Browse Month: April 2006

A Day at the Park

Marie and Cole came over on Sunday morning for a day at the park. Marie has been looking for a park with sand and I found one right by my house. It has sand and squishy foam floors underneath the climbing equipment and swings. After a quick trip to Target to purchase Cole’s first set of sand toys, we walked to the park. It was a warm sunny Sunday afternoon and there were kids already enjoying themselves when we arrived. We luckily found a nice shady area to plop Takuchan down on the sand and wth his new toys ready to go, he had such a good time. Of course there was a little sand to be tasted, a little sand in the eye, and a little more effort to walk in the sand. But overall, it was a good time for everyone.

When in doubt…

hit it with a hammer. Today, Jesse decided to be a responsible homeowner and flushed out the water heater. It started out well. He turned the heater to “Pilot only”, hooked up the garden hose to the front of the heater, and started to drain the water out of the tank. There were a couple hiccups involving releasing the pressure but turning on several different faucets in the house but all went well. That is, until it was time to refill and heat it back up. All I know is that I was in the livingroom folding laundry and I hear this water spraying out of pipe that sticks out of our patio wall. I never knew what that was for and nothing ever came out of it…until now. Apparently it’s to release water when there’s too much pressure in the water heater. I then heard some banging coming from the garage. Uh oh…that can’t be good. Then I saw Jesse checking his laptop, running up the stairs, out the door, back to the garage and back up the stairs with a hammer in his hand! A hammer?! Well, then the water stopped dripping out of the pipe and the banging stopped. Jesse came back to the livingroom with a proud look on his face. I asked, “Is everything ok?” and he said, “Yep, when in doubt, hit it with a hammer!” Hm…then I asked, “where did you get that idea?” and he replied with, “the internet”. OK, boys and girls, the Lesson for the Day is: Google can teach you anything.

The house is warm now.

Dude, it’s 11:45 am and I just got up. Johnny had a little housewarming party on Friday and we all made the trip up to warm up his house. There was dip. There was a sink filled with Coors Light. Eurotrip was playing on the TV. What more do you need? Anyway, we had a good time getting Johnny liquored up and left early enough for him to get a little bit of shut eye for his surf lesson in the morning…not really. I don’t think we got home until 3:00 am. My brudda is all growns up with a place of his own. The studio is only a few years old with modern appliances and a lot more room than I expected. The only downside is that there’s no fridge. Oh well, at least it has a working dishwasher that Johnny just learned how to use.

Dog turns two

KoaOur Koa Bear is two years old today! Happy Birthday, Dog. As a tribute to the stinky furball that we call Koa, I put together a bunch of photos that I took of him this past year. As I am typing, the birthday dog is tugging at my sock trying to convince me to walk him. I’d better go. Enjoy!

Tendonitis anyone?

Going against Jes’ suggestion of sticking to one hobby at a time, I thought I’d put photography aside every once in a while and learn how to knit. On Saturday, I went to Costco and bought a knitting starter’s kit complete with size-8 circular needles, yarn needle, stitch markers, a handy dandy instruction booklet, and 25 pattern cards. All of it came in a neat little box that suits my style. Anyway, I was so excited about going to Tall Mouse this afternoon. Oh the possibilities! Unfortunately, since I am just a newbie, I had to purchase the standard Sport Weight yarn. I did get it in baby blue though, which seemed the most subdued amongst bright yellows and icky browns.
…
When I got home, I left the bag of yarn and the kit on my bed so that I would at least try to get started tonight. I knew I had to get other things done before I sat down to cramp up my fingers and make myself cross-eyed. So, after my afternoon jog and dinner with the husband, I took a shower and jumped into bed with needles and yarn in hand. I turned on my laptop and went to the link that I had already bookmarked a couple days ago. It’s a website called knittinghelp.com that contains step-by-step instructions and videos on how to knit. Awesome…I’ll be making sweaters for everyone in no time!Anway, I got started with casting on. Easy enough…I chose Continental style instead of American style since it was the first one on the page. Not bad…I made 15 stitches and moved on. Next was the basic knit stitch. That was a little more confusing at first but once I got the hang of it, I made about 4 rows. It looked like a mess but I did it! Unfortunately, my forearm began to ache and I was getting a little bit of an eye strain from all the scowling I was doing. Now it’s about 12:59 am and I have to go to bed.
…
On the next episode of “Tendonitis anyone?”, beakatude learns the purl stitch…will she do it or keep practicing her knit stitch? Stay tuned.

I think I fixed it.

I just opened beakatude on my work computer to discover that the sidebar was missing when opened in Internet Explorer. Oops! Have you guys been experiencing the same thing? Well, I tweaked the code a bit and I think works now. If you still don’t see the sidebar, refresh the page and it should show up. Let me know if you see it. You can make a comment below (click on “Comment”) or email me at beakatude@gmail.com. Thanks!