The Dread Pirate Robins

2008-10-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

One of my interests is in older machinery and scientific instruments, so this book that we were selling at the Pirate Festival really grabbed my attention.

It also grabbed the attention of David Woodson, reenactor with The King's Navy, at the Portland Pirate Festival last year. He purchased the book and made an octant from the plans within, and then came back to show us this at this year's Portland Pirate Festival.

Julie Brown - Homecoming Queens got a gun

2008-09-07T22:13:00.001-07:00

Posted in honor of McCain's recent choice of running mate!

DDR Commercials, part III

2008-08-15T19:17:00.001-07:00

This camera looks a LOT like my Pentax Spotmatic, and it appears to operate about the same, too.

First blueberries

2008-07-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

We just recently picked a couple handfuls of blueberries off the new bushes. They are supposed to be early varieties (to supplement my "late season" picking habits at the farms) but since this has been kind of the non-summer they are just coming on now.

We have an Earliblue and two Duke bushes.

Now if we could just get a little more sun on the corn, tomatoes, and peppers...

2008-07-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

We brought the ducks home. They're currently shacking up in the coop. We let them out for swims most days.

Nena still thinks we have a drake, but I can't tell for sure.

DDR Commercials, part II

2008-07-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

2008-07-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Got a picture of Nena... she usually avoids the camera.

2008-07-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

This is just some clowning around with a "new" old Spotmatic. The glass in these things is unbelievable. I need to get used to the metering again so that I can avoid shots with grainy people on light backgrounds.

Lucy's new "computer place"

2008-07-05T13:25:00.001-07:00

Lucy wanted to launch her own "computer place" so that she could post her photos. You can reach it at http://photosbylucy.blogspot.com .

DDR Commercials, part 1

2008-06-18T23:48:00.001-07:00

You know, I kind of miss the Cold War.

My favorite 2008 presidential election commercial.

2008-06-18T23:46:00.001-07:00

Tim Russert, rest in peace

2008-06-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

Stephen Colbert did my favorite wake of Tim Russert.

Garden underway

2008-06-18T23:29:00.001-07:00

The garden is mostly in. I took out the two remaining stumps a few weeks back, and so far we have tomato plants, peas, beans, peppers, and corn planted. We have some squash seeds off past the tomatoes. There are also herb plants ready to go in and a solitary lemon cucumber.

The structure is something Nena made out of birch branches that I took down since they were in the roof danger zone. It will be supporting the beans when they grow, and will form a garden hiding spot for the kids.

The pile beyond is the compost.

The soil is really bouncing back after having been under a patio for some years. It's full of worms and, I would guess, a fair number of beneficial microbes, too. I haven't had it tested, but it has much more of the organic crumble to it than it even did last year.

Book recommendation for this post: Teaming with Microbes

Moving in, moving up!

2008-06-18T23:18:00.000-07:00

Belle, Cleo, Duchess, and Queen of the Mash moved into their new digs last night.

It's an A frame plan. The lower portion is where they can hang out during the day when we're not around to protect them from neighbor cats or stray dogs or rabid racoons or whatever. At night, in theory anyway, they go up the chicken ladder to the upper portion, where we seal them in for the night. During the day they are free to circulate between levels.

So far they seem to be enjoying it. It's a great deal bigger than the Sterilite storage container they had been living in.

Adam

DUCKS!

2008-06-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

This is a little belated, I know, but we recently (May 23) added two Cayugas to our household. They will grow up to be black ducks with a greenish tinge to them. They love playing in water and they love slurping down strings of spinach. They clack their bills against your fingers as they enthusiastically gobble the greenery.

Earth, Art, Ovens

2008-06-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

Kiko Denzer has recently brought to my attention his blog, also on blogspot. I thoroughly recommend his book on earthen ovens. The latest edition has a quote about an earlier edition that I wrote to him.

I have to say for those who think this is goofy. These ovens are great. I went to a building party for a cob house out past Carver, Oregon, and for dinner we had pizzas cooked in an earthen oven. I took a few out to the oven and started walking away when the oven tender advised me to stay put, and gestured toward the oven. I looked inside and watched as the homemade pizza dough puffed up perfectly and then settled back down all in the space of about 90 seconds, and then he pulled them out and flopped them back on the sheets of cardboard I had used to carry them to the oven in the first place.

Anyway, go to kikidenzer.blogspot.com for more information.

Growing some more

2008-05-05T19:18:00.001-07:00

I am in San Francisco this week, but reports from the home front describe all four chicks as still growing - even the runty one. The runty one has become something of a scrapper. I am thinking of how Lucy, at about 4 inches shorter and definitely of a smaller build than Noor, can still bully her sister just about any day of the week. The smaller is not always the weaker.

The kids shared pictures of the chicks at school today and talked about them, Nena reports.

Growing up

2008-05-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

The chicks are growing.

One of the Australorps was looking decidedly inactive, confused, and runty this morning. She kept pecking the side of the brooder. She didn't seem as active as the others.

Nena tried taking some of the chick starter feed and making some mash in a shallow dish. The runty one jumped up into it and started gobbling away, and was so aggressive as to actually drive away the others when they'd try to get to close. I called it her "Queen of the Mash" stance. This is particularly impressive to watch because the two Ameraucanas especially have about 50% more size on her and they're not afraid to use their size to their advantage.

Pickin' up chicks

2008-05-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

Nena and I went to Linnton Feed & Seed today and picked up two Ameraucana chicks and two black Australorps... or at least we THINK that's what we got. They're about two or three days old, and they are just getting used to this idea of eating food, drinking water, sleeping, and walking around.

I made a quick and easy brooder out of a 30 gallon storage bin. The reddish light in many of the photos is from the heat lamp we got at the feed store.

I highly recommend Dan and the other folks at Linnton Feed & Seed to anyone thinking about backyard livestock endeavors. Not only do they have most of what you need there on their shelves, but they dispense advice freely.

I think we'll have more on this topic soon.

Columbia County Fair

2007-07-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

Well, there are two happy kids. They begged me for a pony ride, so, since they were reasonably well-behaved through the rest of the fair we visited the ponies.

Adam

Is that an SS Totenkopf on your shirt or are you just happy to see me?

2007-02-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

To paraphrase Mario Savio, sometimes the workings of the machine become so odious that someone accidentally starts printing out Nazi propaganda for sale in giant megastores across the continent.

Wal-Mart has been selling these in their stores. I thought I had seen someone in Beaverton wearing one of these but didn't believe my eyes. After all, Beaverton is not exactly a hot-bed of white supremacy.

A nutball week...

2007-02-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

Last week started off with a bang, literally, when the church right across the street from our babysitter's house exploded and burned to the ground in the middle of the night. While this did not affect us directly, it did melt some of the siding on our friends' house, and it gave Noor something to be dramatic about for at least a few days.

I started developing an earache after having just gotten done with a cold. This later developed into an ear infection. I think I have had one other ear infection ever, so this is not a common occurence.

Someone who had been giving me some grief in a dispute we had been having over money ended up in federal prison for most of the next five years. I found this out on Wednesday.

Things started heating up at our San Francisco office late in the week, resulting in my getting sent much at the last minute to San Francisco early on Monday. I had to miss two midterms this week, both of which have been re-scheduled, and a community meeting having to do with the North Portland Greenway trail.

The capper was on Sunday. While driving along Lombard in North Portland back to our house, I managed to collide with the back of a car that had been stopped to take a left turn. No one got hurt, and the other driver and I exchanged insurance information and such, and then as I went to drive my now not exactly pristine looking van home the transmission started revving high when I would accelerate from a stop. It turned out that I had somehow knocked the transmission and created a leak. That, along with all the body damage on the front, resulting in the insurance company declaring the vehicle a total loss. So... once I get back from San Francisco I will be signing the title over and collecting the blood money for my vehicle. The pisser is that we had JUST finished paying that one off in December.

Like I said. No on got hurt.

Cousin Kim's video

2007-01-27T23:58:00.000-08:00

My cousin has been working on building a fan base to launch a music career. She posted this video to YouTube. It's nice to see that someone isn't afraid to sing in public.

See it here.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2, rated Arrrrrrrr!

2007-01-26T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I only caught snippets of it. We just got our DVD player hooked up again, and I was out of the house most of the time that the movie was on, but the bits I did see seemed like swashbuckling good fun.

This one is more intense than the last one. I think that the sound mixers bumped up the loudness on all the loud parts. There was quite a bit of action, and the "villains" weren't quite as cartoony. Anytime your ship is getting attacked by a giant octopus bent on destroying all involved it is going to get intense... especially for three-year-olds. Yes, Nena started it up while I was gone and Lucy and Noor wanted to see it to. Noor calls it "de oh-ther pi-rate mo-vie," in reference to the first one which was simply "pi-rate mo-vie." Lucy and Noor spent most of the time clinging. They kept wanting to watch more, and no one has had any nightmares, yet. This is definitely not one to use to "babysit" the little kids. If you need to load the dishwasher, start a load of laundry, and fine a clean and matched pair of socks, a "Bob the Builder" video is a better choice.

network up and running

2007-01-20T18:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Ty's recommendation, I now have our local network up and running. Cousin Ty suggested that I get a Netgear wireless-G router. I plugged it into our cable modem, and while the documentation didn't really speak well to Mac users (it would have helped had the html manual actually worked), the quick start sheet included in the box basically made it a case of setting up your computers to obtain their addresses on the network automatically and then turning everything off and then starting the modem first, then a minute later restarting the router (which is now hooked with a crossover cable to the modem and a "regular" cable to a computer), and then a minute or so later turning on the computer. The thing went well, and Netgear's own web-browser based setup page was easy to follow, even without a proper manual.

The router works well with this PC notebook I am using right now, too.

Ty's consulting business and online store can be found at MacAtoZ.com (shameless commercial plug).

Snow day!

2007-01-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, the snow hit Portland. I was advised to stay home by my office, so I worked on some things at home, but I did manage to get these photos taken.

The last three are of our house with snow on it.

I took a lunch break walk over to Pier Park nearby where we tried to go sledding. We got a little bit of sledding in before kids got cold, so we walked back.

Later, Nena took Lucy and Noor outside and showed them the finer art of throwing snowballs and building snowmen.

New house, new year

2007-01-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

We have moved from our old place one mile to a house near Pier Park in St. Johns. I didn't realize how cramped the four of us were until we basically tripled our square footage.

I will try and get some pics up soon.

The move kicked my bottom. The house deal closed on December 20, and that very same day I got a call not even an hour and a half before my signing appointment saying the the seller needed an additional week to get out. Since I was looking forward to my 11 day overlap I wasn't very happy about this. I ended up zeroing in on December 26 at 5 pm, with a rentback for those additional days. The seller was still in the house until December 27 at noon, and still had stuff in my covered front porch until December 28, and didn't get the last of his stuff off my property until December 29. Meanwhile, I had already arranged to be out of the other place by the end of December 31. I ended up spending New Year's Day cleaning and hauling the last bit of stuff, and made a dump run in the wee hours of January 2. But it is done. Done done done.

I got the world on a DSL string...

2006-09-16T01:10:00.000-07:00

I just got hooked up with DSL tonight. This is so much faster than dialup, and I have two computers hooked up right now, this one wirelessly.

I have been a slacker with my postings. I hope to remedy that in the next couple of weeks.

Quoth the Raven

2006-01-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

Poe's "The Raven" was first published 161 years ago.

I do not claim to have any vast knowledge of poetry or any detailed knowledge of the mechanics of poetry, but I consider this poem to be one of the best in the English language. I had thought that I was going to copy the entire text here (it's GOT to be in the public domain, right?) but I thought I would conserve space and provide a link.

See The Raven at WikiSource

Tree identification help???

2006-01-28T20:30:00.000-08:00

Does anyone know what this tree is? I have been curious about it. I saw it at the Washington Park Zoo, and I would guess that it is probably NOT a native plant. At least, I don't remember having ever seen one while hiking out in the woods.

It stands no more than 12 or 15 feet tall, but I don't know if it is a mature tree or not. I would guess that, given where it is, that they intentionally planted something that doesn't grow to be huge because of the shadows it would cast and the pain it would be to fell it if it ever became diseased or threatened to fall on any of the exhibits. If it weren't off the trail I would have gotten a better shot at the bark. As it was, I was already a couple of steps off the path, and I felt rather conspicuous, being at the zoo.

I am in San Francisco

2006-01-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

I am in San Francisco this week. I have just finished putting in two long-o days. I don't have any photos to post right now.

The new job (well, new as of July) is still going well. I get to do lots of different kinds of things, so I don't get bored, as I would if I were just doing AutoCAD all the time or if I was doing nothing but looking through file boxes for documents for lawsuits.

My views on current issues facing the world, particularly our official policy in the War on Terrorism, can be fairly well summarized by the following site:
http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war52.html

I especially love the first one on this particular page, although the strips make a good Saturday afternoon read when the kids are taking their nap.

The holidays are over

2006-01-12T20:15:00.000-08:00

We are just getting ready to ditch our tree. I am going to trim the branches off of it and probably chop up up into mulch with the blade of a shovel, and the trunk I will either use for a project or cut up and give to Emily for firewood (she recently bought a house and is the only relative in town with a working woodstove right now).

The kids really enjoy this easel, shown here on Christmas morning just after getting unwrapped. (Thanks to Thinh!) It is nice having a station where they can just go and make some art in the house whenever they feel like it. The creative pursuits are better for the expansion of their minds than just sitting around watching cartoons.

Lucy was home sick today, and since I didn't have much going on at work I brought some work home and I have been watching the kids today. Lucy was upset that she missed pre-school, but she and I went and picked up some things at the store while Noor was gone.

This is an image that I thought was funny. The day after Christmas we took some Christmas money and bought ourselves a Zoo membership, the family plus one membership. We can take a friend or relative with us each time we visit the zoo, so if anyone wants to come get in free just let me know and you can help me chase the kids.

Anyway, we visited the Lorikeet Landing exhibit, and Nena bought two cups of bird juice for us to hold and feed these birds. One kept landing on Nena's bun and I think Lucy was afraid that some bird was going to land on her so she covered her head the best she could with her little hands.

Yo, DPR is in full EFFECT!

2006-01-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

After years spent in blog-less bliss I have finally given in to the lure of easy picture sharing and story-telling... all in a format where viewers have selected to be here so I know that if I am boring them it is their fault for not switching over to a more entertaining site such as watchingpaintdry.net or potatochipart.com.

I make no promises to post something every day nor even every other day nor even once a week. The way this sort of thing seems to work is that the more I have to say at a particular moment in life the less time I have to sit down and write about it.

Please feel free to make comments but please play nice. I can take a slagging but not everyone else who comments will be able to, so keep that in mind.

Arrghh!