Author: bob

I am finished with my whirlwind tour of North America including five nights in Atlanta and three in Toronto. In this new age of starbucksification, let it be said that there is no place unlike home. Click your heels thrice and have a McGriddle, Dot, you’re still in Kansas. More later.

As authority on all things good, it is occasionally my responsibility to advise you, the public, on which products to avoid. First up is the Poulan “Weed Eater” brand leaf blower. This is a product with an identity crisis: it has never, as far as I know, eaten a weed while in my employ. I bought this a couple of years ago, and while it has served me well for two seasons, yesterday the throttle control decided to jettison itself in the middle of leaf cleaning duty. I believe a piece of the throttle is now forever missing (possibly at the bottom of a mountain of leaves), without which I shall no longer be able to start the engine on the thing.

Also, stay away from Giant brand shaving gel. When they are out of the real thing, as was the case this weekend, you would be better advised to shave with hot pepper sauce.

I recently turned off images in firefox to reduce my traffic footprint on the corporate firewall. Here’s my plea to web developers everywhere: please don’t set the alt tag on your 1×1 transparent layout hacks to anything but ‘ ‘. pixelItblankcanspacebe1x1hardemptytospacerread. Thank you for trying to be accessible, though.

New countertop arrives tomorrow. Antsy.

Man you know you’ve been gone a while when you come back and LJ has a whole ton of new features.

Anyway, I have a table saw now. 4800 RPMs — Yum. And I haven’t even lost a digit yet! Word is that my kitchen will be completed within two weeks, as that is when my countertop is installed. Just in time for the holidays. I may throw one of those “party” things once I get it all cleaned up. Pictures of the completed thing to appear soon.

I’ll be in ATL for Thanksgiving starting on 11/23 through 11/28. AC is going with and we’re going to try to sight-see on Sunday. And possibly watch the UGA game somewhere if it isn’t too late in the day. So hit me up, you individuals who will also be there.

Happy halloween, you evil devil worshippers.

This year I went as The Monarch from Venture Bros. (No, not a transformer, or the Burger King guy!) I used three cans of spraypaint and a large box to masquerade as the world’s most diabolical butterfly (sans wings). Ange was a good enough sport to go as Doctor Girlfriend. I think it turned out nicely:

To continue the Venture Bros. theme, I ripped off the skull from their logo for a jack-o-lantern. Watch out kids.

Ange and I made a return trip to Philly last weekend to see dead people. We visited the Body Worlds exhibit there, which consists of actual corpses whose blood has been replaced with plastic (let’s see if they notice the difference!). And then their skin, musculature, and innards are disected for all to see. It was actually pretty interesting, and not too disturbing except for the guy that was carrying around his hairy skin like a coat. I learned some new words that will come in handy next time I am impersonating a doctor.

After that, we met up with high school buddy D.A. and chowed down on some food at Monk’s Cafe. Here, a religious order painstakingly prepares hamburgers and beer for your consumption on the holiest day of the week. And you don’t have to know any Latin. It was good catching up and great food too.

Next, AC and I headed to a gelatto shop whose name escapes me. I haven’t had gelatto before, but let me tell you, one day this thing is going to be big. I had something made with coffee and she had something with sweet potatoes in it. Even so, they were both delicious.

Finally, we capped off the day in the Eastern State Penitentiary. This is where I finally got my camera out and managed to snap a picture or two. Eastern State was the birthplace of the Pennsylvania System (a plan to rehabilitate prisoners), and ultimately a model for how not to treat criminals. Some say the Pen is haunted. And by some, I mean Steve Buscemi. But whatever. On evenings in Fall you can pay extra and be guaranteed to see ghosts – for they host a haunted house after hours around Halloween. We, however, just did the historical tour because we had to head back.

It’s time to play the blog drinking game: every time someone says they’ve been bad about updates, you drink. Get your shotglass ready…

So anyway, not a lot has been happening lately. Last weekend I bought a countertop for my kitchen: Impala Black granite. I purchased from Lowe’s after the “20% cheaper than home centers” place never called me back. But I got pretty much the exact same stone (and for less). Here’s an interesting fact about granite: there are only so many different colors, and apparently, they don’t go in for variety in naming. So I GISed to get a picture from some other vendor: clicky clicky.

I’m still under budget, but I expect that the aquisition of a new over-the-range microwave and a table saw will put me a couple hundred over.

Also, I patched over the hole where my vent hood used to be. It’s amazing that you can slop a bunch of mud over a hole and no one is the wiser. Actually, I didn’t do a very chocotastic job on it so I may give that one another go this week, but it remains the last engineering hurdle for me to overcome.

You know what’s great? When you are on your way home from work and a high speed police chase breaks out, ending in a wreck about 100 yards in front of your vehicle that ultimately closes down the interstate, such that your conveyance must execute a three point turn an hour later to go the wrong way off the highway, thus extending the usual 45 minute commute to three hours.

Oh wait, not great. What’s the word I’m looking for? Suckass.

A.C. and I went hiking last Sunday, on what was supposed to be a two hour, 6.8 mile loop around Loch Raven north of Baltimore. Of course, it was a total debacle thanks to Bryan Mackay, author of Baltimore Trails, who is officially no longer my friend.

Soon after beginning the hike a few things became apparent: the trail is not blazed, and Mackay has done a craptacular job of indicating which way to go. At least three forks in the trail passed without comment, so we had to backtrack a time or two, including one unfortunate half-mile side-trip ending at an abandoned campfire and a newspaper dispenser.

The point at which A.C. likely gave up hiking for good came at the 4 mile mark, where we are advised that the only ways to continue are to go back the way we came, take a two mile death-defying road detour, or walk across a shallow river along some near-pebbles strewn far and wide. We elected to do the balancing act, and while neither of us fell in, our collective nimbleness was tested far too often. I’ll stick to bridges, thanks. A much easier crossing point, several hundred yards upstream, again was omitted.

All the same, I did get some half decent snapshots of the dam and the lake. And we made it back to the car just before the sun disappeared, which is always a plus.