August « 2010 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

August, 2010

Auburn / iPhone / memories / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Aug 10

And now for something slightly different

We had lunch at the original Momma Goldberg’s today. You’re jealous, I can feel it from here. And I understand.

For the first time in a long time I did not hear Dave Matthews while we dined. Same slanted floors. Same newspapers covering the walls. Though, while waiting for our sandwiches I did hear two guys talking about the wall they were going to move and the expansion they were going to make.

I’m not sure how comfortable I am with that.

Momma G’s, if you are unaware, is one of those older, funky with time and dirt and graffiti places you have to experience. The food isn’t bad either. The place opened in 1976, still sits on the same choice corner lot and, despite a recent amount of franchise expansion, has remained perfect in its timelessness. It was the first place I ever ate, here, some now 15 years ago. Little has changed in that time.

C&A 4ever Aug. 1987

They’d still recognize it. You wonder if they made it to 4ever. They could be celebrating the 23rd anniversary of this little scrawl on the wall any day now. Maybe they’ve brought their kids to see it. Maybe they’ve been here with their eventual partner and sheepishly sat at some table, any other table than this one. We may never know.

But if you know, let me know.

I took a picture of the sign out front:

Momma G's

And then I ran it through an iPhone app, HDRforFree that I picked up last week:

Momma G's

Makes rust and distressed wood look great, but what do you think?

While sweating in the attic once again (this will never end, I fear) the police came by to visit. The Yankee did it.

I heard a voice at the door and walked back through the mudroom to investigate. Two nice young officers had knocked to deliver Official Literature. They want us to Do Something. (Seems The Yankee got away with whatever she did. And, just to throw the police off of her trail, she made some joke about how this and that had caught up to me. The police officers weren’t terribly concerned by this.)

This was National Night Out or National Get to Know Your Neighbors or National Get Bitten By Mosquitoes Night or something.

On the homefront: We are to that stage of unpacking, I believe, where we are trying to hide all of the things we need only occasionally. The attic situation is under control, the garage storage situation has been revamped twice more — but we’ve advanced now beyond that point and are merely focusing on emptying and removing the boxes. Progress continues apace.

errands / Monday / video — 1 Comment
2
Aug 10

Still unpacking

We have resolved our cable and Internet connection issues.

The guy came out to do this on Saturday, but he realized that the ones and zeros they use in Birmingham are different than the ones and zeros they use here. So he was ill-prepared which, somehow, meant he had to make a return trip with new equipment today.

So the equipment was brought. Things were connected. We had cable and the TiVo liked it and we’ve returned to the modern mediated culture. Or, rather, the 20th Century version of it. Our Internet connection is presently dial-up fast, which is not what we’d agreed to. The cable guy clucked and clicked and did all manner of professional looking things on his little pad. He pronounced it an office problem and that we must give them a call.

We did, they redirected a beam from a military satellite into our router and now we have NASA telemetry humming smartly through the network at a speed which makes Brian, our personal tech guy, jealous.

I made a series of phone calls today, which naturally means navigating a series of automated phone systems. I’d never thought of these as entertaining, but now I must. And I’m considering spicing up my own phone system recordings accordingly. One guy starts out “OK you already have service …”

I do a little voiceover work on the side, mostly web-based stuff, but lately I’ve been asked to do a little voice automation work too. This guy is beginning to make me feel as if I’m doing it wrong. I am for certainty, the occasional bit of enthusiasm but, mostly, authoritative. This guy really knows how to sell his passion with outright boredom.

Later, I get a more serious recording. I’m in one of those systems that requires a verbal input on my part. I start off by asking for things very casually. And at one point when I uttered a word that wasn’t in the program I was asked for a clarification. I replied with a synonym, in fake broadcaster morning banter voice, you know the one: “I’m Coffee!” “And I’m Cream!” from The Morning Zoo crowd.

That overzealous enthusiasm did not go over well. This recording is more serious. She said “I didn’t quite get that” with a scolding tone I haven’t heard in years.

Anyway. We’re all connected. Things are taking shape in the house. I’ve reorganized the garage once again. Sweated in the sauna-attic once more while storing things of not-so-vital national security. I finally figured out which cabinet holds the glasses and which drawer holds the silverware. Everything else is mostly a mystery. (I’m still learning the light switches.)

Fun. I watched The Most Interesting Man in the World tonight:

It was immediately followed by the Old Spice Man:

No one is man enough for that commercial sequence.

weekend — Comments Off
1
Aug 10

More boxes

All of the clothes are now out of boxes. I’ve reshuffled the garage configuration. I’ve been in the attic — which is a chore to be avoided in August, I’ve decided.

But it is so new. I’ve never had an attic with storage space, you see. My grandmother has one and I always loved the sound that door makes, all springy and rusty and just full of inviting tetanus, I’m sure. It is odd, my grandmother runs the home where so many of my memories take place. She is an incredibly warm lady, an excellent hostess and champion of baked goods, yet the sounds are what I think about the most. The mysterious creaking descent of the attic door, the wood-on-wood clatter of the decorative welcome sign on her front door, the whump and thud of the oven, these are the things that spring to mind.

Anyway. She has terrific attic space, and as a child it was the rarest treats to climb up there. There’s a lot of Christmas stuff hidden in the heat and rafters of her home, but who knows what else. Now I have my own. (But I don’t remember ever being as impressed by the heat in her attic as what I’m experiencing in mine.) I’m storing our Christmas stuff there and the components of the future projects I’m hoping to conquer. They’re next to the extra luggage and cardboard — oh the humanity of the cardboard.

And you can’t stay up there long. Because it is incredibly warm. But, I’ve laid out a system for the attic, and it is important you set such precedent when beginning in a new home. Things can’t be merely slung haphazardly about. You must gain control of that situation, and early. So we now have in place a line of march in the attic from items of greatest need, and thus easiest access, to things like the wardrobe boxes. They are incredibly useful and wonderful pieces of cardboard engineering, but we hope to store them for some time.

With order in place above us in the sauna-attic, life can continue peacefully for us in the climate controlled portion of the house.

We visited Lowe’s today, picked up new washing machine connectors — the six-foot ones cost a buck more than the five-foot model — and returned a few extra paint items. I re-connected the washing machine. We unpacked. I re-organized the garage again. I realized I’ll have plenty more reasons to back into the attic.

I realized we have a lot of boxes.