Tandemonium

We had planned to all go out for a bicycle ride together, but only two out of five of our bikes (the kids' trailer makes six, I guess) were ready to ride; the rest needed some work to get them road-worthy again. The first one Paul and I worked on was the tandem, which, just when we thought we were done, blew a tube. By the time we walked over to the Trailhouse, got a new one, and installed it, there wasn't really enough time to all go for the ride we'd been planning. So we took turns taking spins around the island on the tandem. It was a very new thing for May and Paul.

It's not a box!

Look sharp, mateys. Pirates off the starboard bow!

C'mon, sweetheart, this box can do 0 to 100 in six seconds flat! You want to go for a drive with me, I know it!

Coming around turn 5, Aiden Kerr steers his one-man boxsled down the ice to a new Olympic record!

Oh, that was written for someone else, not me...

Since the first edition of You Know You'r an MK When... people have taken up the book and started reading it, chuckling over items, asking questions, etc. And then they get to number 70.

70. You really do enjoy Oriental folk music.

Every single one of them looks up, and says, "You do?"

I don't, actually. It's one of the items in the book I've never liked, and it's one that I've gotten voted down on for changes in the last five editions. But tonight, Deborah relented, and we can choose a new item to go in it's place. My short list of contenders:

You frequently say, "I don’t know, I was out of the country."

If someone asks what school you went to, you reply, "depends on the year."

You miss people before they're gone.

A more telling question than "Where are you from?" is "What countries are you following in the Olympics?"

When your parents say "home church," you're not sure which one of the dozen or so they're referring to.

Which one would you choose? Any items in your copy that bother you, or that you think are no longer relevant, or dated? Speak now, or hold your peace for another few years!

One more

I've been seeing these little booths out on the backroads for years, but it wasn't until recently that I learned what they were for. They're for schoolkids, waiting outside for the bus to come. Most of them are little more than a few walls to keep the wind off in the middle of winter, and scarcely larger than the chilren they're built to protect, but reportedly, some of them are pretty fancy, with windows, TVs, space heaters, and microwaves.

The subtlety of Indiana

When I first arrived here from Spain, I thought Indiana was terribly dull, gray, and monochromatic. After nearly 13 years, I've come to appreciate the subtlety — soft, earthy tones, punctuated by a bit of man-made color.

It took me quite a while to get where I was going the day I took these. I kept making U-turns to go back and get another shot of something I saw.

I assure you, I'm not getting $1 million per volume

I was just sent a link to this article this afternoon, a story on the progress of the Encyclopaedia Iranica. What's my connection to all this? Well... I did a large part of the typesetting and layout on volumes 10 through 13, and I'll be doing more work on volume 14 this afternoon. I've gotten very well acquainted with Iranian culture in the process.

Too bad they didn't have one in avocado green

I got a nice bonus at work for my part in a pleasantly profitable 2006. So, being boring adults, we splurged on... a new fridge. We were going to have to do it at some point anyway; the green thing was dying, and din't always keep things cold in the middle of summer. I think the only thing I really liked about it was the color (a very homey avocado green) and the price (free with the purchase of a house.)

What can you tell about someone by what they keep on their fridge?

Out with the dirty, leaky, always-running, rusty, sucking-up-two-thirds-of-the-electric-bill old fridge...

And in with the bright white, better-sealed, hopefully-far-more-efficient model.

Ooooh. Ahhhhh.
(Admire it now. It will never be this clean again!)

I'd probably have to buy a new motorcycle...

Next time I say, "I can't imagine how it would take longer than 15 minutes..." kindly and gently remind me that I have very little imagination.

My motorcycle came with two keys. One normal key, one wallet key. The wallet key has since wandered away, and my attempts to get a new spare cut haven't been encouraging. I've been to every hardware store in town, and no one has a blank that matches. So finally, while I was out at the dealership on Saturday to pick up my new mirror, I asked them for some blanks. They looked a little nervous, but found me some Suzuki-stamped blanks that looked about right. I was delighted, even at $5 apiece.

After I got home and finished insalling my other purchases, I told Deborah I was going to pop over to the hardware store and get the spares made. "How long will that take?" she asked. "I can't imagine how it would take longer than 15 minutes..." ...oh, how wrong I was.

I handed over the key and the blanks, and the guy got this very serious look on his face. (I still wonder what it is they're looking at...) He said he'd give it a try, and spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the machine to make sure it was set up right. After 20 minutes and several dry runs, I finally heard the whine of metal being cut. "Did you ride this here?" I did, and we walked out to the parking lot to try it out. No go. We wnt back inside for more fiddling on a different machine. When we returned to the parking lot, the key opened the gas cap, but wouldn't work in the ignition. Back and forth we went, trying this, trying that, even trying out one of his own blanks that he thought might work. Finally, after more than an hour, he apologized that he couldn't get it to work. "No charge."

So now I have a spare key fo the gas cap. I don't know what I'm going to do if I lose the other one...