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adventures / links / site / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
Aug 10

Warming the lamp

That was the afternoon. A threat of meteorological drama which pittered and flittered into nothing. But for a while it looked as if something was about to descend from the clouds.

But that was just part of the day. There was scanning. And scanning! And also I reproduced a digital representation of some real-world items into my computer. Finally, I placed things on a glass that covers a light, pressed a button and watch the light move in a predetermined back and forth fashion.

Took The Yankee out to dinner at the local First Date Place. Haven’t been there in maybe 12 years. (I’ve had dates since then, but just not there.) Provino’s has moved since my last visit. The new place though manages to retain much of the look of the old location. The restaurant was a little cleaner and brighter than my memory — but my recollections can be dusty and dim.

It was good back then and Provino’s was good tonight, too. The garlic rolls still come out in a pool of melted garlic. The salad is cheesy and … well, it is a salad, OK? She had the chicken francese, I had something that was acceptable, but wouldn’t be my regular dish.

Before we ordered The Yankee said “Maybe it will be like Rome.” And then the waitress walks up and says “My name is Amy Leigh and — ”

Yes, exactly like Rome.

Random things: Noted the Eight Commandments of the gas pump. There were more, but they didn’t focus group well. The second one is well written. I do not follow the one about cell phones, because I am not orthodox. I had a picture re-published on The War Eagle Reader. And, tomorrow, it is back to class; so tonight it is back to ironing.

adventures / errands / hobby / memories / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
12
Aug 10

Part of a day in pictures

Pretty bird

The cardinals in our neighborhood are very shy. I’ve been patiently chasing them, and finally got a picture or two of the male. We played this circling, chase game around the trees in the backyard. After a bit I changed the rules and went under the tree. He didn’t expect that.

Pretty bird

Tried to get some work done on the car today, but the shop I visited had a slight problem with a key machine this morning. The guy said the repair man was coming at noon. I left my number and asked him to call me when the machine was fixed so that he may hoist my car onto it.

Because, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from amusement parks and forgotten to extrapolate to the rest of our lives, you’d rather not be the first person up on the freshly repaired equipment.

So I went to a giant antique store. I’m saving that story for the weekend. I walked the whole place, no phone call. After an amount of time that is surely beyond what it should take to fix one machine, the mechanics of which I know nothing about, I returned to the shop. The repair guy hadn’t yet showed up. So I called it an afternoon.

Time and temp

That was the temperature when we went out for dinner. In other news, this is August, but still. We had dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, which is a place that The Yankee and I have never enjoyed together. There were two in Birmingham, for a time, but we have no memory of a mutual visit. So this is a new experience. This is also new:

Cheeburger

Cheeburger has always displayed the Polaroids of the hungry people who’ve eaten their one-pound burger (I’ve never tried). Previously the pictures covered the walls like a wallpaper, which was an interesting expression of growth, much like a celluloid bacteria. Haven’t visited in a while? Oh the pictures have expanded around the corner and down the baseboard. That sort of thing.

The last time I was here they were moving up to the ceiling. The surrounded-by-people-promoting-their-new-metabolic-problem atmosphere was a terrific exhibition. You couldn’t help but staring at the faces and the little notes people left behind. I understand why they went to the stacks, for space concerns, but this new display method ruins the point. You don’t want to look through pictures in stacks like that. It would feel like too much work, or feel too intrusive. So you just see the stacks on the wall and go about your meal.

I wonder when they finally make the decision to throw away some of the old pictures. Maybe they have a little ceremony.

We drove around until we found a field on a quiet country road where we could see the night’s festivities. I always oversell the Perseids in my mind. One of the astronomers on the Samford faculty sent us a note where he mentioned that some experts were expecting up to 100 visible meteorites per hour if you got in a good spot. I’ve learned to temper my expectations — I want 100 a minute, like some sort of movie theater intro film — but still haven’t learned to forget taking pictures of the event. This is the one I got.

Perseids

The background are actually stars I shot tonight. I caught no Perseid meteorites on my camera (The Yankee got TWO!) but we saw several and had a great time, sitting in the dark and quiet and heat of the evening. My best picture of the night:

A plane

The plane! The plane!@

adventures / Auburn / books / iPhone / recipes / site / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
10
Aug 10

Enter the band

Visited the local college bookstores today so The Yankee could make sure her texts were on the shelves. Found seven at one store, found four at the second store and met the very nice manager. Found a few at the third store. At the university bookstore we found a big stash. They are all expensive, but textbooks always have been.

I pointed out the prices. It always aggravated me when a professor was shocked to hear how much the text he or she demanded was costing the students. It is a simple enough thing, stop by the store and empathize, for just a minute. So that’s what I do.

The bookstores here let students rent books for the term. Oh you can still buy a $90 text and sell it back for $12. You can rent it for half that price and return it at the end of the term. Wish we’d had that option during undergrad.

My favorite book, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style has stayed the same low price these last 15 years. I appreciate that.

On the way back to the car we listened to the marching band. Is it football season yet? Apparently we’ll have a tribute to Frank Sinatra this year. They sound good, but the director insists you’ll hear more trumpet in this number when they are on the field.

I’m not faux-marching, I promise. Apparently I’ll need to work on hand steadying techniques before pulling out the iPhone. After this take they had a break and were then going to spend 45 minutes on Luck Be a Lady Tonight.

We put a lot of pictures on the walls this evening. Just a few more rooms to go on that project. We had a delicious dinner:

Delicious

Just add the veggies, shrimp, cooking wine, butter, salt and pepper to taste, stir over a respectable heat and serve.

We stood outside and watched the first of the Perseids (Thursday night is the big show), hung out with Jupiter to the east and tried to pick out unfamiliar constellations thanks to my new app, Planets. (That’s a great, free download.)

We had a great day. How was yours?

On the site: New, artsyish banners across the top and bottom of the blog. The blur across the top is the cardinal I vainly chased this afternoon. The one along the bottom is the yard in late evening repose. This is an excellent opportunity, then, to remind about the new banners page, meant more for me than for you, but nevertheless, see ’em again. Also, there’s a new picture on the home page.

And someone stop me: I’m thinking of redesign ideas.

adventures / Auburn / Friday / photo / Pie Day — Comments Off
6
Aug 10

Our first Auburn Pie Day

Our Pie Day options

I solicited recommendations for pie in Auburn. There was a tie. One of them I’ve tried before, and did not enjoy. So we went to Mike and Ed’s, which is new to me. It is owned by a lady who is named neither Mike nor Ed.

Mike and Ed’s uses the Zaxby’s model. Place your order, wait for your number, have a seat, get your drink and so on.

Tea?

Give them this, they do the drinks right.

The Yankee debated between ribs and a pork plate. I talked her into the pork, just in case she didn’t like it. This was her first experience with mustard-based barbecue sauce. She did not care for it much. I don’t blame her. I had the chicken, which was tender and reminded me of a good dry rub. And then they poured the sauce on it.

(Barbecue sauce is a regional thing. Your mileage may vary, but the Carolina sauces just don’t carry the same appeal for me. People that like the style are fans of Mike and Ed’s, we just have a different taste. We prefer the Texas and Kansas City styles.)

You saw the pie choices above. The presentation leaves something to be desired.

The pie

We tried the peanut butter because, really, how often do you run across that? It was rich and true to the name. It isn’t the sort of thing you would order too often. The restaurant itself is decent enough. It has an eat-and-go atmosphere, though, and Pie Day has always been more about the people — eating and lingering and fellowship — than anything else. So we’ll keep looking. That’s half the fun!

Give ’em this: Mike and Ed’s is displaying what they say are the hands to the clock on Old Main. It was built in 1859 and burned in 1887. I have a copy of this image and I’m not sure where the clock was, but that’s a cool piece of history if it is legitimate.

Any suggestions? Leave ’em in the comments.

In other, happy news, we’re finished with the unpacking. The boxes in the garage have been moved and emptied. So, I suppose, that means we’re settled. Now we just have to decorate.

adventures / Friday / friends — 1 Comment
30
Jul 10

We hereby resolve …

… To never move in July or August again.

The heat index was 108 at one point. We are so glad we hired movers. This company sent two young men who worked hard, sweat a lot, were courteous, extremely careful and did a terrific job. Those two guys were worth every penny.

The company did the estimate based on our self-reporting and then a phone call. The person that conducted the phone call interview erred in a big way. We did not have a big enough truck. The company couldn’t see beyond this error, and I couldn’t see allowing the company to profit from its own mistake.

Meanwhile, those two guys were doing a great job moving a lot of stuff on a ridiculously hot day.

So we scrambled for Plan B, which is hard to do on a Friday, at the end of the month just as college kids are getting ready to go to campus. There aren’t a lot of extra trucks sitting around.

Finally we found a little van which ably handled the overflow. The day started at about 7:30 and ran far, far, far too long. Even though we were well organized and fairly streamlined, even though The Yankee did an insane amount of work and I did my bit too, it still was not an uneventful day.

Moving is a nightmare, everyone knows this. But at least and at last you’ve made it to the point where the nightmare is upon you, rather than a pensive weight. Finally, you can just move stuff, move it again and then be finished with the exercise. Even if it seemed you’d never be finished during the preparation. Especially if it seems you’ll never be finished on the fateful day.

I picked up a late lunch on the way out of town. I complimented the guy at the Chick-fil-A window for doing me an extra little favor. He seemed surprised by that, but the day was such by then that I needed to compliment someone as much as he needed to hear a compliment. And the move wasn’t even bad, really. We had the help, who were indispensable. We had the heat, which was ridiculous. We had the mad scramble to solve a problem, where we lucked out. Still: it was a day of serious moving.

We’ll be ready, soon, to never speak of it again.

But we must speak of our friends. On the days when you find you need your friends the most, you are at your most grateful for whatever thankless task they are willing to endure with you.

RaDonna came by in the late morning and was able to spend a few hours with us. She was a big shot of momentum when we needed the help, in between her own big day of chores.

Brian came after he finished work for the day and did his usual Brian best. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone who’s ever been more giving to friends than Brian has always been to us. Moving someone in 100-plus temperatures — always with a smile, always with a good suggestion and always ready to work hard — has to be up there.

Oh, sure, he’d tell you it got him out of a baby shower, but he didn’t have to spend the day moving boxes to avoid that.

On the other end of the day Fin helped unload boxes. He said when and where, we told him, he showed up and he sped the second half of the process along in smooth fashion.

We still had to change a car battery and run another round of errands, and it was a long, late, bruising, lacerating, sweaty day. But we’re done with it. We’re moved.