SecondMoonshot

Got a little distracted. I picked up some stereo components and had some large speakers sitting so decided to put it all together. I made the speaker covers and had some light cloth sitting around and thought white covers would be unique.  Sounds awesome.  John

In the past I have posted about key spends and always asking if that spend and purchase will increase your quality of life. So, I thought I would list as many of the quality of life purchases we have made. No particular order. I’ll keep updating with pictures and details.  2016 Porsche 911 C4S - yeah, it may seem like a 1st world problem but it is an incredible car and it creates time on drives and fun with Zabrina and I. It’s such a treat. Ok, I have too many cars, I get it. Breville Precision Insulated Coffee Maker - this thing makes incredible coffee and we do the grinding each morning and our coffee is every bit as good or better that most coffee shops we go to.  Frigidaire Gallery Freezer (or Fridge) - it’s pretty cool because you can flip a switch and it becomes a fridge and it just looks good. We use it as a freezer in the garage and we cook on weekends and freeze the food. Always stocked with homemade goods or Costco bulk purchases.  Chocolate Milk - I love chocol...

We went to the NC Art Museum and saw this picture and all I could think about was how similar these two guys ( Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon by Lucas Cranach the Younger) look like Beavis and Butt-Head. Perhaps the likeness Mike Judge wanted to emulate. Probably envisioned them as teenagers and went from there.  John

Probably one of my best auction purchases! Misery loves company. John

When one of my daughters asks me for anything, they usually gets it, true for anything within reason any of our kids ask for. Throw in a “Daddy”, and I’m putty in their hands. Yeah, a bit spoiled, but there are worse things. This week was an ask to see if I can repair a torn leather strap on a what I suspect is a well like pair of sandals…maybe Birkenstocks or something, have no idea (and don’t really care). Her foster pit bull, Patsy Cline, must have thought it was a toy, one dog’s pleasure is another man’s opportunity to learn. Sure, I have some time on my hands, I can cobble and be an amateur cobbler. On a side note, Patsy was doing her second home visit yesterday by a prospective adoptive family and turns out she has allergens and the wife got hives or something….sweet….I like allergens (and Patsy). Sandals are a great sleeping aid. Returning from the adoption visit gone bad (or good from our perspective). I approached this as any first time cobbler would do, see if there is a leat...

I was looking through my latest lot of LPs I purchased at auction and came across this gem! As a child, my parents loved watching the Carol Burnett and once I saw Helen, I was smitten. We had a close friend of Zabrina over at the house a few months back and we were reminiscing about her and started watching some of the clips from Carol’s show on YouTube, the flame was reignited.  Well, now that I have this album, I figured I would do something creative with it, I am going to frame it (ok, not terribly creative for me), no damage to the album, cover or anything and make a standard offering for framing your most cherished LP albums. I will go with a black standard wood frame, glass glazing of course and probably a mat boarder around it maybe 1.5” or so. I will post pictures back on this blog when the maiden frame is completed and estimated cost. I may have variations to do 2 albums together and 4 albums together in a grouping, but we’ll see about that later to see if I can make this ...

I thought a good use of my next post would be to get down on paper (or blog) my key takeaways in life. I am sure most of them I have attempted to pass on to my children verbally, but apparently never really stuck. My thinking is that I will put it on the Internet, and then they will somehow find it, and since everything on the Internet is true, there is probably a better chance they will take these things seriously.  Some of these will be common sense, some will be lessons that took me 50+ years to grasp, and still others are lessons I have learned, but still trying to apply them on a daily basis. No order other than the random order I recalled them. #1 - If you say your going to do something, do it.  A high “say-do” ratio is a sticking point for me and one that I starting taking as a key value in my life at around 40 years of age. My classic example of this in action is my Washer & Dryer Commitment blog post which goes into detail. I am also a realist and sometimes thing...

Today, Zabrina and I decided to take a day trip to Cape Fear for the Kite Festival. The drive was about 2.5 hours and we arrived at about 10.30. The web site stated this is “the last professional kite event of the season”, I wasn’t even aware one could make a career of flying kites or perhaps I would have selected this one the eBay thing.   The wind was a little too weak for the really big kites to come out and play and never really picked up as the day progressed, although some good efforts. There were tons of people, a band and food and brewery trucks and tents. Around 1pm, we opted to head to Wilmington and walk around, a great coastal college town. We pulled up our bar stools at Anne Bonny’s for some cocktails and food. It’s basically a bar and grill on a permanently docked old ferry. The vibe was casual, food and drinks good and just what we were looking for. A good day, we needed that. John