I don't know who this guy is, or what kind of plane it is, but he's out there, flying over Warsaw and Winona Lake just about every blue, sunny day, rolling, wheeling, diving, having a great time. He pulled off what sure sounded like a loop right over the backyard yesterday.
It makes me smile every time I see him up there. Frankly... I'm a bit jealous!
I was doling out snacks one afternoon, and I started reading the recipe on this box of crackers:
Most of us, I think, can divide things in half, or in quarters, without too much difficulty. Many of us can do thirds and sixths. But this is the first time I've ever seen directions calling for eighteen equal pieces. I worked out a way to do it, but it took me a minute or two. Good thing they didn't call for 29 equal sections...
Over the last week or so, they've been dredging out the canal. Apparently, the silt was getting so deep that the island was threatening to turn back into a peninsula!
This, of course, has been deeply fascinating to both Fiona and Aiden — not just one digger, but two! And dump trucks! Almost every time I've gone to drop off or pick up Fiona at school, we'll just stop for a while either on the bridge, or somewhere close to where they're working, and just watch. I would have thought mainly Aiden would be interested, but Fiona has been every bit as entranced. How often do you get to see these things, right on your very own block?
I get a chuckle out of the little coincidences that show up in my blog sidebar from time to time...
I've seen these trucks trundling about Winona Lake on many occasions, but I haven't always had by camera with me. It's a mowing company, and there's a lot to say for this logo:
Let's analyze this logo for a minute:
So, kudos to this company for great logo design.
There's just one problem.
Who are they?
And, how do you contact them?
Hey, man, let's go out cruising and pick up chicks! We can take my car!
If imagination is the art of combining things that you normally wouldn't think of combining, then my kids have imagination in spades!
Sometimes, you're just walking/riding/driving along, and art just calls out to you, by name. Sometimes, quite literally:
This guy obviously subscribes to the "If you can't make it good, make it big" theory.
Seriously. All that, on one train. And I didn't even look at the other side.
Deborah and I, with a certain amount of seriousness, describe graffiti on trains as "authentic urban art, direct from the nation's urban cultural epicenters, in a free traveling exhibit." Some of these guys have talent. I stood and looked at this one for quite a while:
Can you see the skate ramps?
And this one caught my attention, as well:
The amazing thing here is, along with his excellent use of color and shading (with a spray can!) the guy signed his name. Obviously, Mr. Jennigs either isn't worried about being prosecuted for his work, or he (rightly) wants credit for what he's done.
When was the last time you stopped and took a look at the art spoiling your town?
Sometimes on-line ads match content just a little too well.
Click to enlarge.
Go on, try to convince me that's not the same girl in the ad as in the photo. It's just... eerie.
And, before you start wondering why I was looking up pictures of crack pipe usage, go visit one of Deborah's favorite web sites, Cake Wrecks, specifically, this post.
...gently down the street!
It's been a bit wet around here. A few big rains and a lot of melted snow pushed the water level up — way up — to the highest level anyone has seen around here, a good three inches higher then the flood of '81, and much more spectacular than what we had last January.
High enough, in fact, to go paddling around the neighborhood in a canoe.
Alas, I didn't know any gondolier's songs. That didn't stop me from singing, though...
A romantic ride through Venice...
I could commute to work like this. I really could.
I just like this shot.
My neighbor, Chris, taking a lap around the block.
Of course, it wasn't all fun and games and photo ops; there were several tense days of pumping water as fast as we could as it rose ever and ever higher. I even went out and got new, larger hoses for my pump (which I've nicknamed "the candle" — as in, "Better to light one small candle than curse the darkness") and watching the green on the radar map stretch from here to California, knowing it was all coming our way.
We didn't suffer any damage other than water getting into the floor of the shed. The carpet's no great loss, but it'll take work to pull it out.
The rest of the neighborhood didn't all fare as well as us. Several houses on our street have basements, believe it or not, and many of those got flooded.
You can normally drive a speedboat under this bridge. Here, I don't think you could even manage a canoe.
This sculpture by the canal took on some new interpretations that I'm sure the artist never intended.
At the height of the flood, the street and the lake became one. You could paddle from one to the other without bottoming out on the curb.
Despite the destructiveness, it was still beautiful and, — dare I say it? — kinda fun. I'm sure we'd feel a bit differently if we'd sustained more losses, but we still would have enjoyed the "wow" factor either way.
If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I've got a bizarre sense of humor. The more surreal you make it and still have a kernel of truth to it, the funnier it is. So it makes perfect sense that, when I followed an ad to teefury.com/ and saw this as the shirt of the day... I had to have it.
Yeah!
The thing that really sold me, though, was the artist's description:
I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of America, far from the coasts or any cultural epicenter. This piece is partly a reminder to the big city folks that amazing things still exist out here, despite how bleak things may look from the interstate. It is also simultaneously metaphor for me lashing out at my hayseed roots in frustration, wanting bigger and better things.
Trust me, that resonated with me. Amazing things do happen out here, despite how it looks. A statement like that, along with an amazingly cool, funny drawing that's well done — how could I resist?
Why put a suction cup on the end of a toothbrush, unless you're supposed to stick it to the end of the faucet? I mean, really? Why else would you have one?
They race beds in South Whitley. In fact, they're the bed racing capital of the world — you can pick up a green wedge in Trivial Pursuit for knowing that. Rules? Minimal: One bed. One passenger, four runners, no interference. Safety? Sign a waiver — no brakes or steering mechanisms allowed! The atmosphere? Good fun.
We arrived late in the afternoon, and walked over to main street just as the zero-turn mower square dance was finishing up, and staked out a spot in front of the fire station while I went off to get a few photos.
Hey, sweet mama, wanna go... bed racing?
A real racing bed. I think this is one of the ones available to teams who haven't constructed a bed of their own. Apparently steering mechanisms weren't always disallowed — I wonder what prompted that particular rule change?
Teams this year included Manchester United ...Methodist Church, Night of the Living Bed (my favorites), Team Dynamite (I think these were the sixth-graders), Big Blue (the high school track team, if I'm not mistaken), MSC (Manufactured Structures Corporation), and the TK Bed Sled Team, resplendent in Hawaiian shirts and bike shorts.
Night of the Living Bed, with their entry, the new and improved Grateful Bed II.
The TK Bed Sled Team, like most, picked the smallest member as passenger. Only the winning team actually had them lie down in the bed — presumably for better aerodynamics. When was the last time you heard "beds" and "aerodynamics" in the same sentence?
I dig the welded rebar "spiderwebs" on the Grateful Bed II. Night of the Living Bed would go on to win the "best theme" prize.
The heats were short, fast, and furious, and the cheering was genuine. Manchester United, Team Dynamite, and MSC fell in the opening rounds. The remaining three teams battled it out. Night of the Living Bed was dominating until they veered off course and had to stop to avoid a collision. TK Bed Sled Team moved on to the next round, the final showdown against Big Blue.
It was a close race, too close for me to tell from where I was standing. In the end, Big Blue got it, and were declared the 2008 Bed racing Champions.
The victors return. There's something poignant about this photo; I'm not sure I can place my finger on it, though.
For the non-bandwidth-challenged, you can see my videos on YouTube here, here, and here.
And... that's it for this year! Anyone want to put together a team with me for next?
There was a detail about the last post that I left out, because I wasn't sure — but now, James confirmed my memory. Take another look at the price board on that wagon:
See the part where the first digit has been painted out? I thought maybe I had been imagining it, and that it used to be an 8... but no, my memory was right... it was a three! Yes, folks, they raised the price. Get it now, before it goes up again!
I consider myself an optimist. But I've got nothing on this guy. For several years now, I've been passing these wagons for sale alongside Route 5, not too far out of South Whitley.
That larger wagon, if memory serves, started out around $1100, and has gradually come down in price as the seasons have come and gone. The sledge, for $400, seems like a more recent addition. By contrast, I've been trying to sell a fully-functional car for $300, and I haven't had any takers in the last six months.
So, anyone in the market for an old wagon or sledge?
There are many things that I never thought I would say, until I became a parent. "No rhinos in the sugar!" is one of them. It never occurred to me that I might one day say such a thing.
I've also gotten answers to questions that I never would have thought to ask, such as, "What happens when you give your kids a pair of daddy's shorts and ask them to put them in his room?"
But thanks to being a parent, I now know.
Sure, you've seen it on TV, but there's nothing quite so surreal as watching your own pants dance around the living room. The fact that they're giggling doesn't help.
Fiona has taken to beautifying the world around her. This includes things that I might not have otherwise considered candidates for beautification, like work boots.
Perhaps when she gets older, I'll find she's knitted me a nice motorcycle cozy. That would be nice.
Dinosaurs get cold, too. So they need a scarf.
Somehow, I think if one has that much neck, you need a more substantial scarf — think Doctor Who — but I can't deny this dinosaur looks dashing and dapper.
Aiden, on the other hand, knows what dinosaurs are good for.
Seriously, Aiden has never seen a B-movie creature feature in his entire life, and he knew exactly what to do with a dinosaur and a car. No one taught him that.
Isn't it weird how we're wired?
...to watch where you're going on the road, lest you be impaled.
To get a sense of perspective here, consider that the vehicle directly behind this one is a full-size 18-wheeler.
Yes, he's driving half off the road, and he's still taking up one and a half lanes. And yes, I'm letting him have the right-of-way!
One of my co-workers discovered that you can hack into HP printers to change the messages they display. If he keeps that up, he'll be repairing the printer once someone decides where the coins should go!
