Double Ouch

At first, I wasn't sure about my moustache. But I think it is really beginning to grow on me.

Of course, when one has has a turn, the other needs a turn too, regardless of whether she really actually wants to have a turn. Jealousy is sometimes a more effective motivator then anything else in the world. 

I have posted numerous times about Ryan's obsession with vacuuming. But here is just another facet of his compulsion. The Carpet Sweeper seems like his dream drug, no cord to mess with, no loud motor to freak him out. I have a feeling this is going to be his daily addiction. 

Today in a store:

"You want to go in this store?"

"Sure."

*4 wannabe skateboard rugrats enter the store.*

"Where is the free candy they used to have right here?"

"I dunno."

"This store is so pimped."

*4 wannabe skateboard rugrats exit the store.*

*One employee is left scratching his head and wondering where his Social Security is going to come from when it is his turn.*

Ouch

I feel like making some eggs, but I'm too chicken.

Words And Stone

I have thought of and discussed this phenomena before. I have a topic that I want to discuss, but I am not sure it I have blogged about it before; and if I did, I don't remember what I said (although, admittedly those two factors are quite interrelated).

I think I am going to coin a term, and it goes a little something like this. I always think of things throughout the day that I want to blog, then I usually write them down, or I promptly forget about them. I admit that I forget a bit more stuff then I write down (Some of my more megalomaniac thoughts swirling up there have been that I have had and forgotten more good thoughts then some pathetic people have in their entire lowly lives! But then I shiver and try and shrug off that particular mental illness). But later on I do an activity or think of something that triggers the same train of thought and I think to myself: "Hey, that would be cool to blog." Then I feel a bit of familiarity with the thought and I wonder if I have blogged it before. So I think I will name this:

Phantom Blogging.

Not bad, huh?

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Anyway, I wanted to talk about this book that I bought at Barnes & Noble a few months back. It is a really great book about the history of English Castles. It's subtitle is "A Photographic History" but I was somewhat disappointed at the total number of pictures, I understand costs of something like that could make it prohibitive to really put in a ton of pictures. But at most there was three pictures for one castle, and for the majority of castles there were only two pictures. I can't believe, it but there were even some instances where there was a single picture for a massive and majestic building that has been standing for 1000 years. I was impressed at the amount of history, names of battles, and royalty connected to each site, but that sort of moves the book subtly (or maybe not so subtly) away from the whole "Photographic History" concept.

I guess this paragraph might get a bit technical, but I also had a problem with the book including six or seven abbeys. Dictionary link, again, provided for Kyle's welfare. Not that they are indeed built out of stone, and in some cases are just as old as some of castles on the adjacent pages, but, well, maybe I am being too picky. This is were it might get a bit too technical, and yes, much too picky. Castles were large fortified buildings or groups of buildings meant to act as a stronghold or fortress. Originally they were made of wood, but as technology advanced (and the wealth of the country grew to be able to afford to pay the number of workers necessary) they proficiently progressed to stone. Massive stone walls, in some cases fifteen feet thick. But in order to be allowed to construct a castle, or fortified manor house, you had to be given permission to "crenelate" from the King. That is basically the only leg I have to stand on for this point, because a crenelated wall is basically the notched kind of wall that you see along the top walls of most castles. Like in this picture. The adjective of the word (crenelated) means having battlements. And that is were I sit and say "Ha!" Abbeys generally don't have battlements, and aren't considered fortified structures for the purpose of holding a certain territory or providing a defensive location for a bigwig. I know it is quite the tangent for this ramble, but the quality for each castle's history and the pictures that were provided just left me wanting more. And I bet they could do a separate book that was just as interesting on just abbeys.

But it was definitely a great buy with 160 gorgeous pages (thick paper too, not some crappy weight paper) for $9.95. And I must say that all of the pictures (although I wish there were more) are beautiful.

The cream to my coffee.

Last time we were at Aldi's doing some food shopping, I picked up a quart of coffee creamer (Half and half). Anyway I just thought to check the date on the package after I used it a few times. Geez, the sell by date!

Oct 5, 2006! Can that be good? Half and half that lasts longer than a Presidential Excuse for invading a foreign country! Wow, that is a boat-load of preservatives.

My Scrubs

I wouldn't say that I have a green thumb, in fact I had to look up a color wheel to figure out that pink looks like the opposite of green. Remember last year summer? I complained several times about how we had five or six big tomato plants and we had plenty (20 or so) of green tomatoes, but by the time that they matured to red tomatoes they all rotted, or developed these massive brown spots on the underside. The funny counterpoint to that is that we had one lonely single green pepper plant which grew about 15 peppers. All delicious.

We have two spider plants which sustained some pretty widespread trauma when I learned the hard way that they don't like direct sunlight. A lot of the leaves browned up profoundly, so I trimmed them way back and put one of the pots back behind our kitchen sink. For some reason, for plants, that is like the train platform for nirvana. It has sprouted back like mad! The other one is out on the front porch and really hasn't shown too many sights of recovery. I guess I'm going to swap them out so the other can have a turn growing.

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The fifth season of Scrubs wrapped up last night. It was two new episodes in a row, and I have to say that the last episode was the best one that I have seen in 2 months. I haven't managed to laugh out loud like that in too long! One heck of a cliffhanger too!
I'm annoyed that NBC released their Fall schedule, and yet again Scrubs is glaringly absent. Yet again they are saying that they are going to wait till midseason and something that doesn't perform well will get the axe and Scrubs will be plugged in to hold up the wall. The thing I like about that is that they end up running back-to-back new episodes for most of the remaining season.
For the last few months I have be titling all of my blog entries with "My *something*". This has been a tribute to this show, but it has been a tough road to name them all like that. And in honor of the fifth season ending, I'm going to take a break from this practice. I'll just try to think of some wildly spurious or just plain ridiculous blog titles (Flaming eyelashes anyone?).

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How weird is it that the spellcheck for this blog doesn't recognize the word "blog" and tries to replace it with the word: bloc.

The bow tie looks good on him! 

Look at the two of them! Brother and Sister. 

We had Holly's picture taken a couple weeks ago. Look at this little girl. 

My ?

Tonight, again, I went a bit off the path of Guinness-ness. There actually was Guinness available at the store, but I went for the one a couple over, Boddington Pub Ale. Not bad, it is a good pale ale, solid taste and finish. The major problem that I had with it though is that the can were a bit "energetic" when I popped their tops. The first one splashed a bit on the floor, the second one though I popped over the sink.

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Another thing that I like about UK vernacular: "cheese on toast". Near as I can tell, that is what us Cowboy Americans call Grilled Cheese. Although that is more along the lines of what Kyle refers to as toasted cheese.

My Butter

Last weekend Michelle picked up some specialty bread, then when she got home, mixed some fresh chopped dill in with some butter. The plan was to have bread and butter with our soup.

The only thing that Ryan could say about that was "Who put grass in my butter?"

This is a picture looking back at Michelle and the kids. We ate our lunch right there watching these huge fish jumping in the water. 

My Gray

I seem to have a spreading problem. After I mentioned my gray hairs (salt in my pepper) in my 'stache last night, I paid particular attention today to the geography of my upper lip farm. I noticed that there is actually quite a number of gray hairs poking around down there. More than ten I might say. That doesn't sound like quite a large number (ten out a hundred or two) but I am 32! My age doesn't seem like I should be sprouting out gray yet. I thought I caught a glimpse or two of some gray up on the top of my head, but I discounted it for the angle of the light or something. I guess not.

I shall embrace this, I am not going to indulge in plucking or dyeing (I almost wrote dying, that too) and maybe a healthy dose of salt and pepper hair would make me a bit stand-out-ish.

My thought.

With the exception of a boat-load of photos that I have uploaded, I realized I haven't actually typed too many words lately.

I can't really say that I have too much to report. There isn't all that much to get into. I stopped at the store on the way home, and they were out of Guinness. So because of this, I decided to try out one of the other alternatives that were next to the empty slot. I picked up a four-pack of Beamish. It doesn't taste that bad, but it isn't quite the same flavor (to those in the know, the initial flavor was similar, but the finish was the most noticeably different). This isn't my first deviation from my attention to Guinness. It is a drink that I fondly compare to a meal, it is so thick, when I tried to use a straw (taking a sip before the foamy head settled down) it was like a milkshake it was so tough to take a pull. I tried Murphy's a few weeks ago, and that wasn't quite as good either. Nothing is really quite like the big one.

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Oh, the 8th and final series of Red Dwarf has made it to DVD after an eternity! Plenty of bonus features, I haven't even made it all the way through them yet! (They have a fight montage of all the show's major fight scenes, set to the tune of "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting") And I must say that Brits really know how to use "language of questionable content". As Americans we know how to say one or two words really well: fuck and shit. Seriously that's pretty much it, isn't it? Brit's practically have a separate dictionary just for foul language. That is the kind of country that I could live in, or emigrate to. If I found a job over there, you bet I would seriously consider it.

I have been reading a book that I picked up from Barnes & Noble: "English Castles". It is something to be said that they were building and razing castles, and grappling with a civilization 600 year before this country was even a gleam in someone's eye. (The Roman and Greek eras are a little to far back for my tastes. Solid stone castles just give me the shivers.

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Oh, I got an MP3 player. That has been a lot of fun! I have been enjoying listening to music a lot more frequently then I used to. I can get in a song or two messing around getting dinner ready, or watching the kids bike up and down the street.

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I don't want to go on for too long here, but I'll close with this thought. I have been growing a moustache. For some reason I have three rebels. On the edge of the right hand side of my 'stache I have these three gray dudes just sitting there mocking me. And geez, plucking is painful!

My Change

Funny thing, I realized that it has been so long since I had to work on my resume, the first thing that I had to change was the fact that our area code is now different. 2 or 3 years ago they changed this region's area code, so I guess it has been a while since I dusted off the old paper.

Again, The Lehigh Valley Trail. I like this shot because it shows the two surfaces (horses are supposed to keep right, to the grass, and bikes and walkers stay on the "powdered rock" surface) of the trail, as well as the trail fading to nothing as the perspective approaches the horizon. 

About 5 feet off the Lehigh Valley Trail is this little pond. It is a very pretty little spot, you just need to keep moving or the bugs will start going through your pockets for change. 

This is a wider view of the picture below. 

I am not sure why I like this picture so much, but the idea of Beavers nibbling down trees along the trail made me smile. 

We went to the Lehigh Valley Trail last weekend. The kid's bikes didn't work out that great. We had to put them on the side of the trail and retrieve them on the way back to the car. 

This is what happens when Ryan eats donuts without adult supervision.