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Cleveland Rocks!

March 8th, 2008 by Brian

Snow bound at the Holiday Inn, Cleveland

When is “Tuesday” the wrong answer?Â When the new arrival time for your flight that was supposed to take you homeÂ FridayÂ is your question.Â I’ve traveled a fair amount, I’ve had a few weather problems, but a 5 day lay-over takes the cake.Â When the Continental rep said three eleven, I naturally assumed she was talking about a time of the day, not a date.Â The weather channel is calling this “a storm to remember”…nice.Â I certainly will.Â

Looking back it is relatively obvious that getting on the Montreal to Cleveland leg was a big mistake.Â I doubt getting out of Montreal in the snow would have been fun had I insisted on a rerouted flight, but today looking at the radar, it appears literally any other destination would have been better.Â A flight to Moscow would have had better odds at getting me home sooner.Â The airport simply closed, and if the rumor mill at Michael’s Grill at the Independence Holiday Inn is true, kicked out a hostile mob of stranded travelers into the blizzard.Â

Cleveland has clearly pissed off the forces that be: one too many a reference to the anthem “Cleveland Rocks”, one too many reruns of Drew Carey, most likely in my mind naming their ballpark after an auto insurance company.Â Whatever the sin, the four horseman are on their way.Â Fortunately I have a secret plan to escape, but I won’t reveal it just yet, incase others catch on.Â Â Â Â

stay tuned…

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My Kingdom for a Lawnmower!

May 1st, 2007 by Brian

The last owners of this place laid down sod sometime in the last year.Â It is gorgeous, thick and luxuriant.Â It also hasn’t been mowed in going on more than a month now. A month of Seattle spring rain and sun has resulted a lawn resembling the deeper reaches of the Amazon basin.Â One doesn’t so much cross it as go lawn snorkling.Â We really didn’t want to lose that nice sod to seed, so an emergency mowing plan was in order.

At the previous place we had a “hippy mower” as Jesse refered to it.Â It was an old school reel mower.Â No power, no gas, just muscle and sweat.Â Well, I was thinking I would see what that could do against the Amazon basin in the backyard.Â I didn’t have a lot of hope; it had a tendency to push the grass down when it got too high.Â Still worth a shot though.

But on the way to the old place I noticed a sign for R&R Hardware just off 65th. Outside were a half dozen obviously used red lawn mowers in various stated of repair.Â I pulled a U-turn to investigate.Â I had recently heard an NPR story about a movement that involved buying everything used.Â People made obvious exemptions for underwear and food, but the basic idea was that you could better support you community and reduce you consumer waste footprint buying everything used.Â It seemed to make a fair amount of sense.Â Additionally one of the things Seattle is great for is community support of local establishments like hardware stores.Â I pulled up with excitement at this seemingly elegant solution.

R&R Hardware is a scary place as it turns out.Â Dark, musty, with piles of saw blades, random tools,Â garden implements, screw, nuts, bolts, nails and what looked to be a disemboweledÂ outboard motor strewn in apparently random piles, the interior was like entering an ancient tomb where the detritus of past eons is slowly descending back into chaos.Â Every conceivable thing that might be in a hardware store is in R&R, but only a lunatic would go try and find it. Â The proprietors were kicking back debating the relative merits PBR and Rainer, and the grease monkey designate was busy sparking yet another used lawn mower to life.

I walked up explained that I had about 100 square feet of yard with grass thigh high that needed mowing.

He took his hat off and looked at the selection, â€œThose two donâ€™t run, but these do, theyâ€™re about the same.Â This one here works.â€Â

He pulled cord and it roared to life.Â Pebbles went kicking off the concrete into a crowd of people standing for the bus a few yards away.Â

â€œHow much?â€ I yelled over the roar.

â€œ$90â€ He yelled back.

I drove home in triumph, having supported my local hardware store, having saved time driving back and forth, having reduced my consumer waste, and having defended of the environment all at once.Â Just never mind that it runs on gas.Â I hauled the new-old mower up the stairs to my lawn, fired it up, and began cutting a swath through the vast green sea like Moses.Â I got through two passes before it died.

I know a little bit about motors, enough to change the oil, clean the plugs, play with the idle and otherwise get myself into trouble.Â Well 6 hours, two trips to the mini-mart down the street for plugs and oil later the motor was still very dead.Â I stuck it back in the car and drove back to R&R, but of course the local neighborhood hardware store closes at 2pm on Sunday.

The clock was ticking down on my weekend and so far I had given my lawn an inverse Mohawk and wasted 6 hours and $90.Â I bit the bullet and drove to HomeDepot.Â $160 bought a brand new 4-stroke Brigs and Stratton.Â I raced the sun home to finish the lawn.Â The new mower was quiet, started on the first pull, and ate up the lawn.Â As the last rays of the sun faded out on my infield grass beautiful sod, I kicked back with a beer and surveyed my fleet of lawn mowers: so much for consumer waste.Â And the local hardware store just better take back that red hunk of metal come Monday.

Epilogue: R&R refunded the mower no questions asked, even though it was a cash transaction.Â Iâ€™ve since went back for saw blades and other needs.Â Though I ask where stuff is.

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Withdrawl, Work & Pictures…

August 23rd, 2006 by Brian

A bunch of people have asked if we enjoyed ourselves. We had the time of our lives. Everything was perfect (I can finally say it without jinxing us). We had an awesome time, with everything. The week leading up, the wedding and the honeymoon were all great. I will try to back fill some of our experiences in the blog, because it will be fun to reminisce. In the mean time though, it has been a reality check coming back into work. Also just coming home was odd: one of those times where you have had a really emotional run, and then you return to a place that is really familiar, but some how feels a little different. Kind of like the first time going home after moving out west, or coming back to the states after I had spent time in Italy. That I had similar feelings from only two weeks away are testament to how wonderful and exhilarating the whole thing was. There should be a word for that: “transcendental” is to general and too sophomore literary majorish (I should know ).

Check out pictures. Thank you to everyone who has sent us their digitals. We have not seen the “official” ones yet, but there are over 350 up on the site! There really are a number of priceless ones there too.

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The Post-Wedding Post

Cleveland Rocks!

My Kingdom for a Lawnmower!

Withdrawl, Work & Pictures…

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