I Wish My Velocipede Was Working!

So that car that I said was the only dependable car I've ever owned? Got into it after work yesterday, and the engine wouldn't start. So, now I'm not just frazzled from running a FACS machine that's working sub-optimally all day, but I have to deal with a broken car, too. And my supervisor is out of town, so I haven't the time or the expertise to deal with either. Argh.


Does anyone else eat the Hebrew soup in a tube? It's good. And good for you!


One half of my lovely family.


Seriously, both of my kids could wreck your sh...erm, stuff.

Over at Peter's blog, you can see what science type people that have to work with animals get to wear. And yes, that outfit is to protect the mice. Who know's what kind of diseases Pete might have?

And don't forget to leave the damn comments! I hope there's at least a few more of my friends out their that check this out that don't leave comments! Everett/Bothell folks, I'm lookin' at you!

Okay, not really. I can't see that far, even with my glasses.

Booooooooosday

I'm busy, and feeling half retarded from some things that the sorter has been/not been doing. SO I'm just going to post some pictures.


Whatchoo lookin' at, sucka? My kid could totally kick you ass, so watch your step!


This was a while ago - those pajamas are now a shop rag!


Getting in to things he shouldn't, no doubt.


That's right. Ethan was Link for Halloween.


I think he'd been into my Nyquil...


Connor with Grandma Carol


It's full size, because it wouldn't save after I flipped it.

I wish I had more pictures of E, but he just wont stay still long enough to take them!

Stay classy...

366 and Counting

A year ago yesterday I started work here at the institute. A year ago last Thursday we arrived here in New York. A year ago Monday (ish) we hopped the train.

That means that this is the longest amount of time that I have been at a full time job. It's also been a year since we have had family within driving distance to lend a hand or moral support. It's been a year of experiencing a different way of doing some things, different changes to the seasons, having to do things on our own. I've learned a lot, I've got a new kid, we have a dependable car for once. I could be getting paid more, but we're doing much better now that we're in our own home. Let's see what the next year brings.

Enough wistfulness.

And now...

What Are We? Version 1.0

Here's some things that have sprouted up around the house that I was hoping some of my botanically minded friends could help me ID. It's v1.0 because I've got some things I found in the shop I want people to guess at on a later date. That said:

These are popping up everywhere - they look really cool - but they grow in the lawn...The leaves have kind of a speckled/striped look. They kind of remind me of bromeliads...I think.

There's two plants here, growing on a rock in the garden. The one with the pointy leaves I've found in quite a few spots, and think it's a pretty cool plant.

I know what these are - does anyone else?

Crocus?

What's the pink thing? And the other plant is a close up of the same kind as the previous pic.

What might the leaves belong to? And what might the little blue flowers be?

I'm 90% sure these are daffodils.

You might have to click on the picture and view a larger size through Flickr to see some of those. It's been so cool to have these little things poking their heads out right now. I'm fairly certain that half of the plants I don't recognize are considered weeds, or nuisances, in this area. But I guess I'm just a hobbit trapped in a mans body, and have a love for all things that grow...

It's Raining, It's Pouring

It started raining last night, and it still is.

So the Baby had a bottle.


Ethan watched cartoons.


Cindy ran on the treadmill.


And I drank too much coffee.


Maybe tomorrow I'll brave the wet (Ha, I am from Seattle) and go stir my mulch piles or dig up some more yard. But today I think it will be coffee, guitars, computers, treadmill, and children in Brandon's world.

Exciting Things Are Afoot!

Okay, not really. Here's what's going on in my world, pictographically...

After more than a year, we have a place to sit and eat!


We have sproutage!

And more Sproutage!

And here's a kid:

Awwww! I took these just this morning.

Notice the bulgy leg?

His diaper had come undone and worked its way on down...

Okay, that's all for now. I promise a long winded post on Monday or Tuesday. And maybe something over the weekend - we're expecting rain, so I might have nuthin' better to do.

Weeks Passed, Weeks Future.

Sorry everyone for the time I've been taking between posts. Work's been a little bit crazy, leaving me little time to post. But next week things are slow (read "dead"), so I'll try to do more frequent updatage then.

The weather has been great lately - just a tease, to be sure - so we've been doing more of the outside bit. No fishing last weekend - turns out pike and other fish don't open until May, and trout fishing spots are too far away to just duck out for an hour or two. But there was more raking, digging, etc. It's been warm enough that my mulch piles have stopped mulching after a good start. But we're supposed to get a bit of rain tonight, so hopefully the lovely aerobic microorganisms that do that work for me will be back in action. Haiya!

We planted a bunch of starts on Sunday:

We probably should have done this a week or so ago...

That's an old table we found in the basement. Hopefully we'll have lots of delicious crops this summer. And hopefully I can find someone to water them while I'm in Washington. I think I may dig a second garden plot and get plants that can handle cold in the ground soon too.

Cindy did some paintin':

That's our dining room, yo!

It's the border-wood stuff. When the tape's taken off, it should look a little more exciting in that room. We got a table and chairs from JC Penney's that's currently being assembled, also. Exciting stuff, I know.

And obligatory kid pic:

I don't know what it is that excites/fascinates him about beer bottles. Probably the same thing that excites me about 'em. Must be genetic.

Okay, I'll post two:

He has a few toys, eh?

On to other things...Warning: There's some articles linked here, as in this may take a little time to know what I'm yammering about...

As was recently pointed out to me by this test, I have some pinko tendencies. No shocker there, other than the whole 2nd amendment thing (okay, that's not all...). Which is why I found this interesting. Sick of political correctness but don't think big business should run our lives (and many other topics that I won't bring up)? Maybe you are a South Park Conservative also.

I also found this interesting. This is from a very leftist biased source. But if one cuts through all of the conspiracy theory, rhetoric, and Bush bashing, it kinda makes some scary sense.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

Aaaaahhhhhhhh................

It's *bean* a hectic week. Perhaps I'll post some things this weekend. I haven't had a chance to take some sweet pictures of the awesome ice out process. Can't wait to do some fishing - small mouths on the fly rod last year - here's my early spring hopeful. Perhaps Ethan and I will go in search of our narrow quarry tomorrow. Theres ~150 nice looking fishing spots between here and work, so I'm sure we can find some place to go...

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will leave you with more than you ever wanted to know...

Check out health benefits - which one of my friends is the happiest?

Cindy says she never clicks on the links. Things make more sense if you click on the freakin' links.

What I Did This Weekend

Haaaaaaappy Monday. My weekend was fulfilling - much raking and digging happened. I met one of the neighbors, who showed me where our property line is, and warned me about one of the other neighbors. We have more land than I had thought, and I now have another reason to purchase a shotgun. Yay. Here's some pictures of my work.

Here's the garden plot I dug up, complete with infant for scale.

Upon turning my first shovel full of soil, I realized that I had embarked on an epic battle against rhubarb plants and maple trees.


The snow is gone! Hooray!

I've raked up a few leaves, and tried to clean up the fire-pit area. I don't think that anyone who's lived at this house in the last several years cared much for yardwork.


The back of the house, in all of her glory...Nice porch, eh?

I had help, too:


And finally, don't I have a lovely family?

Creepy anonymous stalker types stay away please!

Word.

Oh, And One More Thing...

Over at Pete's site, you can see a nice picture of this Winter Carnival's ice palace - something they do every winter in Saranac Lake on the shore of Lake Flower. The palace is big - one of the blocks this year had a nice pike in it - can you see it?

The palace is built across the street from the Burger King, so you can enjoy fast food and the ice palace...

Have a nice weekend, all.

And Now To End The Week!

Cindy and I went out last night, so Ethan got to have some friends sleep over - the babysitter is the twin's (see the Ethan party picture...) older sister. A quiet evening with my wife was well worth being kept up until one in the morning by chittering rugrats. If you like ultra violence and comic books, go see Sin City. If not, it's probably not for you.

What will I be doing this weekend you ask? Probably raking leaves. Maybe playing with power tools. Possibly digging up/expanding the garden plots. Searching for water damage. Cooking delicious food. The usual.

Here's my pictorial contribution to this post! Glee!


Ain't he handsome when he's had a haircut...and squints...


Our little peeping tom checks out the trailer next door.

Regards!

I Remembered

I remembered my other rant. Here's one more thing I don't miss about Washington (yes, there are some things - mostly walking on two legs - that I do miss). I'm listening to a blugrass tribute to AC/DC right now - AWESOME!

Word.

Tuesday, 1:00. Where's My Lunch?

Daily kid pic:

Aaah...
I wanted to put another one of E up too, but don't have any handy. Maybe tomorrow.

I like this shrew link better than the one I used yesterday, but Wikipedia wasn't working when I posted. if anyone checks out my links...There was some other barely coherent rambling I was going to post today, but I've forgotten it, so you're off the hook.

I'm doing a protracted sort for a crazy German right now, so if anyone leaves comments, there's a good chance I'll respond. If anyone's bored like I am, check out the Drs Foster and Smith website. Not only can you see pictures like this:

They appear to be aware of their shame, don't they?
But you can also peruse products like chew toy of every shape, flavor, and animal byproduct imaginable; medicines that make poop taste bad (poop taste bad! Ha!); and some product that makes urine more acidic - a great way to ruin the neighbor's lawn.

Sorry for that.

Hoooo, Boy.

Lets get the pictures of the progeny out of the way first this time.

He already likes making music - sometimes I can't even play my G-Box because he won't leave it alone.

I apologize for the blurriness in some of these photos. We'll just agree that it's my fault that the camera does this now and move on. I think either the battery is getting old, or I've upset the camera trying to take lower resolution pictures so I can use less Flickr space each month.

The title of this piece: Baby beats the hell out of another boy who has a colander for a head.

Looks like Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon, eh?

What I did this weekend: Enjoyed life with a shop - i.e. built some shelves, reattached training wheels, made a chicken wire compost pit (Berkeley method, duh...), searched out water damage...Water damage...Yeah.

Saturday we had a pretty good rain - I knew we had a leak somewhere, now I've found it. Sort of. There's a drip in the shop, and sometimes another in Ethan's room. Although we were told the drip in Ethan's room was caused by an ice dam, and so was seasonal and needed to be taken care of, but not urgently so. WhaHuh. These two drips share the same wall, woops. I went down in the basement for some reason and found standing water, lots of standing water (we had been told that the basement was dry year round). It seemed to be coming in through the door jam that shares the same wall in question...

H20 was coming out of this corner like a miniature freakin' river!
This wall is where the shop was added on to the house. Here's the wall in question, where it joins directly to the house. Notice the wood siding that can still be seen on one wall (this wall is where the kitchen door is).

The silver thing is the dryer vent...Brilliant...More on that later...Maybe.
The insulation on the right hand side has obviously seen some moisture, and the crack in the corner is full of mildew.

I'll try to explain...
This is the back of the wall in the last picture. Off of the dining room, a small laundry/refrigerator room was also added. This floor needed to be higher than the shop floor, for the obvious reason of being on level with the rest of the downstairs floor. So out in the shop, it juts out and has a small crawl space underneath. I tore off the board on the backside of the wall in question, and the board that's underneath the floor under the washer/dryer. Water had saturated the wood, and obviously had been pooling there for a while - wood was swollen, insulation was rotted and poured out in a sludge like fashion. Boo! Maybe the H20 is coming from the plumbing here, but I doubt it.

We want to move the washer and dryer out into the shop. It would be more convenient, and get rid of that retarded long dryer vent. Honestly, who thought that up? It's too long on it's own - but they also made it about five feet longer than it needed to be, so water pools in it, clothes don't get dried, Argh!

I'm a little leary of poking around anymore myself, what with the haphazard wiring that's everywhere, and that I've done all the poking I know how to do, and seen no source for the leak. No soft spots/rot on the lower roof - even where it joins the shop to the house, none in the attic. I can't get up on the upper roof, as I have no ladder, and no wish to fall to my death. So I guess I'm going to have to call someone. Ouch. Any ideas, anyone?

And finally, the last mouse I caught was no mouse at all, but a shrew. I have no problem with shrews. As far as I know they stay away from people food, eat bugs, aren't known for their disease carrying abilities, and are the only venomous mammal. They're ugly, sure, but they eat bugs, and that's cool with me. And the cannibalizing bastards that I do have a problem with left the poor shrew's carcass alone - they must respect the shrew too.