Author: bob

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.

As promised, here is another installment of My Kitchen Hates Me. Since last update, some doors have been added to the high cabinets and they have entered actual use; most of the base cabinets are in place and just need to be leveled and mounted to the wall; the pantry is ready to go; the trim was painted white and looks really nice. Still remaining: I need to get a vent hood and possibly cut down the appropriate cabinet so that the hood will fit over the existing hole, buy a countertop, move two base cabinets over about 4 inches so that a drawer will open fully instead of hitting the door molding, attach cover panels and kickplates and doors and drawers. So, most of the hard work is done.

When I get an ETA on the countertop install, I’ll start planning a welcome-back-to-my-house party as only the brave have ventured in since… how many years has it been since I started this project? Dave, you’ll have to drive down from Philly (and bring some cheesesteaks).

In other news, A.C. and I and a bunch of others went kayaking on the Potomac. I now regret not having tried that much earlier. It’s a lot easier than my previous kayaking expedition, which I spent the whole time calculating how quickly I could pull my skirt and how many ways I would die if I didn’t. Kayaking the Potomac is a breeze, like those pedal boats but not as cheesy.

Last weekend saw the debut of my cowor-ker’s new rock band, the 15th Annual Rosslyn Jazz fest, GT vs UNC — watched at Mister Days, and lots of work on my kitchen. My goal was to complete the kitchen cabinets on Sunday; I didn’t, but I did at least finish hanging all of the wall cabinets. So if I get the base cabinets finished this week I can go buy a countertop. Expect a kitchen pictorial update soon.

I have also made some progress on my Karma reverse-engineering project. It is taking longer than I had hoped since I have had to learn all sorts of esoteric kernel stuff, but now one can, if one is bold and doesn’t mind kernel deadlocks or huge memory leaks, mount and read the files from the Karma. Neat.