It took 26 bags of topsoil to get the coverage we needed, but today was lawn day. One day I imagine we'll have soil delivered and use a roller and all that, but today was wet enough and we were excited enough to get the job done. It looks pretty bush league right now, with dark, dark soil covering what was a moderately green lawn, but the fertilizer and seed bags agree that in two weeks we should be seeing a pretty lush green mat that will be ready for mowing.
Last night was a pretty fun WAHS gathering at a coworker's house. About a dozen of Jenelle's peers were there and it was fun to kick it after a long short week. There's quite a bit of end-of-year excitement in the air; I've got the opposite and am sporting a bit of no-summers-off-for-me-until-retirement malaise. The Red Wings are helping me break through that, as is Countryside, who supplied a tasty flurry after we'd set the sprinkler and called it a day.
It's a momentous post this evening, not for its content or sequence number, but for its source: our new machine. The trusty hp that got me through grad school and two months before and 12 months after is no longer all that trusty, and so we set out to replace with a desktop of excellent value. Since we have a friend who works for a computer outfit down Texas way, that was no problem... enter the Dell Inspiron 530s. It arrived over the weekend and we ran a patch cable for it tonight and now we're blazing.
posted at 9:15 PM - comments
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
I'm going straight for shock value:
The story is that just about exactly one week ago (give or take 15 minutes) I rolled this thing pretty badly. It never really hurt but has turned a procession of goth-tastic colors since last Thursday; Saturday it was black - not black and blue, not dark purple, but black - and then yesterday I was feeling spry and so I clamped it into my Rollerblade boot and this negative of my sock is what happened. Weird, no?
Jenelle's off proving her skills at maths so I am at home proving my skills at getting odds and ends done. I programmed garage door remotes and installed a wireless entry doodad, then resisted the temptation to program it to match the men's room at Menominee marina, then did other stuff. In awhile Detroit sports are on and I have a few calls to make before then. Fin.
Memorial Day weekend has been and gone and now summer is on. We rang in the season with Dad at BCMR, in the garage, out and about in Allentown, and up on Hawk Mountain. The garage door opener took a good deal longer than it probably should have but now you can contact me directly with questions about tension springs and alternative ceiling structures... or if you need to open our garage door automatically. Heck, in a few months we might find room in there for an automobile. In between all this stuff we had some great food and kicked it around the house; Jenelle absolutely parked fajitas on the grill while Dad and I put the finishing touches on the garage project, and we had some success with burgers on the grill, which I tend to convert into small charbroiled pucks but didn't this time. It just felt like summer, riding around doing fun stuff and enjoying inside/outside life at home.
posted at 10:53 PM - comments
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
PHOTO RECONCILIATION TIME! Whooohooo! Since all I really post about is house stuff lately, a chance to prove the proverbial pudding:
The loft is our favorite room, I think, and when two MCE1R5430Gs arrive in the beginning of June it will have two functional workstations and our conquering of all forms of media will be complete. What better way to stimulate the economy than by purchasing durable goods from your place of employment? (That's right! We bought some 11th graders!)
It is Jenelle's first night of class, so I find myself 'baching it at home. She's taking a math class at LCCC to complete the requirements for her PA certification... two nights a week for awhile.
Ordinarily I'd recap the weekend, but there's not much to recap apart from grilling, reading, cooking, and a bike ride at Rodale to practice the finer points of bikes with skinny tires.
The week ended with a rainy day whose afternoon was a reminder of why my job is the bomb.com. There are days, of course, when I'd rather be out on my bike during the sunny afternoon or fast asleep during the dreary mornings, but I have the rare luxury of being trusted to come up with ideas, share pros/cons, and run with what works and kill what doesn't. It's refreshing to talk candidly about macro and micro with the people who call the shots on both fronts. I love my job.
After work we enjoyed home for an hour or so and then headed to WAHS for the spring Chorale Concert. Those are some hard-working and talented students; when the seniors got together to sing their class song it was easy to feel the excitement of so much eager potential. Jenelle said 'these are the best and brightest' and that makes me happy... too many stories of worst and darkest seem to overshadow the best and brightest.
Detroit's pro-playoff runs are in full effect, so evenings have been absorbed. That was OK last night when I was missing men's league, but otherwise it has been kinda nice just to kick it upstairs. Instead of the exertion of 90 minutes in the gym we headed to Rodale with the blades and skated miles and miles around the track there.
posted at 9:25 PM - comments
Sunday, May 11, 2008
To write about the craziest thing about this weekend I would skip the arrival of friends from the UP, a great movie at Rave on Friday night, a trip to the city for sightseeing and the Park and Fifth Ave and Times Square, two Detroit playoff wins with a similar number of homemade pizzas Saturday night, and go straight to the iPod vending machine we saw on Sunday. I kid.
Bre and Greg were on their way from Michigan to Connecticut and spent two nights here along the way. Friday wasn't cooperative weather-wise so we took in "What Happens in Vegas" and followed up with Maggie Moo's. Saturday the weather cooperated like whoa and we hit the city for about 7 hours, then home for a fun night in, and they were on their way early this morning. After they had continued on their way, we had a pretty normal weekend day: errands and projects - oak went on the window seat and lead got poured into a base for a light - scattered with a couple of meals.
This has not been the world's fastest week despite a couple of tangential projects that have kept me doubly busy. Tuesday was basketball - it was the last week and we played like it. I had the good fortune of being on a winning team and being the middle man in a 2-3 zone with a couple of wings who like to run... 15&post-on-two-on-two.
Outside of work: projects. Projects with the saw, mostly, but some outside, too. We made seat cushions, glued some oak to some stuff, and bolted pots together. Really. Tonight we had a 1/2-birthday party for our half-a-year old neighbor. It was fun to hang out on a weeknight, eat some burgers, and enjoy some laughs. After birthday cake we came home and unwound ahead of a busy weekend.
Spring peepers in PA have an incredibly low, rustling tone that is something totally new to us. Last night we put up a window in the bedroom and were confronted with a "what the hell is that?" kind of noise/shock. I'm used to the bright, froggy tone of spring peepers who chirp out from swampy ditches at passers-by; here peepers just kind of howl from any old place.
We had a banner weekend for no particular reason. We pushed on the garden and got the wall done, the weed barrier down, the topsoil and manure in, and the first plants and seeds planted and seeded. Jenelle has been dutifully watering and it is very exciting. Sunday morning we went for a nice ride at Rodale and took a quick slow (figure THAT) walk through the first car show of the season at Macungie Memorial Park. In the afternoon at home we worked on a number of small little things that didn't amount to much but were all nice to have done (or tried). Then we went on a long looping stroll through the neighborhood to our west and called it a day.
Tuesday night was Week 9 for Emmaus men's league and I feel like I finally played the way I could. It was fun and made me sad that Week 10 is the last week.
We've been watching snippets of "Carrier" on PBS late in the evenings this week and it makes me miss OSNY. It's also a reminder of the life that sailors have. Six months is an incredible amount of time, and even shorter than it used to be, incredibly.
We've also been working outside at home. This was the week of the garden, which meant hauling landscaping rocks from their unceremonious dropping site in the driveway down to the yard. Then some digging and some placing, followed by a layer of grub-be-gone.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
