I finally got to watch a couple games of an Ultimate tournament today, since I'm in Reston VA on business, and Alex's team happened to be in a tournament here. It took me a little time to figure out the rules, but after a while I could tell when a point was scored and when good plays were made. It was a gorgeous (though windy) Fall day, lots of fun.
I tried to catch some of the action, but I mostly ended up getting the shot right after the disc was thrown - it's a very quick game!
[NOTE: I wrote this post in October 2009 - I realized I had never finished writing my posts about New Zealand, which is a crime because the Tongariro Crossing was one of the most exhilirating experiences of my life. I think I was trying to think of enough eloquent things to say about it, but there simply aren't words - at least, that I'm capable of writing - so for now I'll at least get the photos up here and allow them to speak for themselves...]
Photos are in chronological order... hover over the group photos for titles.
We took a shuttle bus from town and got to the trail head around 6:30am.
2 hours in...
This was one of the scariest (but coolest) things I've ever done. The wind was blowing so hard across the snowy ridge that I crawled up the final slope (see the wet knees)!
This is the mountain that played Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies... (sans snow of course)
6 hours in (after waiting for Alex to come back down from Ngauruhoe)... beginning to descend.
After 7 hours...
After 8 hours... (warming back up as we came down)
At this point, we semi-jogged the rest of the way because we were nearing our cut-off time to make the return shuttle (due to the summit trips).
Last August after Nikki moved out, we decided to use her bedroom as a temporary TV room so that we could remodel the den downstairs. It hadn't been changed in the 20 years we've been here, and likely not in the 40 years of the house's existence. The carpet was a deep pile dark red, which over the years of living in a damp climate and having a dog, was pretty gross, no matter what we tried to do with it. The walls were paneled in a dark wood, which while it was a good quality paneling, real wood, just made the whole room so dark. There was a tiled area in front of the fireplace and garage door which was made of small dark green tiles that were beginning to come up in spots. The ceiling was still yellowed from the previous owners who had smoked. A lot. We had made a couple changes over the years... removed the teardrop 60's light fixture in the corner and replaced it with track lights over the fireplace ... installed a wood-burning fireplace insert that actually heats the house ... replaced the sliding glass door to the back patio with a french door opening onto an enclosed 3-season room (and removing the dark ornate tapestry-style drapes). But we decided it was now time for some real freshening up!
We started by completely gutting the room, down to floor joists and furring strips. Tore off the paneling, took up the carpet & padding & homasote, scraped off the tile. This took about a month. Note that when I say "we", I mostly mean Al, working when he had time :-)
After that, it was on to installing new plywood for the floor, hung drywall when Alex was home over Christmas break to help, painted & stained trim in April (took me a while to choose a color - pale taupe), installed new ceramic tile (actually leftover from the hall project from several years ago), Al designed and built a new light fixture for the wall opposite the fireplace this summer, and we finally got the carpet this month (took me even longer to decide what to put on the floor - decided on a pale sage recycled-fiber carpet).
And voila! Here is the finished project... final touches were done this weekend! It only took a year (LOL), but I think it was well worth it. So much brighter!
I really like the new light especially! And no, you can't have my awesome husband for your next project.
Now we just have to decide what to do with the TV. For now, it's staying upstairs because we removed the cable from the den, but it's really not convenient to have it there if we want to use that room as a guest room. Probable eventual outcome is a flat TV (some day) in the actual living room. The den will just be a sitting/reading/warm-by-the-fire sort of room, now much more comfortable and happy-feeling...
This year, instead of buying tickets for the Big Pour, we decided to go to the Brew at the Zoo (held at the Pittsburgh Zoo), a benefit for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. The event was sold out; I'm not sure how many tickets that meant, but I would say there were at least 1,000 people there. Everyone received a little 4 oz muglet to have filled by the various breweries that had tables set up in each of 5 or 6 plaza areas throughout the zoo. There were bands and food tables at most of the plazas also, to add to the festivities.
It was a very different zoo experience visiting it at night, when there were no children there, but only adults drinking beer. It was kind of interesting listening to people's observations about the animals. We were a little concerned beforehand whether anyone would take it into their muddled head to, say, climb into the lion's area or something, but really with all the walking around you had to do between 3 oz beer samples, it didn't seem like anyone was in too bad of shape by the end of the evening.
Brewers ranged from Aneuser Busch and Pittsburgh Brewing, through imports such as Hofbräu and Guinness, through smaller breweries like Dogfish Head and Brooklyn, to several tables of homebrewers. As has been the case at the Big Pour in the past, I think my favorite beer was one from a homebrewer - a lemongrass wheat beer which was very refreshing. And actually another personal favorite was another homebrew, a honey smoked stout, which was very dark and, well, smoky.
There wasn't a huge variety of food, but it was good for between-beer nibbles: hoagies, spicy chicken from PF Chang, mozzarella sticks, antipasto trays, cups of popcorn, hotdogs.
Pretty much the whole zoo was open… I did get a few animal photos before it grew dark. After dark it was pretty cool to walk along the trails or sit and listen to the music. I would say there should have been some more lighting for the brewers' tables though, since after about 9:00 you (or they) couldn't really see to pour.
Overall, it was an enjoyable event, but we think we'll choose the Big Pour next year, mainly because of the larger selection of microbrews and food.
Yeah, yeah--I know. You ask: Pegritz, where the hell have you been for the last...howevermany months? Did you die? Were you off exploring the Jovian system in a hotwired UFO? Did the post-Singularity quantum computer running your simulated consciousness crash or catch a sentient virus? No, no, and--sadly--no. The truth is far more mundane and thoroughly unexciting. I ran into some weird problems uploading tracks to this site, and thought that maybe I'd exceeded my storage here...but it wasn't that. Not sure what caused the problem, but I got disgusted with it and just stopped using Vox for a bit. Then everytime I wanted to start up again and see if things were running smoothly once more, some bullshit arose that distracted me. Losing my shit job was one of them. But, now that I am a "man of leisure"--that is, a lazy slob living on unemployment benefits, which means I don't have the money to ever leave the house--I've got plenty of time to start smackin' y'all across your faces with some tight jams once again!
After a truly delicious breakfast at our B&B (savory herb/gorgonzola/cranberry scones, ham/cheese/broccoli mini-quiches, apple-rhubarb crisp, fresh fruit, coffee & OJ), we walked in to Essex Street, much of which is a pedestrian-only area full of interesting shops and restaurants.
My niece was mainly in charge of choosing where we went, so we visited these shops, among others:
Crow Haven Corner, where the willowy sales clerk reminded me a bit of Madame Trelawney, not so much in appearance, but in demeanor.
A gift/souvenir shop that had a squirrel in a cage.
The Goddess' Treasure Chest, which had lots of pretty cards and gifts.
Bewitched in Salem, which had a pretty extensive collection of oddities.
And the main shop my niece wanted to visit: Hex, which seemed to me more authentically witch-y. They had some really astounding hand made witch hats and robes, and a vast collection of herbs and artifacts. The witch who greeted us gave us each some stones for Love, and explained the altar they have their where people can add names of loved ones who've passed, to be remembered. She was also telling us about a news item that day about a zoo in Boston which may have to close and kill the resident animals - she seemed to be planning some "justice" spells on the city government folks...
Then we walked back to our room to relax for the rest of the afternoon, and make arrangements for the evening. We were stilll so full from breakfast, that we decided to skip lunch in favor of an early dinner.
Around 4:30 we walked down to the wharf area, and looked around there a little before our 5:30 dinner reservation.(The fife & drum photo was actually a random shot from earlier.)
Our B&B hostess had recommended Sixty2 on Wharf for dinner, and she was right... it was excellent! Great style, delicious food, attentive and friendly service.
My scallops were perfectly done, and the farro with roasted cauliflower and red pepper sort of sauce thing were oh-so-good. I tried an Italian Trebbiano with my meal, which I don't think I've had before - very light and tasty. By the way, Sixty2's idea of wine by the glass is what they call a quartino, which is 1/3 a bottle in a mini-carafe. My dessert was a grilled carmelized bruschetta made with plums, topped with ice cream, and of course accompanied by espresso. I tried "I"'s entree and dessert - also fantastic! Highly recommend this restaurant. And one of our desserts was free by mentioning the name of our B&B, so that was cool, too.
After dinner, we meandered back toward Museum Mall Place on Essex Street to sign up for the Ghosts & Gore tour my niece had chosen.
We bought our "tickets" from the Life & Death Tours funeral cart in the street, and then went into their shop of macabre items to "kill" time till our tour. This tour company is a little different from many of the others in Salem, in that they concentrate more on various gruesome murders and accidents, than on the witch trials or historic houses. The owners/tour guides, Rhys and Nicole, were lots of fun and really nice people. They're just getting started in their business this year, but they have done a lot of research on their subject matter - they referred a lot to newspaper accounts they'd read, mostly from the 1800's. The walking tour lasted about an hour and a half, through dusk into darkness.
The whole day was beautiful weather-wise, and we really enjoyed ourselves.
So, Google said it would take a little over 10 hours to drive from my house to Salem, Mass. But then after I picked up my niece "I" (this being her 15th-birthday trip) at her dad's house, Lori (my TomTom) said it would be more like 11 hours from there - I forgot that's almost an hour south of me. But in actuality, we made pretty good time through Pennsylvania, weather was mostly clear, just a little overcast; actually better not being so glare-y. Lori took me on a route I'd never been on before to get to NYC; she had us leave the PA turnpike at Carlisle, and go up 78 through Allentown and into New Jersey, then 95 from Newark. By the time we stopped for gas and lunch at a huge Panera in Basking Ridge NJ, we were 1/2 hour ahead of schedule, but then driving around trying to find a restaurant in one of those places that doesn't allow signs, and a non-self-serve gas station, and eating, put us back to an ETA of 6:30, still not bad.
But THEN, we hit the Big Apple. Actually, going through the city around 2:00 wasn't all that bad, but 95 and 81 between there and Hartford, was just awful - it took us 2-1/2 hours to go 60 miles. (The vehicles in this photo aren't moving.) That's what I get for trying to drive through the most densely populated area on the East Coast on a beautiful Friday afternoon. By the time we got through all that, our ETA was 8:00pm. But on the bright side (there's always one of those), that meant we totally missed rush hour in Boston!
After we were settled into our VERY nice room at the B&B by about 8:30, we got a restaurant recommendation from our hostess, and set out by foot. We passed by an old cemetery on our way, which will likely be a stop on the ghost tour we intend to take at some point this weekend.We got a little turned around in our directions vs the map in the dusk, but ended up in the right place eventually!
We had dinner at The Old Spot, an English-pub style restaurant. I had a really excellent slow-cooked pork roast, with bubble & squeak and wow-wow sauce, and a draught Guinness. My niece had grilled salmon and gnocchi, and she even tried the little clams on the plate!
We were too full for dessert just then, but it sounded sooo good, so we got it to go, and ate it back in our room! I got the Spotted Dick, which was their specialty bread pudding with whiskey sauce and ice cream (which they packaged up separately, very good job!), and she had cheesecake with berries. Yum!
Then I tried to read a little, but I succumbed pretty quickly to the coma-inducing combination of the 13-hour drive plus the big meal.
Original post: http://darkthreadsgear.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-tactical-attachelaptop-bag.html
I've
been in the IT business for many years, AND I travel a lot, so I've
seen my share of laptop bags. So I've literally gone through a dozen of
them, and I've tried using a lot of different styles. Lately, I was
looking for a bag that would be easier to manage through airport
security. Those of you who are road warriors know the drill: you have
to remove your laptop from the bag and put it on the conveyor belt
separately. With some backpacks and laptop bags that have a modest
zipper opening, this can be a pain. So I was looking for a bag that
unzippered on three sides and opened like a book. Also, I wanted enough
extra storage compartments to carry cords and adapters, but I didn't
want anything too big and bulky, or too fussy. The answer for me was this tactical attache case that also converts into a backpack:
This case unzips all the way open, so it can be used as a workstation
or lap desk, without having to remove the laptop. The laptop
compartment also has a large velcro panel that supports a rip-away
admin panel.
The large zipper compartment on the front is big enough to store bulky
accessories, like your power adapter or extension cord, but it can also
be adapted for concealed carry. The velcro holster adapter is sold
separately.
The backpack straps can be stowed away in a zipper compartment on the back when you're not using them.
Available at http://www.darkthreads.com/
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