Salt Peanuts

When I asked my daughter about the snow, she said, "I don't like it. It's the second day of spring."

That looks nice, Nate. The pens at my work are terrible as well - I usually grab a whole box of them since at least half of them won't write at all. Speaking of fat pens, I need to grab Tombow 505 pens and pencils now that they're readily available.

Mine are drawn to the photo/painting in the background that appears to be not quite level. I need to get some sleep.

Happy Birthday, Al!

That setup is wee bit more than I want to spend on a snowblower.

Yeah, I'm fully planning on getting a 2-stage model. The tax return we just go will help greatly toward that since we got back more than we were expecting.

i wish that were the case. As much as I'm not looking forward to owning another gas-powered lawn instrument, I'm looking forward to not spending upwards of 3 hours shoveling/raking goddamn snow.

I don't know how it is in NYC, but for me, FiOS has consistently delivered the advertised "up-to" speed, both up and down. I was very happy when FiOS came to my town so I can get rid of Comcrap.

The driveway itself is ~60 feet along with another ~18 feet of parking space. The said snow blower would have to travel another ~75 feet (probably more) from the shed in backyard. Another bit is we end up with noticeably more snow than everyone else on our street due to wind direction and town plow.

I've finally decided to get myself a snow blower as I've spent entirely too much of my time shoveling snow this winter. Time to start my research.

Happy Birthday!

All this pen talk has reminded me about the Namiki Urushi collection. I wish I had money/reason for one.

I wish Tombow made a fountain pen in Ultra rollerball body. I love Ultra rollerball.

RIP Terry Pratchett.

While I like my VP with extra fine nib, I wish it was bit more comfortable. I don't so long enough writings to be a bother, though. I miss my Rotring 600 fountain pen.

Happy Birthday!

A very good friend of mine, Jameson, is riding in Death Ride Tour in honor of a friend who is suffering from ALS. Below is a message I received from Jameson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello to all. This year, we are doing two fundraiser bike rides. Death Ride - a fundraiser for ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and Tour de Cure - the same diabetes fundraiser that we always do. Why Death Ride? One of my best friends has ALS. He was one of the toughest guys I knew. Five years ago, we were doing mountain centuries, and didn't think much of it. Out of nowhere, he started complaining about cramping after long rides, and I started noticing that he was loosing power on steep climbs and wasn't recovering as quickly. I asked him what was going on, and he said that he might be sick, but was a little vague. He started riding with me less and less, and at the end of the summer, I noticed that the elastic leg grippers on his shorts were loose and flapping around his legs (MAJOR muscle loss). I cornered him, and asked him what is going on, and he told me that they're pretty sure that he has ALS. I obviously no longer ride with him, he now rides a little scooter around his house, but we are still friends. He stumbled onto the site for this ride, forwarded it to me, and asked if I would do it in his honor. Being an active outdoorsy kind of guy was so much of his identity, he is still struggling with figuring out who he is. If that was the guy biking with me many years ago, or the guy that just designed and built the chair lift in his back yard, he is still the toughest guy that I know. If you care to donate to ALS research, please do so in his honor. This one really means something to me. Death Ride is 232 miles, 16,500 feet of elevation gain in SW Colorado, in the beginning of June. http://www.imathlete.com/donate/JamesonLudlam ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Any help to get Jameson reach his goal would be greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much in advance.

Happy Birthday, Bonnie!

^ Nice! Finally got around to doing my taxes. This year was much less painful than the last.

Renewed my driver's license - almost 3 month after it had expired (I completely forgot and my state stopped mailing reminders few years ago). The guy at the counter fully lived up to the typical DMV (RMV here) stereotypes.

I read "drive" as "driveway" - must read more carefully. 73 is entirely too hot.

My driveway doesn't have enough space left to slide.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Happy Birthday!

Nikon D7200 introduced. http://www.nikonusa.com/en/About-Nikon/Press-Room/Press-Release/i6kkmpd7/Nikon's-New-DX-Format-D7200-DSLR-Will-Help-Passionate-Photographers-Conquer-Their-Next-Challenge-with-Incredible-Speed-and-Image-Quality.html It received some expected updates (larger buffer, new AF, new sensor) but bit surprised to see neither articulated LCD nor higher FPS.