kitty cats and butterflies

I'm pretty much done with the painting for Jill's room. Jill enjoyed the opportunity to sit on it.

St. Agnes Elementary Class of '83

I just realized that almost exactly 25 years ago is when I graduated from 8th grade. I wonder if anyone is having a reunion? I know one of my fellow graduates knows exactly where this blog is. We should have a reunion, George; I haven't seen you since Channukah. That's just ridiculous, to me. Maybe you guys should come over to our humble non-antique-furnished dwelling in the sticks for dinner and board games some night soon.

 

It seems odd that in a town the size of Louisville I don't run in to other St. Agnes grads more than I do. I might not recognize a lot of them.

 

John's oldest daughter is on Erin's soccer team, so I just saw him for the first time since high school graduation. His daughters are really cute. The one that's on Erin's team looks just like a continuation of John's line of siblings.

 

Last year I looked at a photo of our 8th grade class, and I was able to name everyone on it. There are a few, not too many, I'd like to see again. I'm simply curious about everyone else.

 

I guess that by posting this I've upped my chances of hearing from someone. Feel free to comment if you come across this while Googling your class reunion info. That includes you, Sr. Margaret Regina.

 

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I blotted out this kid's face on the off chance that his parents, whoever they are, find this blog. They might not take kindly to some strange guy putting pictures of their son on the Web. And by strange, I mean the sort of guy who would grab his camera and hurry across the room shrieking, "Oh my God, can I take your picture? Oh golly! Totally cool! You have acrossbow made out of BALLOONS!!! "

No, I wasn't really that geeky about it. But still. A balloon crossbow. What an age in which we live.

The guy who made it was a real artist. He could do pretty much anything. He was making skull-and-crossbone pirate hats, cutlasses, kitty cats, monkeys climbing palm trees, all sorts of things, all on request. Erin asked for a yellow flower, and she got one. Jill asked for a blue and white hat, and she got that. I'll post pictures of those later, I suppose.

I won't say anything about this picture. It's more fun to imagine your own story behind it.

Here's what I'm pretty sure is a former home site in a local park, in a thicketed area. I think this thing is a coal furnace, and it's the only thing left mostly intact from the house that once stood here. It now rests in a stone-lined cellar hole. There is lots of debris in the area: Scraps of iron pipe, nails, metal sheeting. It makes it a hard place to hunt, and the thick brush and trees make it inaccessible except during the cold months. I took these pictures a few weeks ago, and I'm sure that by now it would be impossible to get into.

Lost

The most frustrating TV show ever was back on last night.

 

Okay, so I know some of my friends are "Lost" fans, but I don't have anyone around now with whom to discuss last night's episode. So, please comment, Ed, Loraine, Candy, David, Brooke.

 

Poor Alex. I didn't expect that.

 

I knew Ben was exceedingly devious, smart, and manipulative, but I had no idea he was such combat monster. He has hidden that aspect well from the other characters.

 

What do you think is the nature of "the rules," and how did they change? Did they somehow prevent killing loved ones or family of Ben? Are they the same rules that keep Ben from killing Charles, or is there something else?

 

I will probably have to try to watch that episode again to pick up on details I missed.

 

I won't even speculate on how Ben ended up on his back with a wounded arm in the desert, not knowing for sure what year it was.

 

Faraday, like so many other characters before him, now goes on my list of "Lost" characters who need a little waterboarding. There are about twenty characters who need to be slapped until the cough up a plausible rationale for their actions. Note that I only condone torture on fictional people.

 

Why would Widmore kill Nadia? Does anyone else suspect that Ben killed her and framed Widmore?

 

Last night's show had a very high body count, perhaps only exceeded by the plane crash itself and Ben's Dharma purge. I hope that everyone on the island knows, by this time, that if you hear lots of gunfire outside, don't just run blindly out the door.

 

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Last night I planted peas, and Erin and Jill helped. It's a little late in Spring for pea planting. I put the extras in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator to save to plant in the Autumn for a late crop.

 

After that hard work in the fields, we all went to E. P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park for a hot air balloon event. As we approached the park we saw some balloons in the air, and I feared that we had missed it, that all the balloons had taken off. But as we walked through the park, a balloon drifted low in our direction, and landed very close. I'm not sure I've ever seen a balloon land in person before, and it was fun. We stood and watched among the gathering crowd. It sat there until the crew came, and then we watched them deflate it and roll it up. My daughters did not want to get close; the noise of the fuel jets made them a little skittish. However, after it was all flat and stretched out on the grass, we walked over for a closer look.

 

Too bad our camera batteries were dead.

 

After that, we ran into Laura and her family and chatted for a few minutes, and then we played at the playground. Jill fell asleep on the way home and went to bed dusty.

 

I know, I have a very dull blog.

 

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detecting

I found nothing interesting with the metal detector again today when I went to the children's home at lunch. It might be a case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence, but it seems to me that one of the best areas to search is inside a secure chain link fence (and partially covered by an asphalt basketball court.)

 

I am currently trying to get an answer from the Metro Government about detecting at the Bellevoir mansion site.

 

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sketching and pollen

On lunch break today I went to the grounds of the old Bellevoir mansion, a former estate of the Ormsby family, for a little sketching. It's a nice old house, and the lawn and trees are very pretty, albeit a little more manicured than I'd prefer. It's a great spot to draw or paint, I recently hypothesized when I discovered the area. It would also a great place for a little MDing (actually, a LOT of MDing) if I can get permission.

 

So I sat under a tree for 45 minutes and drew the house and nearby trees with graphite. It was great, except for the yellowjacket that was keen on my shoes (I slapped him down with my sketchbook for his impertinence) and the ants that kept raining from the tree above me.

 

Also, when a breeze started up, I noted that the largest tree hanging over the house cut loose with a giant cloud of pollen that partially obscured the roof of the house and nearby vegetation in a sickly yellow-green haze. No wonder I've been sneezy lately.

 

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Numismatic gift certificates

Yesterday I left work early to donate blood, after which I had a little extra time. So I went to the Louisville Numismatic Exchange with some gift certificates I'd been saving.

 

My first goal was to find some 1920s-30s coinage from Ireland; the 1928 mintages were plentiful, and I don't have the denominations from that time (I think all of mine are post-decimalization). The Irish coins are some of my favorite.

 

When I got to the shop, though, I was informed that all the huge binders of world coins were gone. Someone had bought them all.

 

All the world coins they had left were in the rotating display cases. So I browsed, and found another coin that I'd coveted for a couple of years: A 1938 Hungarian 5 pengö, which struck my eyes the first time I saw one. I contemplated buying a 1949 Franklin half, but I'll have to save that for another time.

 

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Sunday was my sixth wedding anniversary. It's a very good reason to celebrate, one of the best I have (a three-way tie with my daughters). There are a few things about that day six years ago that I would change if I could, such as making our guests wait so long while we took our wedding photos on the lawn at Whitehall. Maybe, if I had the ability, I would have made it about five degrees cooler. But it was the best day of my life.  Actually, it wasn't. I can't say it really was the best day of my life, but that day was sort of the focal point for all the best things in my life. It's the stitch that holds together everything that is best: My love for Kim and my life with her; our two incredible daughters; our family and friends, who have all done so much for us, and continue to do so every day. I have so much for which to be grateful, and at the top of the list is Kim.

 

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Kevin is a big dumb liar

I never in my life saw the belief-o-matic until I followed the link on your blog.

Also, you are cool and I love you, bro. And you, too, my other bro.

Here's a medal I found last week.

Erin and the ant

This is a rather nice rendering of an ant. And doesn't the artist look proud?

Untitled poem composed from a corporate newsletter

oops

-on.

Misc.

1. I really need to work on some art:

 

A. I have Jill's mural-thing to finish, and it won't take much more to get it done. I could paint a border on it and call it quits, although I'd sort of like to add another butterfly. Besides that, she deserves something else in her room. I should do another little one for her, a quick one with bright colors.

 

B. I also have my unfinished Halloween costume to work on. It's pretty arty. I should get the scary head built up to a nearly complete state, and then work on the frame.

 

C. Brooke and David, your painting can be hung on a wall. I put wire on the back of it. I haven't put any more paint on it, but as I said previously, if I ever find the time I could just ask for it back to work on, right? Gosh, how lousy of me was it to give it to you and then keep it in my garage for four months? I'll give it to you the next time I see you.

 

D. I have not finished the landscape I started in Cherokee Park in October. It is lying in the garage, too, waiting for me and my brush.

 

E. I really want to start something new, too.

 

2. I will have a few uncleaned ancient coins to show around soon. I'll take before and after pictures. I'm pretty psyched; I foresee lots of detective work.

 

3. The past few lunch breaks on which I've gone metal detecting, I've found coins. They've been almost all pennies, with I think one dime and one nickel. It's a paltry sum, but at least I'm finding something other than pull tabs and nails.

 

Today I went to Hounz Lane Park and found a few pennies. It was a very pretty afternoon to be there, although there was a smell of sewage in the air. I think it had something to do with the acre of bulldozed earth in the middle of the park.

 

I put a cardboard box in the back of my car to hold my detecting refuse until I can throw it away. I was dumping junk into an old glass, but it quickly overflowed.

 

4. I have achieved nothing in my garden yet this year, except for having fun with Erin and Jill, who like looking for worms. Judging from the weather forecast, I will not be gardening any this weekend, either.

 

5. "3:10 to Yuma" was pretty good. I found the writing a little disappointing, becoming at times a little too unrealistic or predictable, but Russell Crowe and Christian Bale held it all together very well. The director did a great job of building dread and tensi

 

.yahoo.com

It's all in how one phrases it

During lunch yesterday I went again to the children's home grounds and hunted with my detector. The site produced its first coin! Very exciting—it bears the likeness of Lincoln, and dates back to the 1900's. To the Clinton era, in fact. For a zinc coin, it was in excellent shape.

 

I also found some exciting artifacts. Two nickel-plated fence post brackets, I think, and both looking like they were buried yesterday, which they might have been.

 

I also found a bottle cap, but it was so rusted that I couldn't even tell what beverage it might have come off of. I bet it was older than the one that Brian found! It might even date back to the Cold War.

 

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