Thu, 05 Jan 2006

I did okay at the Crappy Christmas Gift Exchange this year.
I came home with a rum cake. Well, I didn't actually come home with it, because I ate it there. The CCGE is John's annual event where you bring the worst gift you received, and put it into one of those gift exchange / white elephant things. I brought the gift I received at the frisbee party, which was four coffee mugs and some strawberry candles. It actually got stolen a couple times. Linda took the oil and vinegar bottles her mom gave her, and Rob took a ceramic dish shaped like a sombrero that I found in my attic. Rob ended up with the coolest gift of all: a flying cow.

John had a video projector set up in the back yard, so we all watched a local surf movie before getting to the exchange. You can see the back yard, me looking a little stunned by the flash, and Rob with his new cow.

posted at: 07:22 | permalink | 100 comments

Wed, 04 Jan 2006

I got the fork for my street bike today.
That's the mountain bike I've been riding around town. It's an XL Jamis hardtail. I put some slick tires on it a couple months ago, and it really made a difference. I did put the mountain bike tires back on last week while Bruce was visiting, so he could ride it at JD, and then I put the slicks back on so he could ride it around Palm Beach.

Recently I decided I wanted to swap out the lightweight air-sprung Manitou fork for a rigid fork. I looked for a while on eBay, and finally ended up with a new Kona suspension-corrected fork. I bid on a few titanium forks, but they always went for $225 or more. I got the Kona for $62. I was standing outside when the UPS driver pulled up, so he just handed it to me and drove off. I hope to get it on sometime in the next week.

posted at: 22:33 | permalink | 100 comments

DB laid his first trail as a named hasher tonight.
Not too bad, plus he didn't get caught. He threw some tricky marks at the start that bought him some time, and then jogged all the way to the beer check. The second half went past a drive-in movie theater, so we stopped and watched the Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong for a few minutes. You can see that my trail prediction didn't really match up the actual trail (3.6 miles by my GPS).

The trail ended in the parking lot, where we circled up for an appreciative Hispanic audience (most likely Guatemalan). WFC had brought a virgin, but there was no skin. We retired to Wings Plus for food, and the USC/UT national championship game.

posted at: 22:24 | permalink | 31 comments

I found a couple more pictures of the Christmas gift-opening orgy.
There's a couple here of Sydney annoying Joshua while he uses his PSP or his mini-Nintendo, or whatever the heck it is.

And here's a couple of Sydney as she inspects my new weed whacker, while my dad and aunt look on approvingly.

These are the very first shots taken with my new phone camera flash attachment. Unfortunately I got too close, and they are sort of washed out, but you can still tell that's Julie taking some pictures of her own.

Then I headed of to Linda's mom's house, and got a shot of her, and a shot of Raja, who was sleeping on the terrazo as he tried to keep cool.

Finally, a couple of my dad as he carves the Christmas turkey. I think these would have been great shots, if they had not been washed out again by the flash. I'm still learning to use the flash.

posted at: 07:17 | permalink | 101 comments

Tue, 03 Jan 2006

I built a shed in the backyard during Christmas vacation.
Well, technically I assembled a shed in the backyard, since it was a Big Max plastic shed from Rubbermaid, and it came in a big cardboard box. Okay, two cardboard boxes.

First we had to clear a spot for the shed. So I pulled down the last of the rotting cabinets in the carport, and loaded them and quite a bit of other junk into a utility trailer, and hauled the whole collection off to the dump. I love going to the dump. Here's an action sequence where you see me selecting the next item to be hurled from the trailer, then holding it high over my head, and then actually hurling the (different) item into the dumpster. The item in the third photo is a completely hardened bag of cement.

Then it was time to errect the new shed. The instructions made it look so easy, and the printing on the box said that the shed would go up in an hour. If I had to give a one-sentence review of this shed it would be: "One hour my ass". It finally went up, but it took closer to six hours. You can see the roomy expanse inside (7' x 7'). I think I could actually live in there, if I had to. Of course, it's now packed full of all the junk I took out of the carport, but at least the carport's empty. Yay.


posted at: 07:03 | permalink | 100 comments

Mon, 02 Jan 2006

Here's a number puzzle I saw on an apartment door.
At least I think it's a puzzle. Heck, I don't know what it is. I was at my dad's apartment building, and we were checking on an apartment for a tenant who was out of town. He had a note posted on his door. At first I thought it was his contact phone numbers. But when I looked closer I saw that it was all three-digit groups. I don't know what it means. Do you? I'm transcribing it here for the benefit of search engines.

Thu, 29 Dec 2005

Rachel had her 13th birthday a couple days ago.
It was very nice. I got a couple shots of the birthday girl, with and without flash. There was a simple white cake.

And a couple photos of Joshua. His facial deformation isn't getting any better. The doctors think that his face has frozen that way.

Louise was looking good also. She joined in the festivities. Then Linda set up the projection TV and the iBook that she brought over, and we lit a fire and watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas", which I had never seen.

posted at: 22:22 | permalink | 100 comments

We had the last Wednesday night hash of the year last night.
My pre-hash analysis had a slight resemblance to the actual trail.

I got to use my new camera phone flash attachment before the trail. AD looks a little washed-out. I didn't get a picture of his new light saber, but I did lose a couple fingers trying it out. There's some other washed-out hashers as well.

AI organized a gift exchange this year. Amazingly, all the hashes came prepared (with a gift). In the second photo you can see right down Kit's shirt. In the third photo the Head is posing with the rock that she got in the gift exchange. And the fourth one is DB, and Mr. Bush's friend.

Then we all went to the Quarterdeck.

posted at: 22:11 | permalink | 100 comments

Tue, 27 Dec 2005

Is it just me?
Or would it be fair to characterize Thomas Jefferson as playing Spock to George Washington's Captain Kirk?
posted at: 10:11 | permalink | 100 comments

Sun, 25 Dec 2005

This guy really has the Christmas spirit.
He's one of my neighbors, working at the beer truck on Clematis last Thursday.

The neighborhood association got the Clematis beer date again, so we all went down to work the beer truck. A couple of the hashers came to help out -- TJ and Christy. Linda worked hard, and then she took a short nap. I got an interesting shot zoomed all the way in in the dark.

posted at: 23:18 | permalink | 200 comments

We picked up Bruce and Julie and the kids at the airport on Christmas Eve.
We got to the Ft. Lauderdale airport a little early, so we sat in the Chili's there and watched the planes land. Finally we saw an AirTran plane come in. It pulled up and parked at the gate right outside our window. I called Bruce on the cell phone, and he had the idea of having Joshua raise and lower his window shade. Right away we could see where they were sitting. It was cool.

Then we went to Russo's for lunch. I hadn't been there for a while, but it's still as good as it ever was. Linda and Rachel were comparing mp3 players.

posted at: 23:07 | permalink | 101 comments

Wed, 21 Dec 2005

NFHN Sean got his name last night.
It was a pretty good trail, with two beer stops. The turnout was a little light, possibly due to the cold (55 degrees F). I didn't remember to wear the GPS, so I don't have a map of the trail. All I have is my fearless prediction from the day before. If someone sends me an XML export from their GPS I'll generate a map and put it up.

Here's a picture of Stinky at the first beer stop. I was using a rudimentary lighting technique called "shine the flashlight in her face". It sort of worked. Gee, I hope I get a flash for my camera phone for Christmas.

And here's Sean, post-trail, but pre-name. There's a shot of Stinky in the light, plus two shots of the returning pack. They walked back from the second beer stop.

Here's a dim shot of Sean sitting on the ice. It looked pretty cold while he was doing it. Oh, and henceforth and forevermore he will be known as ... "Dirty Buttkiss".

posted at: 07:08 | permalink | 101 comments

Mon, 19 Dec 2005

I saw a cool looking scooter yesterday.
It was called a Ruckus. It had a real off-road look to it. I looked it up on the internet, and found it's made by Honda. It's got a 49 cc engine, so you don't need a motorcycle license, at least in Florida. Or insurance. I guess I'll wait until I get the DUI to get one, though.

posted at: 07:28 | permalink | 100 comments

Sun, 18 Dec 2005

I got Rob an early Christmas present.
Bart had a Schwinn chopper he wanted to get rid of, and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. So when Rob stopped by to pick me up for some Christmas "shopping", I gave him the bike. We admired it for a bit, and then everyone tried it out. Linda went first.

Then we convinced Rob to ride it. The bike is really small, and there's some toe overlap with the front wheel. Rob had to slide as far back as he could go, but he was able to make a couple passes.

Then I was up. The bike was fun to ride, but boy is it small. So it looks like it's cut, grind, and weld time. Rob left it in the carport, since he claimed he doesn't have room for it. I looked around on the internet, and found a couple people who have modified it. We've got a basic plan to cut the triangle in three places, and extend each leg. It should be simple to extend the fork tubes as well. Next update in a couple months.

posted at: 20:43 | permalink | 200 comments

Fri, 16 Dec 2005

Linda and I volunteered as beer pullers for Moonfest.
Moonfest is usually held on Halloween weekend, on Clematis. This year, though, we had that pesky hurricane. Was it Katrina, or Wilma? I forget. Anyway, Moonfest was rescheduled to last weekend. Ed found out the Thursday before that our neighborhood association (Pineapple Park) could earn some money by running one of the beer trucks. So me and Linda joined Ed and some of his friends, most of whom we knew from working the beer truck at Clematis by Night on Thursdays. The street was brightly decorated. I got some photos, but there really wasn't enough light for my camera. I sure hope someone gets me a camera phone flash for Christmas...

posted at: 07:28 | permalink | 100 comments

Thu, 15 Dec 2005

The BUFF Brothers annual hayride was last night.
Lots of holiday cheer and looking at Christmas lights. My trail prediction was a little off this week, since I guessed we would be doing an ever-expanding spiral. Instead we all piled onto Dribble's trailer and F-350 King Ranch truck, and rode around for a while. You can see the GPS track. The Buff brothers really did a nice job of decorating the trailer.

There was no trail planned, although CumAgain did his best to organize an impromptu one. Eatapus explained the trail markings, and laid the only mark

Pretty soon we were loaded onto the trailer and ready to ride. We were packed in tight on the hay bales. And the BUFF brothers gave us a nice sendoff.

This is the best of the all the lights we saw. That's the same house where the trailer stopped, and HayRideMe tried to do something awful to the deer.

Then it was time for the circle, lit by the glowing cooler. G8rH8r did the opening ceromonies, and then we changed to a sort of rotating format. There were gifts for everyone. 6of9 got one, and so did Dribble.

Finally it was fireworks time. Boot had set up his arsenal off to one side of the circle. He lit all the fuses, and stuff started exploding. As you would expect, safety was paramount. I think that's Drib in the second picture, trying to put his Mr. Wonderful doll action figure in with the fireworks. I really wish the third picture had come out better; I have no idea what those two people are trying to do. A good time was had by all, and no fingers or eyes were lost.

posted at: 07:19 | permalink | 100 comments

Tue, 13 Dec 2005

The Christmas tree is up.
Linda spearheaded the effort. She drove us to Target, she haggled with the Christmas tree guy, she soaked the tree in water for a week to keep it green. I got the tree stand out of the attic, though. We put it up on Sunday. I strung popcorn for a while on Monday night, but I think I string some more. I'm getting the Christmas spirit now.

posted at: 07:18 | permalink | 100 comments

Tue, 06 Dec 2005

I found a couple more pictures of Bruce and family from Atlanta.
I like the one of the whole family (minus Josh). Then there's two of Josh. That's so unfortunate about his facial disfiguration.

posted at: 07:09 | permalink | 100 comments

Mon, 05 Dec 2005

I did the Palm Beach Half Marathon today.
I had a lot of fun at the Atlanta Half over Thanksgiving, and there was a marathon starting a couple miles from my house, so what else could I do? This one started at 6:30 am, half an hour earlier than Atlanta. I got a shot looking forward just after we crossed the starting line. I was a little slower this time -- I finished in 2:19, instead of the 2:09 of Atlanta. About mile ten I met Chuck Harab from Maryland. He was going slower than usual, so we decided to finish together. But about half a mile from the finish I slowed down, and Chuck went on by himself. The weird part is that when I looked at the results Chuck finished in 2:20. Did he stop and did I pass him without seeing him? I hope you find this with a Google, Chuck. The after-race spot was the Meyer Amphitheater.

After I recovered I walked over to mile 21, where the hash was doing a beer stop. AI had gone to trouble of making a sign, setting up a card table, and supplying the beer. We must have looked official, since none of the police motorcycles or cars buzzing past stopped to ask what we were doing. Of course, some of the hashers (like SN) were holding back some of the beer for themselves.

We got to cheer for all of the hashers who were running the full marathon. Brent came through, and so did Leslie. She was running with a guy in a tutu who was carrying a wand. No explanation given. All of the hashers had a beer, and so did a lot of the other runners. I estimate 10%. Once things wrapped up there AI set a two mile trail that ended at my house. Much singing and beer drinking ensued.

I did pick up a flyer for the Miami Marathon, on January 29. Naaaaah...

posted at: 07:18 | permalink | 100 comments

Sun, 04 Dec 2005

Two packages of 4" hooks: $2.98
Four foot length of 1/8" metal strap: $3.72
Two pieces of pipe from my scrap bin: Free
Building my own fence stretching tool: Priceless
Well, maybe it's closer to $13.25, because buying the tool at Home Depot would be $19.95. We made the tool and put the fence back up on Saturday. Now we have the illusion of privacy once again.

posted at: 18:40 | permalink | 100 comments