Party time!

Instead of a standard birthday cake, I decided to let my crazy-dog-lady freak flag fly and make Singer's squirrel dreams come true.  She finally caught one!

What, you've never heard of edible birthday veggie art?

If you squint, it looks like a squirrel, right?  It turns out that fashioning a squirrel out of carrot shavings freehand is harder than one would imagine.

Obscenely large birthday carrot.

Birthday girl!

Birfday cake again Mom?

Happy birthday to my silly little Singer!  She brings the awesome to the party every time, and she's made every minute of these last two years together just that much better.  I love her to pieces.

Christmas magic

Where sadness goes to die.  These aren't even 1/4 of the decorations.

While my taste in Christmas decorations tends towards retro, [  ] County is home to some wonderfully tastefully decorated houses.  This gingerbread confection literally brings tears to my eyes.  You can't see it from the picture, but the entire rear of the property is decorated like a winter wonderland.

Sometimes, I take a detour on my way home from work just to check it out.  By sometimes, I mean at least once a week. I wish I could knock on the door, ask for a tour of the property, run around the yard squealing like a pig, and then drop down on one knee and ask it to marry me.

I want to marry the crap out of this house.

Asian drivers...

Well, I'm getting a little better at this visualization thing...

Blog slacking

I've been seriously slacking on the updates lately and... I am sorry!  The new work schedule is.. different, and I miss the wonderful familiar things in life.  Most of all, I miss my weekend routine with Singer.  Lately, I've been totally consumed/ worrying my face off trying to figure out an upcoming logistical nightmare: one month with no doggie day care and a work/ commute that requires me to be away from the girls for more hours that I'd want anyone to "hold it".  

So sparing you the gory details, I think I'll try a 2.5 hr daily commute + a midday dog walker until 1) my dogs forget who I am, 2) I pass out at the wheel, or 3) I use up the girls' college fund.

Thanksgiving 2012

Good morning, and Happy Thanksgiving.

This year, I am thankful for good health, new experiences, new achievements, and the unwavering support of my family and friends who have guided me through it all.

2012 Season Recap Part I

Gas tank won. Again.

The 2012 racing season ended much like the 2011 season: way too soon!  I think this season was even shorter than last season, and I never even made it out of New Jersey this year.  The entire season consisted of 0 indoor races, 2 autocrosses and 2 kart races.  My main goal for the season was to break 44.23-- we'll get back to that later...

Quantity of racing aside, 2012 marked the end of both the Zippy era and Ralphie as we knew him.  In April, I got into a fender bender that messed up Zippy's strut.  To avoid any more problems, I put Zippy into retirement and moved into G Stock, which I sort of like.  I've been doing relatively better (not saying much) and making the most of the "spin it or win it" mantra.  Let's just say I haven't been winning it, but I have been having fun.

The other piece of news is that Ralphie got a new motor in October.  During one of the last practice sessions in October, the Comer kicked the bucket.  I thought there was something wrong in the hot grid when Ralphie refused to idle, but figured we could figure it out after the session.  Apparently I was being way too optimistic.  Right after I made it out of the helmet turn, Ralphie just rolled to a stop.  There was plenty of go juice, no funny smells, but just no more go.  I managed to push him back to the staging area and hoisted him up onto his stretcher kart stand.  It didn't take long to figure out what the problem was: every time the piston got to the top of the cylinder head, it would go CLUNK! and stop.  With some effort, we could force the crank shaft back around, but clearly, there was something very very wrong. 

Taking off the cylinder head revealed a badly pitted piston and a hunk of metal smashed into the top of the cylinder head.  Not good.  I think my eyes might have sweated a little too.  The Comer's pretty old, and parts aren't easy to come by.  It's possible that something got sucked into the intake (which would be an easy fix), but just as possible that a bearing cracked and there are more bits of metal flying around down there, waiting to make their debut appearance.  In any event, it was clear that the Comer would not be making another appearance in the near future. 

Post Sandy Snow

Before

20 min later. 

Hurricane Sandy Damage

The terrible twosome, surveying the damage.

What used to be Singer's pooping tree.  Apparently, when
Singer saw her old pooping grounds for the first time, she just stared.

In the grand scheme of things, my parents didn't fare too badly in the storm.  Yes, a giant tree next to the house toppled over and they lost power, water, phone, and heat for 6 or 7 days, but no one was hurt.  This giant tree resides right above their bedroom, and luckily, toppled straight back into the yard, crushing a fence.  No people, no cars, no dogs, just a fence.    

I ended up hosting everyone at my house for the rest of the week.  Two dogs, parents and me makes for a tight squeeze, but they were good times over all.  :)

Wish I'd figured out how to change shutter speed.
Would have been an awesome shot of her zooming around the tree.

Love this dog... and I'm doing the Tough Mudder 2013!

Nawlins. Yeah, I said Nawlins.

I fell in love with a brown eyed girl in New Orleans.  Everything else that happened in New Orleans stays in New Orleans (unless I buck up and upload some pictures).

Busy busy busy month

It's been a busy month of itinerant living, but Singer's been a sport about it.  As a treat (for me and the girls!) we took them on a group dog hike and to an off-leash beach.

The hike on Saturday was BoBo's first and we weren't sure how she would handle the terrain, given her penchant for lying down in the middle of the road during walks.  Apparently peer pressure works wonders on her.  She plodded/ trotted along for 2.5 hours over 3.6 miles of decent terrain, and didn't stop once!  She had a ball with the other dogs.  Singer, no stranger to the dog hike, did just fine, running around like a maniac as usual.

The next day, we took the girls on a spontaneous beach trip--- their first, to my knowledge, trip to the beach ever. Judging by their reactions, it certainly won't be their last.  Although I now know why people throw balls into the ocean and not down the beach.  No one likes a mouth full of sand.  Not even BoBo.

Summertime Firepit

Didn't have a chance to post this earlier, but had a terrific time with wonderful friends over Labor Day weekend breaking in the new fire pit AND (new to me) grill!  Perhaps if I knew how to use my camera I'd have a cool, slow exposure picture of everyone using their sparklers...  Doh.

Carpenter Ants-iness: how to build a simple and inexpensive bookcase

Simple sketch...

A few weeks ago, I decided I was qualified to design and build a bookcase.  It would be a simple affair: 4 feet wide and 4 feet high.  Nothing fancy, just a utilitarian bookcase.  I sketched up a bookcase, and went to Home Depot to pick up some lumber.

That's when things got expensive.  A sawdust bookcase at a big box store will run about 40 bucks.  However, the off the shelf tally for these materials are roughly:

Screws...........................nomimal
2 2x3's for the four legs...<$4
4 boards.........................$24
8 support bars.................$2

The materials

This was more than I wanted to spend on my bookcase, considering the fact that its chances of eventually ending up as bonfire wood were quite high.

Enter the Helpful Sales Associate!  After spying me out of the corner of his eye, he asked what I was up to.  I told him I wanted to build a bookcase and had a Plan.  I also asked him if Number 2 was the cheapest grade of pine he had.  There is no shame in being honest.  After he pointed me back towards the lumber I already thought was too expensive, I asked if he had any offcuts.  What are offcuts?  Known by many other names, it's the stuff that lumber yards try to get rid of for cheap because parts of the wood are damaged, knicked or were the scrap from a larger project.  Helpful Sales Associate told me that indeed there were offcuts and that there was a piece of plywood from the morning that might be quite useful.

Spying this terrific piece of wood, I asked him if he could rip it into four pieces, one for each shelf.  Ripping means perforating with the grain.  Cutting means perforating against the grain.  And that is the end of my lumber know-how.  So after this kind gentleman ripped my wood (for free!), I went on my merry way.  That's when the Helpful Sales Associate came back and said he had an idea for my support bars that would save me some money.  He said there was a stick of wood that he could cut into 8 pieces.  Terrific!  I ended up buying the 2x3s at full price. Final tally:

One of the "ladders"

Screws...........................nomimal
2 2x3's for the four legs...<$4
4 boards.........................$2.01
8 support bars.................$0.51
Total...............................<$7

Under $7!  Except this is where the hard work really began.  Basically, my shelves would consist of two side "ladders" connected by the shelves.  The shelves are not only supposed to hold up the books, but hold the two sides together.

Almost final product!  Please excuse the garage mess.
Most of the stuff is BoBo and Singer's.  No really, it is.   That's
their extra beanbag, the bike I purchased to ride with Singer, the bike
 trailer I got for BoBo to come along, a spent bag of dog
food, the Radio Flyer wagon I got to tow BoBo along, the crate they
don't use anymore...

Each of the rungs are screwed into pre-drilled holes on the 2x3s.  After completing two ladders, I screwed the shelves onto the rungs.  Since this bookcase wasn't intended to be a show-stopper, I screwed the bottom three shelves in through the top of the shelf.  The top shelf was screwed in through the bottom, since the screw heads are more likely to show on the top shelf.

And.. TADA!!!  (Nice and level too!)  I will be adding a backing to provide more support and also to prevent the books from falling out of the back.

Birthday Freebies

Aww, what's sweeter than a birthday?  Getting free stuff during the entire month of your birthday, and to the coupon clipper go the spoils!  This takes a little advanced planning in most cases, but remember to sell your soul to the man, I mean, sign up for your favorite retailers' email clubs.  They'll usually ask for your birthday month and bombard you with emails during the year.  But in return for the hassle, they send you a freebie coupon during your birthday month. Some retailers even mark your email club anniversary with another coupon!

Drum roll please...

Redeemed:
Eastern Mountain Sports: $5 off $5 purchase
Buffalo Wild Wings (birthday): free cake with ice cream (no separate purchase required)
Buffalo Wild Wings (email club anniversary): 6 free wings
Ruby Tuesday: free burger
[Ahem] Mill Restaurant: "free" entree, lots of caveats

Ladies in Waiting:
Baskin Robbins: one free scoop
Texas Roadhouse: free appetizer
Hooters: 10 free boneless wings (wings aren't wings if they don't have bones!)
Joe's Crab Shack: free appetizer

I'll update as I redeem. :)

The world is your oyster

Five years ago, I had my first Glidden Point oyster at a Mitchell's Fish Market.  It was so fresh, crisp and clean that I committed its name to memory and looked up its provenance.  Turns out, Glidden Points are harvested in Edgecomb, Maine a mere bajillion miles away.  Over Labor Day weekend, I fulfilled an epicurian goal and made a trip up to Maine.  The oysters were even better and fresher than I remembered.  As an added bonus, I managed to open six oysters without puncturing my hands.

Just beet it

Success!  My first harvested beet.  It was delicious and wonderfully fresh.

Pooch Plunge

Singer and I went to the town's annual Pooch Plunge yesterday to see if she had overcome her fear of water.  The answer was a resounding NO!  I definitely spent more time in the furry water than she did, but it was all worth it.

Singer's one real swim.  She walked off the edge behind her
and frantically swam to the closest ledge.

Singer's tormenter.  This little Italian Greyhound wouldn't leave her alone!

Mom, I HATE it here!  Can we go home now?

Everyone else's dogs, having a ball.  

Please don't trick me into getting into the water again.  Please!

We stayed until the bitter end, when she was the only dog left in the pool complex.  After I took off her life jacket, she ran around like a maniac, catching the attention of the lifeguards, pool volunteers and dog park officials.  If you haven't seen (or heard) Singer run, you probably won't appreciate the awesomeness of this feat.  It sounds like a cross between a polo match and a freight train, and you can see her back legs advance past her front paws mid-stride.  In any event, she was tearing across the concrete, grass and pool deck like a dog on fire.  When she got to the kiddie pool, she took a Olympic level flying leap over the corner of the pool.   I was a little worried she was going to fall short and smash her face into the pool's edge.  While my heart stopped, everyone stared and gasped.  I'm pretty sure I heard a few "oh my god"s and "flying squirrel" used to describe her run.

It was glorious, and I was really proud of my silly pup.

A Jersey Shore Moment

A friend of mine received some free Six Flags passes, and we made a girl's weekend of it.  That's right, girls. Four girls, one car, one "motel" room, and no casualties!  Long story short, the trip went like this:

1. Pick up/ drive
2. Get stuck in Bronx traffic
3. Arrive in NJ to no innkeeper
4. Frantically search for other accommodations
5. Finally get in touch with innkeeper and get let in
6. Missing beds, missing bedding, 1/3 roll of tp for four girls
7. Pass out
8. 7 am run on the beach
9. Mosey over to Six Flags
10. Get on Green Lantern.  HUGE MISTAKE.  This was horrible.  I barfed, I sweated, I got really sick and mopey.
11. Become 'the water bottle holder' for the next 2 hours.  Continue miseryfest.
12. Take Dramamine and pass out on the sidewalk.
13. Continue pass out on the safari.  
14. Wake up to see lions getting frisky.
15. Rally, ride the big girl carousel, El Toro and Kingda Ka.  (No upside down portions!)
16. Back to the motel, watch swimming and pass out.
17. 6:30 am yoga on beach and boardwalk.
18. Back to motel, change, boardwalk, lunch, and home.

The end.

Fourth place!*

Zippy's lil bro.

Out of a field of seven TAG karts this weekend, I beat** three of them!

It all went down at Raceway Park's Points Race #10 this weekend.  The clouds were ominous and the feeling foreboding, but since there was no way to know if the course would be closed until we got there, we hit the road at 5 am -- errr, make that a bit past 7 am, trailer in tow.  I checked the website every half hour for updates until about 9, when it was clear that the track would be open.  By the time we got there, practice was nearly half over.

I got dressed and teched in time for the last two practice heats.  Let me step back and say that there are two types of nerves.  There are the type of nerves that make you feel cold and filled with dread, and there are the nerves that make you feel a bit exhilarated and totally ready to rock.  I was feeling the first type of nerves in the worst way.  The track was moist, my tires were cold, and there was a nice wet spot right after the helmet turn where I got quite squirrelly.  And then, going into a turn that I don't normally have trouble with, I spun out and hit the barriers, back end first.  I think the only thing scarier than spinning out of control and hitting something is seeing a line of karts heading right at you as you try to get your bearings.  Luckily, I didn't stall out, so I was able to finish the session, ever more tentative.  (Never a good thing on the track!)  The second practice heat didn't go much better.  I got on the track late and only got a lap and a half in before the session ended.

Singer in her new favorite hang out spot.

The format for the TAGs was timed qualifier for position in the pre-final, followed by pre-final for position in the final.  In any event, the bad nerves just got worse, and the clouds were rolling in.  Every now and then we'd feel a few rain drops.  During the qualifier, I ended up stabbing the brakes at the end of the straight during the second lap and spinning out into a wall of cones.  Unfortunately, I stalled out, which meant even less seat time and a last place start position for the pre-final.

Happily, the skies cleared and the sun came out in time for the pre-final.  I ended up pulling a much better time of 44.89, but still about a second off of my goal for the day.  Two folks crashed out, and one guy broke something.  By this point, the good nerves were in full effect and I was finally ready to rock (relatively speaking).  There were five of us left in the final, and since I'd finished the pre-final in one piece, I was supposed to start in the 4th position.  Thanks, but no thanks!  Despite being waved up to my position, I stuck to the back, and finished with a slightly less painful 44.36 as my fastest lap.  So despite a disappointing performance, I'm glad I stuck to my guns and rallied.  I'm sure I can break into the 42s by the end of the season.  I just need to learn how to shut off the bad nerves!

Mom,  if you die can I eat your lunch?!

*Two other karts crashed out in the pre-final, and one broke down in the final, allowing me to finish ahead of them.

**Because I still can't make weight, finishing ahead of them doesn't mean I finish ahead of them on the points list.

Trail of destruction

Green thumb updates

This year, I tried to grow tomatoes, eggplant, scallions, basil, broccoli, beets, mustard greens, tat choi, sugar snap peas, snow peas, cilantro, and peppers.  After a promising start, my eggplant and basil died.  My broccoli went to flower, and my tat choi never sprouted.  Both varieties of peas germinated, then died.  I should probably make a little chart... But then I'd have to add a "suddenly came back to life" column.

Plant	Purposely planted	Germinated/ successfully transplanted	Died	Came back to life	Current status
Basil	x	x	x	x	Edible
Beets	x	x			Ready to harvest in 14 days
Broccoli	x	x			Woody: not edible
Cilantro	x	x	x		Dust in the wind
Eggplant	x	x	x	x	Flowering?
Mustard greens		x			Flourishing
Peppers	x	x	x	x	Pepper on the vine
Scallions	x	x			Prolific
Snow peas	x		x	x	One pod!
Sugar snap peas	x		x	x	Flowering
Tat choi	x				Never saw the light of day
Tomatoes	x	x			Cornucopia of green orbs

I'm not sure which plant wins the award this year, but the scallions have been quite prolific, and the tiny flowering peas are quite cute.  The eggplant is doing something weird, and is a little alien-like.  I'm keeping my eyes on that one lest it reach out and touch me while I'm sleeping.

The power of Leave It!

So the bottom dropped out of my box of food....

Over half a cubic foot of food hit the floor.

Singer didn't touch a single piece of kibble until she got her "Okay, go ahead" command.  So proud!

Singer waits patiently and hopefully...

Best dog in the whole entire world!

What would [your dog] do in a dangerous situation?

Afraid for my safety for the first time in a very long time, I wondered what Singer would do in an actual emergency.  (Not an emergency involving a lack of thumbs and a screw top container, but a real one...)

I was walking with Singer in a familiar neighborhood when a minivan stopped beside me.  I thought she was going to ask me for directions.  Instead, the woman asked through her passenger's side window, "Do you know that man?"  "What man?" I asked.  "The man in the white car.  He's been following you."  I think I stammered "What?"a few times, before I recalled that as I was turning a corner a few minutes earlier walking towards three teenagers, I'd heard someone yell something like "Narrr."  I assumed it was someone saying something to the three boys, but thinking back, maybe the man in the white car had started following me at that point.  In any event, I again asked the woman which car she was talking about, and she pointed towards a white car that had just gone through the stop sign.  

I speed walked back towards the house keeping an eye out for the car, hoping to get home before he came back.  Along the way, I ran into a man working on his car in the driveway.  He must have seen how terrified I looked, because he immediately asked me what was wrong, and I told him about the car and the man.  He told me he had girls too, and kept an eye out as I ran home.  I am thankful for that watchful woman, and the kindly man and perhaps a little more suspicious about the world in general.

But what if the worst had happened?  What if the man had come back around, or stopped his car?  Would Singer have protected me?  I'd like to think so, but I also know that if Singer had ever been in harm's way, I would (perhaps stupidly and ineffectively) have protected her in any way I could.

First WKA Race

Blue skies, Audi towing an RV and a happy dog

After a late start to the season, I finally took Ralphie out for a spin this weekend. It's been a sedate year in karting for me this year, indoors and out. So on Saturday I competed in my first WKA (World Karting Association) sanctioned race, my second competitive race ever. The race was also the second of the five-race New Jersey Sprint Series, a series of races that take place in Millville, NJ, Englishtown, NJ and Cuddebackville, NY.

I ran in the TAG class again, against 4 other races, all considerably more experienced, better equipped and just plain better than me and Ralphie. One guy has a motor that cost more than my daily driver! I should note that I did install a shiny new gear and chain all by myself. It really didn't matter that much though, because I knew Ralphie and I would be disqualified before we even got to the track. See, Ralphie is equipped with a pretty powerful (but old) Comer engine that requires a total driver-kart weight of 380 lbs. Ralphie and I only weigh 294 lbs.

The practice sessions were shorter than my first race last year, and I turned a few surprisingly slooow lap times. The qualifier went a little better, as I was able to follow someone. I think I eked out a 44.15 for my qualifier. (The qualifiers are time-based. The pre-final and final are position-based.) 44.15 is still faster than my fastest time last season, so I was decently happy with my time. Even so, with a 44.15, I was still nearly 2 seconds slower than the next fastest driver. For the pre-final, I tried to stay a bit closer to the pack out of the gate, and did a decent job keeping up. However, by my 5th lap, I was quite aware of how tired I was.   Turns out that my fastest lap was either my 3rd or 4th lap... and I managed a 43.22! PR!  The final... The final did not go as planned. While I was physically exhausted, the fatigue mostly dissipated once the green flag dropped. Unfortunately, so did the integrity of the weld on my muffler. About 9 laps in, I had to pull in without finishing the race. :( All in all, it was a beautiful weekend.

Weekend loss tally: one karting glove and one race.  Oh and Singer lost her cookies on Sunday afternoon.  And she pooped at my parents' house.  Oops.

5 Second Rule

Does the 5 second rule apply when your dog licks your steak?  This is not a hypothetical question.  Can I just rinse it off?

I took a bite, and put it down next to me.  The next time I knew, I heard slurping sounds, and the steak had been licked.  To be fair, Singer, the steak and I are all in bed right now.  We're all on the same plane.  It could have been a misunderstanding (not!), and she stopped immediately when I caught her.  Now, she's eyeing the steak again and licking her lips.

Singer knows no boundaries.  When I first got her, I'd read all about boundary setting.  Dogs aren't allowed in the bedroom.  They're not allowed in bed.  You must eat before your dog.  You can never let your dog walk in front of you.  Dogs aren't supposed to be on the furniture.  One by one, I let these things go.  It was cold and annoying to sit on the floor to play with Singer.  I hated feeling time pressure to eat.  Besides, Singer's generally a very good girl, and I don't have any big issues with her behavior.  She knows who's boss.   I think she knows it's me. I think.

Happy Birthday BoBo!

After a rough start, you've managed to worm your way into our hearts.

Weekend update to come: BoBo's birthday cake.

Pop art dog.

I am ashamed to admit I can't tell which doggie is in this picture.  The silly crumpled up ears suggest Ms. BoBo. Either way, my Blackberry has rendered Singer/Bo pink!

Climbing Wildlife

Saw this beauty at the top of Tomahawk last week.

Productive weekend.

Hot Buns

My maternal grandfather always purchased packages of leen-yeung bao for his grandkids, and I have fond memories of peeling off the skin of the steamed buns, squeezing out the lotus paste center and then eating the flattened detritus.  Over the past few weeks, my parents and I have been experimenting with our own bao-- man-tou style though.  These are my latest attempt.  Of the eight I made, Singer ended up eating 3: two with permission and one while on a rogue mission.

Soft Shell Crabs (Old Bay and Salt & Peppered) and Fiddlehead Ferns

Fiddlehead season is probably my favorite season of the year, as it coincides with the molting season of blue crabs. Triple hooray.

That's my girl!

Always watching.