Trent's Photostream

Trent got a Fisher Price Kid Tough Digital Camera for his birthday and took about 80 pictures with it. I created a Picasa site for him and we've uploaded the best of his work. His self-portrait is to the left.

Water Rising

We're in the midst of a huge rainstorm. Lots of thunder and lightening. Very very frightening. The water level out by the street is rising. It may very well have reaching these level previously, but probably only while I wasn't home or when it was dark outside. This is the first time I've seen it in day light. I guess this is one of the downsides to living in an old cornfield. There's very little terrain for water flow. I hesitate to think what the crawlspace must look like at this point.

I posted some pictures on Flickr. There are gullies between those lamp posts and the street that are at least two feet below the level of the driveway.

Too funny.

I know that this is probably a little riske, but I found it hilarious.

http://www.thebbps.com/blog/2008/05/19/world-of-wifecraft/

Can't Think What To Do With That Cat Fur?

The other day Tina pulled a 3 inch ball of relatively densely packed fur out of our cat Random. We looked at for a while. Speculated about the vast quantity of allergens that it contained. In the end, we threw it away. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized that we could have done something as cool as this.

Front Porch Nest

Some birds have taken up residence in a nest on our front porch. They built a nest in a wreath we had on our front door. Obviously, we don't use our front door that often. But, to avoid any potential accidents, we carefully moved the nest off the front door to an a more fixed position nearby. The birds didn't seem to mind. There were eggs and then baby birds.

Best Comedy Sketches of All Time

I recently ran across a media piece where someone put together their list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches. Comedy is something that appears to change over time. All evidence suggests that there have always been people who have though SNL was funny. Just not the same people as the years have passed. I was a fan of the Dan Akroyd/John Belushi era and the Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo era. After filtering through the 50, here's my favorites.

• White, White Baby - In Living Color
• Mind Match - The State
• Four Yorkshiremen - At Last the 1948 Show
• Four Candles - The Two Ronnies
• Word Association - Saturday Night Live
• Ministry of Silly Walks - Monty Python
• The Racial Draft - Chappelle's Show
• Argument Clinic - Monty Python
• Who's On First? - Abbott and Costello
• Dead Parrot - Monty Python

Trent In The Shop

Trent loves the shop. He enjoys looking through the tools. He likes to go through my tool boxes and ask me what everything is. He particularly enjoys putting together and taking apart my various sockets on my ratchet wrench set. But, his interests go beyond the mechanical. When he eventually discovered the little multi-meter that I had in one of the toolboxes, he enjoyed using its continuity mode to go around the shop and test things to see whether they were conductive or not. The meter makes an exciting beeping sound when something is conductive and remains boringly silent when something is not.

Gutter Project

We've had some rain over the past few days, though I haven't yet been in a position to get out to the workshop and actually observe how the new gutter operates. I did get a chance to take some pictures. Here's the gutter running the length of the rear of the shop. Here's the downspout. The gutters are all vinyl and are the Raingo line.

Getting Some Things Done

It was a good weekend for getting some things done. We started off by renting a tiller from the local hardware store and plowing up some turf. Tina and I both took a shot at doing this job by hand before resorting to burning fossil fuels, but in the end, it was just so much faster to get the machine to do it. After getting getting the sod all tilled up, we raked as much of the sod back out as we could and then put in some peat moss to liven up the soil. A little more raking and hoeing and it should be ready for planting. Here's a picture of what it looked like at the end of the day.

I also got to start working on installing gutters on the shop. I put up gutters across the back of the shop. Basically across the back roof visible in the garden shot I linked above. I put up vinyl gutters. It was remarkably easy, though I have some concerns about the slope. Nothing is ever trivial. When I got up on a ladder this morning and looked, there was about a half inch of water in one part of the gutter. That's a mosquito breeding pool. Luckily, with our wind issues, that water will seldom be still.

I also got to take a few pictures of some of one of our flowering trees. This particular tree lives next to the north-east corner of the garage. From dawn till dusk it is abuzz with bees. It makes me a little nervous to be near it, though even up close it is hard to actually see any bees. They must be relatively high off the ground.

Returning to the Blogosphere

Well it looks like it has been about three months since I've posted. I guess it's been a busy winter. There are some new pictures posted over on Flickr. Mostly they're pictures of Trent. But there is a nice one of Tina and a couple of good ones of Tina and I dressed up to go out to a hospital fundraising benefit.

I had a good day hanging out with Trent yesterday. We were home because Trent had Pink Eye. Trent really likes tools. He can identify most of the tools in the shop. He can point out the jointer, the thickness planer, the drill press, the band saw, and the table saw. He likes to carry around my old power screwdriver and make buzzing sounds while holding it up to things. He also spent some time testing various things in the shop for conductivity using the continuity testing mode of a small volt-ohm meter I have out there. He would press the two probes onto an object and declare it either "conductive!" or "not-conductive!"

Trent Drives A Monster Truck

The Turners gave me a Nikko FJ Cruiser for Christmas. It's a remote controlled monster truck. Trent has mastered the doughnut maneuver.

Jingle Bells

Trent And The Dinosaur Fossil