Crimson Queen - this is the first year we are letting the wedding tree's branches grow without major pruning. A hard wintered John Creech and Creeping Jenny carpet the ground below the tree.
Here is a picture of the Crimson Queen when we got it in March of 2004. It's on the right.
I should have done this a long time ago, but until you really need a doctor you don't always think about it. We've been here for a year now and luckily haven't needed one. We rarely have, and I can't remember when the last time was that I've seen one. My last physical was earlier this year for insurance purposes, and I was able to at least find out my blood pressure was a healthy 98 over 60.
I'm spending a good portion of the day looking for the right doctor for my partner and I. A good general practitioner is pretty hard to find, so I've been getting referrals from friends and colleagues. What's difficult is gauging whether they would have a problem with me and Vince's relationship. Doctors generally don't, but it's nice to know that explicitly through referrals.
When I turned to lock the front door on my way out, I thought the rain we just had splashed little flecks of dirt or mulch onto the porch. On closer look I noticed they were bugs. Lot's of them! They jumped like fleas when I got close. I went around to open the garage to get some bug killer and noticed them all along the bottom flashing of the house.
How he managed to slip it on and off the plane without damaging it, I don't know. But when Rob arrived, he brought a treat - almond cake whipped up in D.C. before his flight here.
Vince got the recipe and has been trying to get his cakes not to fall in the middle. Here is the first one that didn't. Just as it came out of the oven, the doorbell rang. It was our neighbor across the street with a plate of home made Christmas cookies.
Something about the temperature of the eggs and butter before mixing them with other ingredients. Anyway, Vince is making more.
On a long detour to the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchberg, TN, several cars started parking on the side of the two-lane road. We slowed down and saw some kind of circus tent set up in someone's yard.
It wasn't a preaching or a road side rivival. This side show was an endless parade of someone's personal belongings up for auction in one of Tennessee's many weekend estate auctions.
Vince was worried if I mowed the lawn that I would mash the new baby grass that is starting to grow since we did all that stuff to the yard. But it desparately needed it. So I did.
Here are some photos from just a few minutes ago. You can see some of the pics from earlier this year here. The rose bushes are bigger and there is more grass. Other than that, not much has changed.
The arbor on the right side of the house.
Here is one of the Pin Oaks in the front yard. I don't think I took a photo of them earlier this year, but I should have.
We cut down those aweful marigolds. They got about 5 feet tall and obscurred the impatients.
Here is the arbor on the left side of the house. The boxwood hedge is doing alright. I didn't see an explosion of growth I wanted, but they did grow some this year.
I met an amazing person today. His name is Michael Rosenblum. He says if television wants to make it through the challenges the medium faces in a personal media revolution, it needs to embrace the forces that are destroying it.
More and more I'm seeing my bosses at WKRN are taking this challenge seriously. WKRN has embraced Rosenblum's VJ model, which you can read more about here. There isn't a single show I produce that doesn't have at least one 2 minute package from our growing pool of VJs.
Before I came aboard, WKRN's general manager, Mike Sechrist, hired two full time bloggers who are in the newsroom Monday through Friday from 9am to 5 or 6pm and contributing to the news process. Just last week, Brittney, who runs WKRN's Nashville Is Talking, was able to share vital information in our coverage of the Tennessee Walking Horse story. It is happening more and more.
The forces that are changing media are in the newsroom now at WKRN. The powers that be aren't waiting to bleed to death before figuring out what is happening. The media we increasingly share with our audience break all the rules as most TV execs know them. You might not see the changes as they continue to unfold. You may see the changes all of a sudden. Either way, it's happening.
Vince has been busy over the past two days aerating, reseeding and spreading composted cow manure on the lawn. We originally planned to do it in the Fall, but one of our neighbors is getting sod brought in and wanted to know if we would mind aerating their lawn before that happened. So, we did it all at once.
I just finished putting lime down. Hopefully the weather will give us a good period of growth before it starts to get cold. I'll take some good photos this week.
It just started to rain as we pulled away. It didn't amount to much. I'm a terrible guess on how much rain we got, but I'd guess a fraction of an inch. Maybe a 10th of an inch?
Every time we seriously water the lawn, we use about 1,000 gallons of water. It usually takes all day to do that. Whenever it rains, I notice the lawn doing so much better than how it responds to watering. Then I found out what an inch of rain actually produces.
I think we have something close to a half acre. It's somewhere like 17,000 square feet.
So, 17,000 square feet X 144 square inches per square foot = 2,448,000 square inches
2,448,000 square inches X 1 cubic inch of rain = 2,448,000 cubic inches of rain.
1 cubic foot of water = 7.48052 gallons ÷ 1728 cubic inches per cubic foot = 0.004329005 gallons per cubic inch of rain.
2,448,000 cubic inches of rain X 0.004329005 gallons per cubic inch of rain = 10,597 gallons of water per inch of rain.
If we really got a 10th of an inch of rain, it was like watering all day long.
I've been away for a few days doing freelance work and working to launch Brad On 2, Brad Schmitt's new home on the internet at WKRN News Channel 2. Brad used to write the entertainment stuff over at the Tennessean. He now calls ABC affiliate WKRN home and will be regularly featured on-air and on his new website.
Starting next week, I will also join the WKRN family as a producer. WKRN has been going through a lot of changes recently. WKRN is ranked locally as #3 behind the NBC and CBS affiliates. More to come...
It must have rained about 4 hours straight today. We needed the relief. Vince took this picture a couple of days ago while he was watering the lawn in the evening. Pink skies at night...
Our next door neighbors pulled up the potato plants a few minutes ago, and this is what we found. I was surprised we'd have any. The plants were dying, and it was past time. We planted about 7 plants in a row between both our properties.
Dale and Katherine let Vince clip some thyme from their herb garden a few minutes ago. This is going in the pot roast that has been slow cooking in the crock pot all day. Hungry?
Some of the eggs from next door went into these blue berry muffins this afternoon. We also added whey protein to give them each 10 grams of protein. We ate 6 of the eggs this morning for breakfast.
The first Don Juans we planted have now reached the top of the arbor on the side of the house. That's over seven feet tall. Here is a spray of roses on the top run.
When I got home, one of our next door neighbors brought over some promised "free range" eggs from her friend in Thompson Station. We had given them some tomatoes the other day from our garden.
Vince holds some tomatoes that came out of the garden this evening. Since the last water bill was so outrageous, we're watering the lawn about every two days. That should cut our consumption in half if we continue to get so little rain.
I'm bossy
I'm the first girl to scream on a track
I switched up the beat of the drum
That's right i brought all the boys to the yard
And that's right, i'm the one that's tattooed on his arm
I'm bossy
I'm the chick y'all love to hate
I'm the chick that's raised the stake
I told young stunna he should switch debate
I'm back with an 808 cause i'm bossy
We found these jars of human teeth for sale today at the Nashville Flea Market on the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. The booth's proprietor told us he got the teeth from a 90 year old retired dentist in Hohenwald, TN who has 3 gallons of them. When I asked him whether anyone buys them, he told me he's sold about a gallon of teeth.
The digital camera is dead. Vince and I are going to look at some today. Got any suggestions? If it shoots decent video, that would be a plus.
My first digital camera was in 1999. It was the Sony Mavica-71 with a 1.4M floppy drive! The monster cost over $700 and put about 30 pictures on one floppy. Vince wanted me to throw it away when we moved, but as I looked it over, I couldn't believe what a technological dinosaur it had already become. It was practically an antique. I kept it.
[UPDATE 4:27PM] - Just got a Nikon CoolPix L4. Great pics, terrible video... NO SOUND. I guess I should have asked whether the movies actually had sound. Huh. We're taking it back. I'm going to look at the Sony Cybershot, which is the camera the KnoxNews's Random This uses.
[UPDATE 8:248PM] - m'kay, I got the Sony Cybershot DSC-S600. I'll see what it can do.
I found this pic posted over at Kerry Woo's blog. Kerry saw us yapping yesterday on his way to grab a drink and snapped it. That's me holding a half-eaten rib in my hand. I got priorities.
Starting around 6 p.m. last night I started watering the lawn. I didn't finish the entire yard until 10:30 p.m. I'm glad I did it. As I drove in from lunch this afternoon, a lot of the lawns around me look like they are on the verge of death.
Having a lawn is something new to me and Vince. We traded up from a 10th of an acre townhouse with a postage stamp-sized yard in Northern Virginia. We are now on a half acre lot with a lawn that literally just started in February. You can kinda see some of the grass in these pictures.
For a first year, it looks great, and everyone compliments us for the landscaping. That's nice to hear, but I feel like a nut out there almost every day watering. None of the locals seem to water. Strangely enough, everyone who waters constantly are also transplants. Gary and his wife are from Las Vegas. Mark is from California, and so on. I figure I should water the entire first year, and that it will get easier and easier year after year. We put about a ton of composted manure, 800 lbs of lime (for pH balancing), and about 800 pounds of sand on the yard this Spring.
Each time we water it's about 4 hours solid. I'm really dreading the water bill.
Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin’ to the top
The sheik he drove his cadillac
He went a’ cruisnin’ down the ville
The muezzin was a’ standing
On the radiator grille
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy casbah sound
But the bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the shareef
Had cleared the square
They began to wail
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
Now over at the temple
Oh! they really pack ’em in
The in crowd say it’s cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a wiff
Of that crazy casbah jive
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the casbah way
As soon as the shareef was
Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare
As soon as the shareef was
Outta their hair
The jet pilots wailed
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
The shareef don’t like it
Rockin’ the casbah
Rock the casbah
He thinks it’s not kosher
Fundamentally he can’t take it.
You know he really hates it.
Malia linked to an older post of hers in comments to the Black Widow post below. It's a nice outline of the do's and dont's when protecting yourself against brown recluse spiders.
Rule #1 is a good one. I have already found two spiders in my shoes I checked before putting them on! Because of how the guy in this video got bit, I always twist any work gloves I use before putting them on. Our neighbor's daughter caught a brown recluse bite before it spread, but not until a pea-sized chunk of skin had rotted.
The Spider House Rules
1. Never put your shoes on without checking them first. That also goes for gardening gloves.
2. Check under the blankets and sheets on your bed before getting in.
3. Use caution when reaching in and behind things, like cardboard boxes or closets.
4. If you leave a pile of clothes on the floor for more than a day or two, expect to find a spider under it when picking-up the clothes.
5. If you see a spider: don't touch it! Find Mommy or Daddy and they will determine if it needs to be eradicated. Which goes with #6.
6. Never kill a wolf spider. They may be scary looking but they are natural predators of the recluse. We like wolf spiders, we may even look into breeding them. [The Spider House Rules - Musings From Malicious - 03-29-06]
We've been getting a handlful of roma and grape tomatoes and cucumbers here and there, but today is the first good harvest of both. We got some jalepenas, steak tomatoes and big boy tomatoes as well. Today is grandma's (Aileen Reagan) birthday, so we're bringing her these. She can't garden because of her health, so she'll love them.
Here is one of the many sugar baby water mellons. I wasn't sure how to tell when they are ready. The Internets says when the tendrill about six inches from the stem that feeds the mellon starts to turn brown, it's ready.
[MYSTERY UPDATE] - An update on our mystery doodles. This morning, a jar with the remains of a fruit smoothie that had become a home to maggots was turned sideways and completely cleaned out. I may have to take the mystery doodles to the farmer's co-op and see what they think is the mystery animal that left it.
I'm usually pretty good at getting to the bottom of things, but this is where my deductive reasoning breaks down. What animal left this present for me this morning outside my garage?
This is one of those things only experience teaches you. It's not like I can look at it and make an educated guess. So, I turn to you, the mighty Internets. Anyone? I put my keys there to give you a sense of exactly how small it is.
All the negative news stories about Jiffy Lube ripping people off really has me second guessing going back. And I am about 1,000 miles over due for a good lube job.
In the video clip above, even the slime-ball manager was in on defrauding customers. The video says it is company policy not to deceive or defraud customers. What about it being against the law? You might as well call them Gypy Lube, unless you think that being "gypped" refers in a negative way to Gypsies. And it "probably" does, according to Answers.com, so just forget it.
Anyhow, since I'm late for an oil change, I went to my local WalMart Super Duper Center here is Smyrfreesboro. Very happy people. And besides, what was the chance that the oil I bought at this great American company was at the expense of soldiers fighting for our nation's strategic interests in the Middle East like I bet it is at Jiffy Lube? And there was very little chance the labor I paid for and the hour's wait was putting an honest local shop owner or franchisee out of business. I'm just one person anyway. Too bad it wasn't one person with a camera and a good battery. You would have seen a lot of smiles in the hour I was at the WalMart.
But even if the cost was at a greater expense, WalMart is a lot more subtle in the hidden cost of things. If they are ripping off America in anyway, just think of it this way. At least they are spreading the true costs and savings out over several communities instead of hurriedly gouging us all at once like Jiffy Lube.
Here is one of the cannas we planted in the yard. Apparently these were extremely popular in the Victorian era when people's yards were as outrageously ornate as their home's architecture.
Yards got to a point where people who could not afford the Victorian home, but could afford the flower, quickly made the flower one of the most despised symbols of the era's "conspicuous consumption." The flower faded away in the early 1900s and is now coming back.
[UPDATE 5:19PM] Sugarfused shares a pic of their white hibiscus.
Looking for my place
On assembly lines
Fake prizes
Risin out of the bombholes
Skeleton boys hyped up on purple
Smoke rings blow from across the disco
Bank notes burn like broken equipment
Lookin for shelter readjust your position
Thought control ghost written confessions
Two dimensions dumb your head down
Duck don't look now company missiles
Power is raunchy rent-a-cops are watching
Makin their dreams out of paper mache
Cliche wasted hate taste tested
Hell yes I'm movin this way I'm doin this thing
(please enjoy)
Hell yes I'm turnin it on
I'm workin my legs hell yes
I'm callin you out I'm switchin my plates
(please enjoy)
Hell yes
I'm cleanin the floor my beat is correct
Stretched to the limit attention spans
Snap back retract collapse into laugh tracks
Noise response applause and hand claps
Floodgates open to the sound of the rainbow
Breaking points on the verge of pointless
Fools anointed to the followers fanfare
Look for the common not superficial
Code red cola war conformity crisis
Perfunctory idols rewriting their bibles
With magic markers running out of their ink
Lives in white out
Turn the lights out
Fax machine anthems get your damn hands up
Hell yes I'm movin this way I'm doin this thing
(please enjoy)
Hell yes I'm turnin it on I'm workin my legs
Hell yes I'm callin you out I'm switchin my plates
(please enjoy)
Hell yes
I'm cleanin the floor
My beat is correct
Here are some promised photos of the work I've been doing in the yard with Vince. It's been 7 months since we moved in to the new place here in Murfreesboro. When we arrived, they just finished grading the yard. There was no grass or landscaping. The gazebo is in. The path and all the foundational hedges and arbors are now complete. All the exterior concrete is sealed, including the driveway and back patio.
This arbor has two Don Juan rose bushes that will creep up both sides and cover the top. There is also an American boxwood hedge that goes to our neighbor's yard.
This arbor is on the exact opposite side of the house leading into the backyard. It also has two Don Juans and a boxwood hedge that grows toward the road and then back the length of the yard. These are Green Mountain boxwoods with American boxwoods as anchors on the ends and corner.
This is a smaller arbor that breaks the Green Mountain boxwood hedge in the backyard. It also has two Don Juans.
Here are some spreading petunias. They look great, but they took over the flower bed. Somewhere in the petunias are the same Helleri Hollies you see against the house in the background. They are small now, but they will get about 1 foot tall and 3 feet wide.
This is where we planted the Queen Crimson Maple from Virginia along with more spreading petunias, impatients, marigolds (which we aren't planting next year) and a developing needlepoint ivy hedge. You can't see them, but there are "chicks and hens" growing in the black lava rock, a spot we call "Cantor's Crick."
Here's Vince and I preparing for the "3-D Imax" version of Superman Returns. The movie was fine, but this was no where near the "Imax" format I've experienced.
The Superman Returns "3-D Imax" version we saw seemed to be the original format blown up to fill an Imax screen, leaving off about 15 feet of the top and bottom of the full Imax format. Also, this movie was not in 3-D. There were only 4 brief scenes in "3-D," and the movie was repeatedly interrupted with flashing glasses graphics to remind you to put on your glasses for the brief 3-D scenes. The movie was ok, but the expectation of a full "3-D Imax" experience was a let down for me.
Sorry for the brief hiatus from blogging it. I am alive. I've been super busy working on a nice farmer's tan. As soon as I can get the camera working, I'll share photos to show you what all I've been working on. I'm also trying to figure out how to add more video here without jacking up my bandwidth. If pictures are worth a thousand words, video has to be worth tens of thousands.
Weird, huh? These are earthworm cocoons that came out of our worm bin. Funny to think their parents might have eaten January's Comcast bill. Each cocoon has anywhere from one to four baby worms inside. These will be placed in the larger compost bin in the back yard to hatch and live there.
As the winds picked up, we hopped in the Jeep and took Old Nashville Highway to the Toys R Us in Murfreesboro. We had been there before to get a birthday present for a nephew, so we knew exactly where to look. Tucked between games for the oldest kid's ages, there it was. The Rubix Cube! We got two and skadaddled across the parking lot back to the Jeep like fast-walkers in those black spandex thingies.
It is a scientific fact that when women are forced to share confined spaces, like prison or working as tellers at your local bank branch, their menstrual cycles slowly sync with one another.
It might come to a surprise to many that right here on Gatewood Drive, it can be observed that men have a synced "ovulation" of their own so engrained in maleness it has to be observed to be believed. It happens about once a week. Sometimes it's on the weekend, and sometimes it's on a weekday after everyone is home from work.
The trigger is mysterious.
It all starts when one man is observed by others, some of whom were simply enjoying time with their kids while others were putzing around in the garage. Then, like fish simultanously changing direction in mid swim, or menstrating bank tellers, they begin to mow.
"It sure is good to see you young people getting out and voting."
Around noon, Vince and I drove to Joywood Baptist Church, the designated site for voting in our precinct. There are a lot of new residents in the area, but I was surprised to learn from the election officials that only 32 people had voted so far.
On closer look at the ballot, you can see why. Democrats have such a strong hold here in Rutherford County that Republicans rarely bother to run candidates at all.
Josh is in town from Washington, D.C. for the next few days. Posting will be lite as we slither around Nashville getting drunk, so enjoy these random images from the past few years of ChristianGrantham.com.
For better or worse: click the image to view slideshow
The grass is looking great. For weeks it seemed we would go through a typical first year with new yard. We bought this place brand new in December 2005, and they had just finished leveling the top soil and seeding. Twice over the winter, all the straw had blown away. And twice we replaced it and re-seeded.
Sometime in January, Vince bought earthworms online. I had no idea what he was up to, but in the time they were being shipped I started to get worried about where we would put them. I began to research more and more online, and the more I read the more I fell in love with what these little creatures were about to do for us.
A few months later, we have a full vermicomposting system processing all of our vegetable scraps into a rich worm manure called vermicast. Eager to start using more than we had, I found a worm farmer in Shelbyville, TN, about 40 minutes south of here. Last week, Vince and I used all the vermicast we bought from him in both the solid form and making a worm tea that has really made our grass and garden take off without getting into the cycle of depending on chemical solutions. With that, Vince and I paid the farmer another visit this afternoon.
Luckily, he and his wife still had plenty of vermicast left, but the sad news is that the couple is selling the worm farm, all 16 acres for $200,000, including a 2,000 square foot double wide trailer, two ponds, a barn, and the worm farm business. As they admited to us both, they are just getting too old to manage it and never really had the marketting drive to make it all work.
This five gallon bucket has two tea bags with one cup each of vermicast (worm castings) in it. It's being aerated with a fish tank pump for about 36 hours and has about 5 ounces of molasses mixed in.
The aeration and molasses feeds a quickly growing population of beneficial microbes present in the vermicast. Using a three gallon sprayer, we'll apply it to the lawn as an alternative to chemical fertilizers. The "worm tea" naturally conditions the soil, prevents disease and returns much needed microbial biomass to the soil without the negative impact of chemical solutions.
We have solitary bees making homes in our yard. These three holes were made by Andrena fulva, or Tawny Mining Bees. Normally, these are neat little circular mounded beads of clay, but it rained. You can actually buy solitary bee homes online. More homes for bees too cool for the hive.
After breaking fire codes with close to 70 other cramped Murfreesboro residents at the dilapidated offices of the DMV, I now have my TN drivers license. I didn't trust that my voter registration form would make it to the Registrar's office before the March 31 deadline, so I took it with me.
"Can I help you?" I looked around the office right off the town square and couldn't see anyone. "Can I help you?" An elderly woman pecking away on a keyboard and squinting through the bottom of her glasses at the screen seemed occupied. I wasn't sure whether the faint voice was hers or someone in the back on the phone. When I didn't answer again, she turned slowly, looked over her glasses and repeated herself.
I apologized and handed her the form I was given at the DMV and explained how I thought I should hand deliver it to make it before the upcoming deadline. She barely glanced at my driver's license and then told me how wonderful the ladies at the DMV are. I couldn't help but to think she had to be kidding, and then realized she was right. The entire office was exclusively women. All seven of them, seeming to pause before calling the next person as though they weren't about to go any faster than the slowest worker. In fact, nearly the entire time I was being helped, the lady running the terminal to my right stared at her blank Windows desktop opening and closing the same program, pretending to be busy for at least a full two minutes before calling the next person.
It wasn't until that moment that it dawned on me. I haven't seen a single government office yet with a single man working there. Even my bank was 100% female. So was the temp agency. Weird.
She gladly took the form and told me I will receive my registration in the mail before the May 2 primaries.
I love maps. They were all over the walls. As the lady working in the registrar's office was cutting the top portion of my form off on which I had scribbled the phone numbers for the hard to reach, hard to find, nearly non-existent local Democratic party (try to find any information online), I asked her if she had precinct maps.
"Oh, we're no longer in the map business," she said tersely. "We used to, but we don't give people those maps anymore." When I asked her how a voter would go about educating themselves on the district and precinct boundaries, she quickly jumped in and told me my card would tell me where to vote.
"I'm sure it will, but will it tell me what area my precinct encompasses in order to organize politically?" Perplexed, she looked at me and then told me where the maps were.
"OK, listen, what you need to do is go outside, around the corner to the planning commission office. But I'm warning you right now, it's going to cost you a lot of money." I paused expecting her to tell me, but had to ask.
"You're looking at at least $35, and that's just for one map."
Thirty minutes or so down Route 231 is a small worm farm ran by Delbert and Vonda called Tennessee Crawlers. Delbert warned me that if I needed directions once I got into the "holler" leading to his house that I might not have a signal to call.
With that, I took detailed notes that took me down winding roads where I had to stop and honk at a cow to move it out of the way. Delbert gave great directions, and I soon arrived at an old, small farm house deep in the hills of Tennessee.
I honked the horn as I pulled up and met Vonda, who took me to a back room littered with packages she was about to drop in the mail for a business she still runs in Texas. Delbert soon joined, and we talked for about 30 minutes about worm farming before making our way about a mile up the road to a small burned house with an abandoned car that Delbert bought to start his worm farm business over 5 years ago.
When we pulled up to the property, Delbert had me pull the Jeep closer to a barn door where he'd load a few bags of vermicast I had come to buy. Before he loaded the bags, he took me on a tour of the barn, picking up on my genuine interest in the entire process. After a tour, Delbert talked more openly about his experiences as a worm farmer, shared some wisdom, and then sent me on my way. Without realizing it, we had spent nearly two hours talking.
After receiving our own vermicomposting bin and one pound of worms, Vince and I have been very excited about turning our vegetable scraps, compost, junk mail, newspaper and cardboard into a rich and chemical free lawn and garden fertilizer alternative. After the recent warm weather, there is a fine mist of green grass across our yard. With "top soil" made of clay, we had a choice to keep the lawn healthy. We can wait for the vermicomposting system to generate its first batch of vermicast, or we could go ahead and buy some and jump start the process. That's where Delbert came in.
The boys came over today and tore up the hardwood floor in the dining room. The finished product fixed some water damage and looks great. We've gotten back well over the $300 we spent on a home warranty. Vince and I were talking today about what a no-brainer renewing it next year will be.
Vince and Christian onstage at the historic Ryman Auditorium. February 2006
This is the only photo that survived a technical glitch in uploading some of the photos Cantor snapped as Vince and I put on guitars and pretended to play while on a tour of the historic Ryman Auditorium. The building was renovated in the 1990s and was known as the "Mother Church" of country music. It's an absolute treasure in downtown Nashville. If Cantor pops any pics up in his online gallery, I'll link them.
Before checking out the Ryman Auditorium, we were able to swing out to Nashville's replica of the Parthenon, erected to celebrate Tennessee's Centennial.
Here is a photo of Nike standing at an impressive 6 feet 4 inches in the outstretched hand of Athena, which is supposed to be the largest free-standing indoor statue in the Western world. That should give you a sense of how large the statue of Athena is.
On Sunday, we celebrated President's Day by visiting the home of the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. It was a nice surprise to have the Regent of the Hermitage Board of Directors, and wife of Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper, Mrs. Martha Cooper, taking the tour along with us. Since there were only about 7 of us, Mrs. Cooper was able to add to what the tour guides shared.
If you have been following this blog for the past 6 years, you might remember these posts:
2-14-00 - Happy Valentines Day. You could send Valentines day cards from Barbie.com. Oy vey! Vince and I ate on 18th and Florida. He bought a huge hand woven basket from Mali. I bought an African musical instrument you manipulate with your thumbs. Boxed xylophone sounds. Quite noises. I couldn't stop smiling.
2-18-00 - This morning: inch of snow and late utilities payments sitting on the counter. Last night: dinner with Vince and freinds at Capitol City Brewery in Virginia. Karioke: Vince and Noah did country. Maricio, the bartender, did the Pointer Sisters "I'm So Get Excited" and barely knew english but made up for it with some gay dance moves. Steve tipped him a dollar and he kept coming back for more, grimacing sweaty forhead, prissing his aproned stomach in our faces and mumbling words that didn't even go with the music. I was told he does an awesome "Fame."
2-20-00 - Sushi Taro with Vince. Sunday morning pancakes, bananas and Meet The Press with Vince. I'm in a pleasant tailspin. Altitude: check. Pitch: check. Cabin pressure: check. On-board manual...er hmmm, on-board manual??
Everyday is just like the first day we met, February 14, 2000. Happy Valentine's Day!
Lena's sisters and other close relatives sat a couple of rows ahead of us occassionally leaning to one another sharing quick acknowledgements of memories. Lena Hunt left a lot of antiques behind she collected over the years. She even anticipated her estate would be auctioned this way, so she wrote meticulous notes on various items.
A perfect example was a fresh water pearl mounted on a very simple 14K gold ring. The hand written note left by Mrs. Hunt gave a man's name and told how he found it in the Caney Fork River in 1930 and had it made up for her as a gift. Mrs. Hunt married someone else.
I bid on two boxes of Prince Albert tobacco tins and got them for $18 and $16. Vince bought a 1935E Silver Certificate. Later into the auction, Lena's sister Faye sat down next to me and pointed out her daughter. Faye's daughter bought a few things, and her two cute dogs in a doggie stroller protectively guarded them. Faye had come down from Indiana and joked that her daughter wasn't going to have enough room in the car ride back for her.
The gazebo arrived Friday. It's really gorgeous. It sits among some cedar and elm trees in the corner of the property. The door faces north. The gazebo was built by Kauffman's Gazebos. This will be connected to a deck later and will add a lot to the backyard.
The landfill's convenience center is only open on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. It's not too far down the road, and they don't charge you for taking things there that you can't fit into the trash can.
I had just started to unload a lot of boxes from the move into the cardboard bin when Bud came over. One time before he stopped me as i was about to toss an old couch pillow and asked that I give it to him. He punched at it and told me that could help keep his boney ass comfortable in his truck.
Bud pulled a lever opening up the bin and told me I didn't need to break down any boxes. The first time I came here, a fat man came barking out of a shed like a dog and told me I couldn't put boxes in the dumpster. I didn't see any sign, so I asked him if there was anything else that can't go in the dumpsters. He became very pleasant all of sudden and pointed where the boxes go and where any recycling, metal and things like that went.
The sign on the cardboard bin said you should break the boxes down. Bud said the dumpster would do just fine breaking them down, and then told me the fat man was sent to Smthville where he's running people off there with his tude. I asked him what was up with that, and he just said he didn't know, but that one day some woman went home crying and her husband came back the next day with a baseball bat. She probably just tossed a box in the wrong dumpster like a junkyard newbie.
Six ton of rocks arrived today. Eight stones in all. Five will be part of a crescent-shaped flower bed on the corner of the property and three around the mailbox.
When our Ikea closet organizers arrived, I could see we had a problem. The nasty construction-grade carpet. Rather than having to remove the shelving systems to change the carpet later, I went ahead and did it now.
I basically ripped up the carpet, padding and tack strip and then cleaned the concrete pad. Then I laid tile by applying a cement like adhesive, pressed the tile down and placed tile spacers. After a day, I came back with cut tile for the corners and doors. Then the next day I put in the grout.
By day three, I was aching all over and living in isle 13 at Lowes. After the grout sealer went down, we finished building the closet organizers and put away all the clothes laying around looking for their home.
I fired up the reciprocal saw after breakfast and cut back dead branches on most of the cedars on our property. The tree service comes tomorrow to take out a few trees and grind the remaining stumps. Shortly after that, the gazebo will be delivered. It's being built by a Mennonite community near Smithville dedicated to quality craftsmanship.
Before heading out to run some errands and seeing Brokeback Mountain, I brought in a smaller cedar branch to show Vince the deep red pith and how it can be whittled down. We then added Buck Knives to our shopping list.
The packaging for the Buck Knives was kinda surprising. We got them because I always remembered my grandfather carrying one. They were high quality, American made, and often passed along from father to son. The ones we bought from Wal-Mart were not likely the same kind, although it was made by the same Buck family. Unlike my grandfather's Buck Knife, this one was made in China.
That's right. Most of the products sold at our local Wal-Mart Supercenter are made in China. On a closer look at the inside packaging for our new Buck Knives, I could not believe the audacity and ignorance of the Buck family considering this very fact. Take a look at this:
"Now that you are family, you might want to know a little more about our organization. The fantastic growth of Buck Knives, Inc. was no accident. From the beginning, management determined to make God the Senior Partner. In a crisis, the problem was turned over to Him, and He hasn't failed to help us with the answer."
No, it wasn't an accident at all. And what was God's supposed solution for the Buck family? Shipping jobs to a communist country that suppresses and jails Christians so the Buck family can make more money.
What an outrage. I called Charles Buck and left him a voicemail expressing what a disgrace to the Christian faith it was to not employ more God-fearing Americans to build the quality knife I remember as a kid. I think most Americans are willing to pay for real American values, not values that make outrageous and fraudulent claims that God is a partner in the outsourcing of American jobs to China.
I wonder if Pat Robertson also believes that the Sago mine tragedy is God's special way of reminding a slothful nation at war to conserve energy?
After John comes over and gives us a sense of how much it will be to extend some kitchen cabinetry, I'm heading into town in search of a socket extender. Yesterday, I replaced close to 1000 watts of exterior flood light bulbs with compact fluorescents, but the ceramic ballast of the new bulb prevents these particular flood lights from making proper contact inside the flood light paulding. Each new bulb puts out about 75 watts of light using only 18 watts of power. If you do the math, you can quickly see the savings on that one simple chore.
OLD BULBS: 1000 watts (1 kilowatt) per hour (8 150 watt bulbs) for about 10 hours per night = @ 10 kilowatts. If a kilowatt of power runs about 8 cents, that's 80 cents per day, or $24 a month in electricity.
NEW BULBS: 144 watts per hour (8 18 watt bulbs) for about 10 hours per night = @ 1.4 kilowatts. That's only about 10 cents per day, or $3 per month. We save about $21. You can save even more by adding motion sensors available at Lowes of Home Depot and using much nicer exterior accent lights for constant night light source. We are testing a few solar compact fluorescents.
Throughout the new house, we also replaced about a kilowatt of light bulbs with smaller 12 watt compact fluorescents. We calculate we save about $5-10 per month throughout the house as not all of these lights are on at one time. Overall, the saving is pretty substantial, accounting to for almost a quarter of the home energy bill.
You can get these bulbs at Home Depot or Lowes. They are more expensive, but they do last much longer, and most of the time burn brighter. Check the lumens comparisons usually on the package and you'll see. Save the receipt and take advantage of the warranties. It may cost you shipping down the road, but it's better than buying them again. Get a couple extra to use as replacements while the new ones are being shipped.
Some people say they don't like the look of the spiral fluorescent, but who ever sees them in proper home lighting with lamp shades, globes or wall mounted fixtures? And besides, we're at war.
Our PODS showed up this morning at 8am. For a couple of weeks, we've been living without all of our stuff and doing just fine without it. As each day passed, Vince and I had a growing sense of dread that we had a house full of schtuff on the way. Shitmas was coming, and Schanta was driving a greasy truck.
Last night, on Shitmas eve, Neill came over and had dinner with us, drank beer and watched VH1 classics. Adam Ant was so gay, and someone needs to remake a couple of his songs. I could hardly go to sleep with visions of shitty furniture and excessively unnecessary kitchen appliances dancing through my head. Merry Shitmas.
Matt, the tree guy, came over to give us an estimate on taking out some of the trees on our property. He hated to see me take out three older Dogwoods. After seeing that the re-grading of the yard had covered their root flares, he couldn't garantee they'd live much longer. From what I know about them, they only live about 45 years. These have to be about 30 aleady. Besides, we'll replant trees with a better chance of surviving construction and a better chance of having their own space.
Matt suggested if we planted maples to plant Sugar Maples. I'll look more into it later as we won't plant trees until late February or early March.
Vince and I settled on having about a third of the trees removed. A total of 11 trees will be cut and their stumps grinded to mulch. One particular tree beside the house Matt thought was a tree he called a "tree of Heaven," another invasive gift from China. The trees grow about 5 feet a year, and their sawdust is apparently so poisonous that it can cause cardiac arrest if inhaled. Matt may be right, but Mom and I looked up the tree on that Internets this morning and found the Black Locust matched the bean pods.
Our potted Queen Crimson and Lace Leaf Maples will hopefully arrive from Virginia next week without any significant damage.
If I knew what to do I would have pulled over and done it. It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway because I couldn't see how the side road even connected to the highway I was on. The cows were just standing in the middle of the road, chewing a cud or something. I imagine their owner would be along shortly and get them back onto their property.
When I got home, the washer, dryer and stove arived. It didn't take but a minute before the deliver guys were gone for Vince to start tossing pre-sorted piles of laundry into the front-load washer. As he sat and watched an entire load wash, I hung the last set of blinds. We're hungry as hell, but the doorbell just rang. It's my sister's family.
Contractors are coming and going putting small finishing touch-ups on the new house. Lots of deliveries are happening this week, and most of our stuff from PODS doesn't arive until close to the first of January. The internet is up, and Vince has already begun telecommuting to his Virginia-based employer.
The cats did not like being boarded for the week we had to wait before closing on the new house. I was really worried they would act out their behaviorial issues caused by the trip on the house and treat it like the world's largest scratching post, but after sitting with them for hours in the laundry room they eventually remembered each other, calmed down, and renegotiated who was the top kitty. I went to PetSmart and picked up a large cat scrathing tree. Luckily, they've not scratched the house once, but the furniture will arive tomorrow. That's when I let them know who they top kitty is, and that's non-negotiatable. If diplomacy fails, they will have told the world they prefer war.
Vince is setting up the computers later today, so I might have the webcam going then. We love the house! It was built by a home builder that constructed three other homes in the neighborhood. It's on the highest point in a neighborhood that is relatively flat throughout. We're about 5 miles either way to most of the stores and a major entrance to the interstate. We're situated on a 1/3 acre lot with a lot of landscaping potential. We're ripping through our budget to get things done, so posting will defintely be lite until we settle and twist the grass, sticks and gum foil until our Tennesee nest.
Vince and I are packing up today in preparation for moving to Tennessee next week. I saw this over at GayPatriot this morning about he and his partner's move from the D.C. area to North Carolina.
John and I have only been in Charlotte for one week, and are only able to move into the new house this weekend. But we have experienced such a change of culture that it has been quite eyeopening. We have been treated more as real-life human beings — with courtesy, respect and genuine acceptance — in the past week than during the six entire years we lived in the DC metro area.
The people we have encountered in Charlotte are so kind and open that it has been such a pleasant change from living in the “what can you do for me” environment of the nation’s capital. I am so happy to have made the move down here that I wonder what took me so long to escape the self-absorbed mindset of DC. [Relocation to Charlotte, Part II - GayPatriot - 12-09-05]
Don't mind the mess. You might notice a lot of packing today on the camera. That's because we are moving to Tennessee! We're in the process of selling our place here in Virginia and have a contract on our new place in Tennessee. If everything goes as planned, we'll be in the new place around December 20. Both Vince and I are extremely excited for this move up for the two of us and also being near both our families. It's been an amazing 8 years for me living and working here in the D.C. area, and we'll both take very fond memories, experiences and life long friendships to Tennessee with us. Here's to the changes 2006 will bring!
Here is the absolute latest image of our turkey cooking in what is probably the most live, most boring turkey blog post in America.
If the open source editorial board thingy today at Pajamas Media doesn't steal your attention away from all the fixings, come back and watch the movie. That's right, a movie ... of someone's turkey... cooking... in a rotisserie oven.
UPDATE 7:59pm - BBuuurrrrrrrrrpppppp ... and pumpkin pie.
Narrative
I met an amazing person today. His name is 
My first digital camera was in 1999. It was the Sony Mavica-71 with a 1.4M floppy drive! The monster cost over $700 and put about 30 pictures on one floppy. Vince wanted me to throw it away when we moved, but as I looked it over, I couldn't believe what a technological dinosaur it had already become. It was practically an antique. I kept it.
Here is one of the cannas we planted in the yard. Apparently these were extremely popular in the Victorian era when people's yards were as outrageously ornate as their home's architecture. 
As the winds picked up, we hopped in the Jeep and took Old Nashville Highway to the Toys R Us in Murfreesboro. We had been there before to get a birthday present for a nephew, so we knew exactly where to look. Tucked between games for the oldest kid's ages, there it was. The Rubix Cube! We got two and skadaddled across the parking lot back to the Jeep like fast-walkers in those black spandex thingies.
Ms. Twinkle Toes 2006, Biscuit Bowsky Boosky, loves to climb into the covers while the Daddy's are out daddying.
Before checking out the Ryman Auditorium, we were able to swing out to Nashville's replica of the Parthenon, erected to celebrate Tennessee's Centennial. 
Lena's sisters and other close relatives sat a couple of rows ahead of us occassionally leaning to one another sharing quick acknowledgements of memories. Lena Hunt left a lot of antiques behind she collected over the years. She even anticipated her estate would be auctioned this way, so she wrote meticulous notes on various items. 
The gazebo arrived Friday. It's really gorgeous. It sits among some cedar and elm trees in the corner of the property. The door faces north. The gazebo was built by 
Don't mind the mess. You might notice a lot of packing today on the camera. That's because we are moving to Tennessee! We're in the process of selling our place here in Virginia and have a contract on our new place in Tennessee. If everything goes as planned, we'll be in the new place around December 20. Both Vince and I are extremely excited for this move up for the two of us and also being near both our families. It's been an amazing 8 years for me living and working here in the D.C. area, and we'll both take very fond memories, experiences and life long friendships to Tennessee with us. Here's to the changes 2006 will bring!
