Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Poor Bozzetto

Our dear friend Bozzetto is suffering from an obsession. I saw this a few weeks ago with Rico, where all he could talk about at lunch for nearly a week was how much he loved guns. We had to eventually go out and get him some. Now, it has been two days in a row, and both days Bozzetto has talked about nothing other than fishing during lunch. No complaints about the PAL team. No complaints about CLL. And only one mention of a bug he was working on.

It's bizarre. It's almost like I should check his basement for pods. But, you know, I have that effect on people. I start to blog, suddenly everyone needs to blog. I chat about guns with The Iceman, and suddenly Rico needs guns. I go fishing, suddenly Bozzetto needs to fish.

I wonder what would happen if I dedicated a blog or two to discussing this research result.

BTW, I'm starting a new catchphrase. See, the old catchphrase, "It's like prom night all over again," is getting a little tired. So, I'm going to try to instead use the phrase, "I'll have the vinaigrette." Yeah, they're not interchangeable, and the new phrase is not as obviously applicable in so many situations, but I'm an artist - I'll apply the proper timing.

Yesterday, Bozzetto wanted to brag about all the fish he had caught the last time he went fishing. He claimed it was 50 (either crappie or yellow perch). But you know fish stories. I asked him what the bag limit was, and he said, "Bag limit?"

So Bozzetto is a poacher.

But he did go off and do a whole bunch of research on rods and reels and lures, and what he came away with was (a) there are no reviews of anything costing less than $150 and (b) Rapala lures really do look like swimming fish according to the flash video on their home page. Then he wanted to quiz me on whether both The Mrs. and I preferred my more expensive gear to her cheaper gear. And the answer was yes, but not by much. Which is OK cuz, yes mine cost more, but not by much.

He also is obsessed with walleye fishing cuz he once ate a walleye. But he doesn't own any fishing gear or a boat. So, if I were the wife of Bozzetto, I would expect that one day he shows up with a $35 rod/reel combo, a spool of Stren Clear/Blue Original in 10lb. test, a bunch of bait-holder hooks with leaders, a packet of swivels, some sinkers, some bobbers, a Rapala original, a spinner or two, maybe some Berkley Power Bait, and a new tackle box. The total bill will be about $100. I wouldn't try to head this off, but I would look at it as inevitable and figure out what I can get in exchange. $100 is about an hour to an hour and a half at a good day spa, for instance. The tip would just about cancel out the annual fishing license fee with habitat stamp. And I'd count my lucky stars that he didn't take up big game hunting, as that is an order of magnitude more expensive.

I'll be re-taking up the big game hunting sport in a year or two, since I've already invested in the gear. I have to wait for Alfie's wife to allow hi out again. I'll try not to blog about it, as I wouldn't want to establish any trends. Not enough big game to go around as it is.

Monday, May 28, 2007

CherkyB, Angler Extraordinaire

I caught two of these. The Mrs. made me throw them back cuz she was sure they were babies, but the more I read about Bluegills, the more I think these were actually full-size. In overcrowded conditions, they're supposed to be less than 5" long. Under "normal" conditions, 7-8 inches. That would explain why the bag limit is 20.


I would also like to point out that I caught one with my gear and one with The Mrs.'s. She complained all day again about her reel not working, so I finally just handed her mine to get her to shut up. Hers worked just fine for me the rest of the day.

HannahC had a number of worms eaten off her hook but failed to land anything. The Mrs. came up completely dry today. She spent all day pursuing smallmouth bass, whereas I went straight for the bluegills.

Something Not to Do 10

Me, CherkyB: "You keep a very natural house."

The Mrs.: "Huh? What do you mean?"

Me, CherkyB: "Well, you know, nature abhors a vacuum."

The Mrs.: "Grrrrr..."

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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Lots of Fishing

No catching.

It's like prom night all over again, as they say.

I had grand Plans for Saturday. Grand Plans, I tell you. I planned to get up and take HannahC to check out the Riverbend Pond area. I would take along The Mrs. and MaxieC if they were awake, but it wasn't an imperative.

Naturally, as with all Grand Plans, they went straight to hell. HannahC slept in late, and then The Mrs. needed to have a massive breakfast. The kind that involves hash browns and sausages and soft-cooked eggs with dipping toast. Good Lord, it was nearly 11:00 before we finished with breakfast. The Mrs. started in on me about if I had any plans for the day. I was cagey, which I have found is the only way to interest The Mrs. in my plans. Anything I am willing to straight-up say is clearly not interesting or important enough not to be changed.

But, after the appropriate stonewalling interval, I let The Mrs. know that I wanted to go "a couple places". This was a masterful plan, as it got us out of the house without me having to reveal any of my junket scheme.

Naturally, as always happens on a weekend "morning" when we are going out, The Mrs. said, "We have to go to the library." Now, the library is all the way over on the west side of town, and we live south and east of the town, and Riverbend is up in the north part. So the library was, while not directly in the opposite direction, completely orthogonal from the direction I wanted to go. This is always the case, as there isn't a gosh darned thing for miles around the library except for a nursery where we got most of our vegetable garden plants.

Now, going to the library is never straight-forward. It involves finding everything that is due and putting it into a very, very womanly bag of some sort. Either a bag from Curves or, lately, a pink and orange and brown and green polka-dotted retro bag that The Mrs. got at Target for $6 marked down from like $26 or something. (The Mrs. is kibitzing in the background.)

Anyways, The Mrs. usually has roughly 42 books checked out at any given time, so finding the ones that are due is no small task. Saturday, one was missing. There was a great deal of searching high and low. After a while, The Childrens and I got bored, so we went out front to feed the koi. This, as it turned out, would be a fatal mistake.

See, the pond needed a little water, so I turned on the hose and stuck it in. (The Mrs. finds that statement quite hysterical - she's been drinking.) Then, I decided to add some of the pond water treatment junk, like the buffer mix to buffer the tapwater and the "superbugs" bacteria that eat the stuff that floats in the water. After I added the buffer mix and before I added the superbugs, I noticed that the waterfall had stopped. Hmmm...

The pump wasn't running. Unplugged it and plugged it back in. Nothing. I grabbed something from the garage that I could plug in to see if the outlet had power (a drill sharpener, of all things, was the nearest such device), and there was no power. This sent me off on a little obsession. I had to figure out what was wrong with the outlet before we could go gallivanting around.

I took apart the plug and glow-sticked the wires. Dead. I checked the breaker box - nothing tripped. The GFI outlets were fine, even the one labeled "pond pump". I shut that one off and back on just for good measure. Still, the outlet is dead. I figure, well maybe this is on one of the many other GFI circuits in the house so I checked the one in the first floor bathroom, the two in the bar, and the one in the basement bathroom. Nothing was tripped. Damn.

Now I really had the proverbial bug up my arse. I started taking apart outlets that were on the other side of the wall to see if there was a bad splice. The second outlet I checked was dead. I opened it up, and the wires were loose. I tightened them up (by pushing them into the little push slots), and the outlet came to life. Ah Ha! Victory!

Went outside. Pump wasn't running. Grrr.

Oh. Pump wasn't plugged in. Doh. Plugged it in. Victory!

Wait. Pump still wasn't running. Outlet was still dead. WTF?

Now The Mrs. was sniffing around, as she had The Childrens all belted into the minivan watching a DVD and ready to go, but I wasn't there. I sent her on a mission. Go check if the pond in the back is working.

She reports back. Only one of the two pumps is running. I check its outlet - dead. Oooo - this means there's got to be another GFI somewhere that I haven't found. I start searching the house again. I realize that I never looked inside the furnace room, and there tucked into a corner, is a lone GFI outlet, and it's tripped. I reset it. It stays reset. Victory!

I got outside. Pump isn't running. Pump wasn't plugged in. Doh. Plugged it in. I heard the pump start up. Victory!

MaxieC comes wandering back. "Daddy. It's still broken. There's no water in the waterfall."

Wha? Go out to the pond. Pump isn't running. Check outlet. Dead again. AAAAAHHHHHH!

I unplug the two things plugged into the outlet and go reset the GFI again. Come outside and check the outlet. It's alive. I plug in just the pump. It starts up and keeps running. Victory!

But this means I have a ground fault in the UV water sterilizer. Oh well. That can be fixed.

We head off to the library, where The Mrs. fritters away about 20 minutes filling out a lost book report, as the book was never discovered. While I achieved victory in my quest, The Mrs. tasted only bitter defeat.

It's like prom night all over again, as they say.

Only after we were leaving the library did I let The Mrs. in on the little secret that I wanted to go to Jax to pick up a fishing license and some gear. I did not tell her about checking out Riverbend, which is where I actually drove. So it was quite a surprise to everyone when we showed up there instead of Jax.

There were about ten people fishing (this was around 1pm), and a ranger on a bike was riding around checking fishing licenses. We walked around Trout Pond, with HannahC complaining nearly the whole way about being too cold or too hot or too tired.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

The Mrs. then made an executive decision. We were all four of us going fishing. She wanted to get a rod and reel for herself and one for MaxieC, who is far far too young to be trusted with such a thing. But it was decreed, and so it was. We picked up a bunches of stuff and went home.

I rigged up MaxieC's little fishing rod (though with no hook), and I taught MaxieC how to cast out into the lawn. Then I got HannahC's out, and then I got out some of my trout bait (Berkley Power Dough, garlic salmon eggs, and cheese marshmallows), and I put some on their swivels and let them "fish" in the back pond. They fished in the back pond for well over an hour, and then we had to pack the stuff up lest they lose interest in fishing Sunday morning.

The goldfish went absolutely berserk for the sinkers. They didn't care one bit for any of the bait. But darn did they want to eat the shiny sinkers.

Sunday morning, I got up at 5:30am. Got The Mrs. and HannahC up about 15 minutes later. MaxieC got to sleep in until almost 6:30 and we were on the road at 6:45. We watched hot air balloons fly by in the opposite direction as we drove to the ponds.

At the ponds, there were fish literally jumping in the water all along the banks. They were loud. We though this would be a good sign, but it wasn't. We caught nothing all day, though both The Mrs. and I got our worms eaten off the hook once. These fish were uninterested in anything else - none of the trout bait, none of the spinners, none of the flies, none of the Rapalas. Just the worms.

HannahC caught a couple trees, to the tune of two swivels, two bobbers, one hook, and one Rapala original floater. The Mrs. spent most of the time claiming that her reel didn't work, and then handing me a big rat's nest of fishing line, and then appropriating my rod and reel while I sat to fix hers. I know she's just mad that I spent only $35 on her rod/reel combo whereas I spent more like $100 on mine. In fact, my day was best characterized as me sitting on the shore with the tackle box and my Leatherman fixing everyone else's gear and not getting to fish much. This used to be StinkyJ's job. I can't say as I like it.

But, truth be told, I didn't really spool up The Mrs.'s reel properly with line. I didn't have a pencil at the time to use as a spindle for the spool the line came on, so I just let it some off the side. That makes it so that the line can be twisted on the reel, and thus prone to spontaneously wadding itself up. I redid it properly tonight.

We spent about 4 hours fishing. Here is MaxieC, "feeding the fish" as he calls it, given we don't let him have a hook.


HannahC fishes in the shade. The fish liked the shade and were jumping all over the place here. HannahC has little to no patience with fishing, needing to put the hook in, then take it out, then move somewhere new, then change bait, then change the bobber every 30 seconds or so. She got not a nibble.


MaxieC eventually decided it'd be a better use of time to stop feeding the fish and start feeding himself. He had fruit snacks, actual fruit, and Twinkies. He was happy.


The Mrs. has declared it time to go home, but I had just had a worm stolen off my hook and had put a brand new worm on. I'm trying to get another strike before she starts hollering.


On the way out, the ranger bumped into us, and he said he thought the fishies that live along the bank are crappies. I'm gonna hafta look that up. [Update: After looking it up, I'm pretty sure these fish were bluegill, not crappie. That would make sense, as these ponds are supposed to be loaded with bluegill.]

It was a nice hot, sunny day, and MaxieC found a way to cool off in the garden in the afternoon. You can see how well the sugar snap peas are doing behind him.


HannahC, on the other hand, likes her entertainment to be more dramatic.


We're heading back to the ponds tomorrow. I am confident we will catch nothing.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Stop!

All that boy does is holler. I can't take it any more. Shut up shut up shut up shut up!

Friday, May 25, 2007

Charging into the holiday

Baby steps. Baby steps.

HannahC has been making a load of noise about going fishing. I myself am not much of a fisherman, given that I have caught a grand total of two fish in my life, both perch caught when I was about 10 on my first fishing outing off a dock in a marina in Sodus Bay where my sister and brother-in-law used to keep their sailboat. Then, no more fishing until about two years ago when StinkyJ took HannahC and Me, CherkyB fishing at a lake that had no fish whatsoever. We went again a year later just to make damn sure there were no fish, and that's the sum total of my fishing experience.

But, along the way, HannahC and I managed to pick up a couple fishing rods and some gear, as she declared that fishing was one of her most favorite things to do in the whole world. So now I need to take her fishing despite not really knowing what I'm supposed to do if we were to actually catch any fish. Like, do I bite the heads off at the lake, or wait until I get home? And is HannahC supposed to cover herself in the blood of her first catch, or is that only for deer?

I do know that most of the lakes around here have a 15" limit on bass. I'll have to figure out what a bass looks like. I assume that 15" is measured before I bite the head off.

As a Good Father, I have been doing a little web research about where to go. I found this page, which has been particularly helpful. Today, I decided to check out Riverbend Ponds, as I drive by there a lot on the way to the koi store. Riverbend Ponds is a big open space preserve with a whole bunch of lakes/ponds in it as well as a river (the preserve is at a big bend in the river, oddly enough), and all are open for fishing. The ponds have enticing names like, "Bluegill Pond," "Trout Pond", "Turtle Pond", and "Big Pond" (which is the biggest, duh).

I ate lunch not too far from there today, so I swung by on the way back. I parked by Big Pond and started walking, scoping out fishing places. There were a lot of places I though seemed like good prospects. Within five minutes, I had seen a turtle and a very large fish near the bank. This was good, as now I was sure that there were actually fish in the lake, unlike StinkyJ's favorite place. That was the only fish I saw, but I did see signs of other fish, such as a blue heron sitting on the boardwalk and a bunch of signs that said "fishing access" and a guy fishing.

This being Fort TomCollins, people are friendly, so I decided to chat with the fishing guy. I said, "Is this a good place to fish?" to which he replied, "I dunno. It's my first time here."

Friendly is not necessarily the same as useful.

I walked all around, inspecting the place, and I determined that the northwest corner was probably the best place, as they had Trout Pond" and Turtle Pond" very accessible for fishing with what seemed like miles of shoreline with lots of peninsulas and structure and benches on which to sit, and there was a floating fishing pier in Turtle Pond, and both were pretty close to a parking lot that had an outhouse. I worry, of course, that on the weekend everyone thinks this is the best place in the world to fish. We'll head out there tomorrow morning to check it out and then hit the sporting goods store to pick up a few items that StinkyJ used to supply as well as a license for me.

HannahC is determined that we pick up a fishing kit for MaxieC, but he's only three. Someone's gonna lose an eye. I may pick him up a kit, but just not rig up a hook on his line. He'd probably have a great time with just a bobber and a sinker.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The Things a Parent Has to Do

A few interesting little factoids that when put together equal a post at least as good as anything The Locksmith might mumble when he's asleep.

Story #1:

On Sunday at Rocky Mountain National Park, I had to explain to HannahC the "leave no trace" school of national park visitation. See, she had wanted to bring a pine cone home, and I explained how we weren't allowed to take anything out of the park, and on top of that, we weren't allowed to leave any trace that we'd even been there. She started asking questions, and I found myself saying, "See, there are these people who like to think that humans are not part of nature. They like to think that any trace of a human destroys nature and forever alters the balance and harmony of the earth. They would actually prefer if there weren't any humans. Other than themselves, of course."

HannahC wasn't buying it, as she is a very intelligent person and capable of reasoning, and thus is not at all susceptible to environmental propaganda. So I added, "They're mostly Democrats. But they make the rules for the parks."

Then she understood.

Story #2:

I picked HannahC up from dance class Monday evening. It was her last dance class of the season, as she's taking the summer off in order to free up some time to do summery fun activities. We got to talking about that, and somehow she ended up saying that MaxieC was about to start figure skating classes.

Me, CherkyB: "Figure skating? Why does it have to be figure skating?"

HannahC: "Well, see, if you learn to hockey skate, once you get good at it, you want to play hockey. But hockey is too dangerous a sport for Maxie, so he is going to learn how to figure skate instead."

Me, CherkyB: "No, he isn't."

HannahC: "Yes. I thought it over, and it's what I think is best, and I talked it over with Momma, and she agrees."

Me, CherkyB: "Look, MaxieC is a boy. He's not a girl. I know you and Momma keep trying to turn him into a girl because it's all you know about, but I'm not going to let that happen. It's bad enough he's taking gymnastics. He is NOT going to take figure skating, and if he wants to play hockey, he's going to play hockey. And if he gets hurt, he gets hurt. That's what boys do. They play things and get hurt. Then they play some more."
Later, I checked with The Mrs. who claimed not to have known about the figure skating lesson plan. She agreed to the hockey plan. I didn't get it in writing, though, and I had to explain about all the safety equipment pee-wee hockey players wear nowadays and how they usually fall down when they try to check someone before actually making contact. Then, for good measure, I pointed out how much fun The Mrs.'s brother had playing hockey when he was younger.

Story #3:

After dinner, I was assigned to put MaxieC in the tub for his bath, but he started clinging to The Mrs. Not to be outdone, HannahC started complaining that she wanted me to do teach her her school lessons instead of The Mrs. The Mrs. started to say, "I guess Daddy could do..." then she caught herself. "Hmmm..."
Me, CherkyB: "I can't."

The Mrs.: "You could. It's not so hard."

Me, CherkyB: "What is it about my temperament that makes you think I can do this?"

The Mrs.: "You could do it if you wanted to."

Me, CherkyB: "When in the more than 20 years that you have known me have I ever done anything that would lead you to believe that I have the calm and patience necessary to be a teacher? Go all the way back to seventh grade and name one time."

The Mrs.: "Maxie, Daddy is giving you your bath. Hannah, I'm going to do your lessons. It would take me as much time to explain to Daddy what he's supposed to teach you as it'll take me to do it, and then he'd just do it wrong because he wasn't paying attention."
The Mrs. is beginning to catch on.

Monday, May 21, 2007

My Trial Period is Over

The fancy Neoworx "daily visitors by city" NeoCounter is going to revert to the free model sometime today. If I want to keep the one I have, it's $20/yr.

I wonder what the standard one looks like.

We had a very nice weekend

Thank you for your concern.

We decided to take a day off from all the landscaping improvements and "do something fun" on Sunday. What we decided to do was to lolly-gag our way up to Rocky Mountain National Park to see a waterfalls, with a stop for lunch in Estes Park along the way. It was kinda what we had planned to do with Moother when she visited at Thanksgiving, but that ended badly. This time, it went more-or-less as planned.

We got to experience some "monsoon season" mountain thunderstorms during the drive in, but we never really got rained on. At Estes Park, we parked in a lot that is normally full, and then went strolling. Something up a side street caught my eye - it was an artificial pond with a waterfall under a staircase. We went to check it out. It turned out to be the teaser for a much larger set of artificial ponds and waterfalls on the second floor where they had big trout that you could feed. The Childrens loved that. We ate at the restaurant there, and then went to attached arcade where The Mrs. proceeded to hustle HannahC at the pool table. Then we were off.

RMNP was chock-full of elk. They were just everywhere. There are so many elk in RMNP that they are destroying the park to the point that the National Park Service is going to do one of those night-shoots. You know, the kind where instead of allowing a bunch of hunting tags to go out during elk season (wouldn't want to do that, what with elk throughout the entire state of Colorado being on allocation with a lottery draw required to allocate the tags to the overabundance of hunters each year), you hire a couple sharpshooters with night vision goggles and let them go out and just start shooting hundreds of elk in their sleep.

Then, you can go back to pretending that the National Park Service is too sophisticated to allow hunting, a facade necessary to keep the tree-hugging enviro-weenies coming back. Disapprove of hunting for the much preferable slaughtering.

But, anyways, The Childrens were very excited to take the bus ride up to the trailhead for the waterfalls, as they enjoyed the bus the most of everything on their first (and only prior) visit. The one that ended inauspiciously in the parking lot at the trailhead to the waterfalls.

Only problem is that bus service doesn't start until next weekend. But we managed to get beyond that disappointment and drive to the trailhead. It's 0.9 miles to the waterfalls with only a 210 ft elevation gain along the way, so I tossed MaxieC up onto my shoulders and we set off.

I think the entire 210 ft elevation gain is done over the course of a couple hundred yards where there are stairs built into the trail. About halfway up the stairs, I started to realize that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't in the kind of shape required to stride along so confidently at 10000 ft with a small boy on my shoulders. I started to wonder if maybe I should cut back on the beer a bit and ride Carl more. I started to wonder what happened to a small boy's head if, say, he were riding on his father's shoulders six feet off the ground and suddenly his father keeled over and he hit his skull on the corner of a cut stone stair. So I did what any responsible father would do.

I stopped, turned around, and said, "Are you two going to try to keep up, or should I slow down?" to the womenfolk, who were lagging behind.

We had a nice little hike to the waterfall. There are a bunch of pictures, but I don't know where the camera is.

[Oooo - I added some dirt to the cricket aquarium this evening, and one of the crickets, Creepy, is laying eggs in it right now. We had been intending to add dirt for them to lay eggs in for a long time, but never got around to it. Tonight, we went cricket hunting under the pavers in the back planting bed and caught two. Then MaxieC grabbed a couple handfuls of dirt, which reminded me to add dirt. We have six crickets right now. Five went to the bearded dragon last week, but we received no rats in payment. Which is good, cuz I think two rats seems to be about the right number. Rats are quite a bit more sturdy than hamsters, as it turns out.]

On the way back down, we were passed by a couple old ladies who had an altogether disturbing amount of makeup on, one of whom also had a bizarrely oversized breast augmentation. This is the conversation I overheard:
California Woman 1: "They must not like traffic laws much around here."

California Woman 2: "Why do you say that?"

CAW 1: "All the traffic signs are all shot up."

CAW2: "Huh?"

CAW1: "All the signs have bullet holes in them. Especially the white stop signs."

CAW2: "Oh, that's because this place is full of white males. Republicans."

CAW1: "Yeah. It sure is a different world."
Now, for the record, I would like to point out that I have lived in Colorado for 9 months, and I have yet to see a shot-up street sign. But, I must admit, I haven't been up in Tinfoil's neighborhood. I have also yet to see a white stop sign.

We saw a little gray squirrel who was collecting pine cones and burying them in a network of holes under a pine tree. MaxieC and I sang a little "gray squirrel gray squirrel swish your bushy tail," which of course made The Mrs. glare at me. I probably never should have written one word of this post. But we here at Me, CherkyB thrive on controversy. The fans demand it, in fact.

After eventually dragging The Childrens away from the gray squirrel, we got a little farther down the path and overtook the CAW's, who were throwing slices of papaya to chipmunk. Papaya. Jesus H. what goes through people's minds. I walked on by, with MaxieC on my shoulders. I calculated in my mind the odds of The Mrs. being able to walk by without chewing out the womens for feeding a chipmunk.

I calculated zero.

About 50 yards around a bend and down the trail, I set down MaxieC and prepared to wait. We found a bunch of ant hills, and MaxieC amused himself watching the ants. We waited. And waited.

Eventually, the CAW's came by, and CAW2 was saying to CAW1, "Fruit, nuts, vegetables, anything that's organic is OK."

Then The Mrs. came storming along. "You know what she said to me? She said it was OK because it was organic!"

We strolled happily back to the minivan. Happily except for the fact that MaxieC and I kept singing "gray squirrel" every now and then without thinking about it cuz it's the kind of tune that catches in your brain.

Ellie323 is back from the dead with three new posts in the last two days. This after a hiatus of seven months. I particularly like this post which really establishes a new high-water mark for craven self-aggrandizement.

I'm going to have to try harder.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Oh Stop

You can all stop complaining that I haven't posted in a while. Especially dearest Ellie, who should be concentrating on the fact that today she graduated from the Masters Degree program at her school and it is also her boyfriend, The Locksmith's birthday.

I feel so sorry from The Locksmith, as normally one's birthday is an "exciting" day (if you aren't married), but this year, he has to deal with it being all about her.

Welcome to my world.

As you have all already guessed, I was out of town for a couple days this week. I was once again in glorious Hudson, MA for a little shindig get together for the people who will ultimately be blamed for the failure of my project to make it to market by a certain date. I was a last-minute addition to the invite list, as I'm officially not important enough to take the blame, but everyone is pretty much accepting of the fact that I'll be in the center of the blame circle when it gets drawn regardless of my official duties, so I might as well get to know the others who will be going down with the ship, too.

Though it remains a distinct possibility that we'll actually be successful. Don't quote me on that. There's nothing quite so motivating as the prospects of having your whole site shut down if you fail.

We had quite a fortuitous stroke of luck while in Hudson. The project manager decided to take us all out for a fine dinner at a restaurant that was just 1/4 mile from a cigar club. Last time I was in town, I had discovered this cigar club by accident whilst looking for some place to eat dinner, but I had been unable to convince WoodyWoody to go there, as he's much more interested in drinking than in smoking. I happened to mention this at the dinner table, and I discovered that a fellow I hardly know was also a man who enjoys the stooges. We managed to round up two other dudes, and we hit the place after dinner.

Holy smokes, the drinks were expensive there. $8.50. I enjoyed an Onyx, which I had never had before. The two non-cigar dudes each had Ashtons, based on my recommendation, as Ashtons are great smokes, though perhaps not quite as great husbands.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful, save for the fact that the next night we ended up at the local pub that has 140 beers on tap, all of them bad. I had a One Eared Monkey, and it tasted like Smucker's Raspberry Jam, only not as good. Damn, that was a horrible beer. I don't know why I keep tying new beers at this place. Everything, everything you haven't heard of sucks. It's like they've scoured the globe for the best deals on crappy beer.

We went "window shopping" for hot tubs today. I'll let y'all guess how that turned out.

Monday, May 14, 2007

HannahC, Pet Lover

An actual conversation with my darling daughter:
HannahC: "Daddy?"

Me, CherkyB: "Yes, Hannie?"

HannahC: "I think Mommy is going to divorce you pretty soon."

Me, CherkyB: "Oh? Why is that?"

HannahC: "Well, I just think that."

Me, CherkyB: "Is there any particular reason you think that?"

HannahC: "Well, it's just that I think Momma really really wants to have a cat, because she loves cats so much. And I really love cats, too, and she wants me to have a cat. So, since you're allergic to cats, she'll have to divorce you to get a cat."

Me, CherkyB: "Hm."

HannahC: "But Rose [the next door neighbor's cat] comes over to visit a lot, and I can be OK with that, because I'd rather have a daddy than a cat."

Me, CherkyB: "Well, that's good to hear."

HannahC: "Yeah. And I'll work on Mommy to try to get her to play with Rose more so she doesn't have to divorce you."

Me, CherkyB: "Wonderful."

HannahC: "Yeah."

Friday, May 11, 2007

Well, I've certainly learned my lesson

And only about 20 years too late.

Today when I got home from work, as I stepped out of my truck in the garage, The Mrs. said to me, "When you put glasses away in the cupboard, put them right side up. Otherwise, they smell."

OK. I don't put the dishes away correctly. I guess that's a job The Mrs. can handle from here on.

Then, after dinner, when I was waiting for MaxieC to settle down enough to take his bath, The Mrs. made quite a little show of putting away the laundry. It went like this:
[Take out a piece of laundry]

The Mrs.: "Harumph. This is wrinkled."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "[Sigh] This is folded all wrong."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "This should have gone on a hanger. It's soooo obvious it should have gone on a hanger. I'm starting to think you're doing this just to annoy me."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "You didn't separate these. Now, I have to unfold each one to see whose it is. You made more work for me than if you hadn't done anything."

Me, CherkyB: "Yes dear. You've made your point. I won't do any more laundry."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "This is wrinkled because it's folded wrong. How can you mess up folding so badly?"

Me, CherkyB: "OK dear. I've got it. I won't do any more laundry."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "Tch. This one is messed up, too. They're all messed up. I wish you hadn't 'helped' me."

Me, CherkyB: "Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that anymore."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "I just can't believe how not helpful you are. This is way more work than if I did it completely myself. I have to redo everything."

Me, CherkyB: "I won't lift a finger around here anymore. I promise."

[Take out another piece]

The Mrs.: "Come on! It's so amazing how you could screw up absolutely every single piece!"

Me, CherkyB: "You know, it's really not necessary to comment on each and every piece of laundry."
At this point, I stopped listening. She didn't stop complaining, but I used my God-given married man defense system and turned on the notch filter that makes it so I can see The Mrs.'s lips move, but I can't actually hear her talking. I hope she found her little lecture cathartic, as I will be nitpicking everything she does for the rest of the month in response.

Tonight, I was served microwaved leftover fish sticks for dinner. There's nothing I like more than to come home from a hard day's work, a day when I got into a long diatribe with a bunch of people who outrank me about how telling me that they want my approval to make a last-minute change to reduce our risk of something bad by 12%, but we don't have any idea (a) if reducing the risk by 12% means that the bad thing will happen 12% less often or (b) how often the bad thing will happen with or without the 12% reduction, doesn't give me a whole hell of a lot of information on which to base my approval, to a wonderful, home-cooked meal of microwaved leftover fish sticks. I imagine if The Mrs. didn't have to refold every piece of clothing we own, she might have had more time to prepare an actual meal. No one to blame but me for that. But, on the bright side - since I won't be doing any more laundry ever, tonight was my last dinner of microwaved leftover fish sicks ever.

Man, are there ever a lot of toys strewn on the floor down here. I'd put some away, but I'm sure I would put some of them in the wrong places, and the time it would take The Mrs. to find the misplaced toys would be more than if I just left them for her to pick up. Normally, I'd pick these up and put them away, but out of consideration for The Mrs., I will resist the temptation. I'll let The Mrs. know that she needs to pick these up before someone trips on them.

I just want her to be happy.

The white goldfish is named, "White-uh". I don't know how that's spelled. The fish I thought was named "Eddo" is actually named "Eddle." I still don't remember the black catfish's name.

Fat Camp last night was a major pain in the butt. It was the last day of finals yesterday, and graduation was today, so all the college seniors were out and about. When we left our gathering place (a "fancy" pub by college town standards where the drinks are overpriced) to hit our dive bar with the $2.50 drafts, we could barely get in to the place. So we hit another place - also packed. Then a third place with the same result. Ended up back at the first place, which was really a sign of defeat.

Today being Friday, we hit Hooter's for lunch. There were seven of us, as the popularity of Friday lunch at Hooter's grows and grows. At one point, all the waitresses stood in a circle around our table and sang "gray squirrel" to us for reasons unknown.

I'm sure we'll be back next week.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Banned!

That's right, folks. I've been banned. Banned from playing with The Mrs's new pair anymore. You see, it's The Mrs's job to do laundry. However, she doesn't do it very often - generally only once someone runs out of clothes. So I figured I'd pitch in and do some laundry when I saw that one of the 5 hampers was full (whites, reds, darks, lights, and towels). Plus, it's really fun to play with the new pair.

So I've been washing, drying, and folding laundry for a week. However, I haven't been putting it away. I've been stacking it neatly in laundry baskets as I have seen The Mrs. do.

But The Mrs. got angry. She told me that she would prefer I not wash, dry, or fold any laundry unless I was also going to put it away. She is not complaining that I am doing any steps incorrectly. She is asserting that it is worse for me to do 90% of one of her jobs than it is for me to do 0% of it. I don't understand the woman-logic there.

I might point out a couple things at this juncture: first, there is a laundry basket full of Mrs.-washed clothes from exactly one week ago that is still sitting on the floor of our bedroom not put away, and second, MaxieC has been living out of laundry baskets for nearly a week now, having run out of clothes in his room since no one ever puts anything away. But I'm not going to point those things out, as it would just cause marital strife on Fat Camp night.

I've been trying to figure out if there is any household chore that I do where I would not prefer to only have to do the last 10% of it. "Don't clean the pond if you aren't going to put away the vacuum." "Don't collect the garbage if you aren't going to take the garbage can to the curb." "Don't mow the lawn if you aren't going to put the tractor away."

Hmmm... maybe that last one. I do so love to mow the lawn on my tractor.

I bet The Mrs. just wants to play with her new pair.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Didja See?

I upgraded to a "new" template last night. This now gives me the fancy hierarchical blog archive that categorizes posts by year and month. It also gives me the fancy "labels" functionality that lets me categorize posts by topic.

The jury is still out as to whether it was worth the effort.

I'm kinda sleepy and uninspired tonight, so I'm not going to try to bang out a masterpiece. You'll have to just go back and re-read last night's classic post about why it is that it's The Mrs.'s job to buy me coffee.

The neighbors have been telling us how happy they are that we are taking proper care of the yard, as the previous owner was quite sick and neglected it for the previous two years. I'm wondering if they think we're actually taking good care of it, or just good care of it in comparison to the previous neglect.

In the process of running the weedwacker around the yard over the past two weekends (it took us two weekend to get enough time to make it all the way around given all the other stuff we've been working on), we managed to run it completely out of gas. Twice. I believe in the 4 years I owned it in San Schmose, I used a total of 3 gallons of gas and had to fill up its pint-sized tank about once every 4 months.

Our six new fishies are doing great in the back pond. Two of them are named "Spotty", since they're spotted goldfish and look kind of alike. Then there's a gold fancy-tail goldfish named "Fancy". There's a white catfish named "Eddo". And I don't remember the names of the white goldfish or the black catfish. They all look so itty-bitty in the big pond, but I am assured that they'll grow to be 1-2 feet long assuming nothing eats them before that.

I got a haircut today. Joy.

That's about it. I'm sorry for the low-quality post. I promise to do better at some unspecified point in the future.

Monday, May 07, 2007

A Seemingly Simple Request

The Mrs. and I have a somewhat classical division of responsibilities. I really hadn't expected it to work out that way, as I was raised to be a raging liberal, and thus I thought that the classical division of responsibilities was a construct of the patriarchal society and to be truly enlightened, one had to reject it. This despite the fact that my parents operated fairly successfully with just such a division of responsibility.

So I had with great fanfare attempted to nurture The Mrs. along in all her career aspirations. Yet, fairly early on, way back before she was The Mrs., I got the sense that The Mrs. had a different viewpoint about work from my own. The Mrs. seemed to think that work was something you did for your own personal enjoyment, for your own fulfillment, and that it should be something you enjoy doing.

Huh?

Luckily for her, despite being a raging liberal myself, I still had a traditional man's sense of obligation to career building. So, as I was off studying engineering, she was studying music. When I got a fellowship for grad school, she had me buy her a viola with it. While I continued to study engineering, she decided she hated music and wanted to study geology at the incredibly expensive little university I was at, as geology would be less cut-throat than music. When I graduated and got a job, I paid for her thousands of dollars of geology student loans, and she decided she wanted to be a music teacher. She started up her own business, just started to turn a meaningful profit, and then retired to raise childrens.

During this time, of course, I was going through my own personal transformation. I was starting to wonder if feminism had been feeding me a complete line of BS (answer: yes), and at the same time, Wild Bill Clinton, a man I voted for twice, was going on a crazy rampage to ban private ownership of firearms.

That's right - not once, but twice. Then he came after my guns, and I have never voted for a single Democrat since then.

The irony of that, of course, is that I didn't even own any guns at the time. It was just the principle of it. A "fear the government that fears its own citizens" kind of thing. Man, I could have used a whole bunch of guns in the neighborhood we lived in, too.

At times, I think how cool it would be to still be a mindless little "progressive" Democrat:

Mr. Democrat: "Equal-in-all-respects Partner, the coworkers are doing another '24-hours in Vegas' trip this Friday."

The Mrs. Democrat: "That's wonderful Still-earns-more-for-equal-work Partner. Try not to gamble away all your money, but if you do, make sure you write down which dealer and casino forced you to keep gambling so we can sue them later."

Mr. Democrat: "OK. By the way, Lewinskies still aren't cheating, right?"

The Mrs. Democrat: "That's right, dear. It's now established precedent, and by the principle of stare decisis, we cannot go back on that without upsetting the fabric of our modern, progressive society."

Mr. Democrat: "Heh. I guarantee you I won't blow all my money gambling, then. You can bet on it! Ha! I kill me."

The Mrs. Democrat: "You are certainly very funny. Much funnier than any of the womyns in my womyns studies group, and they're a very funny bunch."

Mr. Democrat: "Yes I am. Well, I'm off to blow a load in Vegas. Uh, a load of money, that is."

The Mrs. Democrat: "Have fun. But stay away from the gun ranges. I won't have you in any gun ranges. You know how I feel about those. They're immoral. If I hear you were shooting any guns in Vegas, I'll divorce you."
There's another pun there about shooting, but it's too obvious for Me, CherkyB to write down, even when I'm pretending to be a Democrat.

Now, where was I. Hmmm. Ah yes.

See, so we kind of slowly morphed into this much more traditional couple where I do things like actually earn a living that can feed not just myself, but also a wife, two childrens, a dog, two rats, 8 fish (which is up 6 from where we were Saturday), and three crickets. Plus, I mow the lawns and fix stuff and buy fancy things for my wife that she wants but doesn't actually need. In return, The Mrs. handles things like raising The Childrens, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping.

Oftentimes, The Mrs. asks me if I need anything from the grocery, as she is going shopping. If I respond in the affirmative, we have exactly the same conversation every single time.
The Mrs.: "Go write it down."

Me, CherkyB: "Where is the list?"

The Mrs.: "There isn't one. Start one."

Me, CherkyB: "If I just write one thing down on a piece of paper, you'll forget about it and start a separate list."

The Mrs.: "No I won't."
(This is a variation of a The Mrs. classic that goes like this: The Mrs.: "Do you want something to drink?" Me, CherkyB: "Sure. I'll have a beer." The Mrs.: "OK, go get it.")

I almost never write it down, though, as I can never find any paper in the kitchen. Every time I put a pad of paper in there, it is gone before the next time I need to start a list. Not used up, mind you. Just gone. Somewhere in the kitchen there is a drawer full of pads of paper, but I'll be damned if I can find it. Even if I do write it down, though, The Mrs. invariably starts a different list and misses my requested item(s).

My current plan is to insist that she write it down. That usually works quite well.

Today, I needed soap and coffee. See, The Mrs. and I cannot agree on soap or coffee. I like my soap to leave me clean and manly-scented, she likes her soap to leave her covered in an oil slick because it claims to be 1/3 moisturizing lotion instead of soap and smelling like flowers.

With coffee, she insists on Starbucks. I insist on just about anything other than Starbucks. I have grown to hate Starbucks home-brew coffee. Not because it's all stylish to hate Starbucks or anything, just because I really can't stand their home-brew beans. They taste like ash to me.

So when I got home from work today, there was a bag of coffee sitting at the top of the stairs to the basement, as I am forced to brew my full-strength non-Starbucks coffee at my bar in a little 4-cup coffeemaker as The Mrs. brews her 12 cups upstairs in the kitchen with 2/3 Starbucks decaf and 1/3 Starbucks regular. Yuck.

Anyways, round about 9:00 I start to head down to the basement to stash the coffee, and I realize this isn't a bag of ground coffee, it's a bag of coffee beans. Back in the old old days, we used to grind our own beans fresh every day, but we haven't since we had childrens because it took too much time and was too messy. I don't even know where the coffee grinder is.

I say to The Mrs., "This is beans. It's not ground." She says, "That's the only fancy coffee they had."

"Where did you go?"

"Safeway."

Safeway? All Safeway had was a bag of coffee beans? Safeway that has at least 16 bulk bean dispensers and a grinder right there was out of all 16 varieties? And, on top of that, the grinder was broken, too?

Now, I was oddly angry. I gave The Mrs. one of those, "Come on. you just didn't feel like looking," things, and then HannahC saw an opportunity to push my buttons.

"Daddy, if you want a particular kind of coffee, you should just go buy it yourself. It's not Mommy's job to buy you coffee."

"Actually, HannahC, it is Mommy's job to buy me coffee. I go to work, she does the groceries. That's her job. It's not her job when she can't find what we need to just spend our money on some junk that we can't use and that we're just going to have to throw out."

And then I went to the store and got myself some coffee. I went to King Stooper, cuz I like them better than Safeway, and the coffee was on sale for $2 off per lbs. I really wanted to go to Safeway, just to prove they had more coffees, but I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

Until now.

Friday Night Excitement

Friday, I was sitting in front of The Mrs.'s new pair having a beers, and I heard the garage door open. Then this transpired:

Cellphone: [bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz]

Me, CherkyB: "Yes, ma'am?"

The Mrs.: "Can you come to the garage to look at something for me?"

Me, CherkyB: "Uh, OK."
The garage is right next to the laundry room, so I was there in seconds. I saw something I had not expected to see. The Mrs. was sitting in her minivan partway in the garage, and the garage door was sitting on the roof of the van, right across the sunroof. The Mrs. looked angry.

Yes, it's the same garage door that was the subject of the latter parts of this post. There is definitely something freaky about that garage door opener. Often, it refuses to do anything, only to miraculously "heal" minutes later. It also often "forgets" some of the remote controls, in particular the HomeLink in my truck. I have to have the opener relearn my truck every couple of months, though I've only had to do this once with the van. Now, it has taken to opening completely, and then deciding to spontaneously close 10 seconds later, trapping the minivan under it. Not to mention that, oddly, the pressure of running in to the roof of the van was not enough to trigger an auto-reverse, but was plenty to stop it. (I have since dialed all the way down the pressure required to auto-reverse, and it now seems to work, though I'm sure as soon as it rains it'll stop closing and start bouncing back up...)

So our first order of business on Saturday was to go buy a new garage door opener. I've had it with this one.

Interestingly, once we bought the garage door opener, it seemed that the pressure was off. Thus, actually installing it did not manage to make its way to the top of the to-do list this weekend. Perhaps having it sit there in a box in the garage will be seen as some kind of threat to the misbehaving opener, and it will start behaving, much the same way I use the, "I'm going to sell you to Gypsies," threat on HannahC.

But, with my luck, it'll just assume I'm going to install it on the opener-free third garage door.

Friday, May 04, 2007

What a Pair

Today was Friday. And, as is our tradition, we were all geared up to hit Hooters and sit by the drink station. Oh, what a happy day it was going to be.

Then, of course, The Mrs. sensed my impending happiness and called me to ask me to come home for lunch because she had stayed up so late while I was out at Fat Camp that she needed a nap. Only she didn't just need a nap. She was, "soooooooo tired [she was] feeling sick."

I wondered if I could possibly figure out a way that I could say I was too busy to come home for lunch and go to Hooters without feeling like a complete jerk. I couldn't think of one. So I went home for lunch.

I tried to rationalize to myself that at least I'd get to check out The Mrs.'s new pair at home. You see, her old pair was pretty worn out from all the use - especially from the heavy toll placed on them by the burden of small children. I had hoped that they would have lasted a little longer. I've seen other people's whose have lasted longer. But it was getting the point where I thought the one on the right was going to drop through the floor any day.

So, I spent a couple thou to get The Mrs. a nice new pair for Mother's Day. Wow, are they ever mesmerizing. After work, I sat there for a couple hours, just staring at them, marveling at how they don't shake at all. The old ones used to wobble and sway and practically leap right out of the room at times. Even Max sat down next to met to watch them. He was pretty attached to the old ones, but agreed that this change was a vast improvement.

They're so fancy and new, I just want to stick my head between them.


Thursday, May 03, 2007

Tonight is Fat Camp

Thus, don't expect a fancy new post. As a general rule, I suggest you keep your expectations low. That way, you'll only be a little disappointed.

Tomorrow, you may get a post on how much The Mrs. likes her new washer and dryer. Assuming she actually uses them.

Carl has been covered with a blanket for a week. No one has noticed yet.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Dirt Farming

[I'm just updating this post to correct a couple error's The Mrs. pointed out, since I recently answered a blog survey, and one of the questions was "I publish correction to factual errors..." and I chose "always". That's part of the Certification of Truthfulness that you get from Me, CherkyB that you don't get from any other blog. As far as you know.]

Since dear Ellie has claimed that my posts focusing on guns and koi ponds are just too boring to move her to click ads (which is an odd claim given that she never clicked ads in the first place), and many have suggested that gardening has so much more usefulness to the general advertising-clicking populace, I'm going to dedicate this post to garden documentation.

Our garden is about 1000 sq. ft. this year, which, as it turns out, is the square footage limit for trailers at most RV parks. I discovered that by Googling "double-wide square footage" and then following this link. See, I was going to say, "our garden is about the same size as your average double-wide," but then I realized I had no idea at all how big a double-wide was. Since it was pretty late on the east coast, I couldn't just call up any random relative of The Mrs. to get the answer, so I had to settle for Google.

I learned that in general, double-wides are bigger than 1000 sq ft. More likely to be in the 1200-1500 sq ft. range. But the "park model" double-wides are especially designed for RV parks, so they are under 1000 sq. ft.

So our garden is about the size of an average park model double-wide.

Oddly, I bet that isn't news to most of my readers like it was to me.

This first shot captures most of the garden. I couldn't fit the whole thing into one frame, as the back part of it becomes a long, narrow strip along the fence that runs for about 20 feet to the right of this shot. You can see the planting boxes HannahC and I built last year in the middle of the picture. They're empty right now, but I think we plan to put carrots and lettuce and other things that bunnies find irresistible in them, since they have anti-bunny covers. You can also see the 1/2" drip supply running around in the foreground. Only the staked out areas that have the white string around them have been planted so far.


Now, I'm going to put on a clinic in 1/4" drip irrigation. This first bed is onions, shallots, and garlic. You're not supposed to water shallots (I don't know why - I just do what The Mrs. tells me to do), so the near end is unwatered. Here, I am using "soaker" line that is made by embedding a 1 GPH pressure compensated dripper every 12" along the line. This is a new kind of soaker line for me, so I'm very interested to see how it works out.


Here's something I just hooked up today after work. It's the asparagus bed, and I've run three lines across the bed to hit each of the 8 plants. I've used 1 GPH pressure compensated inline drippers for most of the plants, but the end of each line is terminated with a 1 GPH pressure compensated button dripper.


Here is the bed I hooked up last night that was the subject of this post. I believe these are sugar snap peas, given that The Mrs. listed in a comment to that post everything that was planted, and the peas were the only thing that I didn't know the location of. For these rows of seeds, I have used 1/4" recycled rubber soaker hose. This stuff is the only soaker hose that leaves no gaps, so it's great for rows of seeds, but it also degrades very quickly in the sun and is subject to uneven watering from the supply end to the far end due to a complete lack of pressure compensation or evenness of porosity.


This is a perennial flower bed. I've snaked through this bed the third, and final kind of soaker line I have used on this project - laser cut soaker line with the holes every 6". This sort of splits the difference between the compensated dripper line and the recycled rubber line. It has the holes closer together than the pressure compensated line, and the holes are very uniform owing to them being laser cut, but the lack of pressure compensation can mean uneven watering from end-to-end. I've only run these about 30 seconds in this picture - just enough to check for leaks - as I had just hooked it up, and the regular watering cycle was going to kick on in another 10 minutes. I had good luck with this line watering Irish moss groundcover at my San Schmose house, so I know the watering will spread horizontally to fill in most of the gaps once it is run for 10-15 minutes.


Here along the fence is the strawberry bed. Eight little plants all in a row. Strawberries send out little runners that drop roots when they hit the ground and create new plants, so in about 2 years this will be completely filled in. Strawberries like to live on a slope, and this is the closest thing we have to a real slope in the garden. Here, I have run one 1/4" supply line to every two plants, and I have put a T in the line to run a 1 GPH pressure compensated button dripper for each plant. Way in the back, which you can barely see, are the eggplant and butternut squashes. Those are water with naked 1/4" line for which I have adjusted the flow rate at the "octopus" drip line controller head.

Goodbye, Old Friends


Send reinforcements.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

I don't know what it is

with you people.

I give you two masterpieces, the first about how wonderful it is to be a man in America, and the second about how wonderful it is to be a young boy in America, and there is a complete boycott of my advertisers. Not a single click for days. Yet I give you throw-away pap about the garden and how The Mrs. always plants faster than I am allowed to hook up the water, and the advertising revenue goes through the roof.

As an update in the continuing saga, Bozzetto reported to me that he had researched it, and had decided that theoretically, if he were to buy a gun, it would be a CZ P01. He even found a local dealer for it. This was all purely theoretical, however, as he's still afraid of his wife. (His wife happens to be a regular reader of Me, CherkyB, though she never leaves a comment.)

I spent some time today trying to figure out why he was afraid of his wife. I said things like, "What can she do?" and "Why do you care what she thinks?" but he remained unpersuaded. Much in the same way I remained unpersuaded when my old bud Larry used to tell me to just go buy a motorcycle.

The difference here, though, is that I am 50% confident I would actually kill or seriously injure myself within 1 year of buying a motorcycle owing to my lack of good judgment under pressure, so I'm not sure I'd necessarily buy one even if I were single. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

I'll put a stake in the ground here and say that Bozzetto will join the ranks of proper Americans within six months. All he really needs to do is to get his in-laws to babysit and take his wife to the range to shoot a little .22. Womens love guns in a way that is almost dirty once they get their hands on them.

I went out last night to take pictures of the garden. They didn't turn out so well owing to the fact that other than the full moon, it was dark. They turned out better than I expected, but not well enough to post. I'll try to get some photos tomorrow during daylight hours. It's quite a little project, what with The Mrs. having laid the whole thing out on graph paper and then marked off all the individual planting areas with wooden stakes.

The bunnies are simply going to love it.

HannahC tells me I should play a game with her because The Mrs. is too busy. I suppose she is correct.