New Link: Crazy P

You want to read some crazy stories? Check out my friend Phil's new blog about life in Madrid. Note: Phil's themes are adult oriented, to put it mildly. If you are easily offended by sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, etc., prepare to be scandalized. I recommended beginning by arching your eyebrows into a concentrated "Well I never!" and pursing your lips into a grim "I am NOT amused." I'm not kidding, this stuff is mature. For the rest of you, click the link and laugh.

Gmail - Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

Yo Mark D: I have your Trim discount coupon but your mailbox is full, so my reply keeps bouncing. Please let me know where to send the coupon.

Ready to Crawl!

Guess who learned to get up on his knees?


Did you guess Noah?


Time to baby-proof!

Memorial Day

It was a pretty relaxed Memorial Day. We went to Lauren's parents for dinner. Here I am with Noah on the swing.


Here's Noah in his office. I like how he can work from anywhere. He'd fit in at my old employer, PricewaterhouseCoopers. They're all about hoteling.


Nature Boy loves the lawn.

At The Caribou Kid's Corner

Here's Noah sitting a a tiny table at Caribou Coffee, my new favorite coffee shop around here. Jon, Noah and I stopped by last week. It was sad though, oddly empty because there was no Sarah or Joshua to sit with in our usual seats by the fireplace. Sarah,Joshua, Noah and I seem to end up here a bit to often at times. Try the "Mint Condition" it's really good.

By the way, if you want to see one of my very favorite coffee shops (all in SF), check out The Canvas next to Golden Gate Park. It wasn't bad to sip a coffee out on the back patio of Le Zinc either. Then again, we had a lot more wine and stinky cheese there than coffee in the long run. Cafe Flore, ok coffee, great people watching. Now Cafe Trieste was cool. This cafe in the North Beach neighborhood is best know as the hang out for such beat generation greats as Lawerence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Ahhh.......come to think of it, now THOSE were coffee shops. Oh well....

Going for a Ride

I've been racking my brain to figure out why Noah is so much more restless than most babies. He's always "on," wanting to move, talk, grab, and bounce. This can make for lots of fun, but at other times, frustration and exhaustion. This week, I realized that he is what many pediatricians call a "spirited baby." "Spirited babies and children," as they put it, are just "more." More energy, more movement, more noise..... but oh yeah, less sleep. The leading expert in raising a "spirited child" is Dr. Sears. I borrowed his book from Sarah. (Thanks) Dr. Sears believes in "babywearing". He thinks that parents, especially those of "spirited babies" should wear their babies around, everywhere they go. So, I have taken to plopping Noah in his backpack or Baby Bjorn or on my hip. I even made my own baby wrap/baby sling after I saw the "Ella Roo" on this site: Peppermint. It's great! I made the wrap for only $6 and it took about 5 minutes. Noah loves ride around. It's quite hard to carry 20lbs. around for a long time but as long as I do, Noah seems very happy and becomes a more relaxed baby just happy to watch the world go by.

Naheed and Danny's Wedding

We went to a wonderful weddding reception yesterday. My friend Naheed married her fiancee Danny. Lauren and I have both known Naheed since we were freshpeople at MSU. She is one of the most wonderful people I know, and Danny is an extremely nice guy. They'll be very happy.


This is Naheed's father holding Noah. He said babies loved him, and he's right. Look at how happy this kid is!











This is Naheed's grandfather


Naheed's grandfather, Danny's mother


Wedding Cake, with Naheed's mother in green. There were five of these cakes, and they were fabulous. Lauren and I tried chocolate with berry filling. There was also a nice sweet table with coconut balls, honey balls, and pistachio candy.


Dinner. Everything was good. I had lamb (two ground in to patties and also cubed in sauce), chicken, rice, spinach....it was just so great.


Noah was a great sport, he didn't cry even though he didn't have a nap. He did throw up on my suit, but that's just an occupational hazard.


I just like this picture.


L to R: Naheed's grandpa, Mr. Khan, Noah, and Me.

Leica M3

My friend and colleague Roger and I are auctioning this beautiful Leica M3 on eBay. Many people consider this one of the finest cameras ever made. I would like to own it myself, but I have no need for an expensive antique rangefinder camera - and we are hoping to use the proceeds to finance HDTVs. When he has the auction up I'll post links. Bid early, and bid often.

Lauren and Noah at 6 months

Fast&Furious, 1993Supra Movie car, 2Fast2Furious

This was one of the sweetest cars in the movie, better still because they wrecked it at the end. I watched The Fast and the Furious with my friend Zerner at the dollar theater while I was recuperating from my own wreck. A Detroit city bus had wrecked my own Civic Si and broken my knee, and I didn't realize that I had left my copy of the Weezer green album in the CD player until it had already gone to the scrapyard.




Crazy accident fact: When I went to take pictures of the car for my lawsuit against the city of Detroit, the cajun fries from the Cass Cafe I had taken after dinner were scattered over the top of the engine. Somehow the force the impact had thrown them there. I'll try to scan some pictures, because I couldn't believe it either.

Dessert

I can't remember the name of the place we went to, someone will need to comment. But wait until you see dessert! Here are pictures from Izzy's Bistro in New Baltimore. The city is much more charming than those pictures I took earlier of Sneakers.


Look at this cannoli!


Huge cake.


Logan and giant coconut cream pie.


Bumpy cake, true Detroit regional cuisine.


This is probably straight Crisco and sugar, but it's pretty good.

Lunch

Before lunch, the kids got to know each other.


Then we ate! Adam has the good fortune to own a quarter of a cow, which has been subdivided into tasty, manageable cow segments. These were excellent, I think this is something I need to look into. Anyone want to go in on 160 pounds of beef?

When Blogs Collide, 2 (or, Life on the North Side)

Last Saturday, we were invited to Meagan and Adam and Kylinn's house for lunch, and then we drove to New Baltimore for dessert.


Meagan claims that they live on the North side, but they are close enough to Lake Saint Clair to be making plans to attend the Bay-Rama Fish Fly Festival.


Subsequent posts will cover our itinerary.

I'm behind on the pictures.

But I'm about to fix that. Check out all that hair!

Two Toledos Production Blog

Read this blog! I have talked before about this project, which now has official support from the city of Toledo. I had not realized that the relationship between Toledo and Toledo, Spain was the oldest sister city partnership in the country.

We're Strong for Toledo

In the previous post I mentioned that I would always be strong for Toledo. For those of you not in the know, here is the history of the song, according to toledosattic.org. Because it is such a great summary, I am re-publishing it verbatim:

The first song describing Toledo, "We’re Strong for Toledo", was written by Joe Murphy in 1906. Murphy was the founder of the Citizen’s Ice Company and wrote the song for his barbershop singers, the Ice House Quartette. Murphy penned the original stanzas in a few evenings in the only key he knew. "We’re Strong for Toledo" reflected the vague optimistic spirit of Murphy’s age:

We’re strong for Toledo

We’re strong for Toledo
T-O-L-E-D-O
The girls are the fairest
The boys are the squarest
Of any old town that I know.

We’re strong for Toledo
T-O-L-E-D-O
In any old weather
We’ll all stick together
In T-O-L-E-D-O

Murphy’s lyrics made few claims for the city he was born and raised in besides fair girls and square boys. This is its real strength. Unlike most of the succeeding tunes about Toledo that praise specific features, business opportunities, or institutions of the city, the generality of "We’re Strong" allowed it to suit the changing circumstances of the city.

Still, at the song’s core is a quaint view of the city as a harmonious unified whole. 1906, the year Murphy wrote his song, was perhaps the last that the idea of Toledo’s people all sharing the same interests could have been so boldly proclaimed. Toledo’s civic leaders had long praised its unusual climate of labor peace. Toledo, unlike similar mid-sized manufacturing and transportation centers, had largely escaped the l arge scale strikes and violence of the great railroad strikes of 1877, the eight-hour day strike wave of 1886, and the Pullman Strike of 1894. Relative to other Ohio cities it lost few workdays to strikes in the first six years of the Twentieth century. But less than a year after Murphy finished "We’re Strong for Toledo", one of the city’s largest manufacturing concerns, the Pope Automobile Company, was shuttered by a massive strike. By 1909 the construction trade unions and an employers association were at each other’s throats and a bomb was discovered on the site of a downtown building project. By World War One, Toledo would be an organizing center for the militant I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) union in Ohio.

Murphy’s ice quartette grew from four to forty over the next twenty years. Invited to perform at the 1927 Rotary International World Convention in Belgium, "We’re Strong for Toledo" was sung across Europe and to millions of WRKO radio listeners upon the groups return to New York.

Interestingly, the article points out a song called "Our Toledo" was selected by the Toledo city council as the city's official song in 1909. I've never heard it - but "We're Strong for Toledo" continues to resonate with me. You can read the lyrics to "Our Toledo" at the link, but I find them maudlin and generic. I much prefer the fair girls and square boys and Murphy's wistful melody. Listen to it here.

RIP Madison-Lenox Hotel, 1900-2005

Read the link if you want to know why you should care. Sometimes it just feels like debacle after debacle after debacle.....

I'm half-full on Detroit. I adopted it 6 years ago, a week after college. I worked for the General Motors Tax Staff in the old GM Building on Grand Boulevard and Woodward, on the 14th floor, in the old executive offices. My view was of Popeye's on Woodward, but I smelled the history and loved the building, with its 70s decor, beautiful relief sculpture on the facade and amazing lobby ceiling. I worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers on the 31st floor of the Renaissance Center, Tower 300. I navigated the skywalk there on crutches after a Detroit city bus wrecked my Honda Civic and broke my knee. I saw shows at the Gold Dollar for 2 bucks. I went to the Majestic after work. I went to Eugene V. Debs Memorial Kazoo Night at Tiger Stadium - and I still have the free kazoo! I saved my cans in bags in my trunk for a couple of down-on-their luck guys I knew downtown. Now our new company, foneGEAR, is in Troy and growing, and I hope it will show people that new kinds of businesses can flourish in the Midwest.

Lauren and I live here. Noah will grow up here. So will lots of other little kids. Our house is in the burbs, but don't try to tell me that the future of the region doesn't hinge on pulling the city back together. When Noah grows up, I do not want him to be pissed off at me that he wasn't born in San Francisco. I want him to be proud to be from Detroit, the way that I will always be Strong for Toledo (go Hens!). I want there to be an interesting skyline left for him to look at if he ever works in the RenCen. I want it to be safer for him to go out after work than it was for me. I have plenty of friends who have had 'incidents' in Detroit - a couple of car break-ins, vandalism - and one friend whose parents were robbed at gunpoint. On their own block. I think I might have been naive about the risk when I was 22, but I was excited by the feeling of being out alone in a city, even a sprawling, faded palace like Detroit. I was excited to drive around and explore. I was excited to go places. I had (and still have) great friends.

Now it's different. We have a baby and a lawn to take care of, and my evenings are not free for sitting around the bar at the Majestic. And I don't want them to be - it is infinitely more fun to hang out with Noah. I am taking tremendous joy in my tomatoes (5 types last year!). But I'm looking forward to taking Noah to the Art Museum, and the Motown Museum, and the places I've worked, and to Tigers games so that we can look at the skyline over the outfield fence, and think about what a great place we live in. That's my dream. I hope we'll get to see it happen before they knock down whatever's left.

DAN LE BATARD: Detroit is the real pit of the universe

It's one thing when we say it. It is way different when someone from a place with plenty of its own problems knocks Detroit. This columnist from the Miami Herald wrote a typically Detroit-bashing piece in anticipation of the Heat-Pistons series. Let's just have a look at today's Herald front page for a second:

HURRICANE SEASON
'04 victims still reeling; hmm, haven't cleaned up last years debris, but worried about our highway infrastructure. Thanks.

Faulty contract costs millions
Jackson Memorial Hospital's pharmacy contract was supposed to save taxpayers money. Instead, it cost millions; Hmm, contract mismanagement at Miami's only public hospital. I thought that kind of ineptitude could only happen in Detroit though?

And this from MSN:
Worst Large Cities for Crime
Miami's violent crime rate is the highest in the nation, with especially high incidences of robbery and assault. Thankfully, the murder rate is relatively low. Good, you can be thankful for the low murder rate when you're recovering from that vicious assault robbery.

Look, I know that this article (and the corrolary Album piece) are written in a spirit of fun and are meant to poke the other city's fans in the eye a little to drum up interest in the series. The problem is that neither one of these articles is especially funny, and they just serve to reinforce stupid misconceptions. A waste of ink.

Catch-up

I am way behind on posting Noah pictures. Part of the problem is I have dozens and they are all cute. IMHO.


Ready to eat.


Bowl almost empty, yet baby suspiciously clean. Curious.

New Question Posted on "Ask How Bourgeois"

And it's a real doozy.

Rat batting is often a team sport

I had no idea that my brother lived in the same block as the West Side Rat Whacker. Disgusting, yet oddly compelling.

New Question Posted on "Ask How Bourgeois"

At the link.

Thanks for Fixing my Picture Sarah!

jon
Originally uploaded by Lolo1.

A big thanks to Sarah, whose mega brain saved me again. This time by rotating said picture when my Mac programs failed to listen to me.

Per Jon's request, I should elaborate on this photo and previous title. I thought it was self explainatory but...the reason why I love my husband so, is because he makes homemade treats for his grandmother's Birthday. What a sweetie! No pun intended...haha.

My New favorite Link

All cupcakes, all the time.

Why I Love my Husband

Bubbycake
Originally uploaded by Lolo1.

Opps! Sorry, I couldn't rotate this pic.

bubbycake2
Originally uploaded by Lolo1.

Have Smoke, Will Profit

This is pretty amazing, I have not thought much about how products like tobacco are marketed to retailers. This is the web site for a wholesale tobacco company that seems to sell primarily to convenience stores; go to the link and click on "featured products" for the full-sized versions of some pretty eye-opening promotional materials.



The Stashtray



Have Smoke, Will Profit



Kingpin

Images are the property of HBI Tobacco. No rights to these images are claimed or implied.

Ask How Bourgeois

This morning, Lauren and I are launching a companion blog to this site, entitled "Ask How Bourgeois." This new site will offer daily advice on a wide range of topics to those who need it. If you do not need it, you get to gape at other people's dilemmas. Everyone wins.

Why are we doing this? A couple of reasons. Our new header explains in part:

Welcome to the How Bourgeois advice blog. We are not credentialed (in anything), so this is for entertainment purposes only. We do have strong opinions formed from years of watching our friends' mistakes (well, maybe we made a couple too). Send questions to askhowbourgeois@gmail.com and we will post insightful replies and baking tips. Unless you prefer otherwise, all personal information will be kept anonymous. Sky's the limit on topics.

We'll try to answer everything, and we'll have a great reference librarian who will help us with the tough ones. Perhaps the best reason I can think of to launch this site is that the real heavyweights, Dear Prudence and Cary Tennis, just don't publish enough if you really want to read an advice column. You shouldn't have to wait until Thursday for the answer - Ask How Bourgeois today!

Lunch

Last night I bought some of these great flaxseed rolls from Papa Joe's. At about $.59 each, they're not cheap but they are extremely good (and incidentally healthy), and they are also much a better value than buying a whole bread that will go stale before I finish it (I know Bubby, I can keep it in the fridge. It still gets stale before I'm done).


They make amazing toast, which I especially like grilled. We have a grill attachment on our stove which is useless except for toast.


Here is some D'Artagnan mousse trouffe, with chicken and turkey livers, duck fat and 2% truffles. It goes great on the flax rolls.


So here is this wonderful lunch, for less than the cost of a pot pie at a bad "family" restaurant or a large burrito. I estimate the cost at around $4 for today's lunch, but I also got to see Lauren and Noah and drink club soda right from the 2-Liter, which you can't do at Panera.

Mousse trouffe

The cutting wedge

One of my great finds last night was this stunning (seriously, only word for it) Morbier. Described as "Morbier au lait cru du haut-libradois fromage fabrique en Auvergne," it is a raw-milk (ie unpasteurized) semi-hard cow milk delight, aged in the "Mountains of Auvergne" France for 60 days.

There are not many raw milk cheeses for sale in the US, because the FDA believes that they can harbor bacteria. Jeffrey Steingarten has argued otherwise, persuasively enough for me to approach the dangers rationally. I have no idea how Papa's Joe's was able to import this or sell it, but I am assuming it is a legitimate import sold by a reputable grocer.



The streak running through the cheese is vegetable ash, separating the morning and evening milk (I think. Sounds good though, right?). This is simply one of the best cheeses I have ever tasted. It is creamy, fatty, deeply flavored, and complex. If basic yellow American cheese is the simplest (not bad, just simple) cheese on sale in the US right now, rating a "1" for complexity, this Morbier is at least a high "7", full of layers of taste that change from the time you start eating until you have a sip of your Sofia mini. What's a Sofia mini?


Canned California champagne, created by Francis Ford Coppola in honor of his daughter Sofia's movie "Lost in Translation," and a great accompaniment to rich fatty cheeses.

Chocolate mousse

Lauren and I don't go out much right now, we are pretty much home in the evenings watching Noah. We get a night off here and there, but we don't have babysitters yet and we don't want to impose on Nana all the time.

Therefore, some of our former movie budget (the part that we don't buy diapers with) goes toward food as entertainment. Here is Papa Joe's take on chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup. It's great, no need to inquire.

Yeah, this isn't frustrating.

Spotted on 14 Mile, this guy has been waiting behind Beetles at the light since 1969. This is why Woodward has four lanes.

HB Ride Spotting: 2006 Audi A3

Here is the 2006 Audi A3, spotted on 14 Mile in Clawson. On the road it is pretty noticeable, if not in this color, just because there are so few hatchbacks on sale in the US now. It has an interesting profile, but I do not think that the lines are as nice as those of the A4 wagon. Neither is especially practical, despite the hatch - having tried to stuff a jumperoo, a stroller and some grocieries into the hatch on our A4 Avant and finding it to be a really tight fit for a wagon, I cannot imagine that this will be better unless they have found some major packaging efficiencies.

But whatever.





So will people spend $25,000 (base) on this car? Anyone remember the BMW 318ti? Here is the front view:

Free Frosties!

The front page says it all: no coupon needed, no purchase necessary. Just ask and you will receive a free Jr. Frosty. "While Supplies Last," of course, but when was the last time they ran out?

Remember, "limit one per customer."

Now, say you wanted to get your one free frosty, but you were not sure where to go? What if you were out travelling, far from your local Wendy's, where you could get your one free Frosty? This (convenient printable list) might help:

Oakland County click here

Detroit click here

East Side, here you g0

This was Unexpected

It was hard to believe this happened, but Saturday I was feeding Noah and he actually just ate and went to sleep. I can count on one hand how many times he has been able to relax enough to just doze off like this.

RO

When we were walking around Royal Oak before dinner on Saturday we saw this guy riding around on his Segway. It makes me wonder if he lives in dowtown Royal Oak and was just out for a spin, or if he brought his segway from somewhere else specifically to ride around RO. Either way there is no shortage of characters there, and sometimes I miss hanging at Brazil drinking coffee all day (well, after I woke up at 11), like I did when I couldn't find a job, back in 2000.

I had just finished a 9-month internship at GM, and I was sending out resumes all over the place. Even though there were tons of articles at the time about how great the economy was and how easy it was for new graduates to find work, I was hitting wall after wall. It was great to read constantly about kids getting signing bonuses and BMW Z3's as incentives to go to work for tech companies, when I was trying to figure out if I needed to apply at the cigar store to not have to move back to my parents house.

While I was waiting for something to break, I would go over to Brazil or Cafe de Marquis and I would read the paper, drink coffee, smoke, and talk to people. It was great. I was never bored, and I became very adept at getting a quarter in the meter just in time.

Something broke open for me though, like things tend to, and I have been working full time for the last five years. Brazil has been closed for a while. The people I used to hang out with have been widely dispersed, and sometimes you just have an experience that is unique to its time and place. I wonder why this guy made me think of that. Funny what can trigger a memory.

Caroline and Ed

The other night we went out with Caroline and her boyfriend Ed. We went back to Cafe Habana, and it was not as good as the other night - tha fried plantains were pretty dry, and the huevos rancheros were cooked too hard. Sometimes the food there is wonderful, and sometimes it is not great, and in our experience what you are going to get is pretty random. It's worth the gamble though because when it is good it is really good.

Somehow the camera settings were changed and we got 16 pictures of Caroline and Ed.

I am so full

Well, it took me more than two weeks, but I finally ate my way through this box of 40 Kudos from Costco all by myself. I'm not going to tell you it was easy. It was a struggle, because I totally lost interest after the peanut butter ones ran out.

I don't think that I will buy this again, because what found I really wanted was 40 peanut butter Kudos. It is not that I am displeased with the chocolate chip, Snickers-flavor or M&M bars - they just do not taste as good. A parallel can be found in Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches - you cannot buy a box that is entirely chocolate cookies with chocolate ice cream. Half of a package with chocolate ice cream will always be vanilla, yet they sell full boxes of coffee, caramel and strawberry shortcake(!?).

HB Ride Update

I see this guy near my office all the time. Giant chrome wheels, chrome door handle, deep tints, two-tone paint. The overall effect is quite subtle. I wish I could get the front view so you could see the gold grille. Sweet truck.


Check it out - someone bought this! It was sitting in front of the Chrysler dealership on Woodward in Royal Oak for a long time, but what makes it special is that this specific car (I'd bet just about anything) was featured on (excuse me, derided in) autoextremist.com and in the Detroit News. I think they're just hating, this is hot, right?


I peeped this beauty in the Best Buy parking lot - a perfect mother's day gift for the pink-loving young mom in my household, no? Too bad I could not hang around to make an offer.


Yup, this is a Kia SUV on dubs.

Power Outage

Power went out in part of the city last night, which left Sarah and Joshua in the dark. So they came over to our house, where there was light and high-speed.




The boys seem to get along!




It's good to have friends, the earlier the better.




(The way these pictures are shot, it looks like they are the same height. I'll let you guess who's less tall).

Orange Date Nut Cake

My colleague Leila has challenged me to find the recipe for the Orange Date Nut Cake of her youth. Easy you say? You found seven recipes for Orange Date Nut Cake on the first page of Google alone?

Well, I did too. Here they are:

Cake.Allrecipes.com
Produce Pete
Ejor
KCTS
WAFB
Jfolse.com
Journalnow.com

So I found it, right? End of post.

Wrong. Since you asked, none of these recipes has fresh oranges in it. The recipe Leila remember has fresh fruit and cream cheese frosting. It is super-dense and extremely sweet. If you know what she's talking about, hit me at howbourgeois @ gmail.com and either send the recipe or let me know where to find it. I will reward whoever finds me the recipe with half of a cake. Happy Hunting!

Dos Toledos

I have posted before about Two Toledos, a documentary that my friends Jacob David and Joel Washing are making. Now they have posted a new trailer on the Two Toledos web site (also see links bar), and it is the first look into the movie. Check it out at the link. I'll let Jacob and Joel tell you about the project in their own words:

The viewer will be taken on a trip to Spain and America highlighting the important work and lives of the artists that enrich the cultures of the two Toledos. The benefit of the relationship between these two sister cities continues through the exchange of dignitaries, students, and artists. The overriding goal of this documentary is to create a stronger
cultural bridge that will bring the people of both communities closer
together and to foster future artist exchanges. This film will coincide
well with the upcoming 75th anniversary of the relationship between
the two Toledos.

By the way, don't forget to check out their short film "Jacob and Joel" on the Above the Shop Studios web site! It's extremely funny.

Housing Maps

If you follow this link, it will knock you over. The writer, Paul Rademacher, works for Dreamworks and must be one of those people who is just the smartest guy in the room. If you get bored after playing around with this for a while try his dissertation for a little light reading before dinner.

Crankbot 5000

Just like his Dad "Steinbot 5000", I have discovered today that my son is also of robot origin. Presenting "Crankbot 5000". Crankbot, as he's known to those closest to him, is capable of being cranky, VERY cranky at times. I was forced by crankbot's powers to pull out the ear plugs today, although I did feel the pain of motherly guilt after about 2 seconds and took them out. This crankbot sure has strong powers.

In a moment of delirium brought on by sleep deprivation, and crankbot's electro-charge, I had a vision mid-diaper change. "Crankbot 5000" and his gang of crankbots take over the state of Michigan. Each one competing against the other to win the super fabulous prize: a new binkie. The challenge: to see which crankbot can force his mother into needing a drink first. My poor little crankbot might not win as I haven't had a drink yet today. Come to think of it, I haven't had a drink in oh... a year and a half!!! I suppose what I need more right now is a nap so I quit have wierd daydreams about my child being a crabby robot. I have decided to post this adorable picture of Crankbot so you can see his bionic cheeks. I am convinced that those cheeks must hold large sub-woofer speakers in them which amplify Cranbots calls when in need of a binkie.

Would I be able to let out the pants?

I was tracking this auction in the hope that I could grab this sweet "Johnny Carson" suit in a 35 Short for 15 bucks. No such luck - here is my exchange with the seller:

"Hi, would I be able to let out the pants on this suit to a 32-inch waist? Thanks!"

Hi. The waist can be let out about another inch, but not two inches. Thanks for looking!

I guess some people are just not meant to wear pants. If you see a guy browsing sweaters at J. Crew in a gray suit coat and no pants, it's me, so wave.

Chocolate Gelato with Strawberries

I finally found something to do with all of those strawberries I bought. I tossed them with sugar and let them sit until they formed a syrup, and then I spooned them over Trader Joe's chocolate gelato.

This was very good. The gelato is extremely tasty, and I was very impressed by the deep chocolate flavor and the fact that a quart of it only costs as much as a tiny scoop of gelato at one of the shops in Royal Oak or Birmingham. The strawberries were good, not as good as they will be a little later, but it is still wonderful to eat fresh strawberries.

May the Force be Endlessly Merchandised

There's just no happy medium with the Force - dark or light, dark or light, dark or light. No moderates here!




Looks like you can even carry that tired red/blue state analogy over to your own desk now too, in case your home office did not previously have a partisan theme. This was in my inbox this morning in the Alienware newsletter, featuring

* Stunning Imperial Case Design (Indeed)
* Exclusive Star Wars Content (Ooooh)
* NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU Technology (Huh?)
* Unparalleled Performance (Rather!)

In a word, stunning. Good to see that the Franklin Mint doesn't have a lock on this kind of thing.

When Blogs Collide

Look at this! We went to Trader Joe's to buy organic baby lettuces for the guinea pig, and look who we ran into:




This is Meagan and Adam and Kylinn. Cute family, right? Talk about a random - this was almost as odd as the time we saw Chuck Woolery walking around downtown Birmingham (almost - that was strange). It was nice to finally meet them. I have been told that there is a great place for pie out near where they live, so hopefully we'll get to try that soon.

The picture is in the parking lot because it only occurred to Lauren and I to get a picture after they walked out, so I had to go running out to get this before they left.

The Floppy

Today we tried out a new shopping cart cover called the Floppy. Essentially it sits between your kid and your cart to keep shopping germs from getting on the baby, and it also acts as a cushion in case said child decides to do a header into the handle.


Noah is sitting up pretty well with support, so this makes more sense than putting his car seat into the cart, because he's safe but he has more interesting stuff to look at than the ceiling.


He has no interest in the Spanish wine behind him, but he loves that binkie strap (maybe more than the binkie).

Snack Time

Noah and I have been up since six-thirty this morning. Now we are back from Trader Joe's and the pet store, and he just went down for his afternoon nap. It is not quite 2 pm, but given the hour at which we awoke, that makes it about 4:30 in real time. That means it is time for a frosty Guinness in a Hannukah glass.