We’re back from a relaxing week at Kerry’s aunt’ s house on the beach in Delaware. How relaxing? Well, for 7 days and nights, I never had anything on my feet more constricting than Target Teva’s and until an hour before starting the long 14 hour drive home, never had a shower that wasn’t in the outside one downstairs. Yup, the whole sunblock-slathering, castle-constructing, body-surfing, spitting-sand-from-sips-of-beer beach thingie… sweet.
Why isn’t there a PC simulator for sand castle building?
On the way back, we overdosed the kids on the old Disney live-action movies… the Fred MacMurray ones… “The Shaggy Dog”, “The Absent-Minded Professor” (aka “Flubber”), and the madcap Sandy Duncan/Dean Jones romp “The Million Dollar Duck”. Shoot me but without actually seeing any of the videos, they all sounded pretty funny to me. The voices that the guys had in some of these things were hilarious.
I know I used to watch the TV series “My Three Sons” that Fred MacMurray was in but I can’t remember more than a few fragmented images. One thing I do remember was bit from HBO’s “Not Necessarily the News” where Rich Hall of Sniglets fame walks into a mensroom urgently looking under the doors for a stall empty of feet. The last one had three sets and one foot began to tap while the themesong from “My Three Sons” kicked in. Yeah, I know, I know but a) this has been lodged in my neurons for over twenty years, and b) I still think it’s funny!
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Outlander!!!
Well, I'm back from a 3-day visit to a filter plant two hours outside Chicago... deep, deep within the corn belt. Monday it was easily 110 deg in the plant... quite the disgusting sweatfest.
And now Team K is off to Delaware for a week on the beach.... woo hoo!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Into the Lupins, Part Three: Sheez… what a ferry!
We boarded the ship and spent the next 14 hours playing card games, watching movies, and walking around the ship. I have almost zero experience on the water but, for some reason, I have read a ton of novels set on the seas: The Sea-Wolf, Caine Mutiny, all of the Aubrey-Maturin series of which Master and Commander is the first, and more. So whenever I got any free time from keeping the kids entertained (translation: about 20 minutes total), I would stand outside in the wind and spray, reveling in the elements.
Although the wind was fierce (in some spots on the ship, you could walk into the gale leaning at 45 degrees), it wasn’t that cold. Since the ship was enshrouded in fog for the entire voyage… same for the way back… there wasn’t much to look at but it never got dull.
In fact, when I do this again, I’m going to bring some hardcore rain gear and put in some time on the Ahab thing.
Although the wind was fierce (in some spots on the ship, you could walk into the gale leaning at 45 degrees), it wasn’t that cold. Since the ship was enshrouded in fog for the entire voyage… same for the way back… there wasn’t much to look at but it never got dull.
In fact, when I do this again, I’m going to bring some hardcore rain gear and put in some time on the Ahab thing.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Sure... I'll have one... thanks.
Well, after spending all day in the backyard, I was gonna put in some time blogging about my Friday night intown plus more of the Canada trip but ended up drinking a few in the garage of the next door neighbors talking about trees, hiking, dogs, and the Clermont. Nothing wrong with being neighborly, right?
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Into the Lupins, Part Two: Here There Be Moose
At Cape Breton Highlands National Park, I set off on my own on the Skyline Trail, a 2-3 hour hike that wanders through woods and vast clearings peppered with dead balsam fir trees, killed off by the spruce budworm and moose. I saw moose prints and scat everywhere so at every turn, I was poised to run into a moose but I never saw one. One part of the trail comes out onto an amazing point of land jutting out high over the ocean… windy and beautiful.
Returning to the trailhead and getting picked up by the rest, I am a bit pissed to find out they saw 4 or 5 moose while driving on the road. Here I am, hiking right through the middle of prime moose stomping grounds, and they see a bunch from the minivan! Oh well, I did too later.
Speaking of moose, here is a pic of the road sign seen in Maine and here is the one you see in Newfoundland. Note that the US one looks like a spindly Bullwinkle compared to the burly he-moose of our northern neighbor. And here is one that we never saw but it would sure keep me driving slow with the high-beams.
Returning to the trailhead and getting picked up by the rest, I am a bit pissed to find out they saw 4 or 5 moose while driving on the road. Here I am, hiking right through the middle of prime moose stomping grounds, and they see a bunch from the minivan! Oh well, I did too later.
Speaking of moose, here is a pic of the road sign seen in Maine and here is the one you see in Newfoundland. Note that the US one looks like a spindly Bullwinkle compared to the burly he-moose of our northern neighbor. And here is one that we never saw but it would sure keep me driving slow with the high-beams.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
By the way...
Typically, the pictures I link to and show in this blog are not mine but have been found on the Web. For example, the lupin scene below (though taken in Nova Scotia according to the site where I found it) is not mine and neither is the Thunder Hole pic I link to. Even when I have taken a similar picture as is the case with Thunder Hole, it's just easier for me to link to a pic on the Web. This blog is not a photo site.
However, sometimes the photos are from our camera but usually it should be obvious. Like the Geo-Trax living room picture in my Attention Surplus Disorder post and the photo of the pickle dog.
Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.
However, sometimes the photos are from our camera but usually it should be obvious. Like the Geo-Trax living room picture in my Attention Surplus Disorder post and the photo of the pickle dog.
Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.
Into the Lupins, Part One: Maine and the Maritimes
After picking me up in Boston, our hapless crew journeyed to Bar Harbor, Maine where we ate lobster as required by federal law.We did a quick drive-by of Acadia National Park where Liam was enraptured by Thunder Hole and we hiked along the gorgeous overlooks and the rock beaches that make that hard-to-describe clinking/clunking sound as you walk them. Then through Machias, the former home of my aforementioned friend Keith and into Canada at Calais.
Along the way to Moncton in New Brunswick, we had to stop for a potty break for Ms. E. Unfortunately, the visitor center we ended up at was closed and even more unfortunate, the place was on a bump in the road overlooking a vast plain along the shore. Beautiful, yes, but I found it hard to enjoy the scenery as I huddled next to the front grill of the minivan trying to shelter Erin from the arctic blast coming off the flats as she perched on her portable potty in a p-p-p-parking lot. Luckily, except for one other instant, that was the coldest I felt for the entire trip.
We toured Hopewell Rocks , a cool, very non-commercial (as is most of east Canada as I soon realized) park on the Bay of Fundy where we spied on the magical world of limpets and seaweed on the ocean floor then headed to Nova Scotia and the island of Cape Breton.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Jim Finds a Rock!
I’m back and as promised will soon be regaling all with tales of the Great Voyage to Mooseland but first the deeds of the last few days done Memento-style.
Noooo, not Mentos. Memento! You know… for the kids.
Now I sit at the PC, gnawing on hardtack and fretting at the pain in my knees. I fear I will hardly be able to walk tomorrow.
Ten minutes ago, I am on the couch alternating a bag of ice between my elevated knees and reading a Michener novel in my quiet, empty house.
Two hours in the past, limping, I am dropping off a borrowed but unused umbrella at some friends’ after putting my bike in the back of the P’up which has spent the night in their driveway.
Two hours and five minutes ago, I am in the air heels over head and dropping like a bomb onto a cement slab that has suddenly appeared in the middle of a field.
Twenty-four hours ago, a neighbor is dropping me off at my house. I had had only 5 poolside beers and a ton of food in the span of 6 hours but I was taking no chances with the oodles of cops crowding the roads. Although I had planned on walking, Kim (who is currently over the Pacific on a 14 hour flight to Taiwan with her husband AND FOUR KIDS… all under 7 years of age!!!) was nice enough to give me a ride.
Thirty-two hours ago, Travis is trying to talk me out of fleeing ITP for the safety of the burbs but, dammit, I’m exhausted from my morning endeavors and all I want to do is sip a beer by the pool! I give him the 2nd License to Punch Me in the Face I have granted in my life promising him he’d be free to if he ever saw me eating takeout from Appleby’s. The first was given to Mark Schnitzius probably ten or more years ago if he ever saw my tuck a shirt into shorts. I have broken this rule twice to my shame but the only time Mark ever saw me do it I was doing it for a joke.
Thirty-six hours ago, I finish the Peachtree at 48:08. Better than my last Peachtree but not as good as my last 10k which is what I wanted to beat. The heat plus the fact that I was in an early group and was therefore constantly being passed wore me down… sniff.
About forty-eight hours back, I’m stepping off a plane from upstate New York where the w & k will be until Monday.
Noooo, not Mentos. Memento! You know… for the kids.
Now I sit at the PC, gnawing on hardtack and fretting at the pain in my knees. I fear I will hardly be able to walk tomorrow.
Ten minutes ago, I am on the couch alternating a bag of ice between my elevated knees and reading a Michener novel in my quiet, empty house.
Two hours in the past, limping, I am dropping off a borrowed but unused umbrella at some friends’ after putting my bike in the back of the P’up which has spent the night in their driveway.
Two hours and five minutes ago, I am in the air heels over head and dropping like a bomb onto a cement slab that has suddenly appeared in the middle of a field.
Twenty-four hours ago, a neighbor is dropping me off at my house. I had had only 5 poolside beers and a ton of food in the span of 6 hours but I was taking no chances with the oodles of cops crowding the roads. Although I had planned on walking, Kim (who is currently over the Pacific on a 14 hour flight to Taiwan with her husband AND FOUR KIDS… all under 7 years of age!!!) was nice enough to give me a ride.
Thirty-two hours ago, Travis is trying to talk me out of fleeing ITP for the safety of the burbs but, dammit, I’m exhausted from my morning endeavors and all I want to do is sip a beer by the pool! I give him the 2nd License to Punch Me in the Face I have granted in my life promising him he’d be free to if he ever saw me eating takeout from Appleby’s. The first was given to Mark Schnitzius probably ten or more years ago if he ever saw my tuck a shirt into shorts. I have broken this rule twice to my shame but the only time Mark ever saw me do it I was doing it for a joke.
Thirty-six hours ago, I finish the Peachtree at 48:08. Better than my last Peachtree but not as good as my last 10k which is what I wanted to beat. The heat plus the fact that I was in an early group and was therefore constantly being passed wore me down… sniff.
About forty-eight hours back, I’m stepping off a plane from upstate New York where the w & k will be until Monday.
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