afrojet

Sherlock Skelton
We’ve become a Netflix family again. Over the last couple of months I’d visited the video store on three separate occasions only to walkout 15 minutes later completely empty-handed. The video store: a) has 200 copies of Daddy Day Care and not much else, b) stocks totally useless movies, c) carries crap titles, d) has no selection, oh and, f) smells like crotch. As an alternative, we tried the library. But every DVD that came from the library looked as if it had been used to to polish concrete. We didn’t even make it through the opening titles of Six Feet Under before the screen froze into an abstract digital art piece. Thankfully, Netflix has welcomed us back with open arms. It didn’t seem to hold any grudge. Didn’t even mention our last parting of ways.

They’ve added quite a large feature set since last I used the service. My favorite being the ability to add multiple profiles under one account. So the misses and I can each have a separate “Queue”. This allows me to rent Carmen Electra’s Advanced Aerobic Striptease without her ever knowing it. Also, don’t tell the misses but as the administrator of our account, when I set up her profile I designated that she’s only allowed to rent movies with a ‘G’ rating.

The first movie to arrive was disc one from the series The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett is a tour de force as Holmes. Got down to watching the first episode, The Empty House. Close to the end of the episode Holmes and Watson are in what looks like an abandoned house across the street from 221b Baker Street (for those not familiar, that’s the den of Sherlock Holmes). They are peeking out a window spying on their own office (the picture above captures this scene). To the direct left of 221b Baker Street is what looks to be some kind of pottery shop with the curious name of ‘Skelton’ on its sign. Unfortunately, a quick run through the internets doesn’t give any information about a shop called ‘Skelton’ ever existing on Baker Street. It must have just been part of the television set but not historically accurate. I’m going to lodge a complaint with some British society or another.

Workbench 1.0
I got busy over the weekend and built myself a proper workbench. The Janktown 9000 model workbench that was built by the previous owner of the home just wasn’t up to the task of supporting my home building projects. If you look closely at the ‘BEFORE’ photo you will see that crap workbench came complete with a plywood flooring that was raised a half inch off the floor. I wish I could fully describe the scene of what lurked underneath the plywood. It was like a spring break party for spiders, slugs and other creatures with far too many legs. The shop vac welcomed them all into the its steely belly.

I won’t win any fine woodworking awards for my workbench offering but it feels good to bring some kind of organization to the chaos of the garage. There’s nothing more frustrating than turning your garage upside down trying to find a tape measure or a screwdriver. The new bench should also cut down on the number of curse words per minute and the number of things thrown wildly about in the garage area.

Now the real dilemma. What to do about music in the garage (aka The Shop). Do I take the modern approach and continue the Airport Express AirTunes circuit currently taking over the house or should I go old school? I’m thinking the old school approach would take advantage of an enormous cassette collection that has been sitting dormant for a good long time. Perhaps a dirty Boombox suspended on a chain or better yet an old exposed AM/FM Cassette car radio. Tough decisions.

Mole Archaeologist
The latest critter(s) to breach the fortified perimeter of The Skelton Ranch is the dirty little mole. This burrowing night-raider is tearing up my lawn with its fossorial forefeet, leaving long trails of winding mini speed bumps and sporadic craters all throughout the backyard. One morning, on a day after I had recently mowed, I went out to find the property looking as if it had been hit by a small aerial attack over night. Completing this half-baked war-torn simile I discovered, sitting precariously on the mouth of one of these craters, the small green matchbox car pictured above. Casualties! I guess the mole had no use for this previously buried toy treasure and offered it up as a testament to its fearlessness and tenacity.

Although the mole is basically blind, he is gifted with an acute sense of hearing. So, I’m going to take a page out of the Pentagons military plan in Panama (they tried to coerce Manny Noriega to give himself up by blasting him with Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Welcome To The Jungle”). The Super Sonic Molechaser is a little missile shaped stick you plug in the ground. It emits a 300Hz tone every 15 seconds that eventually drives the moles a bit nutty. I don’t want to hurt ’em. My ultimate goal is to drive them deep into my neighbors yard (NIMBY).

Back With Even More Cuteness
Apologies for the lack of updates. The work load has been punishing me as of late and I have allowed my blogging to slide. For your patience I reward you with a shipyard of cute. First up is a photo I unearthed from my fathers archives. The organ was my grandmothers. The date of the photo puts me at a long blond hair over 1.5 years old. I can tell you that at the time I was going through a heavy Deep Purple phase. While other less hip kids were rocking “Wheels on The Bus” on their Fisher Price Record Player, I was growing my hair out, pulling baby bong hits and learning all the organ parts to Deep Purple’s Live in Japan. Of course, I still pronounced it ‘Deeb Burble’, and I couldn’t really make the devil horn sign without using my other hand to push some fingers down but still, the seed was planted for a lifetime of appreciation. Just checkout that concentration!

Fast forward to present day. Baby kittens! Landry & Kim rescued these little tikes from the dump. Yup, the dump. Now, normally I’m anti-death penalty…but I do believe I would make an exception for the individual who threw these creatures to the dump. It’s really quite unthinkable and cowardly to the max.

When Landry & Kim got the kittens their eyes were still closed. Kim has to bottle feed these guys every three hours. The one in the upper right-hand corner is named Earl. All three cats are bound for good homes once they start eating.

Teen Wolf vs. I Am The Law
Caught some Wolfmother downtown last night. High intensity, good songs, and great musicianship. If you can rate a rock show by how much beer gets spilt on your person, than last night was tops. After the show I smelt like the inside of a beer bottle that’s been ashed in and left out in the rain to ferment.

Speaking of rock, I’m digging this show on VH1 called Super Group. It taps into just about every high school cafeteria conversation I had, in which the daily question was posed, “Ok, if you could create an all-star band, who would be in it?” Funny thing is, I’m sure at least once I would have grouped Scott Ian (from Anthrax) and Ted Nugent together. But then I also owned a Cleveland Indians baseball cap with an Anthrax patch sewed on the back.

This weekend we’re heading down to Pa Skelton’s place to relax. I’m still a bit gun shy about visiting my dad’s place after the raging case of poison ivy that I got on my last visit. I will take many precautionary steps this time, including: showering several times a day, washing my clothes continuously (or just burning them after use), and refusing to step outside the comforts of home.

Bonus: dead people on Myspace: Bukowski and Charles Mingus.

Sunday Explosions
In memory of the Trojan nuclear plant, I am sipping java from my mug that bears a radioactive likeness. When the coffee is hot and steaming, the resemblance is uncanny. They blew the I-5 landmark up yesterday. Did you see it? If you didn’t, here’s video. And there’s also a Flickr pool.

In other explosion news…

…yesterday we got hit with some ferocious spring monsoons. They came fast and powerful and lasted only a few minutes but the rainfall was extraordinary. I was out gardening before the first one hit. I gathered up my things and went inside as the rain began to fall. I was standing in the kitchen watching the rainfall and admiring my handiwork out the kitchen window. From out of nowhere, there was a blinding white hot explosion and a simultaneous thunder clap. The thunder clap was the loudest I’ve ever heard in my lifetime. The explosion looked to have come from about the middle of the yard. It looked like a thousand flash bulbs all going off at the same time. I jumped about three feet in the air. The cats went into a panic. The power went out.

The power came on about two hours later but subsequent thunder showers kept knocking us off the grid. Could the gods be angry about the destruction of a nuclear plant? Doubtful, but possible.

More About Maintenance
The Master Wrench, an auto repair shop up the road from The Ranch, dishes out the sage wisdom. Every month or so they refresh the sign with some good horse sense.

Right now there are no less than five dogs having a shouting match in the neighborhood. It sounds like reality television. I wonder what they are talking about.

I now own a patio umbrella. I am all grown up.

I am down to my last four pieces of salt water taffy. This makes me anxious.

We are having a heat wave in Portland and I can’t figure out how to turn on the central air.

I have gone through two toothpicks this morning, yet all I’ve consumed is coffee.

Sea Songs for Volume & Flotsam for Breakfast
A grand weekend at the coast celebrating birthdays (mine) and relationships (ours). Saturday, I had one of those perfect days. Everything was sunshine slow, young, ripe & oceansized. We cruised the beaches, scored at the shops, and the golf balls went far and true. We ate famously well. Locals pointed our bellies to the Sea Hag restaurant for dinner. I got down with a whole Dungeness Crab. Just annihilated the creature. By the end I was wearing butter and bits of crab all over my shirt. The wait staff couldn’t bring napkins fast enough. A little girl at the next table stared in rapt amazement. The protein buzz came swiftly as I dug in. By the end I felt like I could sprint at top speed to Lincoln City. It was an event. Our lead waiter, was an awesome guy who cheered me on and rubbed my shoulders like a heavyweight boxing coach. Funny enough, Sunday morning – still dizzy and recovering from Crab hangover – we waddled down to breakfast at the resort. I wanted a heaping mound of french toast. The waiter came to our table and damn if it wasn’t the same waiter from the night before at the Sea Hag. It was just one of those weekends. Perfect.

A Morning Smolder on the Shoulder
Daily occurrence. Around 8:30 every morning this week a women in here late 40’s driving a newish Audi station wagon pulls up and parks outside our house. She rolls down her window and lights up a cigarette. She smokes about half the cigarette, blowing the smoke out the open window. Then she carefully throws the cigarette out onto the street and drives off. I find this rather fascinating.

Van Halen’s Jump (mp3) as performed by Mambo Kurt, He also does an excellent version of Fugazi’s Waiting Room.

Timber Town
Portland’s a tuff town for sports fans. It doesn’t have a professional baseball team or a professional football team. Its basketball team is the laughing stock of the NBA. If you were luckily enough to have been born and raised here, then you probably get into the college football thing. But for the transplant, of which Portland has great numbers, the options are few. Lucky for the transplant as well as the native, we’ve got the Portland Timbers. Portland’s USL soccer team.

We went to a game Friday night which happened to be the season home opener. It was a great time: outdoors, fairly cheap, and a generally enthusiastic and roady crowd. Kinda reminded me of Saint Paul Saints games back in Minnesota. The Timbers played (and beat) the Minnesota Thunder Saturday night. That would have been a swell game to see. Stupendous intoxication was the right of most fans Friday night. By half-time the majority of the crowd was falling all over itself. A guy wearing a safari hat tried to pick a fight with me in the beer garden (over what, I’m still totally unclear).

This weekend the misses and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Woot! Unfortunately we picked a restaurant that wasn’t the most vegetarian friendly. We’re still learning the good spots in town. We’ve had to eat our fair share of Risotto, which seems to be the default ‘Vegetarian’ selection at most high-end restaurants.
We’ll make up for it this weekend – a little time at the the beach for some well deserved R&R.