How Walkable Is Your Neighborhood?

Find out at walkscore.com. Neat site, although I've never heard of some of the businesses it found near our house, and I'm not sure what to make of a supposed movie theater that it found south of the park.

Our address scored an 82, by the way.

It All Started When We Washed Our Cars...

That happened this past Saturday. Something we don't do too often, and since they're both black cars, they looked really scummy. So we washed them, quickly (and badly). The next day, it rained. And kept raining, on and off, for the next few days. Great, because we needed it. But last weekend also saw:

• problems with our new Dish Network service, which a technician thought he had fixed on Sunday. Turns out he managed to make the problem worse.
• Marty developing some problem with her GI system, and needing to wake us up multiple times in the middle of the night on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
• our Verizon DSL, 100% problem-free for close to a year, all of a sudden experiencing intermittent connection problems.
• one of our window blinds randomly breaking and almost falling on a dozing Maya.
• the home team having a historically bad night.

But it the cosmic scheme of things, all small matters. I tend to react poorly when something goes wrong that I have little-to-no control over, especially if it's a technology-based problem, but I think I'm getting better [you'd have to ask Jenny for confirmation though]. And a little perspective is always helpful. We have food, electricity, clean water, and lots of alcohol. All things we take for granted every day, but that billions of people go without. Just need to take a deep breath occasionally, look around, and realize how fortunate I am.

Besides, all these things will work out in the end. Our local, friendly satellite TV technician returns tomorrow to give it another shot. Verizon is sending a tech to take a look at our phone lines and modem next week (and thanks to dslreports.com, I didn't have to beg them to do so, or even get on the phone with customer service!). Marty's poop has returned to normal consistency, and she's in a much better mood. I should be able to repair the window blind so it's like-new. And we go to the Orioles game tonight - my first baseball game of any kind this season! - where thing's can't possibly be as bad as last night (Right?!?).

Patio: The Saga Ends

After jackhammering, sledgehammering, hauling 6+ tons of concrete, close-quarters stone delivery, tamping, leveing, stone cutting, and more leveling, it's finally finished. Thanks once again to Barry (aka Dad) for all his help - honestly this would have happened in this calendar year without him - and to Jenny, for her moral and logistic support. Now all we need is some patio furniture and we'll be all set. Not sure if I'm that patient though; eventually we may just have a BYOC (bringyourownchair) cookout with what we have now, and worry about a table-and-chairs set, and finished flowerbeds, later. Before and after pics are below.

Patio, Heat Wave, & (scumbag) John Bolton

After six or seven hours Saturday, and another five yesterday, I'm almost done with our new stone patio. I probably need another half a day though, and with the latest heat wave hitting this week, it probably won't be finished until next weekend.

Speaking of heat, it's reaching the ludicrous level this summer. Highs of 102 on Tuesday and Wednesday? If we wanted summers as shitty as this, we'd move to Vegas or Phoenix. So what's it all mean; is a heat wave really a sign of global warming? Well, not one individual incident. But collectively - yes, and get used to it (but be glad you don't live in Southern California).

Finally: the more I read/see/hear about John Bolton, the more I'm convinced that he's not only a terrible diplomat, but also probably needs to work on becoming a likable human being. His latest thoughts on the Israel-Lebanon mess deny moral equivalence to Israeli and Lebanese civilian deaths, giving more weight to the Israeli deaths. This guy is our U.N. ambassador? How the hell did that happen, that the one person in the entire executive branch who should not be chosen for that post is the guy who holds the job?

Seven Tons, Three Hours

As of last Friday, the concrete is gone from our back "yard"! I thought I had a 'before' pic, but I think I must have deleted it, so you'll have to make do with the 'after' pic, and the shot of me and the dumpster full of concrete. Not too bad in terms of home improvement projects; it only took about six months from the time I hammered up the concrete, to get it removed! Thanks to Dad for all the help, and the use of the trailer.

I know what you're thinking though. Exaggeration. Surely, it wasn't seven tons. Maybe, maybe not. But check out the numbers. A 13.5' X 20' area (actually, a bit larger). Concrete that was 6" deep - or even thicker - in most spots. Let's be waaaay conservative, and say it was an average of four inches thick. That's 89 cubic feet of concrete. A search of the internets - the concrete internet, specifically - reveals that the density of concrete is around 150 lbs/cf. That's 6.7 tons right there! Not too bad for three hours of work.

Afterwards, we drank beers, went to the O's game (they won), while there we ate and drank more beer. All in all, a productive Friday.

The Entertainers

When you receive a home bar as a gift from your (always generous) family, and when you finally buy a dining room table, you've gotta put them to use, right? And so we did this weekend, for our 2nd New Year's party, for the final 2005 chapter of the family Christmas - featuring the southernmost enclave, Em & Dave - and for poker with Cal & Greg yesterday (2nd losing game in a row for me, what's up with that). That's just the beginning though! We are now fully equipped for maximum merriment, and we plan to take full advantage.