the bird is back

replacement batteries arrived. look out!

my wife's a bit of a pyro

she wanted to get rid of some wicker porch furniture we've had for far too long. when she saw we had enough dry sticks to have a fire, she asked, "can we burn it? can we burn that old furniture?"

done.

well... the chair and the loveseat are a little big for a fire ring, so i'll break them down for another fire.

wicker burns crazy fast.

a really good year for our climbing rose

a very good night for beer

had the team over for dinner and a bunch of beer samplings. it went well. how could it not with this beverage grouping?

latest bike project

last year, we put together a slow road bike / fast townie for my youngest daughter. i had a small frame lying around and a bunch of parts in the parts box. i gave her my favorite wheel off my cx bike and she was happy. well, almost happy. the frame was pretty beat up and faded, so she wanted to be able to paint it. we tore it apart very early this winter, but really didn't get moving on the project until the last couple of weeks.

 we got it all sanded

 and masked off the good parts

 then a coat of primer

 then came the CRAZY fluorescent pink

blue for the lugs and "accents" with a nice clearcoat to make it consistently shiny.

and here's the final build. 

and... it looks like one of dad's bikes. well, except for the pink, most of dad's bikes like this don't have shiny paint jobs.

another nice purchase

hmm... going to have to invite some folks over to try this one. beer with a cork, mmm...

dude, that's not locked

re: stig... or maybe he's a nerdperial stormtrooper

the stig codes here

it's all about the rolls

today's trip to the grocery for the office was for TP rolls, but the grocery store had a special on sushi rolls, so I expanded my purchase.

oasis

the folks at tallgrass brewing in lawrence, kansas made a real mouthful with their dry-hopped imperial ESB. whole lotta flavor with a choppy bite. more pine-y than citrus-y.