Wuss Camping

Another blog sabbatical is looming... this time only for a week. The fam and I are heading down to FORT WILDERNESS at Disney... I think it's the place that Daniel Boone wrestled a bear... or was that Davey Crockett?

Anyway, we bought a new tent... a bit of a monster but it'll be plenty roomy. Heck, we'll probably play hide and seek in the thing.

Is it me? It's me, right?

Is everyone not seeing the pic of my impressive spring below or is it just me?

So... what's with THAT thing?

I’ve got a massive spring. Yeah… a spring. The same kind of thing like a car shock or a Slinky but huge.

Wire Diameter = 1-3/16”
Free Length = 32”
OD = 7”
Pitch = 2-1/8”
# Turns » 16
Weight » 110 lbs

It’s not quite the size of some of the “hot coiled” ones here but it’s bigger than any of the ones this place has got in their inventory!

I think it is a railroad spring or a very big elevator spring but can’t quite figure it out.

One night while living in the fabled place on 14th and Piedmont, I walked out one morning and it was perched on top of a fountain. As any of my friends that have helped me on any of my 5 or 6 moves since then can attest, it’s a heavy son of a bitch and I have no idea how someone ever got it up there.

Anyway, it was still there that afternoon, that night, and when I got home from work the next evening. So I snagged it before someone else did. Since then, it’s mostly been a plant stand and always a conversation piece but now it sits in my garage, the perfect spot for my leaf blower.

Birth of a Biker

Yesterday, I took Liam to Central Park... no, not THAT one... I'm talking about the WOTP version. It was his first time riding his bike on a trail. I was a little worried about how he would make out.

We have a horrible place here at home for becoming a decent bike rider: a steep driveway sloping to a through-street in which it's tough to see speeding cars coming over a hill. No cul-de-sac full of kids. Not even any sidewalks.

So Liam kept his training wheels for a while. One day, they broke so I took it as an opportunity to try to force the issue and took him to a local park. He was doing fine but the one fall made him swear off bikes forever: "I'll never ride a bike!" So I got new ones and put'em on.

About a year later, his grandfather got him a new bike... a big one. It too had training wheels. I took him back to the park. He rode it but he was very unsteady even with the training wheels... and he didn't like that his feet could not easily reach the ground. So I jumped at the chance to get him off those extra wheels.

"How about you go back to the small bike... but without the training wheels?" He didn't like that idea but he didn't like riding around on the tall bike either. He agreed and we took the small bike sans trainers to Florida. He took to it immediately with no falls. We rode around Ker's brother's neighborhood and even went for a mile or two on a paved bike trail. He loved it.

Anyway, back to the present. Although he'll occasionally ride the new one, Liam gets around mostly on his small bike. He's been a bit of a daredevil riding through the frontyard, off the edge of the front walk, down the hill into the neighbor's yard, etc., etc. so I figured I'd see how he would do on a dirt trail.

We ended up riding half of it... roughly a mile and a half or two and really didn't finish it only because we had to go to a soccer pizza thing. He went over roots, along steep edges, and over rocks. Once, when we stopped to take a break, he said "We should do this every weekend."

Now I just wish the new bike had gears!!!

My One and Only Viceroy

Erin had her dance recital today, something she's been gearing up for for weeks and weeks. She was a butterfly ballerina and a tapdancer in "Topsy-Turvy World". Not that we expected it, but she had no stagefright at all. After her two dances, she was in the audience with us and nothing could draw her rapt attention from the rest of the show.

Her one non-girly girl interest has surfaced in the last few months.

Bugs.

Yes, bugs. She'll pick up a a grasshopper, a caterpillar, or even a grub or a worm without the least hesitation. We got her a little kit with a magnifying glass and a wooden "cage".

I've got nothing against the girl stuff. Her dancing was the cutest thing ever and I'll tell her unicorn bedtime stories for the rest of my life if she wants me to but it's nice to see her get into something other than fairies, rainbows, and ponies.

The Face Off

All right… I think my on and off affair with facial hair has finally come to an end. A little over a month ago, I started on a goatee.

I endured the tickle phase which ends about a week or two in… this is the phase where you can’t stop noticing and messing with it with your lips. The itchy phase starts after a week and basically ends about 2 – 3 weeks in.

I made it through this. I also pushed through all the inane comments (“Hey, you’ve got some dirt on your lip.”) as well as the absolute loathing of the goat by my beloved.

But what I could not get past was the PAIN that starts 3 weeks in and is noticed mostly when trying to sleep. I like to sleep on my side and with my face against the pillow, it felt like I had a thousand tiny needles digging into my face… which is pretty much exactly what I DID have!

At one point, I was a little stressed out because of work and the fact that I wasn’t running much due to said work. So with the goatee, sleep was not coming easy. It came off because of this plus the fact that it’s a pain in the ass to upkeep. With a clean-shaven face, yes you have to shave everyday but it’s a clean sweep… like trees felled Lorax-style for a development. Easy. With facial hair, unless you don’t mind the scruffy haggard look, you have to be pretty meticulous with the razor. Maybe when I’m 50 or 60, I’ll go for one of the Civil War looks but for now and the immediate future, forget it.

Anyway, while shaving my face free of the thing, I tried a few looks and searching the Net for the various names came upon The Great Goatee/Van Dyck Controversy. Apparently, what everyone calls a goatee is not really a goatee… or at least with the facial hair aficionados on the Net, it ain’t. A goatee is just the part on the lower chin that makes you look like… well, like a goat. See Shaggy, Maynard Krebs, and that guy from Anthrax.

What most call a goatee should really be called a Circle Beard which is a really dumb name. A Van Dyck sounds damn cool but I guess this is really more of a “Johnny Depp as a pirate” thing. Or Colonel Sanders. To me, Door Knocker sounded a bit lame as well at first but, you know, it really kind of looks like one.


Then I went for the classic Truck Driver. Again, to my barber-inclined pals, this is a ”horsehoe with soul patch”. But I hate the term “soul patch” and everything else it’s called. It’s just a patch, dammit.










The Chevron ‘Stache with Patch. If I was really going to keep something, this’d probably be it.
















And finally my dear friends... this is what I call the Snooty Concierge.

Please note that if these images are not showing up in your browser, its Jim-allotment has been exceeded.

Don't change any of the settings if you know what's good for you!