If you can't stand the heat...

I made my 4th of July reservations for Davis Mountains State Park this morning. It's a 7 hour drive, but it'll be nice to escape the heat (highs in the mid 80's, lows in the mid 50's), and I could use some alone time. I'll be primitive camping 2 nights (4 mile hike in, 4 mile hike out), but the last night I'll be staying in the Indian Lodge. I booked one of the original 1930s rooms on the 2nd floor. It's suppose to have nice views, original furnishings, a king size bed, and a fireplace. After 3 days of not showering, it's going to feel like paradise.

Make your bed, part 4

Finished the front bed and dry creek today. Just need to finish building the fence. Maybe tomorrow:



The basil is rooting well. Should be able to plant in a few days:


Duck mole is just as good the 2nd night. Yum:

Up a creek

Went for a quick 2.5 mile hike around Turkey Creek this morning. It's been a couple of years, but I remember the cool, clear water the last time I was there. What a difference a couple of years makes. Turkey Creek is a real misnomer right now, considering there is no water in it. It's just a barren trail. Very sad to see:


Got the seeds planted in the back yard this afternoon. Should have fresh vegetables any month now.

Make your bed, part 3

Made a nice dinner tonight with gifts from Betsy's garden - white eggplants, 2 kinds of tomatoes, and 2 kinds of basil - over a bed of organic pasta:


Speaking of garden, my backyard bed is finished. Still working on the hose situation, but Geo Growers dumped 3 yards of soil in front of my house this morning. This represents probably one and a quarter yards:


I'll be working this weekend on the fence and side garden with Clay - a foolish person who's agreed to trade labor in return for bike parts:


And this is just a bonus:

Poem

Apologies to Joyce Kilmer...

"Hackberry Trees"

I think I will breathe a sigh of relief
When chainsaws take down this hackberry tree.

A tree crew will arrive at my behest,
And lay to rest this ruinous mess;

A tree whose greatest testament of peeve,
Angered me with downed electricity;

Upon the ground where fallen limbs stain;
Who stump grinders soon will consume of remains.

Poems are a great gift for the likes of thee;
But only a fool would plant a hackberry.

Yes, I just spent a lot of money to have yet another dying hackberry removed from my back yard. I wish I had been home this afternoon to see the stump grinders in action. While the crew was at it, they removed the stumps from my front yard also. A truckload (3 yards) of dirt is arriving tomorrow morning. Finishing up the side fence this weekend. Hopefully, beds will be planted by Sunday evening. Hopefully.

Before...



After...

A tale of two cookies

Sometimes fortune cookies are quiet. And other times they demand to be heard.

Art class

Still life with joy, melancholy, eggplant and basil.

Not to be confused with Still Life with Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples.

Darkness

The Big Man passed away this weekend. I've been a huge E-Street fan since my high school days in Houston (Springsteen's pretty cool too). Darkness on the Edge of Town was my first Springsteen album (and still my favorite). Many long-time fans argue that Born to Run was the last good Springsteen record, but I really have to disagree.

While Born to Run was all about getting out and seeking freedom, Darkness was more about living in the present and playing the cards you're dealt - something more realistic to a geeky teenager struggling through puberty and the social awkwardness of high school. Thankfully, my parents were pretty cool with me - as long as I kept up my grades, I was allowed to skip school to camp out overnight for concert tickets - and I did skip out of many 1st and 2nd period classes, especially for Springsteen tickets. Remember, this was in the days before the internet, so you actually had to go buy your tickets from a clerk at a local Ticketmaster outlet. And to get the best seats, you had to be at the front of the line when the windows opened at 8:AM.

Anyway, Clarence Clemons played a mean triangle, and he wasn't bad on the saxophone either.

This clip is from the Darkness tour. It's a song Springsteen gave to Patti Smith, but he still played it a lot on his own - especially back in the days when he routinely put on 4 and 5 hour shows. It's a favorite of mine:



Even though I drove a Camaro in high school, this is my other favorite (beware - the link takes you to a long academic treatise on Racing in the Street). Btw, I think this song actually sounds better and makes more sense when sung by a mature Springsteen:

Make your bed, part 2

It's been a long week. So what better way to finish it off than to come home and spend 3 hours in the yard. 104 degrees outside be damned.

I dug holes in the backyard to anchor my raised bed I built last weekend. The ground was rock hard, so I had to use a pickaxe:


I think I want to put a raised bed along the side fence here (after I finish the fence):


However, I need to remove a yard of large rocks and roots before I can do anything:


Nothing like moving a crap load of rocks by hand:


Next up, stump removal. Should be fun...

For now, this is my just desserts:


I like how the specific gravity separates the 2 liquids. Not really a black and tan; more like a cab and clear.

Say hello to my little friend

My potted strawberry plant is thriving on my front porch step. And apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks it's lush and inviting.



Btw, toads are cool.

Cha-cha-changes, pt 2

Got my new driver's license in the mail today (new one is on top). I didn't realize the design had changed so much over the years (my design has changed somewhat also):

Make your bed, part 1

So this is my new blog layout. Let me know if you think it sucks.

I had a full day today. With the removal of 3 trees and 2 large branches, the sunshine profile of my side yard has changed dramatically this year. What was once a shady corner is now ripe for a garden bed or two.


I'm thinking two raised beds, one will be 8' x 6', and the other will be 6' x 6'. To that end, I spent the morning at Home Depot picking up the cedar necessary for the first bed. I then cut the wood to the required dimensions:


After a late lunch, I assembled the pieces into the box you see below. It was a pretty easy project. I just need to determine the final location of the box, then dig the holes for the anchor posts:


Eric and Diego came by in the afternoon to help me flip the box and move it to it's temporary location. I think it looks pretty good.


I finished off the evening at the Black Star Co-op with Pete and Glenn and stories from their UK and Italy trips. Nothing like sharing a cold liquid dinner with friends after a long hot day in the sun.

Top down

Today was a rare summer day in that I could actually enjoy my convertible (at least in the morning):


Nothing screams mid-life crisis like a guy cruising to work, top down, with the Allman Brothers' "Jessica" turned up to 11 (the obligatory "Spinal Tap" reference to prove my middle-aged cred).



Hope you all have a good weekend. It's ROT Rally time in Austin, so be safe out there.

Cha-cha-changes

I stepped on the scale this morning and noticed I've lost 10 lbs in the past 3 months (I'm down to my preferred weight of 175). I credit most of that to running more and biking some. Thankfully, Betsy likes to be active and outdoors.

I've also been trying to eat better. Recently, that consists of making lots of chicken and cheese sandwiches for dinner (it's quick, easy, and I'm a bit lazy after work). But I ran out of chicken a couple of days ago. So last night I made sauteed spinach and portobello mushrooms to go with my ribeye (the red wine sauce never reduced enough to be considered a sauce - more like a red wine bath):


Yesterday, I also sent off my passport to be renewed. It's been 14 years since my last passport picture. The old picture is from my Houston days when I was a supervisor for a ginormous (sorry, that should be GINORMOUS) engineering company - hence the shirt and tie and smug expression. Happily, times have changed. And it seems, so has my tan:

New tree

I needed a break from writing a white paper last night, so I went and saw the new Terrence Malick film, "The Tree of Life." I wish I could say I liked it, but I didn't. The underlying theme of a stern/abusive father/husband and the helpless/enabling mother/wife and coming to terms with your past I get. It's the presentation that bothered me. The film felt like a 2 hour Calvin Klein commercial. Judge for yourself:





And really, do you need the voice-overs of each character's inner conscience spouting rhetoric that actors like Brad Pitt and Sean Penn should be able to convey with their craft? "2001: A Space Odyssey" didn't need it, and "Blade Runner" was a much better film without it. The director should give his audience credit for being somewhat intelligent. And I really didn't like the last scene - I'm sure the characters are suppose to be confronting and making peace with their inner demons, but it feels more like they are all trapped in Limbo, waiting for Purgatory. Yeesh...

A better presentation would be what I had for lunch yesterday. Betsy surprised me with the following bánh mì sandwich, homemade cookies and strawberries in a personalized meal delivery device:


And Monday night we made a bread salad with chicken sausage for dinner. Again, when I say "we," I mostly mean her - although I did chop up the bread:


I won't show you what we had at Mozart's on our Sunday ride, but this is a nice picture:

Sensation-seeking and 'openness to experience' predict infidelity

I have another bout of insomnia, so I thought I'd share some articles I came across recently while researching data mining. Seems like data mining for dating is big business nowadays.

Online dating is tough. The chief scientist at Match.com quit recently because of overpromising and underdelivering. He admits, " No computer can accurately predict whom you should be with. The function of the math will make vastly more false predictions than accurate ones."

That said, Match.com recently paid $50 million for competing dating site OKCupid.com. True, OKCupid is seen to attract a younger, more tech savvy audience, but most business types believe Match paid all that money for OKC's data - basically, responses to all the questions answered by users and used by OKC to deliver potential matches.

OKC was started by 4 mathematicians from Harvard, and they admit to mining their user's data to provide recommendations for their OKTrends blog (helpful articles to help maximize your dating experience). However, as one independent researcher noted, "These are not necessarily statistically reliable findings." Maybe not, but they are entertaining.

Some gems of advice from OKTrends include:

• Ask about your potential soul-mate's taste in Wes Craven flicks, Albanian backpacking and life on the high seas.
• Subtract 2 inches from whatever height your potential date claims to be. Knock 20% off the reported salary too.
• Women, show off your décolletage, especially if you're not so young. (Just don't expect erudite discourse in return.)

Of course, the independent researchers counter:

• What you're measuring is what psychologists call "openness to experience," or the O Factor, says David McCord, a clinical psychologist and head of the psychology department at Western Carolina University. But here's the rub: If you're "high O" and drawn to similarly wild-and-crazy types but are seeking a successful long-term relationship, you may be asking for trouble. "Sensation-seeking and 'openness to experience' predict infidelity," says David M. Buss, psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating."
• For men, this makes sense. "Height suggests health, good genes and social dominance," McCord says. Rich is hot too. Notes Buss: "As I've shown in my study of 37 cultures, women universally value men with resources. Men deceive about their status and income in order to make themselves seem more desirable to women."
• But maybe button up if you're looking for something serious: To men, Buss says, revealing too much flesh may be a sign of promiscuity. "Promiscuity is something men don't mind at all in short-term mating but really don't like in long-term mating, for obvious evolutionary reasons."

Hmmm... the above all seems like common sense. Maybe I should get a PhD in psychology.

And finally, if you are out on a date, and you decide to go to the Alamo Drafthouse, be sure not to text during the movie:

Grand Rapids

When I lived and worked in Detroit, I visited Grand Rapids just once. If you picture Michigan as your left hand or mitten (palm down), Grand Rapids is located at the base between your pinkie and fourth finger. It's a nice town. Apparently, it's fallen on harder times since my visit years ago. Newsweek recently rated GR as number 10 of America's top-10 dying cities.

This video has gone viral, but it's so positive and uplifting (and it's good to see a city united) that I wanted to share it also. Besides - I like the song.



Btw, for you car buffs, those are Chrysler 200 convertibles featured around the 5'45" mark.

BV

As I watched "Blue Valentine" tonight, I reflected on what makes relationships work. You'd think I'd have a better clue at my age, especially when I'm surrounded by successful examples. But the truth is, I don't really know. I'm certain common goals, laughter, growth, passion and dedication form parts of the equation - although that seems overly simplistic. Then again, perhaps I'm over-thinking and it's an even simpler quadratic, and I just have too many variables.

Regardless, it's an uncomfortable film - especially if you'd had the good fortune of being in a relationship long enough to grow apart.

I'm not a movie critic, but Mick LaSalle is. And I thought his review of "Blue Valentine" in the San Francisco Chronicle was the best I'd read - you can find it here.

The story behind the soundtrack song, "You and Me", is also an interesting one. Enjoy.




Btw, Ron's birthday was yesterday, and today is my sisters' birthdays. Salud!