I'm A Lumberjack And I'm Okay

I sleep all night and I work all day. Apparently some of you think that my last post was made because I was upset about the issues mentioned - not so. I'm just a cynical, rude bastard who has a dark sense of humor.

This last weekend, hmmm...Not really sure if I accomplished much of note. One thing that I have been doing lately is running throughout the greater TL area, dog in tow. I'm not approaching the distances tall guy routinely runs, but I can run a little over three miles uninterrupted (outside of dog related pauses). This isn't a distance I'm proud of, but it is a distance I'm not ashamed of.

Here's pictures - check out Cindy's blog for more:

We found a gnome living in our garden...

We all spent some time outside, picking what's left in the garden, wishing the tomatoes would ripen...

The bean carried some beans around for quite a while...

And here's some more pictures of the CooperTrooper.

Woad.

Deep Thoughts On A Sunny Friday Afternoon

Secrets From The Working World

As everyone knows, I have worked as a science type person ("scientist," at least where I currently work, denotes someone with a bit more education than I) of sorts for a little over 2 years now. In those two years I've made many casual observations about what it really takes to work in the lab. Things that we were never tested on in 300 and 400 level biology and chemistry classes. One would think that mathematics were important - but most everything (conversions, concentrations, reactivity) you studied and memorized in school is written out like a recipe in a real lab. You might think that you'll be called upon to have input on experiments and papers, just like in college - not so. They have smarter, more important, and higher paid people to do that. College fosters (at least in me) an inquisitiveness to find out what experiments are going on around you, or to learn the inner workings of the task at hand. Surprisingly, this behavior gets met with a big mental smack in the working world. Ask that important scientist what they're working on, and more than likely, you'll be treated with an "You wouldn't understand if I told you, underling" attitude. So what, you might ask, is the most important skill one must have to be successful in a lab? Why, it's the ability to write small, legible words on odd surfaces. Honestly. Other than that, we're helper monkeys. But if you can write, in 50 words or less, the gist of a 1000 word experiment description on the side of a test tube, or the corner of a 96 well plate cover. You're golden. Put it on your resume! "Can write on small, oddly shaped surfaces."

That's some valuable knowledge - take it to the bank!

Of Dogs And Men

My second random thought involves my dog. When we first announced to several friends and family members that we were thinking of getting a dog, we were grilled (okay, I was probably the only one that got grilled) about "you know that a dog involves a lot of responsibility." "You have to either take it with you or have someone watch it when you go on vacation." Etc., ad nauseum. Here's the little known secret, that everyone knows...I HAVE KIDS! No one's questioned my abilities to raise children - not that I'm going to be winning dad of the year anytime soon. I never once heard any complaints about my parenting style, nor have I been questioned about what I plan on doing with the two juniors when I go on vacation. But, mention a dog, and everyone seems to think that neglect and abuse are going to be happening in spades.

With that said, so far the dog has been into more trouble than the two children combined. But a week without food, water, or human contact should take care of that. The rest of us will be in sunny Acapulco anyway.

Who's On First?

I still need to do some flickring - Cindy did a little for me, of which I'll share a few...Now.

Teh Stoopdiets Shti Evar!!!


That's right. Snowmobile on grass drag racing. An excellent waste of the gasoline that we all can barely afford. Ahhh, good ole TL!

Cooper the Maybe Dog has become Cooper the Definitely Dog (more pictures to come), so last weekend we went for many long walks, and thus we came upon this episode of "Slednecks With Nothing Better To Do." Sigh.

The Culprits Leave A Clue!

On the left, you have a picture of my clue. I was busy stalking the elusive fiend that keeps eating the tops of my sunflowers - pictured on the right - when I came upon the scat of some unknown beast. What? The pictures blurry? That's to enhance the MYSTERY!

Lots of sunflowers and pumpkins in the garden, along with tomatoes that won't ripen. Also, I've been finding deer pooh in the long grass - after the sunflowers and apples, perhaps?

Pictures That I'm Told Are Adorable

Okay, so I'm not adorable, but Connor is. I like how in the first picture he looks like some hard on his luck mechanic from a movie. Also, when the second picture's shrunk like that, it looks like my tongue is hanging out.

I will leave you with a preview of new shows on the boob tube this fall. There's a few naughty words in their, but when I read it, I laughed so hard that about two drops of pee came out. Tear.

Woad!

While You Wait

I've been lazy about getting my pictrs flickred lately. Cindy's going to help me out from home if she gets a chance today, so maybe I'll post some stuff again this afternoon. Here's a joke:

St Peter decides to take the day off to go fishing, so Jesus offers to keep an eye on the Pearly Gates. He is not sure what to do, so Peter tells him to find out a bit about people as they arrive in Heaven, and this will help him decide if he can let them in.

After a while, Jesus sees a little old man with white hair approaching who looks very, very familiar. He asks the old man to tell him about himself. The old man says, "I had a very sad life. I was a carpenter and had a son who I lost at a relatively young age, and although he was not my natural child, I loved him dearly."

Jesus welled up with emotion. He threw his arms around the old man and cried, "Daddy!"

The old man replied, "Pinocchio?"

A Tear For RL

RL Burnside, delta bluesman extroardanaire passed away today (or maybe it was yesterday) at 78:

You owe it to yourself to check out a copy of "A Ass Pocket Full Of Whiskey."

Like most of us, and unlike most people that are able to attain fame and fortune - at least as musicians - RL didn't do his best work in his 20's and 30's. Most audiophiles hadn't even heard of him until he was in his 60's...Gives me some hope for my late start with the ole' g-box.

Oy, Me Bum Hurts!

I went to the gas station this morning for my weekly rape - I mean fill up. $3.60 a gallon! That's about $0.90 a gallon increase in the last week, and $0.50 a gallon overnight. If this keeps up, I don't know what we'll be able to afford - maybe I'll have to stop going to work and we'll become a family of hobos. I could try to be more proactive and carpool - but that's kind of difficult because no one I work with lives near me.

I fell better that W has made his statement about gouging at the pumps. Because I'm sure that his oil company cronies have nothing to do with the sudden hike. Now I had heard that the bottleneck in the gas supply was at the refineries - correct me if I'm wrong. So if 10% of the refineries have been impacted by our recent hurricane, why has there been a 30%+ increase in the price of gas? And it's only going to go up! Yay!

Hello Katrina, And Thanks For Stopping By

Well, the weather system that made such joy for those down south has hit up here. It's rainin' like a mutha. We have a new roof leak - this one's in our room. The part of the roof that normally leaks - in the room I've torn apart? Sound as a pound so far. The leak in the shop is back though, and it's the one that really worries me, because it seems to come down through the walls. Cindy went up to the attic this morning while I was in the shower, and said that water was SQUIRTING out of one spot. Time to call the contractors?

Oh yes, and the wind, she blows...Guess I won't be taking the dog for a walk today.

I Think Unicorns Are Kick Ass

I changed my template around, so now hopefully blogger will display pictures the way that I want them to be displayed. One annoying thing that I can't figure out, though, is how to move the rounder things back to the edges, instead of being those little nicks you see on the title bar and at the top and bottom of the main body. Any help? I'd also like to know how it is that other people put the neat images and crazy fonts in their title bar. Little help? Little help here? Couldja?

Alas, that's not why I brought you here.

Why yes, my weekend was a rather good one, full of (mis)adventure, excitement, and shenanigans - or at least as much of those three things as a married father of two on a fixed income can get into...

We started Saturday off by going to the animal shelter and looking at dogs. Allow me to introduce:

Cooper, The Maybe Dog

I'm going to take him for walks on my lunchbreak all week, and he'll come to our house for a visit on Saturday, and if all goes well he'll be our new little friend. He's a sweet guy, but a little timid around men.

After we got back home from that, I undertook a massive undertaking of unheard of, unheralded proportions...I built a stool for a propane tank...

Brandon's Temporary Solutions!

Here's the long and short of it - we went for 6 mo's on half of one of the big tanks. Now that it's empty, none of the local gas companies want to fill it for anything approaching a reasonable price. They either want to fill all four of the tanks at the house, put new tanks in, make us pay deposits, charge way too much, etc. I'll probably eventually just take one of the tanks down to the hardware store and have them fill it, but even that's retarded - it's more per gallon/pound to fill one of the big ones than one of the small ones. Isn't the rule generally the more you buy of something the less it costs, per unit?

Sunday was more laid back, but no less entertaining! How far I've come from the spaz I used to be...

Ethan played with bubbles, a lot...

The Bubble Boy!

He's been quite obsessive about the bubbles. Sunday was a great day for it, though, it was sort of windy, so he had them going all over the yard, through the trees, into outer space, and whatnot. I've got a video of him huffing into the wand that cracks me up, that I'll send out by request - as in I want to hear from some of you! WRITE ME!

I also did some gardening, and looked at the garden.

Green Growth Gives Gayety


That's the first (and only) pumpkin that's started growing in the garden (although there SHOULD be a few more by October, the way the vines have taken over the three sisters patch) and potatoes from one of the boxes I planted. I harvested the spuds because everything in the box was dying - choking each other out, I should think. I kinda tossed odds and ends of left over seed packets into the potato (buhdayduh) boxes, and I think the resulting plants outcompeted each other. Like that makes sense. Anywho, those seven little potatoes are going to make the best half bowl of stew EVER! Or maybe be the smallest baked potatoes ever.

Sunday evening, Ethan and I were coerced into walking to the store for milk, so while we were there we stalked up on the cheapest product in the candy aisle, and wound up with many boxes of Spidermantm candy sticks - to those of us born before 1989, we knew them as candy cigarettes...

Queue...

Embarrassing Pictures!


Ethan was one of those damned Draculas...

Connor took up a very bad habit...

And I pretended I was the Rancor from Return of the Jedi. It was all fun and games until I tried to bite one of Ethan's action figures in half, to complete the effect, and chipped a tooth...

Since I've pushed even my rambling limits for a day, I don't know how much more posting I'll do this week. So far today, I've walked the dog again, and pulled a muscle in my head trying to eat a protein bar for breakfast, so the adventure continues...

Now leave comments, and ignore the spam like I'm trying to do.

Addendumb: Blogger has a word verify thingy now to avoid the auto-spammers. So when you leave comments, you'll be asked to type in some funny shaped word that appears on the screen. This will allow me to prevent my ears from bleeding as a result of reading the stupid messages the dickless wonders constantly leave in the comment section. And yes, I spelled "Addendum" that way on purpose.

Happy Thoughts

As I said, it is starting to feel like fall here in the ADK's - Peter has a few nice pictures over at his blog. I have mixed feelings about this - I love the fall, what with hunting, trout fishing, etc. to look forward to again. But I'm not sure that I'm ready for summer to be over, either. Last summer, I think September was far warmer than any of the summer months, so maybe the garden stands a chance of another month or so of growth?

Here's a great video I'd like to share - I'm not sure if this is cruel or not, but it's amusing how P.O.ed the cat looks.

And a small observation - on Keith's blog he shared some pics of a trip to the Oregon coast and a visit to the Tillamook cheese factory. Mmmmm, Tillamook. It caused me to recall that delicious cheddar cheese is YELLOW on the west coast. White cheddar cheese is something I'm still adapting to here in New Yawk. Strange what one gets accustomed to growing up...

Have a great weekend all, hopefully we'll have no further unplanned, stylistically different fire drills here at work - Normal Fire Drill: Flashing lights, shrill sound from FIRE ALARMS. Drill Today - Irritating tone from PA system...How is it that the rats are expected to react to new stimuli again? We'd have all burned to death if it was for real.

Recently

Last weekend the weather was kind of crap - fall's definitely on its way to the North Country - so I got some indoor projects under way. We've had our third bedroom unoccupied (except for the occasional guest) for months due to the water that leaks through the roof/walls from time to time. Being shut in forced me to finally get the demolition under way:

Wood Paneling? Blue Shag Carpet? Can you spell R-O-C-K?

This lovely enclave of 1970's charm was soon transformed into this...

I nearly electrocuted myself removing the lamps from either side of the window. The house is wired haphazardly - I thought I had it off!

When the wires were capped, one of the little bastards grounded out, blowing apart it's cap, shooting sparks, and leaving the succulent smell of ozone in the air! Also, the door in the second picture apparently used to conjoin this room with Cindy's and my room, through what's now the closet. It explains the Captain Howdy window, sort of.

Here's some close ups of the waterish areas that had been in the walls - the studs look/feel sound, but the insulation is full of mildew and mouse droppings.

No drywall above, just acoustic tile attached to some flimsy strips of wood. Is that how it's supposed to be done? And both of the windows in the room - identical in every way - were put in completely differently from one another. Go figure.

Demolition is so satisfying. Especially ripping out acoustic tiles with a prybar.

I also took this opportunity to make one of the shop areas a bit more comfortable:


Transform!

Blue Shag? Particle Board? Can you spell R-O-C-K?
I had two pictures, but technological retardation prevented me from Flickring the other one. I have a propane heater, would like to get a wood stove. Add guitar, amp, beer, and a small TV with a bunch of 'roid addled brutes beating the shit out of each other over a pigskin on it, and you can guess how I'll spend Sunday afternoons this fall.

Here's a picture of the grem-a-lin:

Low Carb Spud?

Sorry, that's what I just heard about on the radio...

I've got a bunch of pictures to share, but I think I'll only post one or two today.

The last weekend Cindy's mom, gramma, and aunt were in town, we went to Plattsburgh. Home of many stores and shops that we don't have here in the Tri-Lakes area. Anywho, it was a pretty uneventful trip, outside of the delicious steak I had at Applebee's, but Cindy did manage to get a great picture while we were traveling:

As you can see, the baby and I had the right idea when it comes to traveling. Ethan sat behind me, and took great glee in waking me up every time I hit a sound sleep, so I was unkind to him in return. Made for a great drive out. After that trip, Cindy's almost got me talked in to getting a minivan. Of course, I'd also have to admit that my child hood is over (everyone knows that minivans are for mature, adult type people ONLY), and cast off any lingering masculinity if we did that. It was a comfortable, roomy ride though.

Last night I took a quick jog - nothing to what Keith does - but I'm a tub, okay? When I got back, I looked across the street at the water tower, of all things, and was greeted by a very pretty sight:

That's all, folks. Let's see if I get spamalotted again - last post was painless...

A Tear For Chris

As some have noticed, I have recently been hit with blog spam up the ying-yang, as has my friend Keith. To combat this trend, I may have to require that anyone leaving a comment have a blogger membership - I can walk anyone interested through it. One of the spammers was hawking a product that automatically finds blogs, leaves a comment with a link to site-x (x being some sleazy a-hole's product site), and generally pisses everyone concerned off. I left him a comment in return questioning the existence of certain (small) parts of his anatomy. The sick thing was, the person who had left a comment before me had been spammed with some happy statement. And her update for the day? The death of a friend. So we'll see how heavy I get spammed today, and then it may be adios anonymous.

But that's not why I brought you here.

On Monday, I was very excited to see this. In the back of my head, I thought "good chance that's fake," but held out hope anyway. But. Yup. It's a big fat geek hoax. Boo. Be sure to read the little quotes up at the top as you browse. They're precious.

Here's to the thing that would never be...

You can't convince me that this guy wouldn't make a great PUSA!

Now, why doesn't the spellcheck on Blogger recognize the word "Blog?"

Who Arted?

It was suggested, after the rancor with guitar appeared, that I post some art once in a while. Since I spend a good portion of my day glued to a computer (or two or three of 'em) I do spend a good portion of that time browsing different artists blogs, websites, etc. Here's a picture I found the other day:

That's a Sam Kieth sketch. A comic book artist. Because I'm a huge nerd.

I found that on TheCliffGuy, an interesting site because TheCliffGuy traveled around to all sorts of conventions and what not with sketch books, and had all sorts of artists draw pictures in them - with themes. Cliffs, Jars, I don't remember what else. I liked the picture because Sam Kieth is such a cool, quirky artist (If you browse his site, look for people with huge feet and oddly proportioned facial features) and because the guy sitting there looks a lot like Pat Metheny, who, in addition to being one of the world's foremost fusion guitar icons, once accused Kenny G of "musical necrophilia" for overdubbing a Louis Armstrong track with his own playing.

On to the same old same old.
The mother-in-law, aunt-in-law, and grandmother-in-law have left town. So now maybe life will return to some semi-usual state. I'll be able to get some exercise again, my garden won't be as neglected, and I can relax once in a while without being badgered to get up and have my picture taken. No recent photos to post - and, upon looking at Flickr right now, some of my earlier downloaded photos are MIA. I don't remember seeing any clause on limits, and they are still in the RCR archives. Can't bitch too much about freebies, I guess. Bastards.

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Boredy

Lately I've become the KING of the garage sale. In the last two weeks, we've scored a kitchen table w/ two chairs, a grill w/ two tanks, a record player, a small table for the porch, many old jazz records, a 10'x10' tent, a small space heater, some milk crates, and some crazy chandelier things...All for about $50. One man's (or woman's) trash is another's treasure.

I've also recently moved and rebuilt the firepit in our backyard. Here's evidence.

I've got many, many leftover bricks to, uh, brick some things with. need any used bricks? I've got 'em.

Here's the cat, named Dirt.


And I'll leave you with the little rose bush that could - I originally didn't think that many of the flowers Cindy planted - at least the ones from seed - would grow. And I thought that for sure the transplanted rosebushes would be toast. I'm glad to report that we have many lovely little flowers now, and some small, but perfect, little roses.

She's now got three sisters around her, and some little other little rosebushes in the adjacent beds. Pretty cool.

Back Again

Hi everyone (and it turns out more people read this blog than I knew - LEAVE COMMENTS FOR ME). I haven't posted, and won't post much for a few days - some close friends of mine are dealing with some tragic events and I don't much feel like BEING sunny right now, much less trying to share suniness, both out of respect and my own sadness at the situation.

Cindy and I and the kids are doing well. Same old same old, really. Maybe next week I'll get back to the usual.

Now go home and hug someone that you love, dammit.

-B-