Back from the Bahamas

Jesse and I just got back from spending a few days in the Bahamas with several couples from her work. We stayed at Atlantis on Paradise Island in Nassau. Other than my sinuses getting dried out on the last day causing me to get a great case of airplane ear during the landing in Atlanta it was a great trip. The hurricane that went past the week before scared quite a few people away so it wasn't crowded at all. We were able to get into all the restaurants and attractions without having to wait at all.

We were able to get 12 people into Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill with only 30 minuntes notice. Mesa Grill was by far the best meal we had there and that wasn't just because we got to meet Kevin Costner who was sitting at the table next to us. The food and atmosphere there was top notch. I can't say that about dinner at Casa D'angelo the night before. In addition to it taking an hour and a half to get our food, I've had better veal parmesan at the Macaroni Grill.

We were gone for the first frost of the year here in Lawrenceville but the plants in our garden tell the story. We had tried to put in a last crop of tomatoes about a month and a half ago but they're dead now. The cool weather crops are still doing great and I think a couple of our bell peppers might make it a little longer.

Gwinnett County Master Gardener Program

I just got the call that I have been accepted into the Master Gardener program for next year. I was a little worried since they only accept a small number of people every year. This will be a great opportunity to volunteer in the community. I'm sure Jesse will appreciate that I'll have a place to go play in the dirt other than our house...

Petit Le Mans

A buddy had an extra ticket for the Friday sessions of the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta and even though it was raining we went up to check it out. I've been to the race several times but the last couple years real estate commitments have kept me from getting up there on Saturday. We only stayed for the morning but we got to watch the ALMS practice and the Speed world challenge race in the rain. We got wet but it was cool to get back out there and see the racing in person.

Mercedes-Benz.tv

It's like HD youtube for people who love Mercedes-Benz cars and racing. It's very well done. I'm amazed at the video quality.

Dream House?

Call me dork but I kind of look forward to the new HGTV dream house projects. Well this year has missed the mark. Every season I can remember they built a true 'dream house'. To me a dream house is architecturally interesting, in an interesting location, or really big (9,000 sq-ft plus). I fail to see how a average house in a Chicago suburb qualifies. It seems to just be a half hour commercial for why you shouldn't let her build a house for you.

It looks pumpkin and tastes like a squash - Pumpkin Rumbo Hybrid

I'm always looking for something new and different when I'm ordering seeds. This year I came across Pumpkin Rumbo Hybrid. It looks a pumpkin but inside it's a sweet tasting squash. From 3 plants we ended up with 5 pumpkins and about 100ft of vine. This thing went all over the place. It grows roots as it goes so even though it's still growing all of the vine that is actually inside the garden has died. The real problem we have each pumpkin's size. Each one is about 15-20 pounds. For two people they're huge. So far we have cooked one and it made about 2 gallons of great soup. They seem to be keeping really well so as winter soup season gets here they should be perfect.

Giant Pumpkin sort of...

Normal pumpkins are so pedestrian. This year I ordered giant pumpkin seeds. Ideally it was supposed to get to 150 pounds. I would put mine at about 65 pounds. That was still much bigger than average. It was definitely worth $2 for the seed and I still have a few for next year. I think that my garden's less that ideal hours of sun really held it back but maybe with some more fertilizer I can at least get to a hundred pounds...

Black Crowes Concert at Chastain Park

My college buddy Craig came down from Minneapolis this weekend. Sunday night Craig, Jesse, and I went to the Black Crowes concert at Chastian Park. I got some great tickets off stubhub. The first row in the orchestra section is great other than the people walking in front of you. It was a great show. None of us are real dedicated Black Crowes fans but they are a great band from the time when we were all in college together.

Scarecrow Motion-Activated Sprinkler

So last year I put up an electric fence around our garden to keep out the deer and raccoons. It sounded like a good idea and it seemed to work well enough for my parents in IL. Well after raccoons eat all of our corn I knew we needed something different. I'm not going to build a 10 foot tall electrified monstrosity of a fence like Joe Lamp'l on DIY.

So I when I saw this motion sprinkler I new I had to give it a try. At $60 it's a little pricey but I'll tell you that after using it this year it's definitely worth it.

I only had one problem and I'm not really blaming it on the sprinkler. I have brass quick connects on all of my hoses and they didn't play well with the sprinkler. I guess it was more that I was disconnecting the hose from the sprinkler daily to water and this was trapping air in the sprinklers valve causing only a little water to come out when it switched on. The solution was to run my hand in front of sensor switching it on before I connected the hose so that the water could run through the valve.

Now that I know this will keep the animals out the engineer in me is ready to take it to the next level. Our garden is about 60x30ft so one sprinkler doesn't cover it. Once I get the permanent fence in and I plumb for irrigation I'm going to setup about 6 sprinkler heads and a couple motion sensors that will switch on all the sprinklers. That should keep the deer out...

May Garden Update

The second year for our garden is off to a good start. We didn't get our big project of regrading the whole area and installing the permanent fence but we are trying a few new planting methods. Since we started about 90% of our plant indoors from seed we have staggered our platings to extend our harvest. After having a couple hundred tomatoes ripen in the space of a few weeks last year we are hoping to just have a steady supply for most of the summer. Even though we added about 300 sq-ft to the garden this year we are going to try growing our smaller spaghetti squash on a trellis since they went all over last year.

February Garden Update

I spent a few hours today working on prepping our garden for spring planting. We just bought a new 7hp Craftsman tiller from sears and it worked great. I tilled in a layer of leaves and broke ground on an area that we are adding on bringing our garden to about 60 ft x 30 ft. Compared to the typical Georgia red clay we have great dark soil and we are continuing to add compost making it even better. Our seeds that we started inside a few weeks ago are going great. The four varieties of tomatoes we started are really getting big. We also have peppers, brocolli, other seedlings that will be ready to go in the ground in a few weeks.

Photos From Tribble Mill Park

I got some great shots at Tribble Mill Park in Gwinnett last Wednesday. We found a heron on the far side of the smaller lake along with a baby turtle.

Tom Waits on Letterman

Tom Waits was on David Letterman last night to promote his new 3-disc album - "Orphans:Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards" I know it's at the top of my Christmas list. Tom was on the daily show too but it wasn't as good as Letterman. Check out Tom's pretty funny interview with Dave on YouTube. He also performed with his band.

November Garden Update

The garden is plugging away. We had a freshly harvested salad with Thanksgiving dinner. Broccoli heads are starting to form. Everything is holding up well to the around freezing temps that we have been having at night with the exception of the eggplant which wasn't really expected to survive. We took avantage of the 3o% off sale at Park Seed and stocked up for next season. We will probably be starting some of our transplants indoors around the first of the year to get a jump on next year.

R-Class W251 Trailer Hitch Install Problems

A few weeks ago I bought a DrawTite hitch for my R-class. The first one didn’t fit correctly so I contacted DrawTite tech support who provided me with the measurement specs that the hitch is supposed to meet. After verifying that my hitch was manufactured incorrectly it was replace twice by the store that I bought it from. If you do decided to purchase one of these hitches I would not buy it online since it will probably have to be returned a few times. I have currently given up on this for now but if Santa brings me a welder I’ll buy one again and correct the problems.

The main problem I had with all of the hitches I received was that the distance between the mounting holes were about .5 in too far apart measuring from front to back. This may be clearer if you look at the photos of the front bolt holes not lining up when the back is bolted up. To verify if the hitch you receive is made incorrectly measure it as I did in these photos. If you can’t read the tape or square I measured about 18.75 down on the tape and 9.5 between the base of the square and the tape. Verify that the tape and the square meet at a 90 degree angle.

I also found that you would have to trim about 1.5 inches off of the bumper cover even though they say you don’t have to. You can probably get around this by just not reattaching the bumper cover to the black panel and just letting the hitch hold it. The directions don’t mention it but you also need to remove the exhaust tips during the install which requires a T-25 torx bit. If you buy one of these hitches that is made correctly let me know.

Quote of the day

"I feel very close to you all now; so close I could almost... loan you money. Really. it goes that deep."
-- Tom Waits

High Valley Carphones.com Motorcycle Weekend

We all had a great time up at High Valley in Suches, GA last weekend. Plenty of great dirtbike riding, perfect weather, and no new injures. The trees were just starting to turn the weekend before when we were up there so they were about perfect. It had rained before we got up there Saturday and rained again Saturday night so the wet leaves and rocks made it challenging. I got almost 200 shots with my Canon 20D. The 10-20mm lens worked great.

Quote of the day

"Their memory's like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away and the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget that history puts a saint in every dream”
--Tom Waits

October Garden Update

Pretty limited amount growing right now. Jesse and I put in some transplants from home depot. She apparently wasn't reading the tags so we ended up with two sets of broccoli instead of broccoli and cauliflower. We also planted an eggplant, some lettuce, Brussels sprouts. They have held up well to the couple nights it has been close to freezing. We probably have Jesse's gnomes to thank for that...

Quote of the day

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. "
--Albert Einstein

Quote of the day

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little to no influence on society.

-- Mark Twain