Fiat Pond

NDM's dream of a real koi pond have finally come to fruition. Four feet deep with a waterfall and a stream, the deed is done.
As many home improvements do, this one began with spray paint.
Here I am pretending to help dig the pond. In reality it turns out that I actually could have -- even four feet down there is nothing underneath the Saint Augustine grass but sand.
I liked the pond well enough as a simple quarry in our front yard, but we had to press on.
It took about two weeks from start to unlandscaped finish.
The top of the waterfall gives us a nice view over our HOA battlements.
Up close it still looks like a bit like construction zone, and it will clearly take us some time to naturalize in the pond's margins.
We have seven small koi in the pond right now. After a week acclimating they are just beginning to feel confident enough to show themselves.
The fantail makes it really obvious that these things are basically trumped-up goldfish.
So far we seem to have one day-blooming and one night-blooming pad. We'll see how many water plants we can stuff in there once the pond gets more established.

Thanksgiving (Chow)

We need to start having more people over for Thanksgiving. This year, despite the hardships of our rather crappy new kitchen with few if any workspaces for real cooking, we managed to turn out entirely too much food that we had no chance of consuming. Besides the turkey, it stuffing, and a separate vegetarian mushroom stuffing, we had a crusty creamed spinach, mashed cauliflower, baked potatoes and yams, roasted brussel sprouts, scalloped potatoes, home-made cranberry sauce, two roll variations, and some curried yams. I think that covers it.
Not to mention the obligatory French onion soup I have to make but wouldn't touch if you paid me. And then of course the leftover dishes...turkey chili, risotto, etc. Can't wait until our parents live close enough to eat some of this stuff!

Office Reborn

This Thanksgiving thanks to a visit from SAM I was finally able to move my desk into the room that is supposed to be my office. The massive and heavy barrister's desk couldn't make it through the door, which is one of the reasons I cut a big hole in the office's wall.
I had to build a device to keep the desk from destroying the drywall at the bottom of the hole since there was no way two people could dead-lift the desk.
I also needed to pick up a second furniture dolly so we could move the desk from the far bedroom to its staging area in the family room. The desk would only fit in one orientation, and it cuoldn't rest on its curved decorative front, so the fronts of the drawer sections were the only viable transport points.
Once in the family room we flipped it on its 2" thick slab of a top and lifted it up onto my carpet-covered temporary shim.
After that it was pretty easy to slide it into the office and lower the other end onto the floor.
It actually turned out to be pretty easy once the plan was in place.

(My father is to thank for suggesting how two old and feeble men could maneuver the desk into place on their own. In gratitude I have made sure he wasn't one of the movers.)

And So It Begins

The wife had a confirmation ultrasound yesterday and sure enough there was an few pixels of proto-heart fluttering away. Our tech zoomed right past some pretty decent shots of the 6 mm blob several times before finally settling on this nondescript smudge, but presumably we'll get slightly more interesting pictures in the next year or so.

Now all the chocolate belongs to me.

Rehoming Largely Complete

We ended up in that hotel for a lot longer than anticipated, but we are finally out and ensconced in our new permanent residence. Even better, our old residence is finally off our hands only slightly under a month after its closing was originally scheduled. We may even receive the money for its sale at some point!

Our new home is dangling off the tail-end of an older gated community in unincorporated Windermere. The view above is from the master bedroom, across the huge walled lanai, and down the lot to a little pond where we saw a wood stork the other day.

The house is empty but for a few statues, which will be corrected -- perhaps over-corrected -- tomorrow. It is also in need of continuous updating for the next several years, so we are really looking forward to AM moving down here to join us. Initially though we are going to concentrate on getting some fencing up for the dogs and knocking a desk-sized hole in the wall separating what will be my office space from the family room.

What a relief!

La Quinta Sweet La Quinta

We've made it intact from Chicago to Orlando without losing a single animal! Now we're stuck in a hotel for an undetermined duration of no less than 2 weeks. Hopefully we won't eat each other.

Southward Ho!

NDM has accepted a new job at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando starting at the end of August. Finally, some blessed relief from our hot and humid Chicago summers :-) We'll be moving down sometime about the third week of August. If anybody wants to buy our house in Westmont, don't be shy!

Loremo

If I thought that the Loremo was coming to the US any time in the next decade, I'd be planning on this for my next car. There are two doors, the front and the back, and you step into the car (video). Sadly, it doesn't look like this car or any of the alternative plug-in vehicles are going to be readily available to the consumer for years and years yet. At least not in the U.S.

Adjust Your Set

Why isn't there a basic cable channel that shows an endless loop of HDTV calibration instructions? It could air pluge patterns to properly adjust your brightness and so forth. While this wouldn't be quite as awesome as a 24 hour channel that did nothing but fact-check the previous day's excreta of politico lies, it would be at least slightly awesome and is much more easily achievable.

How I Met My Wife

I recently stumbled upon the description of an old game I played in grade school -- one of TSR's "minigames", tiny little board games in Ziploc bags. The game? They've Invaded Pleasantville. The description?

"Something strange is going on in the peaceful Midwestern town of Pleasantville, of that Mrs. Mylniczenko is certain..."

Addax Cake (Chow)

NDM turned out another cake for work this week. This addax even had moving parts.
Pulling the tongue triggered a recorded message utilizing the repurposed innards of a greeting card.
Other than the tongue-mechanism and two wires used to support the rice krispie treat horns the entire cake was edible. Or so I am given to understand -- I never get to eat these cakes :-P

Tell-All Picture

I have no comment. No comment!

Flamingo Cake (Chow)

NDM made this flamingo cake for a co-worker's birthday this week. If she had her way she would have made it genuinely three-dimensional, but sanity and lack of time prevailed.
Some additional fondant manufacturing was required due to a particularly naughty (and tall) puppy, who made off with a Ziploc bag full of illegal fun.
The insides are the same red velvet cake I made for this V-day.
I'm not sure what particular genus of grass the Phoenicopterus is loitering in. NDM is clearly prejudiced against plants.

'Dolon's FavoriteToys (Pets)

I no longer have to throw out my ratty old tees when NDM won't let me wear them any more. They can now enjoy a brief second life as 'Dolon toys!

No, he doesn't normally play with the tee by wearing it. I'm just humiliating him for a picture.

VD Cupcakes (Chow)

Made these red velvet cupcakes for Valentine's. The recipe is on the Kitchenarium. Yes, I'm a horrible, horrible froster.

Papasan Combat (Pets)

Last stupid dog video! NDM records "puppies gone wild" in a death-lock on the papasan.

Dog Wrasslin' (Pets)

Yet more goofing around with the Flip. Here the puppies are utilizing a cheap carpet we put down for some traction -- they won't play on the hardwood floor.

Worms

Here, revealed on video for the first time, is the newest stage of NDM's mania for composting.

Exciting Ice Documentary

This is some footage I just shot with a nifty little Flip camera my parents got us for our civil anniversary. It shows my downstairs furnace exhaust and the condensation problem that tripped a pressure sensor and deprived us of heat a few weeks ago. It really builds up these huge ramps of ice! Clearly the snow-covered bucket of dirt is badly misplaced under that PVC.

Líle makes a brief guest appearance in the lower left corner of the footage. She's star material!

The Twelfth Day of Giftmas (12 of 12)

That's it! Until next year when we get to torture the puppies with costumes yet again. Ho ho ho!

The Eleventh Day of Giftmas (11 of 12)

It was an exhausting holiday for many of us -- even those of us who weren't up all night working on emergency plumbing.
Only Líle kept her energy level up the whole time. When nothing else was going on, she could always tensely point out the window at the cold-puffed squirrels.
'Dolon preferred sacking out on the visiting pillows.

The Tenth Day of Giftmas (10 of 12)

To balance out the Ukrainian food from the previous day, on Christmas our meal was a tsimmes. The women collaborated on it using sweet potato, squash, prunes, carrots, and potatoes. It didn't really match up with the Hebrew calendar, but it was still really good.

The Ninth Day of Giftmas (9 of 12)

After some intense gift opening and eating, the puppies entered the squared circle for some action.
They really love the new el cheapo rug we got for them. Rough-housing isn't easy without traction.
A few hours of that and suddenly the dogs are pretty well behaved... Although, even all tuckered out, Líle is going to the trouble of standing on top of me to assert that she, not 'Dolon, is my real owner.

The Eighth Day of Giftmas (8 of 12)

While her brother was busy mowing through his own rawhide candy cane, Líle was promenading around showing hers off to everyone. It was literally the Best Thing Ever.

The Seventh Day of Giftmas (7 of 12)

We all gathered around our massive red counter for the Dawn of the Stockings. This picture was actually taken by yours truly, so doubtless has many issues of composition, lighting, and et cetera.
Líle needed help with her stocking. She's such a gentle little girl when she isn't knocking people over at the door and licking them to death.
'Dolon, on the other hand, yanked out the best part of his stocking and ran away with it in about three seconds.

The Sixth Day of Giftmas (6 of 12)

'Dolon knew exactly what to do with his gifts this year. He was so excited he was vibrating.
Líle was much more tentative, and needed a lot of encouragement to mouth the presents while 'Dolon was opening them. She never really got it. Luckily, 'Dolon was able to destroy enough wrapping paper and boxes for the both of them.
Even the voracious 'Dolon needed some help getting to the juicy stuffed bits.
I never get tired of watching 'Dolon go for a package. But it does reemphasize how we can never again puts gifts under our tree.