smacky and bucky

I was going to do a photo post, detailing what I've been up to this past week (during which we had an earthquake and a hurricane!) but I ran out the door this morning and forgot my phone. I was a bit distracted by the baby crawling after me and crying every time I left the room. Made it feel like I was defusing a bomb: "Cut the blue wire! No wait, the red wire!"

So I'll post pics tomorrow.

Out.

A-Ha reunited on August 21 (this past Sunday) to play "Stay On These Roads" at the Commemoration ceremony in memory of the victims of the Oslo and Utoya attacks. It's a beautiful song, with a full orchestra this time. Love the band. Sorry they reunited under such tragic circumstances.



Just waiting for Hurricane Irene to blow through.

(Today's post title courtesy of Carol King)

Yep, we had an earthquake. A 5.9 earthquake. The biggest recorded in Virginia since 1897! How about that? Our building shook hard twice, with a few seconds in between each. With all the destruction next door (documented here a few times), I figured the construction guys had created a sinkhole or hit a gas line. Either way, my office is in the part of the building that is held on the Hollywood video side by pillars and has a driveway running under it, so I immediately had images of my office collapsing in on itself. I got the heck out with everyone else.

Twitter was, of course, amazing the first few minutes. People I follow reported feeling it in North Carolina, New York City, and even Toronto. Then (also of course) once it was established what it was and that everything was okay, the web was flooded by jaded, cynical a-holes saying east coasters are pussies and California gets this all the time, blah blah blah. Because you can't just experience something and think "Wow, the biggest earthquake here in 115 years, amazing!" No, you have to be the first to be a douche and let everyone know how cool you are.

There is still something special about experiencing something for yourself, and while the internet has been amazing for finding people with shared experiences (just look how many cool folks are in my blogroll!) I am realizing that it's a double-edged sword: that same internet can take something unique and make the experience seem less special (to the point you're sick of hearing about it).

I suppose people may have felt the same way about 24-hour news channels when they exploded. Information overload. Except now it's the internet and everyone is a reporter (or, more accurately, a pundit expressing a skewed view).

I'm expressing an opinion about it too, as I write this. I'm aware of that. But the fact is this: We had a 5.9 earthquake that was felt by every sister my wife has (with the sole exception being the one in Oregon). There are hundreds of miles between some of these sisters, but they all experienced the same event.

Another cool fact: People in NYC said they were reading tweets about the earthquake before they felt it themselves. Can you imagine that? "Hmm, earthquake in Virginia?" (shake, shake, shake). "Whoa!" Imagine the wave traveling through the crust of the Earth, traveling north (and south, east, and west) like ripples from a pebble dropped into a pond, except the ripples are waves of energy traveling through rock. Hopefully today a lot of good science teachers are altering their lesson plans to discuss how earthquakes work!

And, because I'm a complicated hypocrite, here's another good thing about the internet, even as I complain about it:

Not a lot to write about. We had a good weekend, just the three of us. The boy is showing more personality every day. He smiles and giggles and crawls after the cats and dogs (much to their sighing annoyance!). Biggest accomplishment for me: I installed a new swinging baby gate in the house! Big deal, right? Any asshole can do that. But wait, ya jerk, because there's a catch: The opening is between the end of the counter and the wall between the kitchen and living room, and they do not line up. One ends about four inches before the other, meaning you can't use a standard pressure-lock gate. What do you do?

Well, I found a gate that is designed for use on stairways that has "angle mount" hardware, meaning you can mount the hinges in any direction and the gate will still swivel to the other side. I'm not explaining this very well. I'll take a picture and post it tomorrow (since I know you're dying to see it!). When I was done, I was proud of myself. I took a measurement, did some browsing, found a hinge system that would work (on a gate that can be adjusted to the size I needed) and installed it successfully. Go handyman Smacky!

I also watched Hobo With a Shotgun (click link for plot synopsis) on Netflix streaming Friday night during HUGE thunderstorms. The movie is not for everyone, and it's a bit over the top on violence, but Rutger Hauer is in it, and he's excellent in everything.

Finally, I broke out the instructions and reconfigured the boy's exersaucer to its third (and final) stage. No more will he bounce. Now he WALKS around the "S"-shaped activity table! He's still not walking yet, but he can stand unassisted for quite a while if he's engaged with something.


Oh, and Ghaddaffi is about to be kicked out of Libya (and replaced by a rebel leader who spent the last 20 years living less than five miles from CIA headquarters. Coincidence? Don't you believe it!) and the West Memphis 3 were released after being scapegoats for nearly 20 years. So yeah, busy weekend!

Kiddo is teething again, which makes him angry and weepy and moody. He woke up at 5 this morning and refused to go back to sleep, but by 6:45 when I left for work, he could barely keep his eyes open.

I'm feeling a bit tired, depressed, and anxious myself today, probably from lack of sleep and a little lack of enthusiasm about the current project I'm working on at work.

We've become fans of Yo Gabba Gabba! There are so many nods to the parents on the show: The old Atari-like graphics between songs, the "hip" guest stars, the musical guests (Weezer!). Good times. And Henry love watching singing and dancing. And the songs are catchy without being annoying.

Kiddo is 11 months old now and standing on his own (when he's not aware he's doing it). He'll be walking unaided any day now.

As I mentioned yesterday, I carried the baby around the flea market to see what the competition was selling. Much of it I could pass without more than a glance. Glassware, piles of Beanie Babies, random kitchen gadgets, etc. But I did manage to find two things I wanted from one dealer.

Now, I quit smoking five or six years ago and have no intention of starting again. EVER. But ashtrays from Las Vegas casinos are too dang cool to pass up! The first is from the Las Vegas Hilton (formerly the International Hotel), the hotel where Elvis played at all of his Vegas engagements. I like to think this ashtray was on a table in the ballroom while Elvis was performing. (Hey, a kid can dream, right? With at least 100 little cocktail tables in the room, each with an ashtray, it's certainly possible!) Now it holds my change!


The second is from the Sahara, one of the places the Sinatra and his Rat Pack performed! The original Ocean's Eleven was filmed there! Anyone could have used this ashtray. Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin, the Chairman of the Board himself! It now holds my water glass on my desk at work.

Grand total for these two items: TWO DOLLARS. And I didn't even bargain with the guy. He just said "Dollar each." SOLD! And that's how I got a few pieces of classic Las Vegas.

This weekend was super-busy. One sister-in-law and her husband came down from NYC by bus Friday afternoon. We picked them up in the city and went to an early dinner at Zaytinya. It's one of José Andrés's restaurants. The first time we ate there it was just Laura and I for a late lunch and she was about seven months pregnant. The second time was Friday and we brought along our 10-month-old. (the visiting couple are vegan, by the way, so that's why this restaurant was a good choice).

Saturday morning we got up at 5am (well, I did. I got the visiting couple up at 5:20 and Laura and the baby up at 5:40) to get over to the Civitan Flea Market by 6am so we could set up. I had driven a car loaded with stuff over the previous evening to claim our spot (the same one we had used in the June flea market; it's an excellent location, as it's in the first covered area you enter after entering from the uncovered level and you have to walk past this level to get to the upper level or the lower levels, depending on where you entered the garage, thus you have foot traffic in both directions all morning long!).

We ended up making less money than we did in June, but we had less stuff to sell this time, and we didn't eventually lower prices 50% like we did last time. Still, we got more stuff out of our house, we sold the big items we had brought (a chair, a table, and a DVD/VCR combo), and I sold five large figures of Stormtroopers (to five different people) at $10 each. One little boy got his dad to buy him my "Capitan America!" (it was so cute and he was so happy!).

We took turns entertaining Henry (though in general I was the seller and Laura was the baby wrangler. I think my job was easier!). We had the carrier, so twice I strapped the kid on and did a circuit of the entire market. Let me tell you, when you're a seller, you look at the other vendors items with a much different eye than when you're just browsing on a humid Saturday as a shopper. Our stuff was freaking PRIMO compared to some of the crap people were trying to unload. Some stuff I would have been embarrassed to donate to Goodwill (seriously).

On one of our circuits, I saw a toy I know Laura had been looking at on Amazon (where it was about $50). I asked the woman what she wanted for it, and she said she was asking $10. I pulled out my wallet and dug into my pockets and said, "I have $5.85," (which I did. I wasn't lying to try to get a deal). It was at least 85 degrees and I was hot and dirty and wearing a baby. She said okay without hesitation. I carried it back to our table and Laura said, "Oh my god, where did you get that? What did you pay?" I told her and she said that back in June she had asked the woman about it and the woman wouldn't budge on $20. I said I guess a combination of her hauling it back and forth to three different sales and me looking so pathetic resulted in her coming down 75%! Here's a pic of Henry with the toy when we got back home:

So it turns out that Henry has basically been dying to walk but we never gave him a toy that allowed him to do it. He walked back and forth from the kitchen across the living room at least 20 times, moving with more confidence each time, to the cheers of his aunts and uncles (and his parents). It will be good practice for when I make him start mowing the lawn! :-)

Now here's the story that explains the title of today's post. Toward the last two hours of the sale, I had Henry strapped to me and he was looking at the table of random toys we were selling. One in particular seemed to catch his eye, so I picked it up and ask, "This one?" He grabbed it and put it into his mouth, so I said, "Okay, he bought this one!"

And that's how Henry made friends with Jackie Chan!



He drags him around by the arm in one of his little hands while he's crawling.

Laura took this last pic and sent it to me and swears she didn't pose Jackie that way. Henry did.

Ohhhh! What could that have been at one time? I only had a few seconds to speculate before the machine demolished it with one smashing metal fist.

Oh well. At least I got a picture!

The gas light came on in my car this morning, so I pulled in to the 7-11 to fuel up. Standing there watching the numbers fly up (seriously, why do we allow oil companies to charge about $4 a gallon? Don't give me that supply-and-demand bullshit. They're having record profits every quarter now!) when this caught my eye:

According to the poster there are four cups available but I didn't know who the other three were so I concentrated on Rowdy Roddy Piper here (who I've never seen wrestle and only know from the awesome movie They Live).

What held my attention is the fact that he's wearing something on his wrist. A gold Rolex? A MedicAlert bracelet? I'm pretty sure even the genre of "sports entertainment" involves enough physicality that wearing jewelry in the ring is a no-no. [Ring. Jewelry. I made a joke there!]

So that's a snapshot of my morning and how my brain processes new information.

Why did every parent on the planet neglect to tell me the baby would give me every cold he has, including this snot-running one in AUGUST. My joints hurt and it feels like someone took Silly Putty and filled my sinuses. No wonder the baby woke up crying at 9:30, 11, 12, 3, and 5 last night. At least I can take medications to treat the symptoms. All he has is baby Vick's Vaporub and the ball syringe that sucks snot out and makes him scream.

Still, on a selfish note I can freely share in a blog, having a cold when it's scheduled to be 97 degrees today blows.

This has been a whirlwind two weeks, looking back. DC to the river, to my hometown for a funeral, to DC again, to the river again, all in seven days. A triangle (with one side drawn three times).

Back at in the land of temps approaching 100 degrees.

Oh! We're doing the Civitan Flea Market again this Saturday, so come and buy some of our random crap! At the last one we made over $600! And this time L's sister is coming down from NYC with her husband and a car full of junk to sell in the parking spot next to ours!

Do I ever sleep?

Yeah, sometimes.

But I don't have any set schedule!