Chronologically:
1. Powdered white donuts: Very good. Not stale. Freshness is key w/ these little delicacies. 3 stars.
2. Two slices of bacon: Excellent. Thick slabs. Not over or undercooked. 3.5 stars.
3. Chicken tikka masala: Wasn't especially excited about Indiana food for lunch but everyone else seemed to want it. I guess this dish is from the Bloomington region. Was pretty good. 3.5 stars.
4. Aloo gobhi: Interesting mix of cauliflower and potatoes. Kinda spicy. From Evansville part of Indiana apparently. 2.5 stars.
5. Naan: Fancy Indiana bread. Fair. 3 stars.
6. Few Cheez-Its: I didn't need to eat these. 3.5 stars.
7. A few Goldfish sbuck away from Rowan when he wasn't looking. 2.5 stars.
8. Few almonds: Didn't need these at all. 2 stars.
9. Salmon dip on Triscuits. Interesting. Better than sauerkraut balls. 3 stars.
10. CSA salad: This salad had something to do w/ the Confederate States of America but I never heard what that was. Pretty good, though there were a lot of weird non-lettuce vegetables. 2.5 stars.
11. Veggie Manicotti: Fine. Could have used some meat. 2.5 stars.
12. Mom's Lasagna: Spectacular! 4 stars.
13. Dinner rolls: No wonder they were so expensive Owl! Very good. 3 stars.
14. Brownies: Very very good. 3.5 stars.
15. Chocolate chocolate chip cookies: Excellent. 3 stars.
I'm going to try to eat 20 things tomorrow!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Too Bright to See ... Too Loud to Hear ... Too Old to Appreciate? No.
Every once in a while, it's good to get out of the routine and put yourself in an unfamiliar environment. So, last night Dolberry headed over the Lincoln Theatre to catch an Underoath/August Burns Red/Emery triple bill w/ some friends from church. Dolberry was not the oldest person there, but I was probably in the top 10. Average age at the show was probably ~20.
As part of their end-of-the-decade recap, NPR's music blog listed 10 musical genres from this soon-to-be-past decade and the key artists of each. Underoath was listed as the key artist in the "screamo" category. Most songs include a 50/50 (20/80?) mix of normally sung lyrics and those shouted out in a growl/scream mix. As an old geezer, I think less is more when it comes to screaming in a song. My favorite scream in any rock song is over 40 years old and punctuates the searing beginning to the Beatles "Revolution". I think the singularity of the scream is what makes the song. In Dolberry's opinion, screaming in a song is sort of like using an exclamation point or all caps in text. Last! NIGHT'S! CONCERT! was SOME!THING!! LIKE!!! TH!S!!!
That said, I do really enjoy 2.5 Underoath songs and they did two of them. (During the show, I discovered another one that was good for most of it, so I'm bumping the tally up to 3.25 songs that Dolberry likes.) Not coincidentally, these two songs probably contain the lowest ratio of lyrical action to total aural content. Strangely, the lyrics are quite intelligent (for rock music) and all three bands had singers who appeared to sing just fine when the situation called for it.
Anyway, they don't need my advice. The show was sold out (~ 1000 capacity?) and one of Underoath's albums debuted at #2 in Billboard a few years back. For DCV readers, I'll link a video from the show on the sidebar. (Facebook readers are on their own.) If you look closely, I think you can see Dolberry in the circle pit. I'm the one w/ multiple bright purple 33 dB reducing earplugs crammed into my ears. (You can get two in your ear canal ... for 66 dB reduction ... if you force them.)
Whether it was Stockholm syndrome or a growing appreciation of screamo, I was enjoying the whole deal by the end. Of course, I immensely enjoyed the company and conversations. And while I'd spent most of the day somewhat anxious about the whole scene, can't underestimate how polite/respectful the entire crowd was while having considerable fun. To quote some other old geezers ... the kids are alright.
(Unfortunately, the night was not w/o mishap. Never again w/ the Taco Bell at 11:15. Never! AGAIN!!.)
As part of their end-of-the-decade recap, NPR's music blog listed 10 musical genres from this soon-to-be-past decade and the key artists of each. Underoath was listed as the key artist in the "screamo" category. Most songs include a 50/50 (20/80?) mix of normally sung lyrics and those shouted out in a growl/scream mix. As an old geezer, I think less is more when it comes to screaming in a song. My favorite scream in any rock song is over 40 years old and punctuates the searing beginning to the Beatles "Revolution". I think the singularity of the scream is what makes the song. In Dolberry's opinion, screaming in a song is sort of like using an exclamation point or all caps in text. Last! NIGHT'S! CONCERT! was SOME!THING!! LIKE!!! TH!S!!!
That said, I do really enjoy 2.5 Underoath songs and they did two of them. (During the show, I discovered another one that was good for most of it, so I'm bumping the tally up to 3.25 songs that Dolberry likes.) Not coincidentally, these two songs probably contain the lowest ratio of lyrical action to total aural content. Strangely, the lyrics are quite intelligent (for rock music) and all three bands had singers who appeared to sing just fine when the situation called for it.
Anyway, they don't need my advice. The show was sold out (~ 1000 capacity?) and one of Underoath's albums debuted at #2 in Billboard a few years back. For DCV readers, I'll link a video from the show on the sidebar. (Facebook readers are on their own.) If you look closely, I think you can see Dolberry in the circle pit. I'm the one w/ multiple bright purple 33 dB reducing earplugs crammed into my ears. (You can get two in your ear canal ... for 66 dB reduction ... if you force them.)
Whether it was Stockholm syndrome or a growing appreciation of screamo, I was enjoying the whole deal by the end. Of course, I immensely enjoyed the company and conversations. And while I'd spent most of the day somewhat anxious about the whole scene, can't underestimate how polite/respectful the entire crowd was while having considerable fun. To quote some other old geezers ... the kids are alright.
(Unfortunately, the night was not w/o mishap. Never again w/ the Taco Bell at 11:15. Never! AGAIN!!.)
Saturday, November 21, 2009
APD did great in Apex Turkey Trot!
APD and the rest of tbKMD's running crew ran in the Apex Turkey Trot. Nice weather and the whole team did a great job. Alex came in 2nd in his age group, under 12, in a blazing time of 22:51. Almost 7 full minutes faster than his first 5K last spring. He was only nine seconds behind the age group winner. The whole tbKMD team was way faster than their effort, so Coach was happy. Some pics follow ...
(near beginning, Alex in yellow Sweden soccer jersey)
(looking good up the last hill, caught two people on the hill)
(going up to get his trophy from the Turkey)
(slightly closer view of trophy)
Monday, November 16, 2009
Live Blog: Browns on MNF (part 2)
11:03: Castle was good. Browns were not in my absence. Good night.
"Live" Blog: Browns on MNF (part 1)
Haven't done a live blog in a while. Probably for good reason. But since the Browns probably won't be on Monday Night Football for another decade or so, am running it out here tonight.
8:32p: I like the fact that they referred to the Ravens as the "old Browns". Baltimore fans should not be allowed to forget that they poached another fandom's team after complaining for over a decade about the Colts being stolen from them.
8:35: You wouldn't think they could talk this much about a meaningless football game between a lousy team and a mediocre team, but they can.
8:40: Finally kickoff.
8:40:01 First injury timeout. Football is a ridiculous sport. How many of these guys are still walking when they're Dolberry's age? Kinda sad.
8:43: Iron Man is Sherlock Holmes. Might watch that.
8:46: Browns almost wasted a three and out w/ a senseless running into kicker penalty. You'd presume that, even independent of any actual coaching, sometime in his life the Browns dude would've seen a football game where an announcer noted that you can't blithely run into the punter after he's punted it. (Luckily, it was 3rd and 7, so the Ratbirds declined.)
8:53: 5 plays in 13 minutes of clock time? And people say baseball is boring?!? I still say instant replay is not worth the trouble. Unless you enjoy more commercials. And if it's at the expense of a Browns game, maybe I would.
8:54: I like Brady Quinn. Not sure why Mangenius played Anderson for the last five games. Well actually, I am sure ... to avoid triggering Quinn's incentive clauses for games played. Anyway, here's Anderson's stats for his games. 66 for 154 for 681 yds (less than 140 yds passing a game) and 9 interceptions to go w/ 2 touchdowns. Kinda a lousy way to treat Quinn, but on the other hand it's not like he deserves a 10 million dollar bonus to throw nothing but screen passes.
8:58: Cable keeps going in and out. Typical. Reminds me of a Billikens preseason game that was advertised to be streamed live for free. Dolberry logged in about 10 minutes prior to game time. The feed was from a camera pointed toward center court. Saw the anthem. Kinda saw the opening introductions. Kept figuring someone would actually man the camera at some point. Nope. Game starts and all you can see is the players when they run past center court on their way to one of the baskets. Hilarious! I was literally laughing out loud. Only the Billikens. The camera operator did show up before the first TV timeout, but it kinda took away from the sophmoric charm of the first few minutes. Turned it off shortly thereafter.
9:01: 5 minutes of football time took 21 minutes of real time. At this pace the game will last well past midnight. I'm only watching until Castle comes on. tbKMD has me hooked on that show. Funny.
9:05: I love that Muse song "Uprising". Makes me look forward to those "V" commercials.
9:06: 26 minutes to play 6. Thankfully, BAL is out of timeouts. Flacco must be paid by the hour.
9:07: Jon Gruden ... "Both teams appear to be out of sync." Can't vouch for the Ratbirds, but this is how the Browns always look.
9:09: Sidenote: UK 72, Miami OH 70. UK is just at the very beginning of their championship run. First of six or seven championships, more than likely. Looks like John Wall the Raleigh star who played at four different high schools here in four years (when not being arrested for breaking and entering or paying back $800 for interactions with professional agents) hit the game winner.
9:10: Mangenius sure was fired up about that missed Ratbird field goal. Still 0-0.
9:21: OK, I just had to ask APD if it was still 0-0. It is. Was reading about various John Wall infractions. Lot of reading material.
9:24: I like Mohammed Massaquoi's name and his bright orange gloves. Think he'll be good eventually.
9:28: Great quick release pass by Quinn to some guy on the sidelines. Nobody's going to stop that play. Nor would they want to ... given the guy was 20-30 feet out of bounds.
9:30: Total first downs: 8; Total punts: 5. I want this hour of my life refunded.
9:32: Most overused sports cliche? "What he brings to the table is [insert random quality]!"
9:34: Punts are gaining on first downs ... 8 to 6. You know what punts bring to the table? Height.
9:35: Who had 9:35 in the pool for first cite of that old NFL announcing bromide: "These two teams simply don't like each other"? Wouldn't you just once like to hear ... "These two teams are the best of friends. In fact, these two teams vacationed together in Aruba w/ their wives last offseason."
9:38: Brady Quinn, age 4 wearing a Bernie Kosar jersey. That's why I like him. Dolberry doesn't care if people make fun of him for having a BQ figurine in his work office. Sticks and stones, people. Sticks and stones.
9:39: Jon Gruden was a childhood Browns fan as well. Leroy Kelly was his favorite player. I like him too now. Jaworski just said, having gone to school in Youngstown, that "Cleveland was a great football town." "Was" being the key word. The NFL just piddled that away when they let Modell chase the money in 1995. It's just not the same anymore.
9:40: Dang! A first down. At least it was a Browns first down ...
9:42: Punts rally again! 10 to 7 now.
9:44: Does Sandra Bullock film a movie every week?
9:45: 15 minutes to Castle. Did you know both leading actors are from Canada. Well now you do.
9:46: If the Browns can get a safety here, I think they could win this game, 2-0. Hasn't happened since 1938.
9:49: Mangenius is the best nickname ever. Thanks J-E-T-S fans.
9:52: Two minute warning ... still no score. Ratbirds are almost in missed field goal range, though.
9:56: Hey, this is looking to be the first scoreless half of the NFL season! Nice. Right on the heels of this weekend's Louisville-Syracuse 0-0 first half. In other sports, Birmingham City played Liverpool to a 2-2- draw earlier today.
9:59: Well while the NFL regales all of America with a review of where a punt was downed, we're switching channels. Will come back at 11. Maybe.
8:32p: I like the fact that they referred to the Ravens as the "old Browns". Baltimore fans should not be allowed to forget that they poached another fandom's team after complaining for over a decade about the Colts being stolen from them.
8:35: You wouldn't think they could talk this much about a meaningless football game between a lousy team and a mediocre team, but they can.
8:40: Finally kickoff.
8:40:01 First injury timeout. Football is a ridiculous sport. How many of these guys are still walking when they're Dolberry's age? Kinda sad.
8:43: Iron Man is Sherlock Holmes. Might watch that.
8:46: Browns almost wasted a three and out w/ a senseless running into kicker penalty. You'd presume that, even independent of any actual coaching, sometime in his life the Browns dude would've seen a football game where an announcer noted that you can't blithely run into the punter after he's punted it. (Luckily, it was 3rd and 7, so the Ratbirds declined.)
8:53: 5 plays in 13 minutes of clock time? And people say baseball is boring?!? I still say instant replay is not worth the trouble. Unless you enjoy more commercials. And if it's at the expense of a Browns game, maybe I would.
8:54: I like Brady Quinn. Not sure why Mangenius played Anderson for the last five games. Well actually, I am sure ... to avoid triggering Quinn's incentive clauses for games played. Anyway, here's Anderson's stats for his games. 66 for 154 for 681 yds (less than 140 yds passing a game) and 9 interceptions to go w/ 2 touchdowns. Kinda a lousy way to treat Quinn, but on the other hand it's not like he deserves a 10 million dollar bonus to throw nothing but screen passes.
8:58: Cable keeps going in and out. Typical. Reminds me of a Billikens preseason game that was advertised to be streamed live for free. Dolberry logged in about 10 minutes prior to game time. The feed was from a camera pointed toward center court. Saw the anthem. Kinda saw the opening introductions. Kept figuring someone would actually man the camera at some point. Nope. Game starts and all you can see is the players when they run past center court on their way to one of the baskets. Hilarious! I was literally laughing out loud. Only the Billikens. The camera operator did show up before the first TV timeout, but it kinda took away from the sophmoric charm of the first few minutes. Turned it off shortly thereafter.
9:01: 5 minutes of football time took 21 minutes of real time. At this pace the game will last well past midnight. I'm only watching until Castle comes on. tbKMD has me hooked on that show. Funny.
9:05: I love that Muse song "Uprising". Makes me look forward to those "V" commercials.
9:06: 26 minutes to play 6. Thankfully, BAL is out of timeouts. Flacco must be paid by the hour.
9:07: Jon Gruden ... "Both teams appear to be out of sync." Can't vouch for the Ratbirds, but this is how the Browns always look.
9:09: Sidenote: UK 72, Miami OH 70. UK is just at the very beginning of their championship run. First of six or seven championships, more than likely. Looks like John Wall the Raleigh star who played at four different high schools here in four years (when not being arrested for breaking and entering or paying back $800 for interactions with professional agents) hit the game winner.
9:10: Mangenius sure was fired up about that missed Ratbird field goal. Still 0-0.
9:21: OK, I just had to ask APD if it was still 0-0. It is. Was reading about various John Wall infractions. Lot of reading material.
9:24: I like Mohammed Massaquoi's name and his bright orange gloves. Think he'll be good eventually.
9:28: Great quick release pass by Quinn to some guy on the sidelines. Nobody's going to stop that play. Nor would they want to ... given the guy was 20-30 feet out of bounds.
9:30: Total first downs: 8; Total punts: 5. I want this hour of my life refunded.
9:32: Most overused sports cliche? "What he brings to the table is [insert random quality]!"
9:34: Punts are gaining on first downs ... 8 to 6. You know what punts bring to the table? Height.
9:35: Who had 9:35 in the pool for first cite of that old NFL announcing bromide: "These two teams simply don't like each other"? Wouldn't you just once like to hear ... "These two teams are the best of friends. In fact, these two teams vacationed together in Aruba w/ their wives last offseason."
9:38: Brady Quinn, age 4 wearing a Bernie Kosar jersey. That's why I like him. Dolberry doesn't care if people make fun of him for having a BQ figurine in his work office. Sticks and stones, people. Sticks and stones.
9:39: Jon Gruden was a childhood Browns fan as well. Leroy Kelly was his favorite player. I like him too now. Jaworski just said, having gone to school in Youngstown, that "Cleveland was a great football town." "Was" being the key word. The NFL just piddled that away when they let Modell chase the money in 1995. It's just not the same anymore.
9:40: Dang! A first down. At least it was a Browns first down ...
9:42: Punts rally again! 10 to 7 now.
9:44: Does Sandra Bullock film a movie every week?
9:45: 15 minutes to Castle. Did you know both leading actors are from Canada. Well now you do.
9:46: If the Browns can get a safety here, I think they could win this game, 2-0. Hasn't happened since 1938.
9:49: Mangenius is the best nickname ever. Thanks J-E-T-S fans.
9:52: Two minute warning ... still no score. Ratbirds are almost in missed field goal range, though.
9:56: Hey, this is looking to be the first scoreless half of the NFL season! Nice. Right on the heels of this weekend's Louisville-Syracuse 0-0 first half. In other sports, Birmingham City played Liverpool to a 2-2- draw earlier today.
9:59: Well while the NFL regales all of America with a review of where a punt was downed, we're switching channels. Will come back at 11. Maybe.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hello Hurricane: an album review
A syllogism:
Reviews of all kinds are essentially pointless.
The DCV is well-known to embrace all-things-pointless.*
Therefore, the DCV should do a review of Switchfoot's new album "Hello Hurricane".
* - Speaking of pointless, big shout out to my favorite fall teams: the Browns (31st of 32 in NFL scoring) and the Hurricanes (30th of 30 in NHL scoring). You know what they say: "sometimes the best offense is to just shut it down and play for the #1 draft pick".
Dolberry has been listening to the album on Switchfoot's myspace page for over a week now, then bought it on Lala yesterday morning (where Dolberry is the #1 Switchfoot listener), then went out (in the cold windy rain) and bought a physical copy of it at Best Buy today. So, the neutrality of the forthcoming review could certainly be disputed.
APD was at school for an informal baseball practice. (They have a collapsible cage/net that covers the length of the activities building, allowing for indoor batting practice.) Dolberry cranked the album from the parking lot. It was really cool because the wind was blowing hard and the rain from former Hurricane Ida was coming down in sheets.** The hurricane imagery in the lyrics was easily appreciated from my dry perch in the car.
** - I've been wanting to blog or facebook all day about our rainy weather, but Dolberry felt he couldn't because I made fun of Louisvillians for posting en masse that day it rained a lot in Louisville. I can't stand it any longer though. It rained a ton here today! Over 3 inches in the last 24 hours!! It has rained for 28 straight hours!!! It was way better than Louisville's rain!!!! Awesome!
The album opens w/ the soaring "Needle and Haystack Life" which highlights the improbability ("once in a lifetime") of us all being alive and here on earth and merges quickly into the hard-rocking "Mess of Me", a blistering challenge of man's tendency to look for pharmaceutical solutions to problems that are essentially self-inflicted ("the sickness is myself"). "The Sound", featured in that ubiquitous Blackberry Storm commercial is another solid rocker surrounded by two softer really beautiful songs "Your Love is a Song" and "Enough to Let Me Go". My favorite song on the album is the title track "Hello Hurricane", a melodic and defiant reminder that the storms of life can only slow us down if we let them. "Bullet Soul" lauds activists everywhere ("you can't stand by forever", "don't let 'em blow it apart") and the album closes with a lullaby "Red Eyes". The only two songs that don't grab me much are "Always" and "Sing it Out", probably the two slowest on the disc.
Bottom line: Great album. Go buy it. Or download it. Or stream it.
Rating: 31 stars (of 32).
Reviews of all kinds are essentially pointless.
The DCV is well-known to embrace all-things-pointless.*
Therefore, the DCV should do a review of Switchfoot's new album "Hello Hurricane".
* - Speaking of pointless, big shout out to my favorite fall teams: the Browns (31st of 32 in NFL scoring) and the Hurricanes (30th of 30 in NHL scoring). You know what they say: "sometimes the best offense is to just shut it down and play for the #1 draft pick".
Dolberry has been listening to the album on Switchfoot's myspace page for over a week now, then bought it on Lala yesterday morning (where Dolberry is the #1 Switchfoot listener), then went out (in the cold windy rain) and bought a physical copy of it at Best Buy today. So, the neutrality of the forthcoming review could certainly be disputed.
APD was at school for an informal baseball practice. (They have a collapsible cage/net that covers the length of the activities building, allowing for indoor batting practice.) Dolberry cranked the album from the parking lot. It was really cool because the wind was blowing hard and the rain from former Hurricane Ida was coming down in sheets.** The hurricane imagery in the lyrics was easily appreciated from my dry perch in the car.
** - I've been wanting to blog or facebook all day about our rainy weather, but Dolberry felt he couldn't because I made fun of Louisvillians for posting en masse that day it rained a lot in Louisville. I can't stand it any longer though. It rained a ton here today! Over 3 inches in the last 24 hours!! It has rained for 28 straight hours!!! It was way better than Louisville's rain!!!! Awesome!
The album opens w/ the soaring "Needle and Haystack Life" which highlights the improbability ("once in a lifetime") of us all being alive and here on earth and merges quickly into the hard-rocking "Mess of Me", a blistering challenge of man's tendency to look for pharmaceutical solutions to problems that are essentially self-inflicted ("the sickness is myself"). "The Sound", featured in that ubiquitous Blackberry Storm commercial is another solid rocker surrounded by two softer really beautiful songs "Your Love is a Song" and "Enough to Let Me Go". My favorite song on the album is the title track "Hello Hurricane", a melodic and defiant reminder that the storms of life can only slow us down if we let them. "Bullet Soul" lauds activists everywhere ("you can't stand by forever", "don't let 'em blow it apart") and the album closes with a lullaby "Red Eyes". The only two songs that don't grab me much are "Always" and "Sing it Out", probably the two slowest on the disc.
Bottom line: Great album. Go buy it. Or download it. Or stream it.
Rating: 31 stars (of 32).
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Who's the Bloggiest?
It has come to the DCV's attention that I've been outblogged by the Owl in the Pine Tree thus far in 2009. As many of you know, Dolberry can be rather competitive at times. (Rarely, really.) But I am going to win this one. Watch out Owl, you're going to see some serious blogging over the next 7 weeks.
Long time fans of ESPN's college basketball Gametracker will note a Billikenesque drought in Dolberry's output since February. But I have called a time out and think we can hits some threes here down the stretch.
Game on, Owl.
Long time fans of ESPN's college basketball Gametracker will note a Billikenesque drought in Dolberry's output since February. But I have called a time out and think we can hits some threes here down the stretch.
Game on, Owl.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
My entry into the family shamrock contest
I call this first pose "Tiananmen".
The second pose is called "Guantanamo".
Please ship my prize as expeditiously as possible. Thanks.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Doing things the hard way ...
Sorry for the long blog layoff. Will ease back into the DCV journalling exercise w/ that lightest of all blogging activities: the weekend recap. Don't want to pull any muscles right out of the gate ...
(Folks, that is called building suspense ... a lot of bloggers would not have tried that after one month off ... but I did ... and Imma not gonna lie to you ... I felt a twinge in my neck... but I'm going to proceed ... more carefully from here on)
They came out looking good, though spartan. Carving a jack o' lantern is not supposed to be a cardio workout, last I checked. The usual 11 trick-or-treaters came by which was nice.
Friday: Started the day at a conference on weather and technology. A few interesting talks, including one on how you could use Twitter for weather observations to emphasize the qualitative aspects of weather (e.g., "nice") over the quantitative aspects ("75 F, 58% humidity, mostly sunny). As an experiment, here were the Twitter obs for yesterday's City of Oaks half-marathon which will be described later in this post.
(Folks, that is called building suspense ... a lot of bloggers would not have tried that after one month off ... but I did ... and Imma not gonna lie to you ... I felt a twinge in my neck... but I'm going to proceed ... more carefully from here on)
- @tantina: "terrible"
- @llorenzin: "nasty"
- @ edgemultisport: "rough"
The quantitative description was steady rain, 49 F, 15 mph NE wind. Having spent a solid two hours in the aforementioned weather, Dolberry feels qualified to declare both sets of descriptions as accurate, but can see where some would get value out of the former.
Left the weather/technology conference in time for my favorite part of the whole year ... parent-teacher conferences. One of these years I expect some rogue teacher will surprise us w/ the judgment that APD is someone other than an amazing young man. But this year was not that year.
Saturday: Super nice day down here in NC on Saturday. Dawned dreary and foggy, but the warm southerly winds scoured out the clouds and the chill and yielded a supremely beautiful, Indian summer, Halloween. Got a lot of quality yard work done, then decided around 5:00p it was time to go get a pumpkin. Whoa. Not a great selection of pumpkins two hours before trick-or-treaters arrive. Ended up getting two "pie pumpkins" at Krogers. While pie pumpkins share the same color and basic look as a regular pumpkin, they are actually more similar to bowling balls in all other respects. Here's a list of the tools, I used to carve the alleged "pumpkins".
- Ripsaw
- Hammer
- Phillips-head screwdriver
- Two penny nails
They came out looking good, though spartan. Carving a jack o' lantern is not supposed to be a cardio workout, last I checked. The usual 11 trick-or-treaters came by which was nice.
Sunday: Thankfully it was "turn back your clocks an hour night" because we had to get up at 5:30a to head tbKMD off to the starting line for the City of Oaks half-marathon. APD and Dolberry were proudly on road crew duty. A sharp cold front had gone through only hours before which ushered in the nasterrible conditions. We got to cheer tbKMD just before the 1 mile marker where we picked up her wind breaker she'd kept on waiting for the race to start and the 7 mile marker. She was looking great. After she passed, we waited in the same spot to see her at the 10 mile mark (they turned around and came back the other way on Hillsborough St.). APD asked if he could go sit in the car w/ the heat on to warm up and get out of the cold squally downpour. We were parked at an Applebee's where you could easily see the race from the lot. I obliged but stayed outside to cheer on the other runners (one guy from my softball team was about to come by). A few minutes later, APD came out to say he was warm now but that I'd need to get the keys out of the ignition because he didn't know how. Of course, I couldn't do that because the keys were now locked in the running car. (He was worried about the car's safety so locked it on his way out.) This led to what I would guess was one of the most unusual exhortations in 1/2 marathon history when tbKMD came by a few minutes later.
"Hey Babe. Looking great! Um, try to stay warm at the finish line because we're locked out of the car. Keep it up!"
I had visions of us being stuck there for hours while tbKMD shivered miserably three miles away at the finish line, without warm clothes, a cell phone, or any way of knowing where her ride home was. But we were able to walk to a nearby gas station, call the cops, have them Slim Jim it open, and get to the finish line only about 15 minutes after she finished. And while she was shivering in her tanktop and shorts, she wasn't yet hypothermic, so that was good. (BTW: she finished in under 1:50 which is awesome. 13th out of 200 or so in her age group.) The great thing about being a goofball is that tbKMD always thinks Dolberry is joking when he screws something up royally ... so luckily she didn't spend her last 3 miles worrying about her predicament ... figuring I was just joshing. Both the BP operator and the Raleigh police officer were super nice, so the whole event was just a reassertion at how great people can be.
Hope everyone else's weekend was as equally fantabulous.
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