Lots of very cute sea lion pics from today...

CSL_sm

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Holy crap.

I saw the scariest movie EVER today.

Honestly: not gory or particularly bloody but scary as hell.

I went with two friends and all three of us were exhausted afterwards. I had to come home and take a looong nap afterwards.

It's a Spanish movie, playing as part of the Fantasia Film Festival going on the next two weeks.

But no joke: it's really really scary.

[Rec]

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He's made it to the Olympics.  What an incredbile 1500.  I'm Sooooooooo excited to see him run in the 1500.  It was a really really wonderful race.

Ohhhhh, August is going to be fun.

I am a little concerned about how exactly Dara Torres is swimming so fast at age 41.  It seems a bit, errr, fishy to me.  I feel uncharitable thinking this, but....at the same time....

Yaaay Lopez!

in other news.   We worked extraordinarily short today.  I really just about lost it.  Or perhaps I did lose it a variety of times....Yuuugh.

One more day.

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photo.jpg

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The heirloom tomatoes are coming in and I had my first BLT of the season today.

Begging to be eaten

• Toasted whole wheat sourdough with scallions and walnuts.
• Mayo with a chiffonade of basil fresh from my herb garden
• Sliced avocado
• Romaine lettuce
• Sliced brandywine tomato
• Applewood smoked turkey bacon (a little unsatisfying as bacon and eggs, but great in a sandwich)

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paulrovian operetta

in this wizard of oz story. dorothy now 38 goes back to oz and falls in love with the aging wizard, he tells her it is not possible for them to be together. that the age difference is too great. that they are from different worlds. dorothy refuses to leave. there is nothing left for her in kansas. in this scene. the wizard battles with his conscience while dorothy struggles to understand his rejection. both appear on stage together. the wizard below water level. dorothy above. the water level rises and falls as each voices their thoughts. the entire play is spoken in paulrovian dialect. 'sleef en skiem, sleef en skiem' she pleads. 'no sush rien' he replies to the fishes.

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7/6/08

7/6/08

7/6/08

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Cornell's got a new program I heard about on NPR yesterday (some guy I was talking politics with the other day asked me what NPR was. That kind of ended the conversation right there.) looking for kids and the outdoorsy type to collect ladybugs for them. Apparently, the ladybugs that were so prevalent and helpful at controlling aphids and mealybugs in New York have completely disappeared from the area and Cornell wants to know why.

Here's a link that tells you what to do and how to help..and get your kids the heck out of the house in the process..you really can't beat that with a stick!

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Scarabeo_back

I got my bike today and it's beautiful!  The color of my bike is EXACTLY the same as our car.

I'm having to guess a  bit at speed, as it reads in Kilometers  (with a tiny inside ring reading mph). And the seat is not what I expected. The photos all showed a tan seat, so I ordered a tan jacket. The dealer and I were both surprised to see that the bike has a  brown seat. Odd for a red bike. Odd for ANY bike. Black would have made more sense. Oh well - They are ordering me a tan seat so it will look as expected eventually. And when my butt's on the seat I don't see it!

I got the bike with 2 miles on it. I rode it home 24 miles. Ben and I rode into the hills tonight and I am now at 61 miles. I LOVE this bike. I feel so relaxed on it. Its perfect for me. And finally I feel happy to ride fast! Once I get 100 miles on my tires, I'm trying it on the freeway!

It's also WONDERFUL that Ben and I both have new bikes from same dealer. Both our bikes have approx 60 miles on them. We will be taking them in together for service. The dealer and all the folks working at this shop are wonderful. Aprilia for the win!

Scarabeo

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Nathan and Jamie cooked breakfast.  Jamie made Biscuits and Sausage Gravy and Nathan made French Toast.  He showed me his newly learned egg cracking technique and I even tried it.

7/5/08

This was a payday week and so of course, the truck picked Thursday to develope a bad leak in the radiator.  It was leaking a little last year and I put in some of that radiator no-leak stuff.  I tried it again on Thursday afternoon and I watched as I poured it in the top and it ran out the bottom.  I guess that was that.  I decided to go ahead and replace it which was pretty much standard procedure until I got to the odd (from the future!) transmission cooling line connectors.  I'm used to the old kind that you just use a wrench on.  These are some kind of new fangled quick-connects.  I looked on the internet and couldn't find ANYTHING that remotely looked like it.  When I called the first auto parts store, they'd never heard of such a thing.  The second place had heard of it and thought they had a tool to unlink the connector.  I took Friday off from working so we could just focus on fun, but today I got back to it.  I took pictures of the connector to take with me to show to the guy at the parts store:

7/5/08

7/5/08

I'd tried using a pair of needle nose pliers to sort of squeeze the connector thinking that was it.  Then I tried to OPEN the tabs by pushing on them with the needle nose pliers, but that still didn't work.  The guy looked at the picture and the only time he'd seen this was on brake lines but he did say that I was right by squeezing.  You squeeze, then you have to pull/pry at the same time.  He didn't have the tool because they only have one and he thinks they already sold it.  Sounds expensive anyway.  What he did show me was a whole row of replacement connectors so if I break it, he can replace it.  I went back and used the squeeze/pry technique and it worked, but on the second line it did bend the plastic a little so I went on and picked up the replacements he had.  They were only like two bucks.  That being done, I was able to just lift out the old radiator and drop in the new one and then hook everything back up.  I should have changed the hoses too while I was at it, but I'm already spending like $170 that I really didn't expect to spend this payday, and certainly not on the truck.

Here's the old one:

7/5/08

Uhh... hint - about radiators - you shouldn't be able to see THROUGH them:

7/5/08

The replacement looked more realistic:

7/5/08

(as long as he does that with the engine off, we're okay).  So you'll notice the fan hood is missing.  That was one of the first things to take loose and of course, it doesn't come out in any way, shape, or form.  You can just move it all around, but not take it out.  At first, I worked around it but scratched my arm while trying to hold it AND work, and then I remembered that on one of my old cars, I physically CUT it out and then when I was done, I just patched it back together.  Here is the new expanded view, courtesy of my reciprocating saw:

7/5/08

7/5/08

I'm going to give it a few days and then I'll use nylon ties to put it back together (like a weave) and then I'll just reattach it.  Worked great before and should work great now too.

After that, we worked on the raised bed to add the critter protection to the bottom:

7/5/08

Tomorrow we'll drop it in place and since the truck is working again, we'll go get the dirt to fill it up.

Jamie made a FANTASTIC dinner while we were working along with dessert which was awesome.  All in all, a really productive day.

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