nothing like this on the teevee set

We lived in a little neighborhood in San Jose, CA….Frolic Way….back when this show first came on….45 years ago today.

We heard that there was going to be a new show for kids….and I remember a bunch of us gathering around somebody’s television and watching the first episode of Sesame Street.

It’s “old news” now….but at the time, there wasn’t anything on TV like this….the puppets….the animation….it was all different.

I remember us laughing our tails off when they started counting….5…5….5…5….

It was bizarre and funny to a bunch of nine-year-olds to see something like this.

The first clip is from the very first “real” show to air….

The second clip is a preview that showed before the show started broadcasting….I think that this is the show that we watched…..this introductory show….way back when.

Happy 45th Birthday, Sesame Street!

Deek in a House

Derek “Deek” Diedricksen.

Check this guy out….builder, author…grownup having fun with his life.

What could be better?

“Kept building forts into my adulthood…”

and then….he discovers that he’s making a living building forts for other people.

Check out this book that he’s authored…..

Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts: And Whatever The Heck Else We Could Squeeze In Here

diedricksen book

The book is available from Amazon here….

Oprah was my hero before I saw this guy (what an ENTREPRENEUR SHE IS!!)….but Deek …he’s the dude.

I was kidding about Oprah.

Did you ever see that magazine “O”?

I think that it’s about OPRAH!!!

Did you know that?

I think that it’s about OPRAH.

But….I digress.

I like seeing people doing so much in such a creative way.

Check out Deek’s blog here….RelaxShacks.com

Lloyd Kahn….Deek Diedricksen….these are some pretty darn cool characters.

It’s good to know that there are people out in the world doing such interesting things.

 

bolt

bolt

The thermostat on the minivan wasn’t working right.

The car wasn’t warming up anymore….or “warming up”, but taking a long time to do it.

That wouldn’t do to have a bunch of babies riding around in a cold car, now, would it?

It’s starting to get cold….we need some HEAT!!

So, I bought a thermostat and a gasket….took a look at what I needed to do….and got out the tools.

Dodge was kind to me when they engineered the car.

They put the thermostat housing right on the front/side of the engine (the engine sits sideways like all the front wheel drives….the housing is easy to get to…..right in “front”.)

Everything went well taking it apart.

Nothing was rusted or seized….the bolts came out without any grunting or swearing.

Nothing broke off in the block.

That’s good when it goes like that.

Sure enough, the thermostat was broken and stuck open.

It was also fused to the housing….but after some twisting with a pair of needle nose pliers, I got the old one out.

I cleaned up the housing and put the new one in, got the gasket into position, put my two bolts through the housing and gasket, and got ready to bolt it back to the block, and then…..

One of the bolts fell out of the housing.

Dang….that’s inconvenient.

So, I looked in the gravel for the bolt….and it wasn’t there.

I got my big light and looked in the gravel for the bolt I needed to finish the job….and I couldn’t see it.

I took my big light and looked all around the engine compartment….and didn’t see it.

But, if I looked way, way down….down in the darkness of the engine bay….down between what I think might be a compressor for the air conditioner or something….no, it’s not that….it’s something else over by the transmission…..something sandwiched up tight underneath the exhaust manifold….something unreachable even by a strong beam of light….that was when I realized why I couldn’t see or feel it.

My bolt….the bolt I need…..the bolt that was keeping me from finishing my wife’s motorvation ability….was DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!! It was down in there somewhere.

I GOT TO USE MY “F WORD”!!!!

OUT IN THE DRIVEWAY, NOT FAR ENOUGH OUT IN SPACE WHERE NO ONE COULD HEAR ME SCREAM, WAVING A TROUBLE LIGHT OVER EVERY INCH OF THAT ENGINE THAT I HOPED I COULD ILLUMINATE AND DISCOVER SOMETHING THAT I KNEW WAS UNDISCOVERABLE,  I EXERCISED MY VOCABULARY….AND IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT, ALL I COULD RELEASE FROM MY VOCAL CORDS WAS A HEARTY AND HEARTFELT “F WORD”….OVER AND OVER AND…..OVER.

I am ashamed….and still bolt-less at this point.

The necessary bolt is gone away….and I’m in a dark gravel driveway….screaming out my soft, impotent rage.

Anyway….after a frantic trip back in to town, I was able to buy a bolt that was shorter but worked….and I got the car back together….and nothing leaked or exploded when I started it back up.

Who do they think that they’re helping with this “daylight savings time”, anyway?

Anybody in their right mind is doing all the good stuff at night.

Why am I laying on my back in our gravel driveway when it’s pitch black?

Something’s not right in that picture.

Let the farmers turn the lights on in their combines.

Leave me some light in the evening.

Maybe I could find a bolt or two if the sun was still up.

“darkness on the face of the earth” Willie Nelson

real songs for real people

 

P1060389Jenny read my blog post yesterday….the mushy one with the mushy song….and said, “That was one of the most maudlin songs ever written.”

Well…..yeah.

I knew it was maudlin.

But, dang…it was effective. She heard that song…..and SHE LOVED ME!!!

Or, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe it was the other way around.

Maybe….she loved me first….and told me she liked the song because she loved me.

I get the feeling that when she cared about me that she let me believe that I had some kind of “game”.

I think that she let me believe that I was a pretty competent fellow.

I wonder how many women do that for their men?

Anyway….it’s not something that I can figure out this morning before I’ve had all of my coffee.

That song that I put on my blog yesterday is pretty maudlin.

That’s why this morning I felt like I better bring it back down to earth with a good John Prine song.

Everything in this song doesn’t apply to Jenny…or to me.

It’s just a song that I couldn’t have played on the radio….even if I’d had it back then….

“in spite of ourselves” John Prine and Iris Dement

Now HOW’S THAT FOR A SONG!!

That’s one I could have used to woo her, for sure.

“Woo”….that’s an interesting and gentle way to describe relationships.

I could “woo” my wife!

There’s a plan.

I started out the morning kind of funny, actually.

This has nothing to do with “wooing”….it’s just something funny that happened.

I put my hands down on the keyboard…..and I guess that I was drinking some coffee or something….no….I need two hands to type….I don’t know what I was doing….but, I must have put them down wrong or something and when I looked up, all my typing looked like this….

kom yjr p;f [;svr upii tr;s;;u jsf yp ;pp; gpt yjr [rp[;r ejp ,ohjy ,n ;pplomh gpt yjrp;f esud pg fpomh yjomh/////

tyv….er, etc.

I thought that I was doing right….but there was a shift somewhere that threw the whole shebang off just a little….and I couldn’t even read what I’d written when I was done.

I wouldn’t have even known that something was wrong if I didn’t have a computer screen to look at.

I would have known anything at all.

I think that the thing that really would have messed me up would be the thought that I knew what I was doing….so how could anything be wrong?

Funny.

I remember a driving lesson with my Dad.

He said, “The light is changing color up there.”

I knew it all….”Yeah, I see it.” I was as cool as I could be with my sister and our dog in the car, while I was learning to drive our old Fairlane station wagon.

Pretty soon, my Dad yelled, “STOP!!” so I slammed on the brakes and fishtailed for what seemed like a hundred yards between the cars that were already stopped on either side of me.

(It scared those “careful drivers” to see me slide past, tires smoking and squealing, wide-eyed…)

When we stopped, Dad caught his breath and asked, “Didn’t you see the light? The light I told you about?!”

Yeah….

It turned out that I was looking at the next light up ahead….the wrong light….not the one that said, “STOP NOW!!!”.

I was looking at the one that said, “Slow down….you’ve got this, new driver!!! GOOD JOB!!!”

What the heck was everybody so excited about, anyway?! We survived, didn’t we?

That was a maudlin song yesterday, wasn’t it?

 

 

lady

P1070004

My daughter emailed me yesterday and told me that I’d been writing this blog for 2 years.

That’s a long time.

So….in honor of that unbroken string of morning writing, this blog will be my last.

I’m KIDDING!!!

I bet your heart just about stopped dead on the tracks.

I’d be scared, too.

It’s been two years of trying to get up before everyone else in the house gets up, making a french press of coffee, and staring at the screen of my computer….trying to figure out what to write about “this morning”.

I think that the only thing that I’ve figured out is that writing, like talking too much, is pretty easy.

It’s easy if you just sit and type….like lacing up your running shoes and getting out the door, once you’re going, it’s not so hard.

Of course, I realized, too, that if I’m “just typing” no one wants to read anything I wrote.

The must be some “just typing” radar that most people have….so they don’t seem to read those posts.

I also realized that if I can include a video of a cat who fell in love with a squirrel….and piggyback in on the wings of something “really cute”….that bunches of people might glance at what I wrote….just so they can see a cat snuggling a squirrel.

That’s a cheap shot to piggyback like that.

My most popular post has a picture of this dog in it:newfoundland

Who would have thought that all those people would want to see a picture of a giant black dog?

That’s my most popular post.

Of all the things that I’ve written, the most popular is the one with a huge black dog picture.

The single most popular post is the one with the dog.

It has legs.

Lots of people….in lots of countries…have looked at that dog.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done some “piggybacking”, though.

Sometimes, it takes something really eloquent to help get your point across.

The second time I met my wife, before we even started “courting”, I was working at a radio station up in Asheville.

I could BROADCAST MY LOVE.

Actually, that probably wasn’t really kosher….so I had to be sneaky about it.

I couldn’t just BROADCAST MY LOVE….I had to be covert.

I played the heck out of this song…..

“lady” Jonathan Edwards

I thought it was a pretty slick way to send a subliminal message.

Nobody could see through a message like “and Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadeeeeeeeeeee…..I love you.”

Subtle.

A blog anniversary is pretty small potatoes compared to a wedding anniversary.

I have one of those coming up sometime in December, I think.

(That’s not a funny joke….I remember the exact day in December….I don’t forget….like a love elephant….)

But, it’s not until December that I get to celebrate the important one….so I’ll ride this blog thing at least as long as it takes me to finish a pot of coffee.

Here’s to many more years of typing and many more pots of coffee.

Here’s to more years.

(The song, “Lady”, is from an album called Rockin’ Chair that Jonathan Edwards released in 1976. My friend Garrett turned me on to the song….and I found the only copy of the album that I’ve ever seen while we were thrift shopping on his only visit to my parent’s old house in Georgia. Years later, I could share that song with Jenny. Synchronicity. Perfect.)

My daughter took the picture through the window of the minivan….at 70 miles an hour on some Western road. Again….perfect.

 

 

Lasqueti

I must be approaching “of a certain age”.

A lot of my heroes are old dudes who rock it in the woods.

It will be time to start obsessing over old “Matlock” episodes soon.

I’m conscious of getting older.

This is a video of a community up in Canada that’s off-grid and looks creative….and pretty attractive.

Apparently, it’s the size of Manhattan….but has 400 residents.

I looked up real estate in the area, and they must know what they have there, because small houses were pretty expensive.

Bare land was pretty expensive.

Darn Canadians.

They must know what they have up there.

I guess that when people post a bunch of YouTube videos the “secret is out”.

Maybe I need to post a bunch of videos of where we live….inflate the real estate….sell out….move somewhere even cooler?

Who am I kidding? There’s nowhere cooler than where I live.

It’s way cool.

But Idaho!! Colorado!! All those other places I obsess over!! Those places are pretty cool, too.

Check out this dude…this older fellow in the video. Eight-two years old….quit his job when they wouldn’t give him the summer off….does his laundry in the bathtub (while he’s taking a bath)….makes his own plum wine.

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT !!!

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT !!!

HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT !!!!?!!!!

 

two brothers talking about cars

Tom Magliozzi passed away yesterday.

What a hilarious man.

I guess that he was “Click” to his brother’s “Clack”.

I never knew who was who….until he passed away yesterday and I looked him up.

Tom and Ray did the “Car Talk” show on Public Radio.

I guess that it’s possible that some people in our country haven’t heard the show…so a short description might help explain what I think these guys did.

They talked about cars.

People would call them….and they talked about cars.

The whole show.

That’s it.

I make it sound good, don’t I?

I’m lying when I say “that’s it”. I’m lying.

This show was so much more than two guys talking about cars.

Listen to some episodes here…on the guys’ website  …to get a feeling for what they did every week.

It was a lot more than I can describe easily….there was more than just cars being discussed each week.

There are a lot of legacies that people can leave behind.

Positive and negative, there are a number of ways to “leave your mark” on the world.

Listen to some of these shows.

Well done, Mr. Magliozzi !

You made a lot of people happy.

Read Tom’s bio here….. I think it’s worth knowing something about this man.

all you care to eat

east-coast-sushi-buffet

I guess that I don’t know what “hungry” really is.

What a blessing.

We ate at the Asian buffet yesterday…and it was good.

It’s usually pretty good….depending on what time of day we get there. End times at the buffet can be kind of “sketchy”….but if you get there early enough, it’s pretty consistently good.

I had a light breakfast at home earlier in the day….coffee, juice….and a fresh mushrooms, green peppers, and onions omelet that I made.

I wasn’t really hungry after breakfast.

I told myself that I was very hungry by the time we got to the buffet.

I ate like I usually do when we got there and had our seats assigned and got our coats off and got settled a bit.

Egg rolls and hot mustard, tofu….mixed vegetables, garlic string beans….lo mein….sesame bean balls….tried the egg fu yung again….bad egg fu yung….had the guy at the bar cook some beef with onions, peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms….had another egg roll….went up for some dessert….had some more lo mein and rice….thought about having some soup….looked at the fruit and the salad bar….decided to skip all that deep fried chicken stuff this time….ate part of an undercooked baked drumstick…..looked at the sushi….skipped the sushi….went back and got a couple of those steamed dumpling things….and I think….at that point….I stopped eating.

Of course, all this is interspersed with trips to the bathroom or the buffet with our 5-year-old.

I may have skipped some details. It all usually goes down in a fork-whirring blur….so I forget things in the sequence of gluttony.

I am not very “mindful” when I know that I can have as much as I want to eat.

And…if you think about it…. that is kind of crazy.

To not be really hungry…but to convince myself that I must be pretty hungry before going to the “all you can eat” buffet….is pretty nuts.

I don’t really remember any element of that meal with great clarity.

I can’t remember it.

And ….why should I?

There’s more where that came from….I can fill my plate time and time again with whatever I choose to semi-consciously consume.

I am my only limit….my own “belly stretching limitation”….I only stop when good sense prevails and I decide that I am “comfortable” instead of painfully overfull.

What a trip!

Parents used to say, “Eat all your food! There’s children in China who are going hungry….you need to eat all your food….”.

Now, we go to a restaurant where the Asian people feed us all until we’re ready to pop….and no one mentions the hungry Chinese children.

I guess that it’s bad form to do that at an all you can eat buffet.

I guess it’s funny how prosperity changes how carefully I pay attention to things.

We have so much….and I’m not paying very close attention to much of it

I better start paying attention….right after the next trip to the bar for another egg roll….or maybe a sesame bean ball….or….

Oh, what the heck?!

The world is my oyster. I consume without awareness. I do what I want. Why should I pay attention to any of it?!

Chow down, Holmes….CHOW ON.

“all the roots grow deeper” David Wilcox

 

quiet/hard

P1030286

This morning was kind of confusing.

I slept in….got up early….looked at the clock…remembered that it was really early…and started to write in the morning quiet that I enjoy if I get up early enough and am… quiet.

Then, Nate got up (on time…but artificially early) and it wasn’t quite as quiet.

This “giving us an hour” doesn’t work for me.

I need “real-time”.

It snowed yesterday.

When we woke up, there was about 5″ of new snow on the ground.

Nate and I went out early and built a snowman….but by the time the afternoon had rolled around, the snowman was dead….melted on the grass.

It was a short-lived snow.

I went over to the new property and took some pictures while it was cold and the snow was still on the ground.

It was quiet at the new property….peaceful.

Nobody was out in the snow….too early….too snowy….and that was pretty nice.

I’ve taken runs in the snow where I didn’t see another person the whole time I was out.

That’s kind of unusual….usually, I can’t help but see someone while I’m out and about.

I guess that it’s hard to be out in the cold and snow….especially when it’s a short-lived and unexpected snowfall.

Why do the “hard” if the hard part is going to be gone soon?

Why do it at all if you can wait it out and see it go away?

When I think about it, though, the times when I’ve been surrounded by really profound “quiet” is when I had a chance to do something kind of “hard”.

If I can get off the trail….just a little bit farther than the bulk of the tourists….I can be somewhere pretty quiet.

If I can get up early enough…..

If I go out in the snow….

Oh….now that I think about it, the times that it’s been really quiet were the times when I was alone.

Maybe quiet is overrated

I like “alone”…but I love my family.

I’d trade away the quiet if it meant that I could be with them.

It was pretty peaceful, standing in a field, snow falling on me while I waited to turn back towards home.

I can work with “peaceful” every now and then, too.

I better enjoy whatever comes while I still can.

I better learn to enjoy.

“it’s oh so quiet” Bjork

 

 

 

snow unexpected

The snow we woke up to….or “I” woke up to….everyone else is still asleep…is nothing like this.

It’s 4 or 5″ of powder/wet….laying up on the picnic table, wetting the warm blacktop.

Still, snow is pretty impressive and unexpected this time of year in NC….and the amount is really surprising.

A pessimist might say that this means that we are going to have a rough winter.

I just think that it snowed kind of early.

I don’t know what the future holds.

To the best of my knowledge, I am off today.

I don’t have to go into work.

I still haven’t gotten a call….yet….but the morning is still young.

Sometimes a “scheduled day off” gets canceled if the need is great enough.

I hope the need doesn’t materialize…I like being at home on a snowy day.

Here’s a song I used to listen to a lot….I think that Keith Green wrote it….

It’s not summer….but the “unexpected” part holds true….

“summer snow” Matthew Ward