- Blog
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My second needlepoint project: Pixel Tree
My second needlepoint project is almost done; I’m stitching in the blue-gray between the orange checkerboard squares. Apparently, I like to photograph and post this stuff when it reaches 70% completion. Here it is: I found the tree design while searching for “Pixel Art Tutorial.” I came across this great page full of swords, potions,…
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It’s a thousand degrees behind those metal shutters!
Kate, Lydia, and I went to the West Chester Fire Department‘s Fire Safety Training day on Saturday: We watched a shiny blue Penn medevac helicopter take off, and we waved “hi” to Smokey the Bear (who had big ol’ furry plumber butt), and we watched them light a big fire in the “burn building” of…
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“Look, Daddy! Lucifer!”
My brother Oliver was in town this week, and we started enthusing about the work of Frank Frazetta, whom I’ve written about before. The next day, he presented me with the best daddy-daughter portrait ever: Oliver, I am forever in your debt.
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Needed: a companionable, quiet, stench-free hobby.
I’ve been looking for an indoor, living-room-friendly hobby to do at night, when I get home from work. Something that makes me present in the world of people and things, leaves my brain free for conversation with my lovely wife, and doesn’t involve reeking hydrocarbons. Kate’s knitting is the Ultimate Hobby Activity, as far as…
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“Aha!” said Poirot. “His tongue, it is purest cadmium blue!”
Every morning, I walk from 31st street and 8th avenue to 26th street and Park Avenue South. This is almost the same trip my dad took when he lived in Mount Airy, and commuted daily from the North Philadelphia train station to 23rd street, just west of the Flatiron building. I have my choice of…
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Laurels Grow Fastest on Cobwebs
I spent the weekend cleaning the basement. I really enjoyed doing it . That’s for some special definitions of “enjoy”, of course. I mean, nobody likes crouching behind the furnace with a shopvac, but if you feel like you’re Doing Right by your family, and it’s something you’ve been meaning to do for two years,…
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Guerilla Drive-In: The Life Aquatic at Dudas Diving Duds
Walking down Pond’s Edge Road from boarding School to the local strip mall, I would walk past an old 1700s barn behind a line of trees that I vaguely knew to be some kind of scuba-themed shirt shop, or something. It was called “Dudas Diving Duds”, and every now and then you’d see a car…
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More to come later on this topic…
More to come on this subject, but right now I have to go harvest a hundred and sixty acres of slough hay. Well, actually, I have to sit at a desk and write emails reminding others of version-control best practices. It’s… it’s not quite the same thing.
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Let’s have a child, we’ll name her Minnie Pearl
Kate told me this story on Tuesday: Lydia [walks into the kitchen, holding a doll]: Mommy, I thought of a good name for the doll that Paula gave me. Kate: Oh, that’s great, sweetie. What name will you give her? Lydia [holds up doll]: I will name her VEN-GE-ANCE! This awesome, piratical utterance is attributable…
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Wait, ice cream truck, stop! I’m not a ninja assassin, I SWEAR!
…but, oh please, couldn’t you mistake me for one, for just a moment? During lunch yesterday, I went and picked up a five pound (or, as I learned, a “20 foot”) bottle of compressed nitrogen from Keen Compressed Gas in West Chester. I love meddling in random areas of industry, since you get to (just…
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