Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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After running around and playing on the slippery basement floor Roxie took a break to lay on the futon with her head propped up on the pillow.
Here is another photo of her in the back of my car when going to Frasier Bicycle. She really likes to go for car rides, so whenever I go somewhere lately I take her along then just leave her in the car. She loves looking at things.
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Having Roxie around my house requires that I make some special accommodations for her. Along with keeping food out, making time to play with and walk her, and carrying plastic bags for the collection of poop I also have to lift the blinds enough so that she may look outside.
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Danielle is heading down to Florida for a vacation with some friends, so I’m watching her dog Roxie. She’s a really great dog, but being big and yellow I have to take her outside for regular long walks. Running around indoors is not a sufficient amount of play for an animal of her size.
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The door on the advent calendar marked 24 has always meant that Christmas is tomorrow, but that Christmas Eve — the most exciting day of all — was here. When I was growing up our immediate family Christmas stuff always happened on Christmas Eve, including what seemed to be a rather nifty way of Santa arriving with presents.
At some point in the evening, usually after dinner and my parents pointing out a blinking red light in the sky which was (clearly!) Rudolph’s nose, the doorbell would ring and IT WAS SANTA. My sister, one of my parents (usually my Dad), and I would all hurry upstairs and hide in one of the bedrooms singing Christmas carols while we heard Santa be let in the house. Santa would be stomping around the house, Ho! Ho! Ho!-ing, and five or seven minutes (an eternity!) would elapse while we sang as hard as we could.
Suddenly the front door would close and it would get quiet, and whichever parent wasn’t with us (usually my Mom) would come upstairs and tell us that she thinks he’s gone. We’d then hurry downstairs and were always two piles of things, one for my sister and one for me. Cookies and milk that had been left out would be partially eaten, and the little bowl of sugar left for the reindeer would have marks in it from the reindeer tongues.
After my sister and I spent time looking through, opening, and somewhat playing with our new stuff it was then time for us to exchange things that we got for each other.
Thinking back I don’t ever remember us having particularly extravagant Christmases, but we were never disappointed. Over the years I remember (lots of) Lego, Transformers, tools, a new robe, fun Nerf stuff, a Game Boy, NES games (my dad had even picked out such amazing games as Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll and Bionic Commando for me), my own CD player / stereo for my bedroom, and just lots of really thoughtful gifts and really nice holidays. Much of this has shaped who I am today in many ways
I also seem to recall that if we ever looked outside after Santa had arrived there would also be marks from the runners on Santa’s sleigh, small marks from reindeer hooves, and footprints from Santa all around and leading up to the front door.
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After the x0xb0x failed to produce audio and my giving up on it for tonight (admittedly without much troubleshooting) I decided to take a bath and read more of In Defense Of Food while taking a bath. During the time I spent nearing the end of the book I was soaking in hot water scented and softened by a bath bomb made by Danielle, just like the one above.
It had a moderate citrus scent, which went surprisingly well with the Founders’ Red’s Rye I was drinking while soaking in the tub. The water was made almost an opaque off-white (2″ or so visibility) and somewhat oily, but not overly so. I felt no need to shower afterwards, and now my (at least where it was in the water) skin feels comfortably soft. I’m really looking forward to trying out the other version here, which is modeled after Lush‘s Black Pearl.
Leave a CommentAfter failing to get my grandparents iMac G5 working again and with an overwhelming feeling like I haven’t been accomplishing anything, I started to get in a bad mood this afternoon. Fast forward to this evening and I’m feeling downright awful. I think I’m just acting cold, not very talkative, and extremely pessimistic all while feeling like little matters and I can’t fix the problems I’ve created. I wish I knew how I could make myself be in a better mood, but absolutely nothing sounds like it’ll help.
Maybe I just need some better food and a good night sleep. The bowl of potato chips in front of me do not qualify as good food, so I’ll have to eat something else soon.
On a related note, I think the only realistic solution to my screwing up my Grandparents’ computer is to build them a PC out of spare parts, locate a (working) monitor, and get that to them. It’s not as elegant as an iMac and likely won’t be as easy to use, but at least it should work. I’ll then part out the iMac and sell the pieces on eBay. I know the display, RAM and various small cables work properly.
This means more work for me. Hopefully I won’t screw this up somehow too.
(No, I didn’t get it working, even after attempting to reflow some of the connections, checking for any solder droplets or wire pieces on the board, ensuring all cables are right, etc.)
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Here, have some moblog images:
Leave a Comment· I do not like seeing oil slicks like this in a parking lot. This is from the snow plow / salt spreading people.
· Car with YOU SUCK @ PARKING written in paint marker on the side window.
· Engrish on a model helicopter box at Microcenter. (Click to read more.)
· Deatheater standing near the console at IPM.
· It’s December 1st, time to start on the advent calendar my mom gave me.
· DBAN having just finished running on my old D610.
· Bye bye, D610. Time for me to begin using another laptop at work.
· The bathroom at work has a shiny new air freshener installed.
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Back in the early 1980s my grandma bought my grandpa a bicycle for his birthday, but my grandpa ended up not really riding it. So, for more than 25 years, it sat, until they were clearing things out and gave it to me; my very own Sears Free Spirit 10-Speed 26-In. Lightweight Bicycle.
Despite its name, this bike isn’t particularly lightweight, and probably is somewhere around the weight of Danielle’s Townie and my bike combined. It’s also not particularly high quality, as the various frame pieces and joints seem a bit undersized. That said, I think there’s something particularly nifty about it. Maybe it’s the bottle generator / dynamo and the lights, maybe it’s the big chrome pie plates, or maybe it’s just knowing that it’s a cheap department store from a time I don’t really remember.
Yesterday when visiting with my Grandparents they gave me the instruction manual for it, as they’d found it when going through some drawers. I’ve taken the whole manual, scanned it, then posted it online because it’s really amusing for someone interested in bikes to read. I find these line art drawings to be particularly entertaining. This exploded drawing of the bike is also great.
I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with this bike. I may fix it up, but being unsure of whether or not I’ll actually use it, I’m tempted to just give it away or donate to The Hub of Detroit / Back Alley Bikes. That’s a decision for later.
For now, please enjoy this album of photos of the new-to-me Free Spirit (Sears 10-Speed 26-In. Lightweight Bicycle) and the Free Spirit Owner’s Manual.
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Last night at 1am Danielle was reminded that her gas gauge occasionally fails to indicate the amount of fuel remaining in the tank. Whoops. It’s a good thing she had a gas can and was able to make it into a church parking lot in a reasonably decent area.
Here’s another photo which doesn’t show quite what I’d hoped. That is, it was supposed to show the pile of leaves and tumbleweed collected outside of my garage door, but instead it just illustrates the shadow of my bike at night. Ah well, I guess I can’t expect the CCD in it to be that great.
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While at Vince & Joe’s Gourmet Market at 25 Mile and VanDyke this past weekend Danielle and I spotted this giant 5 kg jar of Nutella. The price was somewhere in the $50 range. I wish I had checked out the nutritional info for specifics, but per this a 15g serving has 4.7g of fat and 80 kcal (Calories, for us Americans).
That means that this whole jar would contain 1567g of fat and 26667 kcal. Yes, that’s about 3.5 pounds of pure fat and the one day nutritional requirements for over 10 average, healthy males.
Here, have some more moblog photos:
4 Comments· Today while at Circuit City purchasing headphones I was given a Spore t-shirt.
· Danielle and I sitting at a Cottage Inn Pizza in Ann Arbor waiting for game day traffic to clear.
· The plastic tub which contained the chipotle hot wings Danielle ate for dinner.
· Fifth Third’s new ATM graphics include an image of someone standing at a drive-up ATM.
· Someone at Stony Creek High School parked very close behind me while I was off on a bike ride.
· Bolle Sports Google
