What a slacker

So T. got some time off from Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants, and what's he decide to do? Oh, PAINT THE GARAGE... you know, something light, productive.

Here he is painting under the eaves after he removed yards of steel grating and it's accompanying Wysteria vines. They're draped over the garden, around his feet, in his way, all over the place.


It's not a simple job, but he felt that if the roof looked so nice then the rest of it should get cleaned up too. My god.

Enjoy your spirit family,

Bp

Man Purses, a frog

To my surprise, my two uncles and I all carry Man Purses, or Murses, or as my TV-watching friends call my leather bag, The European Man-Satchel. I had to take a picture of the Murses all together, to which Uncle Terry exclaimed -- "hey, we're Mursenaries!"

The second picture is of a frog near the river at The Luddite's place. [addition: I know know that this little guy is a Hyla Regilla, or Pacific Tree Frog]The Wife and I both love frogs -- she screams like a little girl when she sees one, and I smile, knowing that the environment nearby must be in at least decent shape. Environmentally, frogs are the canary in the coal mine, so seeing them brightens my heart.

Ps: There is an update in The Fur Shark Chronicles.

PpSs: Gamers, note the WoW shaman icon pin on Uncle Terry's black leather Murse. GEEK!

Enjoy randomness,

Bp

Promised Photo Archive 3: visit with The Luddites

The Luddite and I have been friends for many years. We spent much of this time talking about how it was we wanted to get by in this life, how to live in a way closer to our hearts while still being realistic about the world as it is. He's now begun in earnest to live in this way, and its exciting to watch. We both want to live more sustainably, with less (or no) reliance on modern services, with less of an ecological footprint, eating healthy food we in large part produce ourselves, and closer to nature. He and his fiance are well on their way to their version of this dream (there will be a picture of the lovely lady coming soon, when I talk about their business).

By the way, the gamers in the audience will know The Luddite as Cuivien the bard in EQ, or Thorvald the dwarf-in-a-dress in WoW. Although I prefer the pseudonym Luddite, I was really really close to naming him Grizzly Adams for the blog, check out that Amish beard man, you go.

Pictures: The first is Uncle Terry and The Luddite his'self in front of the cabin where he and Mrs. Luddite now live, next is getting to their cabin via boat, the last 3 are overviews of the river bend where they live. I'll leave pictures and explanations of their very cool business for another post. Remember you can click on the pictures to get a bigger size/better look.

Enjoy your far-flung friends,

Bp

Promised Photo Archive 2: The Uncle

As mentioned in this earlier post, we held a sanctified Father Refuge (tm) week for Uncle Terry earlier in the summer. I didn't get a ton of pictures, but here is one of Uncle Terry being a dork near a ginormous hornets nest. We were staying with The Luddites at this point on our road trip and enjoying the sights on their bitching piece of land. Pictures from there upcoming.

Enjoy your reminiscences from the summer, Fall is on the way

Bp

Promised Photo Archive 1: Insect Girl

The camera and the computer are talking again, so I'll post a bunch of pictures for a while, catching the blog up to the backlog in the camera. This picture is of The Wife right after her laziks eye surgery, as promised in This Post. She had to wear these goggles all day long, and then every night for like 2 weeks to keep from rubbing her eyes in her sleep.

More to come.

Enjoy your technological doohickies,

Bp

Victoria Crew as Led Zeppelin album cover

Here's the crew, from Muse's Flickr site. There are some amazing photos there, I suggest you check it out.

We didn't lie at the border, by the way, and everything went fine. FOR ONCE.

More later on in our program: mead, bees, mushrooms -- all Canukistani-style.

Enjoy your summer,

Bp

Always the question: shall we lie

Quick note as we pack up to head home through the Canadian/U.S. border this morning. We strongly considered lying through our teeth, just to avoid a slowup and duties at the border. In the past, not lying has burned us pretty badly, and that is a consistent experience many people have when dealing with the government in general. In the end, we're gonna just suck it up, tell the truth about the few bottles of Mead (good story there, see future posts), honey and jam we're bringing back and see if it becomes a huge pain in the sphincter as it has in the past.

Will honesty work? Tune in tomorrow and find out.

Enjoy your duty-free day,

Bp

Big Brown Ball

It's almost 3 a.m. -- I think I lost my big brown ball, you seen it?

Enjoy your celestial events,

Bp

More friend pictures from Butchart

First picture: Muse and Bentley, second Trantor (our Australian Acquaintance), third The Wife in front of some amazing Dahlias. Taking pictures of people taking pictures of you is a time-honored tradition amongst the men in my family, I owe this sensibility to them. Muse will very probably have some really fantastic photos from all our adventures on her flickr site very soon (no pressure Muse).





Enjoy your snapshots of good times,

Bp

First quickie Butchart Gardens picture

Turns out my camera WILL talk to this computer. Here is Shady Kate browsing the very Alice-in-Wonderland-like gardens at Butchart. More later, got to go get Trantor to the airport.

Enjoy your local foliage,

Bp

Owl Lady Cometh

Check out this picture! The Wife spotted it on the wall of Bentley's house, where we are being so graciously put up in Victoria Canada. It is a picture of Bentley's Mum (they say Mum up here) when she was a kid.

She raised these Great Horned Owls up from barely fledged to full grown by hand. They could be called into the house, where they would swoop in and land on the back of the dining room chairs, waiting for food. They followed her to school and sat atop the buildings until she was ready to come home, then followed her back. Since she grew up in a small town (350 or so people) in Manitoba, this whole scene was a sensation in the town. Apparently, she still gets phone calls from people who find wounded owls in that area. Just too cool.

Tonight, Butchart Gardens. The Wife is gonna freak. Our yard is already greatly transformed since T. saw it last summer.

Enjoy your travels,

Bp

Off to Canukistan

The Wife and I are headed up to Canukistan -- specifically Victoria B.C. We are visiting a load of friends we've made up there through, of all things, World of Warcraft. Neither one of us play anymore, but who can argue with visits to the Land of Socialized Medicine once a year or so. We may even go mushroom picking in their forests!

I expect, as these folks are well connected on the intarweb, that I will be making reports from on the road often. I may even get my camera to talk to someone else's computer and share pictures from Ancient History (at least 3 weeks ago) with ya'll.

Soon,

Bp

I'm so getting into Overheard in PDX with this one...

Said by a thick-rimmed-glasses-wearing, homely, pubescent boy gathering up grocery carts outside Fred Meyer to a work associate:

"... but my face is too well known around here. If I did have to take someone down tho, they wouldn't be getting up any time soon. I'd go for the windpipe first."

overheard by Bpaul

****

Oh yeah, Napoleon Dynamite had nothing on this kid. I expect it to be published soon on Overheard in PDX.

Enjoy your post-pubescent self awareness,

Bp

OSU is drug testing whole communities, news at 11:00

Interesting urinalysis program going on based out of Oregon State University -- it seems that they can get decent drug statistics for communities doing testing at sewage treatment plants, according to this article. It exposes some interesting patterns, including a flush of cocaine and ecstasy use in affluent neighborhoods, and high meth use in areas that have a gambling industry. Interesting way to get non-invasive information on drug use in communities. Nice job OSU.

Near miss for our Neighborhood Watch

Well, it's 4:09 am and I'm up anyway so I thought I'd write ya'll about our bit of activity on the street tonight. First note: nursing mothers make great neighborhood watch partners.

I'm the co-chair of our neighborhood watch, which prompted me recently to start keeping my cellphone charger by the bed in case this position might actually produce some important calls in the middle of the night. Sure enough, within a month of moving it, it rang. I got a call from a neighbor around 3:30 am saying that the cops responding to her recent call were after the wrong guys, and could I help in some way. I looked outside to see some of Portland's Finest rousting some ne'er-do-wells in a little Sirocco or something and sending em on their way. This was dandy by me, as they didn't look like very savory characters anyhow. But I did want to gather some info on the actual reason my neighbor called, without sending the mother and small baby out onto the street themselves.

After the cops left, without having shot the young men (our Men in Blue have a bad tendency to do that the last 10 years or so, inspiring nasty comments on blogs as shown here), I got my slippers and purple bathrobe on and walked up the street to get the plates and make of the original car in question. It turned out to be a Toyota minivan, and the man who had been sitting in it for the last hour, with his headlights on, and dome light on, doing God-knows-what, wasn't to be seen. When the cops arrived he had turned off all the lights in the car, and was never seen leaving it.

I called in to dispatch and gave the nice lady the new information, explaining the situation. Very soon afterwards, she called back and said that the car had recently been involved in a burglary, was stolen, and to not in any way approach it. I gave some more details about the position of the thing "north facing, second car on the right side of the street up from _____ street" and then watched out the window as the cops snuck up on the car, guns drawn, to check it out. The evil-dooer was gone by then, but at least the stolen car could now be recovered.

Such is the life of someone living on our street -- little to no endemic crime, but really good access to Max and freeway for hoodlums to dump stolen cars or make drug deals or at least park their cars after partying all night. It never ends, thus the need for our neighborhood watch.

Ok, of to bed, the tow truck is here.

Enjoy your continued crime-less existence,

Bp

Pivotal: Massage and Movement Therapy

My good friend Meshi Chavez has a really nice website for his massage practice, Pivotal: Massage and Movement Therapy. I thought I'd share it as he is a superb bodyworker that I can suggest to anyone wanting work from light and restorative to deep and therapeutic. He has a classy looking studio to boot, which is located close-in South East -- good for folks either side of the river. Check out his pictures page for nice photos of his space.

Rain, and Chanterelles

Its been grey and rainy the last few days. It's actively raining as I write, and this makes the second solid day of rain -- which means soon I'll be picking Chanterelles. I normally hit the woods a few days after this type of early fall precip.

I saw Chanterelles for sale at the Sandy Farmer's market yesterday, which means at least somewhat local areas are starting to produce. If I remember correctly, we started picking last year on August 18th, which we thought crazy early. I'm going to have to start calling my crazy fungal friends and make dates before school starts. Even the most socially reticent acquaintances of mine will come out of the woodwork for a mushroom trip.

As the season progresses I'll talk about the politics and secret-handshake insider information for how my friends and I go about picking mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest. We've developed our own little culture around picking mushrooms, with protocols and niceties, factions, alliances and laws. It's pretty hilarious when I think about it, and I'll share as the various trips start to happen.

Enjoy the bounty of Fall, if your Fall has started yet,

Bp

School coming up fast

Looking at the calendar, I see that school is starting next month and my heart races a bit. It is such an enormously different lifestyle, moving from living mostly through my body to living mostly through my mind. There are many things I want to change about how I "do school" this next year. More vegetables is one of them -- sounds small but probably will make a huge difference in my health and attitude. I don't even know exactly what I'm taking this next term -- I know I have Vertebrate Zoology and Organic Chemistry. Both are known ball busters, I'd better check what my other class is. I'll open a new tab and check.

So far, it looks like my other class is Aikido. This is good. Though I'm looking into doing a senior Capstone project/class that gets me into a local high-need High School to work as a tutor and mentor 2 hours a week. I need to sign up for that.

I hope all your fall and winter plans are coming together nicely. I know a few of you are in the last stretches of planning for weddings. Some of you are returning to school. Some of you are looking at ways to change your relationship to work and home life. I wish you all well in your endeavors. I've got a day to start, I'll see ya'll later.

Enjoy your plans and ambitions,

Bp

Happy week - ZeFrank

Still busy with The Uncle, so here is a ZeFrank episode with finger spanking, and a week of happiness. More soon.

Bp

Uncle Music

An example of the type of music I've been listening to while visiting The Uncles: Click Here.

Report from the road, now in Medford (was near Reedsport)

Just woke up, the news is playing on a small TV in the kitchen, and there are uncles about. Two of them to be exact. It's always a trip to be around blood family, as The Wife will attest -- we all laugh alike. We just have a similar "vibe." Despite all the differences in lifestyle and worldview, our bones are the same.

Yesterday and the day before we spent on a beautiful piece of land on the Smith River near Reedsport Oregon. Uncle Terry and I were visitng The Luddite and his fiance, soon to be Mrs. Luddite. They live on 200+ acres on a river bend with Elk, Black Bear, and meelions of frogs for neighbors. We had a fantastic time, and I did snap a few pictures. I will have to get my computer and my camera to set aside their differences and communicate when I get home, come hell or high water.

Today -- we fish. Uncle Terry and I are now visiting Uncle Tom in Medford Oregon (no literary reference intended). He is a fisherman, and asked that I invoke my inner fisherman when I visited. We will ply Uncle Terry into joining our inner fishermen with beer and make a day out of it. There will be bass and probably sunburns to come.

Enjoy your blood relatives (remarkably, they age when unattended),

Bp

Perry Bible Fellowship Cartoon

This online strip can be on or off, but when it really gets me. This one so far is my favorite, make sure to click it and look for the little details -- especially the expression on the kid's face. Check the rest out at the Perry Bible Fellowship website.

Tripe for dinner

So The Wife and I took Uncle Terry to the Bagdad to see Pirates 3 last night.

Here's my impression of the grand majority of the movie:

"blah blah blah blah" "blah blah" "BLAHHHHHHH!!!" *cue enormously over-run movie score* *cue over the top sets and redundant but detailed special effects*

"BLAHHHHHH!"

Yelling, it seems, is a cue to pay attention. As is very very overblown symphonic music. The music was almost the worst part -- almost. But there was a lot vying for that spot.

The movie was horrible. Like, really terrible -- the worst. The disjunct of unbelievably detailed sets and effects (and I use that word specifically) and horrible, boring, mind-numbing "dialog" was amazingly bad. Beating a dead horse with a golden cane.

There were no highlights to this movie outside seeing Keith Richards in his cameos.

Keira Knightley comes from the smelling salts school of acting. "Ok, she has to look outraged, wave the smelling salts.... is she wincing, yes? ACTION." "Ok, she has to look sad -- bring the smelling salts, two packs this time... and, ACTION." Talk about a one trick pony -- ok two tricks, collagen and pouting.

The only character I gave a shit about was the African American woman who becomes a major character towards the end. Of course, I couldn't understand a word she was saying, but she's quite beautiful and unusually dressed, so she was at least interesting to watch.

I pride myself on not asking much out of movies. If I'm going out "just to see a flick" and have some beer and pizza, the bar is set low, really low. Despite this, I actively tried to sleep through most of this movie. If it weren't for the gadzillions of dollars spent on it, there would be nothing at all to watch.

For the set details that were smeared across the screen the majority of the movie, I can be generous and give this a D-.

New York Film Academy - They're Made Out Of Meat

Was shown this video by my friend and bodyworker Tito today, after a session. Nothing like relating to yourself as Meat right after getting worked over by a bodyworker. I think this is going to be the new catch phrase with the crew.

Enjoy the culinary delight that is your body,

Bp

Father Refuge (tm)

The Wife, T. and I provide a service we like to call The Father Refuge (tm). This is offering our house up as a kid-free zone for stay-at-home Dads we know. Sometimes we provide diversion and entertainment, but sometimes we just let them sleep in, eat breakfast and not do the dishes, and have laundry done for them. The more kids the Father has, the more space we give them when they invoke the Father Refuge's services.

So Uncle Terry has invoked the Father Refuge. He and I are having a Men's Spa day -- including massage, chiropractic, and acupuncture. It's almost Mens' Fix The Bad Back Day. In fact, it is Mens' Fix the Bad Back Day. We both need it.

I'll report in later, got to go get some bodywork, woohoo!

Enjoy your parental responsibilities,

Bp

A little stereotyping goes a long way

The Wife and I are not a very typical couple. Or, at least, we don't fit into many stereotypes of married life, especially the ones used for dramady. We get along (no nagging each other, sniping, etc), she's the big bread winner right now, I tend to be the more social one and her the overworker, etc. Over lunch today, we were laughing at one thing that does fit the "wife" stereotype.

When I leave town (which I plan to on Wednesday) -- she spends money. She never intends to go on a spending spree, but it always seems to happen. I can't remember what it was the last trip I took -- maybe work clothes, probably some crafting supplies like fringe for shawls or porcupine quills. Sometimes new music shows up in the house after I've been gone for a while -- this will be harder to track as she now has an ipod and itunes.

She has a barely-contained bike fetish that could bloom while I'm gone as well -- I saw her just last night cruising bike-porn on the internet. She said she was looking for one particular thing, a wrap for her center bar to keep it from getting bunged up when she locked up the bike. Being a bike fetishist however, her bike doesn't have a NORMAL center bar, it's tapered for hyper efficiency, making this simple piece of goretex and velcro suddenly hard to find and possibly needing to be custom-made.

So, if she weren't reading this blog, I'd at this point start taking bets as to what will catch her materialistic fancy while I'm gone this week. But, since she is reading this blog, she'll either not go on a spending spree (a win for the blog paparazzi)or get something entirely different just to spite our plans.

I thought of another one -- she wants a good pair of sunglasses now that she's had her eyes fixed (they're nearly healed up by the way, doing dandy). The lady at the eye clinic (who had a huge crush on her) was telling her about Serengetis with some uber special lining that takes glare from the inside of lens or somesuch. The freebie sunglasses that came with her treatment make her look like An Agent, which is kinda hot if I do say so myself.

We'll just have to see.

Enjoy your access to material pleasures,

Bp

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM Trailer 2

Simply put, I give the movie an A. It would be A+ if they'd invest in an effing steadicam (don't sit too close it's real wiggley), and if he'd use a disguise once and a while to make his life wayyyyy easier.

The movie is great, the director and writers did a good job of keeping the core of the story moving along while making it visual and action-oriented. In the end, it's simply an action movie -- but compared to the slop we've been seeing all summer it looks like Academy Award material. It's not, unless for stunts or somesuch, it's just a well-made action movie, but I find it very enjoyable.

ps: added bonus, Crystal Method soundtrack used in this trailer -- my boys.

Hip Hop Violin - Paul Dateh and inka one

I love fusion music, especially if it bumps. This video will surprise you, not as disparate as you would think -- the idea really works. Plus, the violinist kicks booty, that doesn't hurt.

Thanks Kate!

Burning saltwater using radio waves

Home inventor uses radio waves to create intense heat and fire from saltwater. Who knows, could be relevant.

Some days are too plain and pleasant to produce much blog papparazzi gems

Perfect weather, a couple cuts on my hands, some chicken food bags in the back seat of the Rubazu getting warm and aromatic -- pretty simple day, really. Had a bit of caffeine this morning, starting with Earl Grey and then backing it up with Oolong -- so a bit chatty and twitchy.

OH, I do have a friend in town being interviewed for a documentary about Tre Arrow. Just putting that name in my blog probably auto-initiates all sorts of domestic surveillance of this site. Sweet.

Off to help Mr. Jon Schell, acupuncturist extraordinaire, clean up his clinic after ripping out a bunch of drywall. Got to get ready for group treatment day this Saturday.

Enjoy the banality of bliss,

Bp

News Flash: The Humans Are Dead

Make sure to watch through the credits, some of the best stuff is there. I ... apologize ... kinda.

Slightly better atmosphere in my head after reading this

Just to be straight with folks -- I don't intend to get very political in this blog. I will be reacting a bit to news occasionally, however, as I am about to.

I'm happy about This Debate the Dems just had, and I'm glad a few important issues were at least mentioned for the politicos to blow hot air at. At least they got mentioned.

The thing is I don't like either party in this system -- like, I *really* don't like either party. The things I care about are so far off the map in American politics right now they rarely get mentioned on pulpits anywhere, much less in debates.

I do however accede that the Dems are marginally less noxious than the Republicans, and so far I'm still a voter. Voting for the lesser of two evils is hard on the soul but somehow I grind at the feelings it brings up every year and try to make a character building exercise out of it, instead of falling into some violent, antisocial nihilism (tempting tho that road seems at times). That would be giving up, and I'm just not cool with that.

As I've mentioned in conversation before, creating quite a reaction every time, in my opinion cynicism is for the weak.

Hold your head up, despite it all,

Bp

What the hell is going on lately?

So last night there was a bit of tenseness with The Wife. We being the champs we are talked it through and all's well now in the marriage department. But it is unusual for us to get intense like that.

Woke up this morning to find out a friend had broken up with his lady last night as well.

Found out also that a friend needed a ride to OHSU because one of his old running buddies had been shot in the head last night.

That's three right... are we done?

Excuse me while I go hide under something,

Bp

Songs Stuck in my Head Series: Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry

It's early, got to get rolling quickly. This song has been stuck in my head for days -- maybe a video on the blog is an antidote.

Enjoy your clear head,

Bp

Attitude takes another hit, Congress boot-licks yet again

God, and I was starting to cheer up. Congress ok'd expanded domestic spying.

Open letter to Congress: Actions speak louder than words, f-sticks.

Grrrr,

Bp

Grey monday morning antidote, ZeFrank on Confidence and Creativity

Seems like a weird morning. I'm sore all over from being on a ladder for two days with my hands above my head (I could explain, but I'd have to kill you), and somehow that weaponized robot article just set me off on the wrong mindstream for a gray Monday morning.

I checked in with the ZeFrank Show archives and dug up this post he made during the last week of his year-long video project. Feeling better now, ready to go out and wrestle with inanimate objects some more.

Model T beats Hummer up a hill

[Insert witty Old Geezer saying here, something about things not changing as much as the young whippersnappers say they are] Here is the story, short but sweet.


via Division Duplex

Weaponized robots in Iraq

Self explanatory, here is a story and a video on the thing.

Enjoy the shreds of Posse Comitatus,

Bp

'Scuze me while I date myself: Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives

When I was just getting into music, all the cool kids were listening to this guy. 10 years later, when I was a cool kid, I was listening to this same music. Elvis has legs, what can I say.

And, you've got to love the period lighting and fashion. If you go to a live show of indie rock in Ptown lately, you'd swear they were IMITATING THE HELL out of this era and style of performance. What comes around goes around, nothing new under the sun, (fill in the blank with another Old Geezer Anecdote here), etc.

Enjoy what you can still remember,

Bp

Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants come over for dinner and a movie

The proprieters of Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants (tm) came over for dinner tonight -- both of them. I'm trying to conceive of a way to include even a modicum of the humor and surrealist conversation that ensued into a post. We of course got all Tea'd Up on a new Oolong they are going to start carrying, had fantastic stir fry by T. from the garden (string beans, basil, tomato, squash, carrots, & broccoli all home grown), then boysenberries over vanilla ice cream with fresh whipped cream with some nice Gewürztraminer to wash it down.

It was duel of the stimulants and depressants. Bridgeport Pale Ale, Chateau St. Michelle Gewürztraminer, Vietnamese Oolong tea and Ice Cream all duking it out to be the dominant force over our consciousness. In the end, the booze and hypoglycemic coma would win out over the caffiene, which was the plan -- otherwise no one in our house would be able to sleep. We're all caffeine wimps, unlike Chuck The Tea Merchant (tm). He could sleep after chewing and swallowing a 1/4 lb. of prime Japanese Green any day. For the tea wimps however, the alcoholic depressants and well timed hypoglycemic coma will get us into bed on time -- I'm typing fast as I can right now in fact, so I can finish this post before I fall face first onto this keyboard.

Website of the evening was introduced by T. He discovered this weirdo website about colors while he was doing some graphic design research for Jasmine Pearl. What he pointed out to us was the avatars and call signs of the crazy people who are cruising the site, presented on the right hand side of the page. These are the "color people." People so into color and palettes of conjoined colors that they created profiles and a social community on a website dedicated to color, just so they could be in better contact with their brethren. Boggles the mind.

The quote of the evening came out of my head, via The Portable Curmudgeon:

"Nothing in our culture, not even home computers, is more overrated than the epidermal felicity of two featherless bipeds in desperate congress." -- Quetin Crisp

The term "desperate congress" got T. laughing hard enough to go into a fetal position on the floor -- which means the evening was already a success.

Crank call of the evening happened as we chatted about a mutual friend of everyone's -- a man we call Jmichael. He's a yoga stud, and some in our group and outside our group find him quite tantalizing. He's been atrocious about returning phone calls lately, and the tea'd up crew came up with this script to be read by me into his voice mail to entice a response:

"Chuck, Heather, T., Sula, The Wife, and BP are all hanging out naked together in our living room and the topic of you in those leather pants you wore at Thanksgiving a few years back came up. Just wanted to let you know we were thinking about you, talk to you soon."

Other than Sula, we were only naked underneath our clothes of course, but Jmichael doesn't need to know that. I expect I'll get a response early tomorrow morning.

We had great conversation, and a silly but funny movie -- Shaolin Soccer, and now everyone's in bed but me, so off I go. Got to get up early tomorrow.

Enjoy your bizarre and precious friends,

Bp

HA! Drain fixed, without horrific environmental damage

So our little pedestal sink in the bathroom hasn't been draining. It's been bad, real bad. I pride myself on knowing jack shit about plumbing, and the lack of drainage in the bathroom got me pacing and wrinkling my brow. I really didn't want to learn how to fix it, nor did I want to pay a plumber to come out and laugh at me as he dumped Drano into the thing. I was cornered.

I finally decided to internet research a non toxic way to clear the drain -- the results were: 1. Physical clearing -- using whatever you can (normally a snake, but in this case the drain is too small for a snake) physically pull as much gunk out of the drain. It's gross but it works, since it's normally hair and hair sticks to soap and then to each other. Once you get a little bit of hair just keep pulling, most of it will come out. 2. Chemical clearing -- I cringe to think what Drano and similar products do when they pass (probably unscathed) through sewage treatment plants and enter our waterways, so I opted for baking soda and vinegar. I packed the hole with baking soda and repeatedly poured vinegar into the drain, when the bubbles stopped I stirred the mix with a chop stick and poured some more. I used approximately 1/4 cup of baking soda and 1/2 quart of vinegar. 3. Heat -- poured a whole pot of rapidly boiling water down the drain to finish the job.

It worked beautifully. I didn't have to dump extremely nasty toxins into the sewage treatment system, and I learned a bit about plumbing. Namely, you can unscrew the little plunger on the top of the drainplug to get access to the drain without having to take the whole dam sink apart.

Feelin' studly.

Enjoy your freely-draining pipes,

Bp

ZeFrank on Snakes and their Cages

Since it's all hot and all, this episode of The Show seemed topical.

Enjoy your smallclothes,

Bp

Attack of the insect girl, coming soon

I have this great picture of The Wife in her post-laziks surgery goggles that I want to share. But, my camera and my computer hate each other. I'm working on resolving their relationship issues.

In the meantime, The Wife is recovering well and will soon have peripheral vision, no glasses, and no night blurs. If I could take a picture of her sleeping with the goggles on, I would but methinks that wouldn't go over too well.

She looks like she's about to enter a photo shoot with Grace Jones in about '84.

So, you get the picture above until I can get this camera and my computer to get over their petty tirades and begin talking.

Daily Show Science Guy

I just figured out how to post these from Comedy Central. Here's Jon talking with Charismatic Science Guy (tm).

Living Fossil caught off Indonesia

I never get tired of the "Living Fossil" stories in the news -- many coelacanth have been caught since they were first discovered in 1938 off Africa, but this guy is in a whole new geographic area and is causing a stir.

Enjoy your modern, terrestrial existence,

Bp

Still sore from "Pilates on the Range," T. still gone

My overextended Pilates/Belly-dancing equivalent in the saddle this weekend is still haunting me. I have a tendency to get a bit... excited about new endeavors and this is a good reminder of that habit to overdo. I feel like I've been pummeled about the midsection and kicked in the lower back, repeatedly -- by strong, large people. Only so much stretching can do at this point, it is obviously going to just take time to recover from this indiscretion.

T. has been gone a lot lately. He worked the Sequim Lavendar festival last week, and this week went to San Francisco on another business trip. Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants is keeping him busy. Although it's nice to walk around the house naked, especially in the summer, it will be nice to have him home again.

Most people cringe at the idea of having a room mate, especially married couples; but T. has been in my life since kindergarten and is much more like a brother than a friend. I imagine many people cringed even harder at the thought of living with a sibling as well, but it's not like that. We have the history to know each other well, but not the sibling rivalries and difficulties that real brothers would have. I honestly can't imagine another person that would work living with us.

Ok, enough random musing while I wake up, it's time to start my day.

Enjoy your freedoms while they last,

Bp