I didn't see any of the Baldwins.

I had a totally awesome Sunday. I went to my church (that is, the pool) and had a fantastic workout. We're in the endurance phase of our training and the sets are wicked hard (20 x 100 on 2:10, 25 mod, 50 build, 50 sprint); I led the lane for all twenty. Then we had some kick races and I beat the fastest kicker in our lane (we went 2-1-1).

After that, I had breakfast with some of my teammates, which really meant a lot to me because I am still new, so I find talking to them really hard. (I don't shut up when you know me, but strangers are scary.) I think I did a good job.

Then I took my laundry in and had a nap. Now I'm about to settle down to the paper and some tortellini. I love Sunday.

Show me, "paint iron door."

Show me, "clean vinyl siding while on ladder."

Show me, "fertilize lawn."

Daniel-san, soon you catch fly with chopstick.

"I didn't see any of the Baldwins."

Me either, which means I can add +10 to today's nominal score.

Steven's the nonscary one.

I went to Mass, got roped in to lectoring on All Saint's Day, carved a pumpkin, fixed a casserole, warshed the toilet, and watched Down By Law, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Crow. I always watch TRHPS and The Crow on October 30th. I was going to bake cookies but instead I'm going to read some of The Living Blood by Tananarive Due.

(1) Considering the massive number of Baldwins, it's actually quite an accomplishment going more than two weeks without seeing one.

(2) "nonscary" is a rather subjective term when dealing with Baldwins. Many of us are relatively unaffected by any of them, others are terrified by the mention of the name. In a few generations, all of humanity will build up an immunity to Baldwins, but until then, we must handle them all with a certain amount of care. Just be sure to report to the proper authorities when you encounter more than one of them at a time. (Same rule as dealing in real-world conditions with MeFites.)

I went to a tea shop, swam for a couple of hours, read the first chapter of The Time Traveler's Wife, went to a cool thrift shop in the city (Philadelphia), went to a wake, and watched the last quarter of a pathetic football game, which involved a team that I will never watch again. Too much aggravation.

Thanks for asking!

Mowed the lawns.
Finished the paving next to the garage.
Weeded a garden.
Planted about 30 plants.
Pressure-cleaned the driveway.
Cleaned the garage.
Did the week's ironing and folding.
Hung a load of washing up.

I'm tired.

Dg, I am impressed. I don't do that much in a week.

We will watch them again, iconomy. We always do. It's part of the inherent masochism of SE PA sports fans.

We went to a kids' halloween party. I ate too much.

I find Stephen to be the scariest of all the Baldwins. (Alec's turns on SNL and the Simpsons make him my favorite.)

You're right... ;)

About the Eagles. It's a love-hate thing, right? Hopefully soon there will be more love than hate.

Actually Daniel is the one I would least like to meet in a dark alley. Or a weight-loss competition.

Slept in late, read a few articles in "The New Yorker," went to the gym (where I saw no Baldwins and watched the first quarter of the -- ahem -- awesome Broncos-Eagles game whilst on the step machine), worked on changing over my closet from summer to winter wardrobe (which, in LA, means putting away most of the sleeveless t-shirts and pulling out the cardigans), and am presently getting ready to go out for dinner and to see a band with The Boy.

Spent the day at a Natural History Museum and then had Korean Nabe for dinner. It was a good day.

My son and I reinvented baseball. You play the new game with some gourds from the garden and a 3 foot piece of 2 x 2. It rocks. If you hit the gourd just exactly right, it will explode in a beautiful parabola of gourdy flesh and seeds and glop. When the gourds are gone, you can reinvent baseball with rotten cherry tomatos and a long gourd neck. This requires precision but has massive splatter possibility. Then we set off the last July firecrackers. Then we went to see Wallace and Gromit and eat pizza. Now we're going to watch Salem's Lot. I love being a 14 year old boy.

Woke up at 2am with bad pain in my kidneys, took a couple Tylenol and slept on the couch. Woke up again around 10. Went out and got cigarettes, coffee, more Tylenol, beer and Dunkin' Donuts breakfast sandwiches and orange kit kats. Had a meal of leftover wings from the new Planet Wings around the corner. Wrote a mecha post. Listened to music. Watched the Kill Bill movies with pips. That about covers it.

I havent showered all weekend, and I'm still in the the white Heineken t-shirt (I won it at bar trivia, I hate heineken) and red snowflake pattern jammy pants I fell asleep in friday night. I didn't have a napkin when I ate my wings so now the t-shirt is so stained the Planet Wings people can use it for flavor sampling. I'm a cosmopolitan playboy what can I say.

red snowflake pattern jammy pants

Jon, it is so beyond cute that you own those, call them jammy pants, and then go out to buy unhealthful things in them. I mean, I'm still cuter than you are, but that's pretty damn cute.

Also, I'm really beginning to feel that workout. Tomorrow is going to be one of those days where sitting down hurts.

Jon, it is so beyond cute that you own those, call them jammy pants, and then go out to buy unhealthful things in them.

Well, just for honesty's sake, I did change into a pair of blue jeans to go run errands, but for the rest of the weekend, I've been wearing my jammy pants, as I do every day when I get home now that the weather's gotten cold.

On preview: everyday sitting down hurts for me, at least until I get 3 beers in me. God, I'm scared but I can't wait to go under the knife this Friday. Bunnyfire, pray. Matteo, light a candle at the Vatican. The rest of you, just cross all and sundry appendages.

Don't be scared. I had surgery when I was seven and I turned out okay. Is it general anaesthesia?

Yeah, it's general. I had surgery when I was seven, as well, for a sty on my eye that had developed into a cyst. In my teens I (and both my sisters) had chalazions (scroll down) that were removed by outpatient surgery requiring a local (yes the proverbial needle in the eye). This accounts for my permanently droopy eyes that make me look drunk even when I'm stone cold sober.

I'm not scared I'm gona die. More scared that this surgery won't work, given the tragicomic course of this thing so far. I just want the pain to end. A year of this shit is enough.

I had eye surgery, too. Apparently they too my eye out to do it. Awesome!

Anyway, I'm hoping that by this time next week, you are stone free & recuperating nicely. But you better eat what they tell you to so you don't get it again.

I don't think it's diet. From my research and family history, it looks like it's genetics.

Like I always say: live healthy, exercise, die anyway. So, you'll get my beer, cigarettes and greasy food when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

What if you like to eat veggies & exercise? What then?

like I said, die anyway.

As Redd Foxx said: all the health nuts are gonna feel real stupid sitting in the old folk's home, dying of nothin'.

and you drink, smoke and get high, too. It's not like you're without health hazards. This is merely something that happens, not some kind of comeuppance.

I don't get high anymore.

And I have to quit smoking for swimming.

Yeah, I imagine that the water keeps putting them out.

I finished cleaning the house, and then interviewed potential roommates for four hours. By the end my head hurt and my jaw ached from forcing a smile. Three decent candidates though, now I just have to choose and hope they accept.

dg, you made me giggle. I love you across many threads this fine evening. Which is your morning.

Afternoon, actually. I am so fucking tired from all the work I did at home yesterday that I can't get into doing any work at work, so I am here instead.

So, uh, how's the future, dg?

Hasn't someone invented a smoking snorkel? Get the Will Rogers Institute on the phone...

The future's so bright, I gotta ...

Ah, fuck it.

Actually, the future is pretty much the same as the present and past. Sorry about that.

Is there still swimming in the future? And do the Americans finally get around to beating the Aussies again (other than in the Duel in the Pool)?

Sunday was a good day, as I managed to avoid doing any study whatsoever. Of course, now I'm regretting that....

Was supposed to play cricket, but half the team didn't show. So that was lame. Managed to find some people at the local nets, though, teaching their new American friend how to play cricket. Gotta say -- for a dude that'd never played before, he could get some mean swing happening.

What else? Oh yeah, went for a bicycle ride along the river and through the gardens in the city, stopping off for a late afternoon beer and a steak. Then home for another beer, and some biscuit-baking.

Anyone wanna cookie?

Given the speed of global warming, swimming will become even more important in the future. How long can you tread water?

There are no historical records of the Americans ever beating the Aussies, so I cannot parse your question about beating them again.

cough cough cough

We are aussies. We may lose, but we're never beaten!!!

And if you think so, well.. well... you're just crap!

/stereotypicalpoorlosingaussie

Woke up at 5:30. I hate going to standard time!!! Drilled out corroded bolts from an explosion-proof lamp my sister wants for her porch light. Next it gets bead blasted. Cruised internet, nothing exciting. Watched part of "Bride of Reanimator." Went to Old Town looking for beer yeast and second hand stuff. Nobody open yet, weather is miserable. Got fresh yeast sample from microbrewery. Went back home and watched rest of Bride of Reanimator. Went back to Old Town. Saw Linda at Eartha Kitty second hand. Showed her the pictures from yesterdays 8-hour cider pressing marathon. Bought a Nancy Sinatra / Lee Hazelwood record in perfect condition for Clarke in Seattle (I'm going next week.) Stopped in at the old guy's second hand store in Pace's building (he's been there for 30 years.) Rummaged around for machine tool bits. Found a piece of 1/4" tool steel I can probably use to make a circle cutter bit, a sharp triangular file and a funny metal pick/punch to knock primers out of cartridge cases with. Old guy wanted $1.25. Didn't have a quarter, so I gave him two bucks. It made his day. Stopped by Perry's and gave them a pound of home-made breakfast sausage. Went to my sisters. Took a brief nap. Had hamburgers and onion rings. Syphoned cider and mixed in sulphite, nutrient and pectic enzyme. Cleaned up the last of the cider mess from yesterday. Delivered garbage disposal back to Tip. Went home. Cleaned up the pick / punch with emery paper and polished it. Finished resizing the last six .44 magnum cartidges now sized down to .442 Webley. Made six wax bullet and seated primers. Tested wax cartridges on target in basement shooting range. Irregularities in the wax made some of them not shoot straight. Need to cast wax in pan to get flat slabs. Knocked out the primers and put the cases away for reloading. Cruised ebay for lathe toolholders and wrote some email. Checked MeCha. Wrote this note. I'm still awfully tired from making 13 1/2 gallons of cider yesterday. Typical Sunday.

Used changeover to standard time to adjust schedule from waking up after noon to waking up just before noon. Hey, time flies when you work for yourself ...

Went next door to parents, ate my mother's lemon cookies she made for church. There were actually some left, which is statistically nearly impossible, since they were heavenly.

Put up a couple of plastic window insulators, one in my apartment, one in my parents' house. I'm trying to do a couple a day to spread out the pain. In my apartment the window frame is disassembled so the tape has to go on bare plaster, which doesn't work so well, so I was working off a base of cloth carpet tape, which only worked slightly better. It is fun to run the hair dryer and make the plastic tighten and wrinkle and then smooth out the wrinkles -- it's almost like some flash game or something. I always wonder whether the specific expense of all these insulator kits, plus the energy to run the hair dryer, is really made up over a winter ...

Went to a tenant apartment, fixed a garbage disposal. It had started to leak around the gasket, so they tightened the locking ring, which was the wrong thing -- it made the ring almost impossible to get off, and it crushed the rubber gasket, so once I finally got it off I had to buy a replacement. Pfaugh, dumb tenants. The guy's supposed to mow the lawn, he never does unless we yell at him.

Took my nephew to a haunted house. We picked up his new girlfriend. We waited for nearly an hour because they opened late (would've booked except it was an arranged Scout thing). We pay $5 apiece. The girlfriend only has $4.25 so I paid for her too. We wait in line 20 minutes longer. The girl has an amusing staring match with the "ghoul" doorman. Then, inside, in the dark, with a guy running a fake chainsaw feet away, she freaks and panics and we have to feel our way back out. $5 for 5 minutes of scare! Woohoo!

Then my dad revealed his brother is coming back to town; my mother hates his brother, hates having him stay with them, and there's good reason -- not only is he an alcoholic who got his ass arrested last time he was here, he's a perfect jerk to everybody except his little brother (my dad) -- wait, he just doesn't realize it yet. Aren't passive-aggressive families fun?!

Moped because I and Confused Girl are again on the outs.

Watched the Abyss with nephew. I love that movie.

≡ Click to see image ≡
me working the press. those are King apples, an old variety now fairly rare. they don't keep very well and only yield about 50% of the cider compared to cider apples, but taste wonderful - very full and rich. The tree is over 80 years old. Two apples make a pie.

≡ Click to see image ≡
The 12-ton hydraulic cider press I built. It's about twice as productive as our old press. I need to make some step blocks to replace the 2x4 cribbing.

I gotta ask - how do you make cider?
Obviously, it starts with the pressin'... then what? How long does it all take? And is it worth it?
How many apples do you need for it to be deemed worthy?

I got up at one o'clock and ate three oranges, because I was dehydrated. Then, after the third orange, my beloved girlfriend came back from New Hampshire (where she'd been for three days), and we "did it" for about an hour.

Then we read on the porch for awhile--she drank beer and read "Foundation", and I drank wine and did research for the novel I'm about to start. It was a beautiful Autumn day, with pumpkins and orange leaves and blue skies.

After that, we went to my parents' house for a delicious home-cooked meal, where my latest pun ("cynical pathology") got a huge laugh from my doctor-hating physicist father.

Back at my apartment, we watched "Pleasantville" and she went to bed.

I can't sleep.

Jonmc, I will pray. I do suggest you drink more water, though. I don't think beer counts. ;-)


And it's monday morning and I have learned to love teh oatmeal.

Cider is made by squeezing the bejesus out of ground apples. In the first picture, my arm is blurred because I'm pumping like crazy on the hydraulic jack in the press. You can vaguely see the silhouette of the apple grinder on the right. It has a power cord draped across it.

You get 1/2 to 1 gallon from 1 cu ft of picked apples, depending on the variety. Sweet cider is preserved by canning or fermented into hard cider. Hard cider can be further fermented with Mother of Vinegar into, yes, apple cider vinegar.

We like cider so much, my sister has planted a small orchard of cider apples. We've been making cider for over thirty years.