Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1470
Weekend chores, a proposed Fast an Furious 15 script, gridfinity, quality time with the daughter, prepping for Alaska trip.
Morning morning morning. Happy Monday. I am back from dropping Jane off at school. We listened to that Heavenly & Calvin Johnson song and I talked to her about indie rock, and DIY, and scenes, and mutual support. Told her how much I missed it. Maybe shed a small tear.
It was atonement for teaching her about Prince on Friday, which of course I had to do. It is a major issue that she does not know about Prince. But I am still mad at him for that chapter in Sinead’s autobiography, and dying on us in that dumb way. Anyway, I played her Purple Rain and When Doves Cry (“he did not have a good daddy like you”) and Let’s Go Crazy and Raspberry Beret. This all started cuz “Thieves in the Temple” came on random. My work is done. We can move on to more important artists. Like Calvin Johnson (ducks).
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Then I went to the recycling center to drop off this weekend’s construction waste, my fourth trip there in 72 hours. I am happy to report I am all caught up on construction waste at the moment. None lingering in the attic. okay maybe a bit.
Then I went to Walmart, special Monday trip. Buy some groceries for my wife for while I’m gone, and pick up a few things for the trip to Alaska. Advil, Tylenol, some dust masks. I am leaving this afternoon.
So many chores to do in the meantime I have a little list. My god I love chores is there anything better than checking off chores from a list.
And, of course, got a ton of chores done this weekend. Feel very good about it. Did eight pieces of flooring in the attic. Look, yes, four of them were small, but I hit a milestone, arriving at another of the steel beams in the floor, signifying I am about 2/3 done with the floor replacement part of this project. Very exciting.
You can’t really tell in this photo but all the flooring up to that steel beam in the foreground is new:
I did a little garden cleanout and prep for spring. Picked some more carrots. My carrots rule. Sadly my celery grew bad, I didn’t know celery could do that I thought it would just keep getting bigger nope eventually it turns brown. Only had about 3 bunches still in the ground, but it was sad. Celery grows great in the greenhouse across winter, though. That is exciting.
Brocoli too.
Underneath the celery I found a greek oregano and a thyme plant that were doing just great.
The desert plants my friend mailed me from Marfa are going just great.
All the trees are starting to wake up: lemon and lime and orange and banana and apple and pear. I will be putting those outside next week I think.
Is lemongrass perennial? I need to figure out what is up with my lemongrass. Why did it not make lemongrass stalks? Probably too small of a pot I do that a lot.
I found one errant radish. I ate it.
The garlic in the outdoor planter is doing great, just about to pick.
And the grapes are starting to sprout leaves.
Spring spring spring.
Oh also Emma and I moved rocks. Big rocks. We are tough. Very proud of ourselves. Old owner of Chore House put these giant rocks on the side of the rod to dissuade people from parking on the side of the road. Chore House is the first house in the neighborhood and people love to pull in and just sit there. Lotta realtors and the like. People who work in the cars.
Except I don’t really care. But more to the point the HOA stopped paying to mow that grass, and so now we have to get it mowed, and those rocks are a pain to mow around and add significantly to the bill. So, vamoose rocks. As you may recall I had all these elaborate schemes for dealing with that grass, or really not dealing with it. Because I don’t want to. And I don’t care if it gets ugly. But the whole neighborhood cares, because it’s the entrance to the neighborhood. But they don’t care enough to pay for it and neither do I.
I was gonna buy a mower and DIY it but Emma was dubious of this proposition, which is fine, whatever. I could take offense or use that time she just saved me to do something else productive and fun. So she paid our current landscapers to just do a quick mow over there, every other visit, no landscaping, no edging, no planting, no nice expensive stuff. It is probably still too expensive. I do not like this particular solution but I do like domestic and neighborhood harmony so here we are. I will stop my plans for a milk moss squirt gun.
We are listening to the Andy Bell solo album this morning, which I believe I have already raved to you about. It is great. Shoegaze version of the Stone Roses’ Fool’s Gold. Love it.
Kinda want to write a screenplay for Fast and Furious, mm, gonna say 15 or so? And it is just an old man in a garage spending like two weeks on figuring out why his ECB is not talking to his fuel gauge or something. Each day he tries a new thing and it doesn’t work. Or he has to order a part and wait. And each evening he goes back into the house and has dinner with his wife and talks about how little he accomplished while working on his 74 Barracuda or whatever. But eventually at the end of the film he gets his ECB talking to his fuel gauge.
Then the movie ends. And during the end credits they do that “in the future” montage and all it is him sitting in his Barracuda, still in the garage, and he turns the key and the engine starts and he gives a little smile.
That’s it that’s the whole movie. A real car movie for people who really work on cars instead of, you know, battle submarines with Ford Falcons or whatever.
I think the guy would be an old Paul. This is the joy he gets in life now that he has dropped out of, you know, the Furious lifestyle. This is why he left them all. To just work in the garage.
The wife would be played by Gloria Estefan, who is now 67, but we would age her up a smidge.
I hate to say it but elderly Paul would be played by Clint Eastwood. Cody Walker is too young. Actually maybe Scott Glenn I always liked him and he handled his White Lotus parts well.
The movie would take place in 2040ish. It would have strong post-Jackpot vibes, sorta like Spielberg’s A.I. Like nothing to do with the plot, Paul would be living in the woods or whatever, in a very expensive house (Dom always kept cutting him in on the deals or something). But it would be clear the world outside had gone to shit. Paul would be just trying to hold it together, you know? Just trying to get by, find a little bit of solace in the world where the bad guys won. Not relevant at all!
Shout-out to my wife who has re-learned 3D modeling, opened up Blender and rendered a version of our now out-of-print dryer flap, which would have cost us like a thousand dollars to replace, because you would have had to open up the wall and pull out the whole vent tube and replace it because it’s one of those integrated flaps and tubes and they don’t make it anymore I said that part.
This is why she asked for the 3D printer for her birthday, and with this single project she is poised to literally make up the cost of the printer. So that is awesome. My wife is awesome.
I have always been absolutely terrible with rendering stuff in 3D, it’s the one thing on a computer I have never been good at (as opposed to, like, making drum beats or coding, two things I used to be good at but am now terrible). I, myself, have been cranking away printing Gridfinity bin organizers. Absolutely obsessed with Gridfinity, the open-source organization system for 3D printers my god it is just so great. Takes forever, though. And now I gotta leave town for a week. But sometime in a couple weeks, after I get back, you can expect an amazing Gridfinity photo, and those of you who are organizing geeks are gonna be thrilled.
Lovely weekend with Jane. We made two hardware store runs, breakfasts, and we did a nice playground time. Playground was packed. Birthday and a real-life adult Elsa and a donut cart. I finally got on the secret parent text group of all of Jane’s friends so I don’t need to wake Emma up in the morning to find out what playground they are at. I feel like a real school mom now. Apparently at first it was all moms, but then they added dads. Except me. I am the Last Dad. Put that on my tombstone.
Every evening we snuggle and watch a little bit of Real Civil Engineer, and ex-civil engineer who now plays games on the internet, mostly engineering or math related games. It feels a little lame to let Jane watch videos for an hour every night, but she fuckin loves those bridges, and she loves those games where it’s all math and you click a button and buy math bonuses and go from 1 to like 1,000 Decillion or whatever. Just loves the power of math, is absolutely mesmerized by it. It’s like a modern day version of that Powers of Ten film or that part of A Wrinkle in Time where they talk about Microscopic and Macroscopic. Re-read those books not too long ago don’t particularly hold up well.
Moody and quiet playlist for you today. All new stuff. Man I am really into this Daniel Gum guy have I talked about him? Don’t know anything about him. Great record. Timeless sounding. Not even sure of the decade. Love the new Craig Finn Rob Sheffield was right it is his best yet. Finally found a second Black Country, New Road song that I like. Now I like two.
Okay well I bid you farewell. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Moving us tomorrow to the tower down the track, as Leonard says. Hopefully tomorrow. Def by Wednesday. Probably. Wish me luck in this highly emotional Alaska trip.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.