Happy Birthday, Everyone!

Today has always been--for me--a big day...

First:  It's my Mom's birthday!  Happy Birthday Mom!

Second: It was also the birthday of my Gramma Bea.  Sadly, she's no longer with us, but today was her day too.

Third: It also turned out to the be birthday of our dear friend Alice.  I don't know quite where she is anymore, but she's never far from my thoughts.

Happy Birthday to all our ladies!

Lanai Preview

Our neighbors have a nice little backyard porch where they have a little fireplace and chairs.  A little bistro-type table.  They regularly invite us down for drinks and chatting.  Now....they're moving away and we won't have any such thing.

So we decided--and by we, I mean "I"--that we need to have something similar at our house.  We don't have a backyard as such, but we do have little area in front of the house that "overlooks" the yard proper.  So we--and I mean "I"--decided that that would be the place to have our own porch, although since we love Hawaii so much, we're calling it our lanai.

The goal is to have a flat, stone surface with a big fire-pit in the center.  As the lanai approaches the dropoff, it will actually end and have a strip of land there for planting flowers, etc.  Then a short stone wall will butt up against the face of the dropoff, and extend above the top to make a sort of bench for sitting / resting drinks, etc.

We batted some ideas around and we finally got to work--and by we, I mean "Russ."  He loves this sort of thing so it has kept him busy, and filthy, and happy.  We've been taking pictures of the process in order to put up a full album of the process, but since this blog needs a new entry, I've decided to post just a few pics as a preview.

Here's the beginning of the process.  You can see the porch / steps of the house that lead down to the circular drive.  Across the drive is the grassy area complete with the hideous stumps of two old, rotten trees that used to be there.  When they were present, they continually threatened to fall over and demolish the house, so we had them cut down.  Once the trees were gone, however, the stumps have thrived and refuse to budge / die.  Russ has put down some timbers to delineate the work area.

One of our first efforts is to get rid of the stumps.  One is all knotted and hard, and makes the chainsaw smoke.  The other is just a pain.  Chopping / cutting them is slow, using stump removing chemicals is slower, and Russ doesn't want to pay to have someone come grind them down.  So, one of the first orders of business was to try to burn the easy one out.

Pretty!  But less than successful.  Now we have a half-burned stump shell at the edge of the lanai.  We'll continue to work on it.  Meanwhile Russ gets busy digging out the grass and dirt and building up the wall / dropoff.

There's the lovely stump on the left...and the other one on the right.  He imagines he's going to incorporate them into the overall design somehow.  I imagine that I--and by I, I mean "I"--will be paying a lot of money to get the stump grinders to come out and get rid of those hateful things.

Here's where we are at the moment.  The working area is pretty well leveled out.  We've--and by "we" this time, I actually mean "we"--have sort of settled on the idea of tossing out some random colored marbles amongst the stones of the lanai and firepit.  Where the right-hand, gnarly stump is we're going to put in a barbeque grill because Russ loves to cook on one. And where there right-hand, half-burned stump is, we're going to eventually put in a hottub / jacuzzi.  So, in the picture above, Russ is digging a 3-foot deep trench under the driveway to run water and electricity to the thing.

And that's all you get for now!  The full set of pictures will appear (or be linked to) when it's done!

The Irish Car Bombs Blew Up!

Tonight we had guests over for dinner. As a dessert treat, Russ made "Irish Car Bomb" cupcakes. Look up the recipe to get the details. The short story is that the cupcakes are made up of the cake, the frosting, and a secret injected filling (ala Twinkie). The kicker is that each component has a healthy dose of some different type of alcohol! They're yummy and highly recommended.

Anyway...Russ is making them and is at the stage where he needs to inject the filling into the cupcake. The recipe says "Use a frosting cone" (whatever that cow-udder thing is that the professional frosters use) to inject the filling.

Well..Russ doesn't have one, so instead of getting one, he used a turkey baster! Hahaha! He would take off bulb, fill it with the goo, put it back on the "tube" part, then poke the nozzle into the cupcake and squeeze the bulb...thus injecting the filling into the cupcake.

Well...that's the theory anyway. Not too far into the process I hear a litany of curses coming from the kitchen. I dash in to see what's up and this is what I see:

The bulb had popped off the baster and sprayed frosting everywhere!  Look closely and you'll see it on the spice-rack, the can opener, his face, all the other cupcakes...

He was such a happy chef!

Vimeo Test

So I read today that Vimeo (a web-based video hosting service) has created a way to upload videos and play them on any device.  I--and my mom...and some friends---have iPads, and while we vehemently disagree with special Stevie's stance against Flash and Flash video, we still like to see what the others amongst us are doing.

So...where was I?  Oh yeah...if special Stevie (Jobs) were to walk into my house anytime soon, I'd have to slap him around the face and neck..

Wait...no.... true though that may be, that's not what I was working toward.  So...Vimeo has created a way for any platform to view video---including the various iToys.  So I thought I'd give it a try.  If it works:  Hooray Vimeo!   If not...let's all slap special Stevie about his face and neck.

As for the video...it's a test.  A couple of years ago I took my mom on a cruise to Mexico.  Once there, we took her to an aquatic park where we got to swim with, and interact with, a dolphin named Lissy.  Here (with any luck) is a bit of video of Mom, hugging a boogie board, while Lissy comes from behind, puts her nose against Mom's foot, and pushes Mom back toward the dock.

Mom and Lissy from Damian Hart on Vimeo.

..end of test...

Hulu Plus is here!

This is just a shortie post, but that's ok.

I've got my iPad and have been watching movies on it.  Then I heard of Hulu Plus and signed up.  It's very nice.  I've started watching "Modern Family" and am enjoying it.  I take my iPad to the gym and put it on the treadmill while I'm running.  It really makes the time pass with less effort.

Happy Birthday Barack Obama

Happy Birthday to the first truly elected President of the new millenium!

Sorry, nutjobs...he is the President.  Sorry, nutjobs...he was born in the United States.

Now, Mr President, get off yer ass, stop cowering before Faux not-News, and do the job that the majority of the country elected you to do.

Weekend Update

This weekend we were going to try to get Garry's Gramma to come out to Baltimore and stay with us.  But she called on Friday and said she wasn't feeling well, so that plan was shelved.

So instead we stayed around the house.  Russ continued to fight the air conditioner, Garry and I watched movies and played games.  Saturday night, one of my former students (who is from Hawaii) had a "tiki party" and invited us over.  Since it turned out to be only about 8 houses down from ours, we went!

It was a good time: lots of Hawaiian-style food, music, talk about the islands...  I took my iPad full of Hawaii pictures and showed them off.  I'm sure we bored everyone senseless with our stories, but we had a good time.  We're hoping to go back in January for some whale-watching!

Then on Sunday, Russ continued to repair the damage from the AC.  By Sunday night, he decreed it finished.

(the inner closet, all repaired)

(the outer closet...pretty!)

(the bedroom without piles and piles of clothes)

So, it wasn't a hectic weekend.  Sort of relaxed.  But it was a good one.