Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Pandora’s Box

wow, things have been quiet here at the ‘hut.  Not only are visits down, but most all of them seem to be brief, random websearchs for various weirdo stuff I’ve mentioned over the years.  Of particular interest lately: a speed racer image, the Very Berry cereal box, the Black-and-Mild cigarette box, and people searching for “schvitz Cleveland.” By repeating these phrases, I am likely to double my traffic today.  But not my readership, because I don’t think any of these folks are actually reading the site.  They’re just window-blogging – like window-shopping, but on line.  Anyway, I’m basically now doing the literary onanism thing – self-satisfaction through literature, or whatever it is I’m posting here.  I write for myself; if you’re here to read it, I hope you enjoy it.  And on that subject:

He said it was his sister’s car.

We were shopping to replace one of the old red soobs - we’d been up and down the bay, checking out any number of questionable people selling even more questionable vehicles, and I was getting pretty jaded. It had gotten to the point that I could count on being lied to, misled and tricked.  The world seemed to be full of slimeballs selling scuzzbucket cars, and we just kept our expectations low as we went from one to the next. 

My daily commute home takes me past one particular place we visited to see a car during those dark days.  Of all the sleazemongers we met during that journey of automotive inquiry, I think the guy we met that evening was the sleaziest.  In fact, I bet he’d have been proud to have won that title, that’s how sleazy he was.  He was swarthy and his skin sort of shone with a sheen of sweat and grease.  Black hair fell in gloopy shocks over his face and an anemic moustache sputtered its way under his thumb of a nose - a moustache that mostly served to accentuate his round wobbly jowls.  His eyes were dark and shifty.  A paragon of credibility was not the first thing that came to my mind when I laid eyes on him that night.

We’d arranged to meet him after work at an auto body shop on Geary between the ‘loin and the civic center, a sort of orphaned district without an actual name of its own.  I think I was sort of “dressed for success;” he was in a blue-grey jumpsuit with somebody’s name stitched over the breast.  Even at the time, I doubted it was his. 

The car in question was not noteworthy in itself - another in a string of pre-owned four-door station wagons, hatchbacks and small vans. It was a bit more tired and worn-out than most that we checked out, as I recall, but it was also priced to sell.  I wanted to believe it wasn’t a deathtrap money pit.  At least, to give it the benefit of the doubt, we took it out for a spin. 

Kel sat in back, I drove, and the dude in the jumpsuit rode shotgun. We pulled into traffic neatly enough and puttered around the neighborhood for a few minutes.  I’d asked my stock question, “why is this car for sale?,” and he was telling me about his sister, how she got it for grad school and now she didn’t need it anymore, or something; he’d checked it out for her when she’d bought it a few months ago and she really hadn’t used it much since then, or something; and anyway, he was definitely telling us it was his sister’s car. So we could trust him.  I mean, he’s a brother, and all. 

We’re stopped in traffic. I ask about the paperwork on the car - registration, insurance, all that.  He pops the glove box to show me.  The plastic door drops open; several empty lowbrow beercans fall straight into his lap and roll to the floor.  Behind them tumble several familiar plastic sachets, flat and square, linked end to end - a floppy little chain of cut-rate condoms cascades in an accusatory prophylactic gesture toward his crotch. 
He giggles, embarrassed, and tries to stow the evidence, but it’s too late for that.  We’ve seen it all. And how can we buy this car from this man now?  He had proven himself, and by extension, his car, unworthy of any credibility.  After all, his sister is obviously a total slut. 

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Ocular Gluttony

Man, that was a fine long weekend for ol’ Chuckles.  I got a nap most every day, ate my fool head off, and enjoyed many sterling moments with family, friends, and good architecture.  I won’t bother you with too many words about it all because I don’t feel like writing a whole bunch right now and the photos are better evidence anyway.  But let’s start at the beginning. 

T-grabbing was a really festive event, and we made it there on time which was a matter worthy of thanksgiving all by itself.  We cruised down to S&H’s place on the ‘ninsula, which they had painstakingly coverted to child-safety-mode on Z’s behalf.  There were 9 adults, and five of us had been born outside of the US - Greece, Greece, Iran, Iran, and (East) Germany.  It was quite a cosmopolitan crowd (though my cocktail of choice was VSOP).  As evidence, we took a short stroll after supper to clear out some room for dessert, and here’s what we found at the office complex one block down:

Happy Pagan XMas!  What says “Seasons Greetings” better than larger-than-life-sized statues of Mars and that other dude with the intact equipment?  How about a huge balloon spraying beanbag chair beans around inside of it over a pair of smiling, waving Snow-Golems?  (see tiny head of young girl in foreground for scale.) Yay holidays! 

After TG, we got home and I fell asleep like a warm rock on xanax.  The next day I woke up with inexplicable energy and we went out to the mall.  Not the regular mall down by SFSU, and not the fancy downtown mall - we went to the other fancy downtown mall, the one that just opened.  It was quite the retail palace, and Z got kind of wacko running around the shiny floors under the giant old cut-glass dome.  Had he been calm enough we could have even done some shopping, but at least I saw some good design work.  I think some other stuff happened on Friday but all I really recall was seeing Born Into Brothels on a dvd that night, which wasn’t exactly your typical holiday fare but it was really good. 

Saturday morning we got up early again and took the boy down to Ft Point to burn off some energy.  This is a civil-war era fort build of bricks right at the south tip of the “golden gate” of SF Bay.  When they built the bridge, they put in a special archway to overspan this austere martial relic.  This is a spot that gets a lot of wind and rain and fog, so the bricks and iron have taken on some really cool patterns, which I have taken it upon myself occasionally to enhance with some of the ol’ Protoshop fiddlingnesses.  To wit:

(see, it’s really under the bridge!)

(holding back the bay:)

(the front door to the fort:)

(old-ass canonballs, with a little post-production magic thrown in:)

(Zachary frolicking amidst the cannonades, courtesy of Kel:)

Saturday night we saw what may have been the world’s most modest parade.  Union Street is a very fancy shopping district in the marina; they had a “Parade of Lights” this year and we went down to see it.  There were some elves on rollerblades (and a hot little elfette too), an antique fire truck with some xmas lights on it, a pickup truck with santa in the back and some lights on it and a tree on the cab, a nice old stutz or some such classic car with the “crystal snow queen” in the back (I was looking but didn’t notice any cocaine), an ordinary black car with a man in a bear suit in the back, a pickup with no lights on it, two cable cars converted into tourist busses, an antique horse ambulance, and three horses with hussar-type riders.  I think that was it.  Took about five minutes to go past.  But it was fun to see it, so no actual complaints here - just a little snarky irony for now.  Let’s see how the season pans out.  I may return to this subject if necessary for my own self-amusement.

And finally, so far as you-all are concerned, Sunday was full of small achievements and restful silences, but after Z woke up we wound up finally making the connection with our dear friend Tanja da Bomb, who was in town with a friend who was working a crafts fair.  Tanja herself was not selling her own crafts there because it was thematically inconsistent, but if you wanna get like her, just check it out here.  Meanwhile, we got a few hours to catch up and let her fall in love with young master zaq, and who can blame her?

Other than that, there was a lot going on this weekend.  I’d have to say it was mostly really cool.  Regardless, I am not feeling overly wordacious about any of it right now so the photos will have to do.  I can’t imagine it’ll really put much of a crimp in your monday to be deprived in this way.  If it starts to rankle, apply an unguent.  If it rankles bad, drop me a line.  I could use a giggle. 

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Another Stupid List

Okay, obviously, enough with that “how lovely to be part of this glorious now” crap.  You’ve had a crawful, and I’m a little tired of not being on vacation yet.  For now, I’ve got a great banquet to attend tomorrow, a bunch of errands to run on my way home from work tonight, and a quivering fistful of holiday spirit for each and every one of you. 

For your entertainment during this time of gluttony and indulgence, I offer up a list that l have spent way too much time thinking about over the past month or so:

Names that Parents Give Children to Remind Them of Where They Were Conceived (Excluding Proper Nouns):

Otis
Ferris
Booth
Davenport
Jim
Cruz
Bertha
Cab
Carson
Ally
Piers
Hall
John
Atticus
Rufus
VestiBulah
Barnaby
Lodge
Dinah
Abby
VatiKen
MIkea
Forrest
Lon
Meadow
Eartha
Bandcampia

Always a pleasure serving you.  Wipe your chin. 

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Thanking Things Up

This just seems like an excellent time to recognize a few things that are going right.  The old bitch-and-moan thing is getting a little tired, I think, and I’ve had cause lately to be very grateful for many things.  Without getting maudlin about it, life could be one hell of a lot worse.  And here’s a nice decipuntal list of just what I mean:

Delessio Market just opened up a second location at the foot of the panhandle.  For outliers, that means they’re just one neighborhood over from my home.  And that means easy access to fresh rabanada.  Good in some ways, very very bad in others.  I’m gonna label this as “thankful but ominous,” and move on. 

My niece Rebecca’s bat mitzvah was celebrated this past weekend.  She did a fabulous job under challenging circumstances: it was a long service; she had a special old rabbi come visiting from India and he was a tough act to follow; and she was at Sherith Israel – a damn fancy synagogue.  Regardless, she did great.  Congratulations, Rebecca!  Remember, only fakin-bakon and s-ham from here on out!

We attended, right after the bat mitzvah, an important and informative preschool fair and application seminar.  It’s not the sort of thing I’d get overly excited about, except we needed the information and now we’ve got it.  Thank you, SFUSD.  You’ve got some really good child development centers out there, and now I know exactly what I’ll have to do to tunnel my child up into one of them. 

Yay – more babyproofing!  This weekend saw the removal of the lame toilet-lock in anticipation of the good one (that he can’t open and that I don’t need to hold up by hand when circumstances so demand), and the application of several new restraining and thwarting devices.  It seems that Zach has suddenly learned to overcome almost all our initial babyproofing efforts.  He’s very creative, that boy.  It’s not like we’re safe now, but we’re safer, and that’s a positive step through the maze of electrical, choking, and shattering hazards that we now call home. 

AK Subs is in the ‘hood.  Don’t know how SoMa hipness got over to Outer Clement, but there ya have it.  Damn fine pastrami and truly exceptional service butcher counter and charcuterie.  As if I didn’t have enough reasons to eat fat. 

The new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park is looking super dooper uber ultra cool.  I go by weekly now to check the progress.  They’re decking the roof and finishing the second four-story globe – this one, I think, will house a rain forest exhibit.  I cannot wait for them to open it.  Because then the guys in hard hats will stop throwing me out every time I wander through. 

Zachary got his social security number.  It took way too long and I still have more federal paperwork to deal with, but a number has been assigned.  He’s in the system.  Good luck telling me it’s all been a clerical mistake now, suckers. 

Pho Tu Do is back!  These guys were the best viet place around, and then they got all snooty and full of themselves and “pan-asian with a vision of local influences and world sensibilities” or some such crap.  Anyway they turned into a restaurant named after a non-existent address, to which no one went, so now they’ve wised up and they’re back at their old game.  Hot pho tai, onion crepes, and a glass of coconut milk and grass jelly threads for dessert…. It’s what we really needed in the face of the oncoming winter.  I guess they got rid of the cool bamboo-forest wallpaper, but I can still just bring my own from home. 

They’ve finished seismically bracing my office building.  It’s taken many months of scaffoldings and irregular grating noises after 5 pm, but it looks pretty good as far as these things go – heavy iron brackets rising from the corners of the building to a peak at the center of the third floor.  Well, it’s better than it sounds.  Mainly because it sounded like hell with all the drilling and grinding and scaffold-building and such.  But now it’s done, and that is truly a great relief. 

A few weeks ago I was heading home on my familiar bus when I noticed that a woman’s clothing store had closed.  I think it was The Limited or something like that, a place with a big high-traffic location at Geary and Grant right off the square.  Well, I guess I’d seen before that they had closed.  What I hadn’t noticed, and it shames me to realize how long it seems it had been that I hadn’t been noticing, was The Weinstein Gallery that had opened in that location.  Damn, that place is totally loaded with good-ass art.  And for the record, that’s just how Picasso would have said it.  Come on, the man has “ass” right in the middle of his name. 

As do I, come to think of it – as do I.  One more thing to be thankful for, among many.  Hope your Tuesday goes easy on you.  Just because I’ve stopped listing things, that’s no reason to stop being thankful. 

Saturday, November 18, 2006

An Honest Mistake

I don’t get any special kick out of giving up my seat on the bus, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do.  It drives me crazy to see an infirm old woman barely able to keep on her feet on a rocking, jostling ride to the Westside, with four fit young people on the bench right in front of her, none of them doing a thing to help her out.  Or people who won’t get out of the way of a wheelchair, or who sit in the reserved front seats while some dude with a walker hovers next to them, too well-raised to ask for his due.  Or, of course, when a heavily-pregnant woman, laden with bags, teeters on swollen ankles in a buffeting crowd that offers her no assistance, to say nothing of a place to sit down.  Most of the mamzers on the bus seem to have no manners, nor decency, nor even mere inherent nobility.  They just sit there selfishly working a sudoku or texting. 

It’s not unusual for me to offer up my seat by hand gestures to someone several rows away, who by rights should have been offered a seat by someone much nearer.  But NO.  I’ve got to be the nice guy.  I’ve got to make it my problem. 

And yea, even such guilt-driven acts of kindness doth bear me bitter fruit: for a woman got on the bus at Masonic and I think I shouldn’t have offered her my seat.  If not, it was an honest mistake, but that doesn’t’ seem to have made much of a difference.  I wasn’t making someone else’s problem my own – I was creating a problem where one really didn’t exist.  And here’s how:

I was sitting toward the back of the bus across from the rearmost doors.  The bus pulled up at Presidio and all three sets of doors flipped open.  Across from me, down on the sidewalk, framed by the stairwell, stood a really big woman.  She was tall, with glossy straight hair to her lumbar and dark ink all up and down both arms.  Her jewelry was simple, heavy, tribal.  She wore a beautiful, brightly-colored dress with a wide, flowing drape, and she was big: like “great with child” big.  The way her belly belled out from beneath her not-inconsiderable bosoms, I figured her for 8+ months.  She also carried a capacious handbag, and she was having trouble finding a place to stand on the crowded bus, still stuck in the doorwell, blocking the doors from closing. 

It was a no-brainer – I caught her eye, signaled her – would you care for this seat?  The forcefulness of her response took me a bit aback – NO, she would not like my seat.  She wasn’t rude, but she sure was firm.  She’d rather stand.  I let it go. 

Within a few minutes she’d worked herself, with considerable strength and grace, near the very back of the bus.  Another rider offered his seat to her.  Again, she vigorously declined, but the dude wouldn’t take no for an answer and pretty much forced her to sit on the back bench.  In ill humor, she took the seat, wedging her pendulous self between two other suddenly-crowded riders.  As she sat, I noticed that her ankles and calves were remarkable: large, chunky – a big woman’s legs.  A further glimpse now at her arms - enormous.  Her shoulders: massive.  Oh snap.  That belly wasn’t any different from any other part of her.  She wasn’t pregnant- she was just plain old big. 

I watched her stew with the indignity of having one condition, reviled, taken for another, revered.  That some other jerk had done it worse, more blatantly than I had, was no consolation to me.  I’d insulted her because I’d offered her my seat because she was fat.  Just to make up for it I left two guys with walkers standing in the aisle all the way downtown the next day.  You’d think that it would have made me feel better, but it really didn’t very much. 

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

From Page 26 (sportsmen’s paraphernalia) of the Sierra Trading Post “Sierra Outdoor” Catalogue, W’06

* 9 mm neoprene reinforced with Kevlar®.
* Rubber-coated ends
* Sounds of prey in distress quickly bring predators into view.
* Call in your limit
* Jezebel Twist Tone Duck
* Blows wet
* Final Flight Goose Flute captures the mellow tunes of the Canada Goose.
* Mouth Adjustable Grunt/Bleat
* Reproduce bleats, mews, estrous does, grunts and intense popping
* …Diaphragm allows you to mimic bulls, cows and calves.  Simply flip over for versatility.
* 42 lb. cocking effort
* Discriminating airgunners

Okay you discriminating airgunners, bring on your worst.  I expect a wet and intensely popping wednesday.  That’s why I’m mouth-adjustable and Kevlar-reinforced.  And now I’m outta here.  It’s time to call in my limit. 

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Containment Failure

I do tend toward an extreme loyalty towards certain inanimate objects.  There have been jackets, backpacks, and knickknacks that I held onto long after they’d ceased being appropriate for public use.  In all these cases, I endured the aspersions of my peers for the hedonistic satisfaction of an un-updated look.  I kept those objects around - right up until they stopped being useful to me,. But then, of course, I got rid of them.  Once something’s not useful, it’s not beautiful anymore.  Or something along those lines.

That’s why I don’t understand why I don’t seem able to get rid of my lousy tupperware.  I swear, it’s been a piece of crap for at least a year.  I use it almost every day to hold my mainstay luncheon salad - a weighty mix of greens and veggies and shredded roast chicken.  Oh yeah, and the raisins and slivered toasted almonds too, and then feta chunks on top.... mmm, yeah.  And dressing. 

Damn.  Vinaigrette.  It’s all gonna piddle away. My old salad bowl tupperware stays sealed for the thick and viscous dressings, and even handles those that have a pretty fast pour.  But once you get down to something that’s basically oil and vinegar, that stuff’ll just work its way out of the closed container and right into my lunch bag.  No matter how I try to keep it flat, it always somehow tips over and all the dressing dribbles out the edges.  I put my lunch, including some fruit and bread and maybe a cookie and of course the tupperwared salad, into a plastic shopping bag, so leaky dressing usually doesn’t get all over everything.  Instead, I get a nice plastic sack of salad juice, in which the bread and fruit and Tupperware container marinate odiferously.  I have to towel everything off as I pull it of the bag out or it’ll spew juices all over my desk and pantlegs. 

Of course, some days my plastic sack turns out to have a nice big hole in it, or a rip or a tear, that basically acts as a drain for all that runny watery salad dressing I’ve wasted on my mostly-dry salad that day.  The dark colored, strongly scented liquid escapes, naturally, from the lunchsack into the interior of my messenger bag, tinting and perfuming my most important and needful possessions.  And since I eat a lot of salads and we keep buying the cheap, tasty vinaigrette at TJ’s, I keep having these dressing blowouts.  It’s getting so I put the salad in a secondary, smaller, more reliable, auxiliary bag.  I seek to minimize consequences (leakage) by planning for them (baggage).  The underlying problem (lameage of tupperwarage) persists.  In short: I need a new damn salad bowl.

Why I don’t get one, I can’t say.  I see them often enough, but I always tell myself, “I’m not buying that right now.  I’m on a different errand; I can find better for less somewhere else.” There’s always some excuse and I cleave to it reflexively.  Well you know what?  I’m not buying that anymore.  Putting this down on paper so plainly for myself impels me to do what I’ve had to do for too long.  If this blasted writing project that is this “internurt” of yours has one single positive impact on this sorry old planet we call home, it’ll be this: It will force me to replace my tupperware saladbowl for lunch.  And it’s about goddamn time. 

Friday, November 10, 2006

panning for gold

Wow, it’s Friday already and I have not posted anything here since Monday.  I take that as evidence of a sudden burst of productivity, at home and at the office.  The details of my accomplishments are not just meaningless to anyone but myself, they are too petty to be described – but today is a day off work and I get to hang for a while with the family and even hang out with the amazing Z-meister.

HOWEVER: I don’t think I’d be truly focused on the here-and-now if I didn’t take care of a two-birds-one-stone thing here: I want to get a bit of metered writing off my mind, and I want to put something new on this blog, something more like creative writing than that “what I did on my Halloween vacation” dealie I’ve got downstairs.  The following story is true.  Only the pretentious phrasing has been changed to embarrass the participants.

High above me cliffs aspired
roasted by a baking sun
that blazed upon me as I stood
as far into the churning current
I could dare myself to wade
Feet dug into sandy gravel
chilly river to my kneecaps
flashing silver blue transparent
swirling in my gravelpan
searing sun on rushing snowmelt
flecks of pyrite, drops of gold
mind washed clean by rocking waters
open for discovery
From behind me came the native
flash of olive rippleslithered
shocked the breath up from my belly
Snake shot clean between my hamstrings
big, substantial, flickerswimming
proudly furled upon the surface
barely felt myself bisected
snake had bigger fish to fry
and swam ahead for deeper waters
left me panning tenuously
in his stream.

Good times, people.  That incident happened when I was 14 or so, up in the coastal mountains, and it totally made up for my disappointment at the horehound candy I’d bought at the pioneer store earlier that day.  Lesson learned: as far as horehound goes, the missing “w” makes a difference.  Tell the president.  And with that, have a good weekend – I’m out of here. 

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Where the Wild Things Were

Yes, virginia, technically, I’m back.  I seem to have a sore throat and some sort of feverish condition but it’s better than being on the road, that’s for damn sure - and you can check that with Zaq and his headcold and HFM disease.  Yes, HFM has struck our family.  The full name is “hand, foot and mouth disease,” a viral infection related to measels and various pox, though not to hoof and mouth disease, which is, I suppose, as good as it’s gonna get.  I also think of the acronym as standing for “how marvelous.” Am I missing a letter?  Fill in the blank, dudes. 

But the point is, I’m home, yahshure, from a truly delightful trip to Seattle for a christening with Kel’s whole fan-damily and to Portland for halloween with my sister and to see my mom, who’s just moved to the PNW.  Then we had a day off and then we drove to L.A. for a conference and a few brief precious moments with my dad and my good bloggy buddy the Blissternator.  Not many photos from that leg of the journey, sadly, but who am I to deny you a peek at the main events?  And so, here they are:

First came Nate’s christening.  Uncle Frankie was named a godparent, and you can see why in this photo - he’s literally juggling the little children (in this case, his daughter Maile and my little Z-man). 

Once we got to Portland, Zach and his cousin Deelie created untold havoc and chaos, mainly with nap schedules.  In the spirit of the holiday of masquerade, they started their day by hiding in the kitchen equipment.  Can you spot them in this cleverly posed photo?

The first event of the night turned out to be a kiddie’s “parade” around the inside of a local library.  It was so cute you could choke on your own insulin overproduction.  Just to prove it, here’s Deelie (as a butterfly) getting the hairy eyeball from her good friend Reed (yeah his dad works there):

Where was Z during all this?  Dude, his favorite thing is books, so he blew off the pishers and went straight for the military history section, to wit:

Later on we did a block or two of triqor treeting, which was way too adorable for me to photograph.  Needless to say, Deelie (ever the articulate one) knew how to say T-or-T but usually shot her wad before the doors opened; Z knew not the secret phrase but learned to hold out his pumpkinbag with sturdy alacrity.  They got a decent take, given their stamina - which I guess we might have underestimated, since the ensuing hours after we got back home were mostly taken up with this sort of activity:

Indeed, they frolicked like butterfly and beelzebub did frolic in days of yore.  Freaking cutetastic. 

Which brings me to my point: DON’T FORGET TO VOTE TODAY!  assuming you’re an american citizen and all, of course.  otherwise, whatever, dude.  I got candy to eat. 

Monday, November 06, 2006

Abandonment Issues

So here’s my wacky idea du jour: I’m a-gonna show you some stuff I found lying around on the streets.  I mean, I find a lot of stuff lying around in the streets, but usually it’s of the used-gum/bio-byproduct variety.  However, occasionally I find something cool enough to merit a sidewalk swipe and I tote it home with me.  Usually this stuff is not so actually cool by the cold light of the following dawn, but sometimes I get a winner - and that’s a-what I’m sharing today:

Bowl, found on 14th near Clement, in a big jumbled mass of mostly useless and ugly household items:

(we now keep it atop the fridge and toss dirty babybibs into it.)

Long-time readers might recall this happy fellow:

Yes it’s the foam foot.  I honestly don’t recall where I found this sucker.  Don’t be giving me a hard time, I was abducted by aliens.  Of course, they were from Albania, but an abduction is an abduction, right?  I keep it in the study, and it currently hangs out on the bookshelves keeping my trashy historical novels company. 

This one was found on Geary near 16th, leaned up against a municipal garbage can. 

Despite the reflection of PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN IN THE REFLECTION, you might be able to discern that it’s a cool photo, maybe 25” tall and 15” wide, in a wooden frame.  Maybe it’s a little cheesy, but it does make the front lav feel a bit more spacious.  Don’t you think?  Don’t you?

Finally, my ultimate favorite:

I think this one showed up on my very own block.  It’s about 30” wide by about a foot tall, and the tiny blurry legend at the bottom reads: HISTORIC FIRST PHOTO OF EARTH FROM DEEP SPACE / Taken August 23rd, 1966 by NASA - Boeing Lunar Orbiter / Distance from Earth - 232,00 mi.—Altitude above Moon - 730 mi.  PLUS: on the back is a sticker that tells me the sort of beat-up black wooden frame is courtesy of F. T. Coppins Inc, Custom Picture Framing, 428 Pearl Street, Buffalo NY.  (phone and zip available by request.) So this sucker travelled across the continent to reach me.  I do not have it currently displayed.  I’m trying to get it sufficiently high above the moon.  I’m also going to repaint the frame. 

“Deep Space,” dudes and dudedettes.  That’s what finding stuff on the sidewalk is all about.  That and the occasional bowl of dirty bibs.  So… have you got any stuff lying around that you found on the sidewalk?  Remember - food doesn’t count!  (but if you get the right product, it may know the alphabet.  I’m referring specifically to certain cereals, cookies and soups.  Clever ones, they are.)

Friday, November 03, 2006

not home yet….

but I figured you’d enjoy this little taste of halloween:

Yes, they’re all jack-o-lanterns.  Now brush your teeth before looking at any more photos.  I’ll have a few more once I’m back home for the duration.  (and extra credit for those who weren’t there, for guessing which one is Chuckles’ own handiwork!)