Outdoor Self Embarrassment Through Digital Age Music

In spite of Siri both previously confusing others on my behalf and making me look foolish, she has been extremely helpful in maintaining my sanity during the most hated of regular home outdoor maintenance jobs- leaf removal.

Jeff’s Books to Open Your Mind: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Atlantic City Appendix One: Spring 2018- Almost an Extended Stay

April 1st- 4th 2018 

Anabelle and Daddy Ad-veeeeen-tures! Yeah! *Jazz Hands* Day 22 –August 9

A Calm and Controlled Final Evening…NOT!

Anabelle and Daddy Ad-veeeeen-tures! Yeah! *Jazz Hands* Day 21 –August 8

More Movies Minecraft and MEL!

Anabelle and Daddy Ad-veeeeen-tures! Yeah! *Jazz Hands* Day 14 –August 1

The Plans they are A Changing

Anabelle and Daddy Ad-veeeeen-tures! Yeah! *Jazz Hands* Day 12 -July 30

A River Runs Through Us

Now Siri Thinks She's a Comedian

I was working on a previously covered hated job...leaf cleaning.

Additional Seasonal Thoughts

Hey, remember four months ago when I issued a lengthy and detailed explanation about why autumn was my least favorite season?

Seasonal Thoughts

Yes, another autumn is here.

The time of year when the trees become a grand kaleidoscope of scintillating colors…

for about a day and a half prior to a massive and complete shift to variations of turd brown followed by them covering the world in a blanket of rotting decay.

I hate fall.

KFC WTF

I met my wife during lunch hour from work at our lawyer’s office to sign away our souls for some home financing stuff.

Afterwards we stopped for lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

We picked that location because we wanted to eat chicken.

This becomes important shortly.

Welcome to…THE GEORGE AWARDS!

Warning

This post contains bad, foul, filthy and unacceptable language - the words that “will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor.”

This is not a post for children.  Kids, take a hike. 

This is also not a post for those adults who are offended by this type of language.  Do yourself a favor, and go read some of my cute stuff before moral outrage can kick in.

End of Warning.

When the Basement Finishes You

The unhappy diagnosis of one of our annual boiler cleanings was that its efficiency was at levels that get entire departments fired, meaning we needed to replace it.  

 "No problem!" we thought, “We have American Home Shield for just such things, and they'll get us a new one now.”

Oh, Deer

Path to the forbidden zone.

I was in fully suited spiffiness to attend a meeting with Japanese regulatory representatives when the call came in. My wife informed me her suspicion that the doe we’d seen sporadically in the back yard did have babies with it, most likely born there.

While lovely looking animals, the presence of near epidemic levels of Lyme bearing ticks this year meant they needed to go. Nature’s nice, but you don’t see us driving out to the middle of their forest to give birth, do you?

Sometimes, it’s Better to be Lazy

We were having such a nice weekend. 

We had dinner and watched a movie together on Friday night, spent Saturday morning at an elementary school Fun Fair, followed by lunch out, and were home for a brief stop. 

My wife and daughter were attending a bridal shower the next day.  I was going to do some yard work when they prepared, and then help my brother in law with his swing set assembly after they left with my sister and mother.  We planned to continue our time together with another Harry Potter film after church that evening.  My daughter was reading, and my wife was resting. If I had joined either of them, I would have descended into a twenty minute nap and been refreshed for the night.  Instead I descended into a personal version of homeowner hell.

I wandered into the playroom to feed the fish.  My daughter has two mid-sized fancy goldfish in a ten gallon tank.  Nibbles Nakedfish received his first name a year before he was a present from her cousins, back when she first decided she wanted a fish.  He received his last name from my niece based on his loss of color on the drive over when the presentation of him and his bowl kicked us in the butt to get our daughter an aquarium set up.  Once we upgraded to a full tank system, my sister’s family bought her the second fish.  Scribbles received his name upon arrival in the new tank…because it rhymed with Nibbles.

Spoilers: Everyone's OK

Look...AAAANTS!

This is the tale of one of the first of many surprises as new homeowners.   After a short while, I finally got around to emptying all the garbage and scrap wood bequeathed to us out of the little workshop downstairs.  There was evidence here and in other house areas that the previous owners hadn't cleaned sections of the home in their three year tenure. The rafters had accumulated a quilt like layer of dust large enough to hide several fasteners, a small latch mechanism, and a large screwdriver.  The house listing said “Mrs. Clean lived here.” Apparently she didn’t take her work home with her. The sighting of an abandoned mouse or chipmunk nest, and spider breeds even I have never seen before made putting a "bug bomb" fogger in the workshop seem to be a good idea.