flower pictures.
If your name is Darrell, your spam filter thing for your comments on your nameless blog appears to be calling me spam.
My brain is dead. Thus, in conclusion, a gratuitous Pandaphoto:
For some reason, she loves to hop into bags and be carried around in them (plastic grocery sacks included). What a weirdo. Aww. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| LET ME TELL YOU...
about the joys of homeownership. First, it's probably a pretty good investment. As long as you don't feel the need (or want) to spend money on anything else, ever. Okay, it's a good investment. Even if you're the type who constantly worries they've made a bad decision, or a decision that will tie them down too much at some point in the future, etc. Then it still makes financial sense even though it might be slightly taxing on the liver and kidneys.
Anyway, I suppose you could scroll a bit to the next entry and recall the water problems we had recently. Turned out to be mostly related to the degree of saturation caused by the storm. Most rains out here don't last more than a couple of hours, so a two-day heavy rainfall can cause some serious problems. Subsequent rains have not caused us any major problems. At least not in that part of the house. Because if all our problems were caused by one single factor in one place, nothing would be any fun. Thus I present you the continued greenery that the nonstop spring rain brings:
And our totally fucking awesome foundation crack in the basement:
Thus it is clear that certain items in the life of G have been amplified in the last month. Oy, I have a bit of work to do.
You might be wondering why in the world I didn't notice this thing when we first looked at the place. We paid an inspector to come in but the crack was behind some ceramic tile and the wood stove was in front of it; thus it wasn't obvious. Also, the garage is on the other side and there are no foundation cracks that go that high up the wall; the problems are actually underneath the garage (how convenient). We noticed the problem when water and grout dye started dripping everywhere after all these rains. So we ripped out all the tile and and carpet. By 'we' I mean Stacks. I think he enjoyed it. He also created a new place for his tools:
We're actually not destroying things for the sake of destroying things here, although the pictures show otherwise. The room that contains the wood stove was partitioned off for some reason and we had planned on removing the partition because it's stupid--who needs a room with nothing but a wood stove? Plus the partition wall was built over carpet and has no wiring at all. And the lights to the wood stove room are outside the wood stove room, because it used to be part of a larger room. And it will be again after we fix this mess and remove the retarded wall/Stack's tool rack. At least I have a wall I don't feel bad about banging my head against.
Anyway, on a more positive note, the bushes in the foreground of the jungle photos are raspberry bushes. We should have a nice big shitload of raspberries this summer. I like raspberries. Maybe I could ferment some of them--the pictures show maybe 15% of the raspberry bushes that exist back there, so perhaps I could have enough for a wee batch of wine. Or maybe I'll just make them into syrup and cheesecake and jam and pie.
Enough musings about the general workings of my life. I can only take so much. I'd much rather type about what it would be like to be a bird and other silly things. I was thinking I would like to crawl around in the above bushes and pretend I'm in the rain forest (is there such thing as a non-rain forest?), as one doesn't get that opportunity much in these parts. Hopefully my neighbors don't call the cops or anything. Me and Panda could spy on antelope and stuff. It would be a very stealthy experience.
I run into a lot of documents at the work-place that have pages inserted which say "This page intentionally left blank". (The government puts out a lot of these.) But if it says that, or anything else, it's not really blank. And these "blank" pages are always numbered! That, my friends, is stupid.
The other day some patio furniture showed up in the mail. That was a nice change. Panda was very amused by the packing materials. How does the discussion always turn to Panda? Did you know that Panda's middle name is Vernie? I swear I had nothing to do with that. ("A little bit Vern, a little bit Ernie--it's PANDA VERNIE!")
Apparently the local news agencies have just now caught onto the fact that it's a bad year for ticks. There have been quite a few Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever outbreaks and tularemia is pretty bad in the rabbits. I found a tick on the wall at work the other day. Ticks are sucks. I had tick problems in March. The news agencies are sucks.
I don't really watch the news on television. I don't watch the weather. I don't watch the 2008 election junks. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed much since I quite paying closer attention. It's sort of nice to hide in some tall grass (literally) and ignore the "outside world" completely. I don't think I'm missing out on much. I do wish I were better at organizing my time so I could have more time to read. I try, but I don't get through books at the rate I would like. Also, my brain is very full of song lyrics, but I'm not adding to the brainly collection at a rate I would like. That's what the brain is most efficiently used for; I might as well use it to the full extent.
I think I'll quit here while the text length is reasonable. We'll see what the next round brings. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Modest Mouse | | Subject: | Bang bang | | Time: | 07:02 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/angry.gif) cranky |
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| Ahh, what greenery the lovely spring rain brings!
And what a damn tragedy when that lovely spring rain seeps into the basement:
Yikes. Guess it's time to play Foundation Crack Finder. I can't wait to see the impact on the pocketbook. I'm hoping for a gallon of concrete sealant and a few square feet of new carpet pad. And no mold, of course, but it wasn't a horrendous amount of water and it's drying out fast. It rained for two days straight, and at about the 24-hour mark we had few wet spots on the carpet. Meh.
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| Took a little trip over to Lovell for work this last week. Funnies include:
1) We stopped in Buffalo to fill up the tank. The gas stations right off the freeway all have those red signs with either the banner or the annoying flashing signage. Right as I looked up from doing some thing or another, the one down the road said 'New Liquor Store!' and the one at our station said 'Thursday Special--10% Off Chew'. Classy.
2) There is not much in Lovell. I'm not sure how a conservative (lots of Mormons) town of 2200 supports a tattoo parlor. Folks must come from miles around or something. Anyway, we were sitting in a little cafe at lunch and I overheard a woman talking on her cell phone. She said something like the following:
"Hi, I have that appointment to get a tattoo on Monday, and I just remembered I need to get my colt cut too. Is there anyway I could just combine that together, and maybe you could come out to my place and cut the colt and just give me the tattoo there afterwards?"
(For those who aren't aware of the equus terms, she meant she needed to have the colt's huevos chopped off.)
Hmm...I wonder what other services the tattoo parlor/house-call animal castration place offers.
Travel in these parts is always a joy. | | comments: Leave a comment |
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