Holy cow its cold!

Well, I think it finally got here.  Winter.  Its windy and cold.  Leaves have all pretty much fallen onto my driveway and yard and Hannah's car.  Gumballs haven't fallen yet, but I imagine any day now, my backyard will turn into a giant booby trap for barefooted hippies.  So, what do you do when winter gets here?  You take all those various kinds of squash you got, you heat and blend them, and then you top them with Siracha.  Voila.  Squash bisque with fire.  So good.  So Spicy. 

8) Little Brother

I think I mentioned last time about trying to get my little brother to come visit.  I am trying to teach him to ride the bus and the light rail so he can have some autonomy and mobility.  Its important for youth to have the ability to strike out on their own and be the master of their own destinies in some way.  Additionally, I have been putting him to work...which strangely he enjoys.  He says its a lot like minecraft...a game he plays where you build stuff.  He has been asking me all these questions about how to do things.  These are things you apparently do in the game, and now he is curious about doing them in real life.  It would be strange if this computer game inspired him to actually become a craftsmen in real life.  I'll do my best to encourage this, especially since I strongly believe that a man should be able to create with his hands.  I upped his game and skill level this weekend by teaching him to use a power sander.  He now much prefers it to the hand sander.  We also worked on the string (pictured here).  Its almost fully wound.  I'll have to find some new means of mediation once i don't have that to occupy my hands. 



Also while Jahkeem was around, we went and picked up more clay tiles.  I have enough now to finish filling in the corner patch at my house so we can grow viny gourds and squash etc. there next year.  Its going to be pretty cool.  A clay patio with vines in the cracks.  I'll take a picture if I remember. 

If you had told me a year and a half ago that I would probably be in love with an NCCC member who knew how to use a skill-saw, I would have told you that you were crazy because my best friend Hannah (and potential girlfriend screener) wasnt looking to set me up with anyone in NCCC.  She was going to find me a nice local girl, my age who liked the outdoors, liked volunteering, and was in love with Sandy Kohn at the same magnitude that I admired and respected him (which is manquivalent to "love").  I mean sure, I would love to be with a girl who was in NCCC and knew how to use a skill-saw, but my AmerCorps days are long gone. How would I ever meet such an epic woman?   

http://hannahmraines.wordpress.com/posts-are-here/ 

Next time...

9) porch before she gets home!
Now that she is learning to build, I really need to get on this porch idea.  She told me that if I don't build it before she gets back, she is going to help, and the holly bush cant stay where it is!

10) check out my new driveway (project delayed by weather...and well, i kind of wanted my little brother to do it, but he didn't stay over as long as I wanted him too)

11) more pictures from the superphone!

Is it Christmas yet?

Time is flying...until you stop to think about it.  My roommate has been living with me less than a month.  Or at least he has only given me one rent check so far.  Its strange.  The weeks sort of fly by, but they just aren't adding up. 

5) trainin'. bikin', and whatever else there is

Last Friday I mountain biked.  Mondays have become 2 hours of Jiu-Jitsu days.  Tuesday nights are soccer league.  Wednesdays are 1 hour Jiu-Jitsu, 1 hour-ish of running (prepping for a half marathon in a few weeks...ughh).  Thursdays are a day to do some work I have been putting off since Monday.  or work on my house days.  Fridays are "fun days" for cycling, mountain biking, or whatever else doesn't really seem like training...but actually is basically training.  the gaps have been getting filled in with small crafts too (cutting glass bottles, making plant towers, concrete HyperTuffa planters, etc.).  When I want to relax, I attack the string.  Made a lot of progress last week.  Not so much this week.  If you want some string, message me! (it apparently is the string used to pull electrical wire through conduit.  chimney guy told me this). 

Weekends have been busy too.  Lots of workin' on the house.  the occasional standard social diversion.  Went to see the panthers lose last weekend...rapidly becoming a Charlotte tradition. 

At one point during the week, I ate all of this at once. That's a half pound of bacon, a full pound (at least) of sweet potato, and some other peppers and garlic.

 

6) magic eraser

I have rediscovered the beauty of the magic eraser.  It is especially nice since there are quite a few random stains, streaks, scuffs, and other markings throughout my 60 year old house.  So, I have been spot cleaning, 5-10 minutes at a time everyday.  It helps me to feel like I am getting things done, without actually having to devote a lot of time to it.  and of course, everything looks better after you have magically erased it.

7) raise the roof!

Demolition started last weekend.  I am tearing out the wood/ cardboard panelling, ceiling, and nicotine/ fiberglass insulation in my shed.  I am doing one giant garbage can's worth a week.  Once I get it cleared out, I will assess the structure, replace some studs here and there, and begin to figure out how I will chop the roof off, build the walls taller, and reinstall some surface to keep water out but let light in.  Then, I can turn it into a lofted storage and sleeping space.  B&B anyone?   

8) Little Brother

Jahkeem ended up not making it last weekend.  Trying again this weekend.  To Be continued... 



Next time...
  8) Little Brother?
9) porch before she gets home!
10) check out my new driveway
11) more pictures from the superphone!

She is basically almost done

Using my highly experienced skills at rounding (I can round up from both below and above 0.5), I have pretty much rounded up enough to tell myself that Hannah is basically almost done with NCCC. I mean realistically, now that fall is here, its pretty much almost Thanksgiving, which means that its basically already Christmas, which means that the year is over. Once the new year starts, we really are getting close to spring, which means a two month non-stop middle school soccer season from late march to early may. Then once that's over, it will be summer, at the end of which Hannah will be graduating from NCCC and getting her Presidential Service Award (maybe congressional too if they mess up). Like I said...when you really look at it, she basically is almost done.



Which means, if I want to get anything done in my free time, I need to get to it.



3) The String

One of the things I have been focusing some energy on lately is the string. One day, a contractor was driving down my road with a bunch of string in the back of his truck. The part that was tied to a metal weight fell off, and the truck proceeded to drag the line out, all the way to the end of the road. We are talking somewhere between a half mile and mile of string. It was bizarre. It took roughly a day of normalcy before the middle school kids who walk on the road began to mess with it. Eventually it ended up in a concentrated mess near my house. Being the opportunist that I am (HEY! FREE STRING!), I went and got it and dragged it up into my yard. There it has sat for about 3 weeks. I have been sporadically un-knotting and winding it, an hour at a time, here and there. Pretty soon I will have enough usable, wound string to rule the world...or to at least tie up a super sweet stick sculpture in my backyard for the birds to play on.



4) rappellin!

Besides messin' with the string, have been pushing hard (i.e. facebook spamming) to raise enough money $1000) for the special Olympics. I saw on a billboard that if you raised that much, you could rappel off of the VUE. The VUE is a twice-foreclose upon, semi-finished, barely occupied glass high rise in uptown Charlotte. Rappelling is a lot like sliding down a rope using technology that prevents you from burning your hands or falling to certain doom should you choose to let go.

SPOILER:   I made my goal.  I rappelled off the VUE.  We then went back up to the top and looked around in some of the un-sold units.  see pictures below.  see altitude pictures at this link.  thanks everyone for the support.
http://specialolympicsnc.smugmug.com/Fundraisers/2012-Over-The-Edge-Charlotte/25977505_qbn6SH#!i=2155850094&k=3xMsZfW




Enjoy the view...errr, VUE. (I had high aspirations of making any great jokes involving VUE and view...but alas, I came up with nothing). 



4) runnin' in 5 weeks!
Well, that was last week actually.  I think now I have only 4 weeks to prepare and run 13.1 miles.  My original goal was to maybe keep going and do a full 26.2, but being realistic, I doubt I can do that.  While I am good at rounding, when it comes to running, that's not a helpful skill. 


Next time:

5) trainin'. bikin', and whatever else there is
6) magic eraser
7) raise the roof!
8) Little Brother
9) porch before she gets home!

Keepin' Busy

When I was a counselor at summer camp, they always taught us that the best way to cure homesickness is to keep busy.  Being busy provides distraction and helps your brain "let go."  Homesickness, or missing a person for that matter, is really just this psychological dependency your brain has fabricated.  Often its not healthy because it really can incapacitate you.  We all have known a person who wanted to be near another so much, that they couldn't live their own life.  They also were so smothering that they drove the other person away.  Its not healthy.  Or we have known a person who cant leave their hometown.  They just get so attached that the thoughts of leaving make them sweat.  They will never enjoy the rest of the world, which has so much to offer.  The remedy is to help the brain to move on.  You gotta redirect its attention.  I ended up having a lot of seemingly strange conversations with kids that went something like this:

Me:  why you crying?
Kid:  i miss my mommy.
Me:  understood.  whats your name?
Kid: Kid.
Me:  What was your favorite activity today?
Kid: sock war. 
Me:  yeah.  that sock war is awesome.  you brush your teeth yet?
Kid:  No.
Me:  okay.  well, go brush your teeth.  then get read for bed.  then get in bed and close your eyes.
Kid:  Ok.

Worked like a charm every time.  Of course, its much harder to self-inflict this kind of jedi mind-trickery.  So, for curing your own heartache induced ailments, you gotta actually physically remain busy.  Luckily I am able to do this.  An expert is a person who can do one thing a thousand times so that they perfect it.  I prefer to try and do a thousand things.  This means i will likely never be an expert, but i sure as heck am going to get a lot done.  I often remark about my results..."well, it ain't pretty, but it will work."  And that's how it is.  I get stuff done....which actually is sort of the de facto motto of NCCC. 

So, what have I been doing?  read on my inquisitive friend....

1) Tuesday night I played soccer in a league.  Did terrible in goal this week.  I usually play the first half.  I mean really sucked it up.  Had a goal go between my legs.  Had a rebound stop on the line until a girl came and bumped it in.  Really ate it hard.  Came out in the second half though and played well on the field.  Almost scored a few goals.  Kept the pressure on.  But in the end we lost.  Then someone told me we were a player down.  Didn't realize that.  Well crap.  No wonder we struggled on defense.  Still though....sucked in goalie.  really really bad.

2) Wednesday night I went go-karting with my little brother.  Quicken Loans was nice enough to rent out the place, open it to the public, do some PR with Big Brothers Big Sisters, and let us kart for free.  They even brought in some real pro NASCAR drivers (Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart) and let some special people they picked out race against them, while the rest of stood in line for the film production they were putting together to no doubt put on their website to talk about how much they were involved with the community.  Ironically, most of the kids who need a Big didn't have any idea who those guys were.  Ironically, many of the Big Bros and Sisses also didn't know who they were. 

Unironically, my little bro, who is in 9th grade, doesn't know how many months are in a year.  I kind of want to strangle everyone who has ever taught him something, because I feel like we all should have taught him that by now.

Stay tuned for more fun descriptions of antics i have been perpetrating...

DAlen




3) string
4) runnin'  in 5 weeks!
5) magic erraser
6) raise the roof!