End of an Era
 Sometime around May 2000, I tied a little piece of seine twine around my wrist in the nautical knot known as a turk's head. At various times throughout high school, it was the hip thing to do given our towns nautical leanings. I was only 3 or so years late to the fad. Some 14 years later*, that same knot sits in place, never having been removed, not for a minute. Over the years, constant exposure to anything and everything took its toll: the color has faded, the strands have frayed, and the once 3 turn braid lost at least one wrap. But I still wore it proudly.
But all good things must come to an end sometime. So with a bit of nostalgia, I snipped it away. Without it, my wrist looked bare and frail. But I was ready with a new one at hand. With some help from Della in tightening and straightening this not so simple know, I was back in business. It will take some time for the new knot to settle in to that perfect state of that which it replaces; where I might not notice its presence, but I surely would notice its absence. But once it does, I trust it will stay in place for another 14 years or more. Yay for continuity!! |
| Saturday April 19 2014 | File under: misc |
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Tulipy Commute
 Skagit Valley is a pretty dang nice place most of the time, but for about a month in Spring, it's super nice. While much of that is due to the emergence from the rainy, short-dayed winter, them purty flowers that show up all over the flats contribute nicely. Normally, I barely see the fields of yellow, pink, and purple from far off on the highway. This year, however, I get to see them up close almost daily!  In a slight divergence from my normal schedule, the last couple weeks I've been hauling gravel, shoveling dirt, and building with rocks (which is typically more of a fall occurrence.)* As always, I enjoy the work and income but lament the loss of free easy days. But that's beside the point. The place we are working requires a commute through the tulips. The first week, the daffodils were just peeking through. Now they've mostly been topped and some tulips are in full swing. Next week, when we're scheduled to finish the job, everything should be going great guns!
The tulips are one of those Skagit County events I take for granted. The last time I truly took advantage was 7 years ago (posted here*). This year, not only do I have the lovely commute to admire them from, I will also be doing the tourist thing when a friend comes up specifically to see the tulips. For those of you who haven't experienced the glory of the acres upon acres of color, here are some photos from local superstar photographer and ex-blog du friend-er David Clumpner. (You can look at his wedding photography website here.)    |
| Saturday April 12 2014 | File under: Anacortes, work |
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More Housesitting Features
| I've often said that my chosen profession, housesitting, is the best job one could have. And it is. I get to stay in nice houses, snuggle on animals*, always shop at new and different grocery stores, and make a little money on the side. But every now and again, there's a different perk, one that I would have never expected going in. I get to see so many neat and different house features.
Sure there's differences in architecture, design, and even stuff as little as appliances. And all those are neat. But recently I came across two house features that I just loved.  Feature 1: Magic sucking wall dustpan*
Central vac was something I only learned about through housesitting. And in my long career, I've come across it enough times for it to become common enough. But this extra use of central vac was just too dang neat. Basically, you just sweep your pile into the wall and it disappears. No more dustpan. No more leaning over. Just sweep and you're done! Not that I'd ever have central vac, because I can't imagine it is very efficient, but I can appreciate a neat feature when I see one. Feature 2: SECRET BOOKSHELF!! In movies, it isn't uncommon for the dectecive to snoop around until he finds the secret book on the secret bookshelf that, when pulled, reveals a hidden room*. But those don't exist in the real world, do they? They do! At my current job, THERE IS A HIDDEN ROOM BEHIND A SECRET BOOKCASE! The story goes that the builder/first owner of the house had kids so built in a bunch of neat features like this. Besides the book shelf, there's another mini-room only accessible via crawling under a bed. So neat! Yeah, housesitting is a pretty dang neat way to pay the bills (or avoid them). I know on all jobs, there is always something new to learn or discover. But with housesitting, you can do it all in your skivvies! |
| Thursday March 20 2014 | File under: work |
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Pi Day 2014
 As Pi Day Eve drew to a close yesterday, I was on the verge of resorting to my standard Pi Day fare: a pecan pie and quiche (posted here and here)*. But last minute inspiration brought forth this beauty, an apple pi pie. We think it turned out peachy. Della was responsible for the artistry while I did the culinary stuff. A little cocoa powder did the trick for coloring the pi dough. Yay for Pi Day! |
| Friday March 14 2014 | File under: holidays, food |
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2014 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
 The microcultures that exist in the world can be such a neat thing. Some phenomenon that, in general culture quietly hides in the background, when a large groups of its devotee gather, it takes center stage and becomes something entirely different. Such was the case of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held this weekend in Brooklyn, NY. I was lucky enough to attend.
As with any microculture, there were celebrities, traditions, history, and more. To begin to glimpse into that was so much fun. There was a talent show, talks on the history of crosswords and computers' roles in creation, shaping, and solving, merch*, inside jokes, and more. Then, of course, there were the puzzles. Even for a gotta-have-a-puzzle-with-me-at-all-times guy like myself, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of puzzles around, lying on the tables for anyone to take free. I think I've got my cereal reading library stoked for a while to come. But the reason we were all there, ostensibly, was to do the tournament puzzles: 8 puzzles varying in difficulty, size, and time allotment. The format was basically this: 3 puzzle Saturday morning, 3 Saturday afternoon, 1 Sunday morning, and one for the finalists to do on stage. We were scored first on accuracy then on speed. And the speed with which the top competitors solved them was incredible. The puzzles used were of high caliber* and would be even greater fun to solve not under the gun of the big bad clock. As for my performance, I did alright. In terms of accuracy, I aced 3 of the 7 and got 1 square wrong on two others*. The puzzle that was my demise was the notoriously difficult Puzzle 5. And while everyone has a hard time with it, my showing was even worse than most. But in the end, I finished 369th out of 580, not bad for a first attempt. Out of the rookies, my rank was 38 of 99. Breakdown of my scores can be seen here*. But seeing the microculture and how I stacked up against the heavy hitters wasn't the only reason I chose to attend. I wanted to network and glad hand. Getting a crossword published is a life goal of mine and while I'm making some progress on my construction through sheer brute force, chatting with other constructors, introducing myself to prominent editors, and getting to know the market should help me on the way to that dream. A skeptical person might ask with incredulity "You came all the way across the country to do some crosswords?!?" and they would have a point. But with the wonderful experience and knowledge I gained at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, there's no question that it was worth it. I might just have to come back next year. |
| Sunday March 9 2014 | File under: games, misc |
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Wheel of Fortune Audition(!)
 I auditioned for Wheel of Fortune and all I got was this LO_S_ _ENC_L NUB...for now* The audition was held in a conference room at the Edgewater Hotel on the downtown Seattle's waterfront. There were about 50 of us auditioneers with the demographic somewhat skewed towards men in their 30s and 40s. I felt I fit right in*. The other online recounts* of what to expect at the audition were pretty much on the money. There was a first round with the whole group where we were called on randomly to shout out a letter and try to solve a puzzle presented on a screen. They told us they were looking for loudness, clarity, confidence, and "vibe". Those who solved the puzzles got a t-shirt or tote bag. After a time or two around the room, we took a 5-minute written puzzle test. There were lots of WoF-style puzzles in 4 different themes and I'm sure no one got them all right. Then they took our tests and left the room for 15 minutes or so, leaving us to mingle amongst ourselves. Lots of fun people there trying out. Then they came back and announced 15 names of those who got to continue while everyone else headed back to work. And that's where I expected my experience to end. But no! When the contestant search crew left to deliberate, the fellow next to me, apropos of nothing, said "You're in" with such confidence that I started to believe it was true. He said I nailed my "shouting a letter" test and that was the most important thing. I chose to believe that he knew what he was talking about. As for the written test, I felt pretty good about it. While I'm no Grandma Schultz, I pulled a few obscure ones out. I'm convinced that the 3 hours of App time on the bus ride down got my mind in the mode for it. 
Now that we were just down to 15, we did some more mock games, this time standing in front of the group, mimicking spinning the wheel and with more opportunity to guess letters and solve puzzles. Then there was "tell us about yourself" portion. While I didn't have the requisite words "lovely wife/husband" in my spiel*, I had a few interesting things to say which the "judges" seemed to like, or at least humored me on. Then we're done and they're getting the room ready for the next back of hopefuls. All in all, it was about 2 hours. From here, the deal is that we'll get a letter in the mail in the next 2 weeks if we get to be on the show. If not, better luck next time. While I can't say I feel confident per se, I will be anxiously checking the mail with my fingers crossed. Needless to say, stay tuned to BdW for any further developments. |
| Tuesday March 4 2014 | File under: wheel |
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Standby
| Killing time in an airport isn't the worst way to spend an afternoon. It isn't the best, but it isn't the worst. And I seem to be doing that a lot recently. Not because I've been travelling more, but because of how I've been traveling. Through the generosity of a friend, I'm in the in-crowd, able to hop on flights for free or little money (provided it's the right airline) without jumping through the hoops of time-sensitive fares, blackout dates, etc. Yes, I'm a travel companion!
The upsides of this arrangement are many. There's the whole cheap cheap travel, of course. And then there's the way the airline folks treat one of their own. I've had so many great experiences, esp. with the ticketing and gate people. And maybe they're this nice to everyone. If so, I didn't notice until now. And with the cost of travel a non-issue, freedom of travel increases. Hop to San Francisco for an evening? Why not? Weekend trip to Hawaii? Alhoa! But as with anything, there are downsides. The two biggest for my situation are this: the airline I get to go free on has a business model that isn't conducive to flexible travel. They serve small airports via hubs and don't do any connecting flights. This works great if I'm just going Bellingham to Vegas or LA, but doesn't work well if I want to head to the east coast. It can be done, but it involves overnight layovers and transfers in obscure midwest locations. But the biggest downside is what has me killing full afternoons in airports unexpectedly: I only fly standby. It seems when I was flying via traditional paying means, none of the flights I ended up on were fully booked. There was always one seat to be had somewhere. But now, a full 25% of my flights have been booked to the point of leaving me waving to them from the airport while they taxi away. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it can sure throw a wrench in one's planning*. So here I continue to sit, poaching free wifi and counting heads as the waiting room fills up, hoping there will be one measly seat for little old me. |
| Sunday February 23 2014 | File under: travel |
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8th Roses Are Red Off
| Hey, I've got an idea. Let's write Roses are Red poems right here on the blog. It'll be great. I'll write a few to get you started. Then you can contribute your own. Over the next week or so, you can check back to read the awesome ones other people write. How about we set the rules as every poem much contain either the word "roses" or "red" and must follow the standard Roses are Red rhyming/stress pattern.
Full disclosure: this is not a new idea. It's been done many times, some of which were right here on this blog! Check out posts from '13, '12, '11, '10, '09, '08, '07
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| Wednesday February 12 2014 | File under: poetry, holidays |
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Sheep To Shawl
 Last summer, I got a call from a friend asking for some help shearing her sheep and alpaca. In the mood for an adventure, I hustled on over. And while I didn't do any of the actual shearing (quite a specialized skill), I did help round them up, hold them down, keep them happy (at least attempt to as some man was going at them with a buzzer), and be an extra pair of hands. In exchange, I received a nice lesson on farm life and a big sack of unprocessed wool. What a deal!
Summer passed and winter fell, as it tends to do, and I found myself feeling a little bit crafty. Enter: wool sack. I first tried my hand at carding and spinning. It's hard. Like really hard to get things nice and even. Ten hours of carding, spinning, and knitting just to make a 4"x8" 'shawl' is enough to make a person really gain appreciation for industrialization. But I know as I do it more, I'll get better. The end goal is to knit myself a new hat (as this one is getting a little ragged) having completed the process start to finish, or "sheep to shawl" as they say. Another craft endeavor I tried with the raw wool was felting. Using youtube tutorials, I had a couple goes at it. While a bit faster than spinning and knitting, it still isn't fast or easy. But I'm excited about the products of my first attempt and look forward to dialing it in a bit. If I end up with a nice felt hand-made hat, I would be stoked beyond belief. So many crafts, so little time. |
| Monday February 10 2014 | File under: crafts, misc |
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Taking Troothpicks To the Next Level
 Interest, both mine and the world at large's, in troothpicks tends to wax and wane. Someimtes I'll go 10 months without thinking or hearing about it at all. Other times, there's seems to be something exciting happen with them every other week. Some recent excitement was inclusion in Nomad, a travelling trailer full of indy art, based out of Bellingham and some long overdue internet sales!
So keeping in form with this latest wave of interest, I've decided to step it up to the next level. I've open up a troothpicks store on Etsy! My hope is that the wider marketplace will bring troothpicks happiness to more people making the world a better place...and maybe putting a few bucks in my pocket*. I've heard a number of Etsy success stories recently, including Della's! She makes awesome juggling bags and has sold out in just the last week on her Etsy store. You should go check it out yourself and get a pre-order in before demand drives the price through the roof*! Anyway, it's my hope that this new move puts troothpicks where it deserves to be: on the verge of making me a million dollars! If you felt so inclined, I'd love help spreading the word. Tell your friends, 'favorite' my etsy shop, --heck, maybe even buy a package for yourself or a friend. |
| Saturday February 1 2014 | File under: misc |
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Della and my juggling website
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A circus-inspired elementary assembly show to teach kids about healthy eating
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Della and Sadye's Performance Troupe
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