Junk Male

Charlotte walks around the block with me this morning as we hand deliver 100 fliers for my new business to the people in our neighborhood. She has her heelies on, so some of the time she is hanging on my arm as I pull her along. We stop here and there to watch the local wildlife, mostly just squirrels and chipmunks. And pop into our friends place for a minute to say hello.

So, I feel just a teeny bit guilty, as I have now become one of the things I hate, a direct marketer. And am corrupting my daughter as well. Its amazing how easy it is to justify to yourself once you are on the other side of the fence. You just know that everyone will be so thankful you put junk mail in their letterbox, once they have the chance to sample your service.

Post another 50 later that day. The first batch are probably in the rubbish by now, so have to get more out there. :P

Head to Toe Restoration

Am excited. Started up a new business this week.

I have been certified as a swedish masseur for many years, and have been thinking of setting up a little business on the side for a long time. Finally got around to it. Just bought the table tonight, a lovely thickly padded one by Master Massage Tables. Earlier I bought professional liability insurance, just in case anyone sues me. Ordered my business cards and they should arrive tomorrow. Have to buy a few things on the weekend, like more oils and towels and things, and then should be all set.

Threw a little website together over the weekend, and have been tweaking it ever since. Its wiltonmassage.com - check it out and tell me what you think.

To build up a client base reasonably quickly, I'm offering a promotion of the first massage free - hopefully once people have had the first one, they should come back for a second. Assuming they love the massage I give :)

Swedish massage is focused on relaxation, not like massage therapy where it can really hurt, and where you are trying to help relieve an injury or more than casual soreness. I have on more than one occasion put people to sleep while giving them a massage. Perhaps it was just the droning of my boring voice, who knows.

Sounds

I wish you could hear these sounds. So many, and so varied.

I'm sitting outside in the front yard, just finished spraying some roundup to kill the weeds on the driveway. The sounds of modern day life are not very far away, even here where we are supposed to sort of be in the "country". Cars drive by on the road up front. A plane flies over. I even crane my head up to see a helicopter go directly above our house, flying low.

But then there are the other sounds. The waterfall provides that constant calming white-noise background. The wind blows softly through the trees. The leaves rustle in the undergrowth, probably a squirrel or something rummaging for food. And most obvious of all are the birds. Not one species, but dozens, each with their own unique sound, some short and to the point, others loud, complex, and ostentatious. One sounds like an owl, somber and low, maybe a great horned. Some chirping, others warbling, yet others twittering, from all directions, a cacophony of noise, grating and mellifluous all jumbled up together.

Its very peaceful out here, the sun will be setting soon, that magical time of day just before dusk. I just wish all the cars were gone, or replaced with quiet electric ones perhaps. Nearly time to go back inside to the even noisier family.

Justifications

I have a confession to make. I am a bad father. Every Saturday Charlotte has a soccer game, usually at 10am nearby, but today it's at 8:30 and is a few miles away. Charlotte was in pain last night, and I had to give her ibuprofen, as she been to the doctor that afternoon, and had shots in her arm including a tetanus shot. And she also recently had a fight with some poison ivy, and I put cream on a dozen spots on her arms and legs. So she is not exactly in a good shape atm.

Maybe we'll just her her sleep in today, and pretend our alarm didn't work properly.

So the question is, are we being nice to her, or just selfish, so we can sleep in ourselves in a nice warm bed?

...

Heavy breathing at our bedroom door. After a couple of minutes I wake up, and see Charlotte standing there. She of course had an alarm clock under her pillow, and I had "forgotten" to turn it off the night before. It's Sigrid's birthday, so we let her sleep, and creep downstairs to get ready.

So here we are, huddled and freezing on this miserable day, not enough rain to actually close the fields, sitting in our fold-out chairs, trying to wrap not-big-enough blankets around us, cheering on our "Pirates", who are running for the ball, or standing shivering in defence. What fun.

We just scored a goal. Yay!



Final score: Pirates 4, the other team 3. But its just a game, nobody cares about the scores. Ok, maybe just a little bit. :)

Tasty Bovine Treat

Sitting at lunch today, most of the whole crowd, Albert, Bright, Sruthi, Manju, Nabil and I, discussing the usual motley collection of random topics.

We get onto soup, which seems to be a popular one. In this case the unspiciness of my "spicy crab chowder". The usual americanized cafeteria food. I wonder why we don't go out more often?

Someone, I think it was Bright, puts the weirdest image in our heads. Cow soup. He doesn't mean soup that has beef in it. He means grabbing hold of the teats of a cow, and exercising them in a "milking" motion, only, instead of milk coming out, you get delicious, spicy soup. Putting your mouth under them and the soup squirting straight into it. Tasty. Scrumptious. Bizarre.

Not as bizarre as the egg soup that is suggested next. That's right. Nothing Chinese about it. Crack open a nice fresh egg, and out comes, you guessed it, delectable soup.

Dark Side Cookies

Playing a game of Horse Lovers Monopoly, that Charlotte got for Christmas (and was over-the-moon about).

Jake lands on Sigi's stable, and has to pay up big. He thinks quick, and offers instead an alliance.

"Join the dark side. We have cookies. Low-fat cookies."

How could she refuse an offer like that?

Nasty vs. Horrible

Alien vs. Predator Requiem: not sure why we keep going to see these movies. Pretty much after Aliens (which was fantastic) it has been downhill ever since.

Predictable, lots of dying, not much suspense, and a weak storyline characterize all these sequels. Guess I'm just a sucker for alien creatures.

Gee, I seem to be seeing a lot of movies lately. I wonder why...

Terrificible

Just finishes setting up Terry. She (or he) looks good (or bad), depending on who you ask. Charlotte names him Terry the Terrible, too spiky, no color, and not as good as the one 50 feet away. Jake disagrees, and calls her Terry the Terrific, just perfect.

I am, of course, talking about the tree we just bought from Maple Row Tree Farm, after scouting all his brothers (her sisters), picking out Terry, and cutting him/her down, while Charlotte complains noisily that the one over there is just so much better. And we all freeze, especially Jake in his thin jacket that he didn't even want to wear at first, cause he thinks he doesn't feel the cold.

My Daemon

Teensy Weensy Building Stuff

Lucky me, my site gets a mention on Nanoarchitecture.net, a site focusing on the architectural implications of nanotechnology.

Angelic Devils

Have you heard of that chinese torture where they let a drop of water hit your forehead, and then another, and then another, for hours and hours, until you just go crazy? Well, that's how I feel listening to the violins at the start of the concert. Every single "musician", if I can use that term loosely, plays a slightly different note to all the others, slowly tearing away at my sanity.

Then the wind instruments begin. At least they press a key to get a note, so they are mostly in tune, except, and there just has to be an exception, for the trombones. Timing, of course, is a completely different matter. All those blowers this time are trying to blow a hole right through my ear-drums.

They are only 6th graders you say, and I am being too harsh. They practiced very hard for this night. Maybe so, but at least I didn't have to pay money to come and hear it.

And then the choir comes on, some 150 girls and boys (mostly girls), my daughter amongst them, the dutiful father attending so his daughter doesn't grow up and say "what, you mean I have a dad?" I am tensing ready for the onslaught, but instead, what hits my ears is a melody so sweet that it sounds like a choir of angels. Well, not exactly angels, but I'm sure the tips of greyish wings were starting to poke out of the backs of those little devils, the ones that make their mother's cry and will make their fathers go broke when they get a little older.

After a few heavenly harmonies, thankfully dominated by the girls sweet voices, we are back to the final instrumental section, however by that stage my ears are not listening anymore. Lucky really, as I'm sure they sound quite awful.

Kid's Quotes 1

Jake: "Charlotte has a big mouth and a big head, but she makes up for it with a big heart and a big brain."

Charlotte: "I like pie!"

Jake: "Ok, a medium sized brain."

Slithering Serpents

Charlotte has been begging for a dog for months now, but so far all she has gotten has been two catfish (the irony is not lost on us). Jake decides he wants a pet too. A cat perhaps? A bird? No, he has become obsessed over the idea of getting a reticulated python.

He is quick to point out all the advantages, the ease of looking after, the low dietary requirements ("just one baby pig a month Dad"), and the wonderful show-and-tell opportunities involving hysterical girls at school.

One wonders how discriminating the snake will be when it has to choose between a piglet and a dachshund.
Update: its been changed to a Boa Constrictor, since reticulated pythons can only be looked after if you are over 21.

You ktupid jackakk!

Warning: this makes no sense unless you were there.

Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood (from Whose Line Is It Anyway) leave us laughing our insides off at the Palace Theater tonight. From unicycle riding elephants juggling and writing poetry, to hippopotamuses getting strangled with spaghetti, from alligator wrestlers peeing their pants to double entendres, we are never left with a straight face for more than a few seconds.

The series of piano skits in styles from western (John Wayne) to roman (Clyamydia), and sci-fi (Yoda) to chick flick (chocolate), has something to tickle everyone's funny bone. Brad's sound effect of an elephant falling down the stairs covered in tambourines is outdone by the letter substitution snowboarding limousines, where every s had to be said as a k (and the image of socks hanging out of windows is forever impinged on our minds). And we will never forget how to pronounce Chickahominee.

And to finish off the night of improvisation, Brad and Colin sing a moped mechanic opera with sentences starting with letters ranging backward through the alphabet from X, and navigate across the floor shoe and sockless, and blindfolded, while 100, ok, 95 mousetraps viciously attack their toes and fingers. And other parts of their anatomy. Ouch. And double ouch.