AllanThinks

Mother Nature is kind of a bitch this time of year.

The weather has been glorious the past two days. Sunny, warm, an barely a cloud in the sky.

Yesterday Alison and I took our cameras, and went for a long walk down to the University campus, where we took photos and did some shopping. We ended up stopping at Pazzo's Pub, one of our favorite watering holes, where we sat out on their patio, drank a few beers in honor of St. Patrick, and enjoyed an appetizer of pesto bread.

We ran into some old friends of mine, and were later joined by some more friends who shared a couple of pitchers of Kentucky Ale, and some more appetizers with us. They were kind enough to give us a ride home five hours after we had set out on our adventure.

Today, we rode our bicycles downtown to Third Street Stuff Coffee and Gift Shop, where Alison had iced tea, and I had iced coffee. We haven't had the bikes out of the garage since last fall. It was great to ride again, despite having to navigate the terrible traffic in this town. The ride home was during rush hour, and my knuckles were white by the time we got home.

It would be nice to do it again tomorrow, but the weather is expected to be rainy, and the temperature some 25 degrees lower than it was yesterday and today.

This winter has seemed twice as long as usual for Kentucky. I am so over it. But it looks like it will be a while before the spring weather will be here to stay.

Snake In The Grass

Clicking the image will take you to its Flickr page. You can see a larger version there.

I took this photo last evening at the birthday party of a friend. An adult friend.

This 10 foot long python was one of about a dozen snakes and lizards brought by a local man who rescues reptiles from abuse and neglect. He supports his work by hiring them out for events like this.

Granted, most of the birthday parties he works are for kids, but no matter. There were lots of kids in attendance at the party last night, and they all had a blast handling all the creatures.

I ran home and grabbed my camera, which I forgot when I first went over there.

There are more photos on my Flickr photostream, and I have more to upload.

And for the photogeeks:

Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0/6 EV

Our First CSA Share

Clicking the image will take you to its Flickr page. You can see a larger version there.

This is the haul for our first week's garden and meat shares from Elmwood Stock Farm. Elmwood is one of two (that we know of) CSA Farms in our area. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

We've been talking about participating in this program for a while, wanting to do what we can to be more responsible consumers. And we found that we had been buying more of our food from local farms at the Farmer's Market.

So this year we finally signed up.

Included in our basket this week were:

Asparagus
Green Garlic
Spinach
A mixture of three lettuces
A quart of fresh strawberries
A pound of ground beef
A free-range roasting chicken

All of these are organically raised. The newsletter included in the box said they also had radishes, but they must have had limited quantities, as we didn't get any.  But that's okay.

We are very pleased with what we did receive. It was more than I expected this early in the season. 

We ate the lettuce last night, and today at lunch. We had strawberries for dessert. Tonight, Ali roasted the hen, and some of the asparagus. It was all great. We're going to eat very well this summer.

Cockpit

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Ali and I bought a new car last Friday. It's a 2007 Honda Civic LX.

We've needed a second car since she moved here, and we finally bought one.

We still have the 2002 Jetta, but plan to trade it in soon for another new car. The Jetta is out of warranty, and is becoming a maintenance nightmare. It spent the week we were in Washington in the shop, and cost me $1200 plus for repairs.

We are still trying to decide what to replace it with. We've talked for some time about buying a pickup truck or small to mid-size SUV for the utility they would provide for hauling things like furniture and garden supplies. The Honda Element seems like a pretty good fit.

But last night, while we were out to dinner with the local Drinking Liberally group, our friend Elle suggested to me that the Civic was now our 'sensible' car, and that the second new car should be something fun. Like a convertible.

She went on to tell me how much fun her Miata convertible is.

And, those of you who read Mike's blog, know how much he loves his new Miata convertible.

What to do? What to do?

I could SO live here.

Clicking the image will take you to its Flickr page. You can see a larger version there.

It really is this beautiful on the Olympic Peninsula.

Reference

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Here I am doing some research for the dinner party we are hosting for a couple of friends tonight.

We spent yesterday afternoon shopping for it, visiting our local liquor emporium and gourmet food shop, the Liquor Barn. Yes, it is actually called that, and yes, it's huge.

We stocked up on wine and beer, some munchies for before dinner, and deli meats to cook on our raclette grill.

After dinner we are going to watch the Grammy Awards on television. The Police are opening the show!

It Works!

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Alison and I spent the afternoon shopping for a new showerhead. When we were in New York City over the Christmas holiday, the bathroom of our hotel room had a rain style showerhead with an attached hand shower wand.

I fell in love with it the four days we were there. I have found similar ones through Internet searches, but none that were just like the hotel had.

So after lunch today we set out on a quest to find something at least similar at local outlets. We visited Home Depot and Lowes, but couldn't find what we really needed. We also stopped at a couple of bathroom fixture galleries that sold really high end stuff.

At one of them the sales woman told us that what we wanted to do was not possible with out going to a lot of expense. It would entail ripping out the wall and replumbing. I knew that what she told us was a bunch of BS. She was just trying to sell us something that cost hundreds of dollars more than we needed.

So we came home. I did some more looking around the web, and came to realize that I could accomplish what I wanted to do, with locally acquired, and relatively inexpensive fixtures.

Ali had an appointment late this afternoon for a massage, so after I dropped her off for that, I headed over to another Home Depot location. There, I found just what I needed. I purchased the pictured six inch diameter downpour showerhead, and a diverter valve to attach our present handheld shower to it.

When we got back home, I set about installing the new showerhead. It took a bit of time to get everything attached, and tightened to prevent leaks, but I finally got it done.

And it works! The rain shower rocks, and when the diverter valve is switched, the handheld shower delivers a good strong stream just like it always has.

I then cooked dinner for us. Ali offered to cook tonight, but I wanted her to relax and not lose the benefit of her massage.

I'm really tired now, but it is a good tired. There's nothing like a feeling of accomplishment to make the hard work seem worth it.

Originally posted on my Flickr Daily Photo Diary.

How crazy do you have to be?

How crazy do you have to be to stand out in the pouring rain with a $2000 camera taking pictures of two 747 jumbo jets parked on an airport tarmac?

Don't answer that.

That's how Alison and I ended a wonderful afternoon at the Keeneland September Yearling Sales.

Yes, we had a wonderful time despite the pouring rain. It is always nicer when the sun shines on Keeneland, as it did when we walked around the place (without our cameras) on Sunday afternoon. But we still had great fun watching the horses and the people, and taking dozens of photos.

This was the second day of the sale, and the action was brisk and at times exciting. While we were there, several horses sold for more than a million dollars. The record for this sale, so far, was set today when one yearling went for $11.7 million.

We assume that it was purchased by the owner of one of the jumbo jets, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum from Dubai, or perhaps by his brother, Sheikh Hamdan, the owner of the other 747.

This was Ali's first time attending the Keeneland sales, and I feel sure she will write about it soon. I think she had a good time. I've been to the sales many times before, and this trip was just as exciting as ever.

Be looking for our pictures on our Flickr photostreams in the coming days.

Early Evening Conversation

While driving home, seeing a bicyclist dressed in dress shoes, dress pants, white, short-sleeved dress shirt, navy blue sweater-vest, and helmet:

Me: "Look at him!"
Her: "Um. Yeah."
Me: "He's quite nerdy looking."
Her: "I was about to say that he was a suburban nerd boy."
Me: "That would be a great name for a punk rock band."
Her: "Yeah."

That got me thinking about other possible names for a punk band.

Leave your suggestions for names in the comments. Help get my Google hits up.

Whoop!

Local blogger and friend Elle passes on a rumor that Trader Joe's might soon open a store in Lexington.

If the rumor proves to be true, I will be a very happy camper. The closest store to us is located in a northeastern suburb of Cincinnati. It's a two hour drive from Lexington. A drive we don't mind making, but with fuel prices what they are, one we don't make too often. When we do, we stock up.

Sirius. I'm serious!

Click the image. You might win a valuable prize.

After hemming and hawing for almost a year, I finally purchased a satellite radio receiver for the car. Alison, the kids, and I are heading to Pennsylvania tonight.

I decided that the only way I would survive the drive across the radio wasteland that is Ohio, would be to  buy the radio and subscribe to Sirius.

We were first introduced to Sirius last summer when I borrowed my sister's Jeep for one of my trips to Pittsburgh. It didn't take me long to fall in love with it, but not in love enough to convince me that I would get my money's worth having it in my own car. With the exception of the occasional road trip, I'm not in the car that much.

But lately we have found ourselves spending way too much time tuning around trying to find anything worth listening to on the Lexington airwaves.  That gets tiring and frustrating very quickly.

So with this trip pending, I decided to take the plunge. On Saturday, while Ali and the kids were at a nearby park splashing around in the pool, I headed to Best Buy, where I purchased the nifty radio you see in the photo above. I also made an appointment to have it installed.

While I was out and about, I ran to the mall and purchased a pair of Crocs for Ali and a pair for myself. They are great summer shoes, and will come in handy when we wade through the creek on the property in Pennsylvania where we will be visiting next week.

The appointment for the radio installation was yesterday morning. It only took about 90 minutes to complete, and another 5 minutes for me to call Sirius and start my subscription. It was really nice to have the tunage as I made my way back to the mall to exchange our Crocs for the sizes we needed. Insert eye rolling emoticon here. Yep. The ones I bought on Saturday were a size too small.

Oh well, at least I didn't have to drive all the way across town to exchange them.

I need to wrap this up and start packing. We will be leaving in less than 5 hours. We will take our computers with us, so you will likely hear from us both in the coming days.

The Hippification of Allan

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First the ear piercing, then the yogurt machine, and the sprout jar.

And now I am the proud owner of my first pair of Birkenstock sandals.

I am so thankful to have a woman in my life who loves me and encourages me to be the person I really am.

I've waited a long time to be this happy.

Finally!

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Ali and I finally got our new sectional sofa. We received a call on Thursday from the store where we ordered it to let us know it had arrived.