Vulture!

Jeff donates this cellphone photo to my blog for your entertainment:

This turkey vulture was hanging out on his 26th-floor windowsill, apparently waiting for Jeff to fall ill and die. After a half hour of testing the window caulk for leaks, it gave up and left.

(That's the Scioto river in the background and the building in the lower right is Columbus City Hall, in case you care. :)

Hot Fuzz

Last night we went to see Hot Fuzz at Studio 35 up the street.

Freaking hilarious.

It's especially funny if you've seen Shaun of the Dead (and Point Break and lots of other movies :), but you don't have to get the super-funny.

This was the first time we've been to Studio 35 in a while. It's a great place, but it's only got one screen, and if we don't want to see what's there, we just don't go. They have double features, but the second one is usually past our bedtime.

The theatre is only a couple blocks up from us, and we try to walk up there unless it's really cold. The block that Studio 35 is on is starting to pick back up after a few years in decline. There's a new gallery there, as well as a new gift-type shop.

It's nice to see our neighborhood do well.

To do update

At the beginning of March, I posted a to do list. I thought it was time to revisit it and see what has been accomplished.

• paint bedroom (gray)
• paint "art" for bedroom (painted canvases)
• paint remaining kitchen doors
• start seeds (yes, Fiona: kale!)
• dig up lilies from back and move to front
• rearrange and amend garden beds
• re-caulk bathtub
• paint stairway and hallway (tan or taupe or something bland)
  
• make new curtains for kitchen
• make curtains for dining room
• re-cover screen in dining room
• repaint DVD cabinet and Jeff's cabinet and footstool in living room
• take dog-joggers off bikes
• clean up area in front of The Folly's parking space
  
• re-caulk windows
• weatherproof doors
• general weatherproofing
  
• replace back porch steps
• make shade for back porch steps area
• just pick a damned color and paint the bathroom

So not as much done as I would have liked in two months, but not too bad, either. Some of the stuff will be easier to do now that it'll be more consistently warm out. And I've picked out colors for the bedroom and stairs, so it's just a matter of actually getting the paint and painting. Still haven't picked out a color for the bathroom. I'm not sure I ever will...

First Mr. Bento at the new job

Mr. Bento is coming to work with me on my third day. I'm still in training classes, and I was right - it's a great way to get to know my coworkers. They seem like a fun bunch, and I never would have gotten to know them like this without all of us being in this training class together.

I went out to lunch with some of my coworkers yesterday, but it's raining today, and I just don't think I'll be up to going out in the rain. So, out comes Mr. Bento! He's carrying spinach salad with currants and walnuts; pasta salad; faux-sausage with homemade black soy bean salsa; and chocolate meringues and a coconut candy.

Also there is coconut water, something I say in the grocery store and decided to try. It's expensive, so even if it's good, I probably won't get it very often, but it seemed like a fun splurge for the new job. :)

How hard is it to get a new cellphone?

Quite, apparently.

We decided to go with a cellphone for our home phone, so I went online to add it to our plan. While there, I discovered that both Jeff and I were eligible for phone upgrades. Since we pretty much both hated our phones since the moment we got them, we jumped at the chance.

Other than having a phone for phone calls, I wanted to be able to take photos and download them from the camera to my phone (not just send them to another phone or email address). That's all. Should be pretty easy to find out if one does that, right?

First, I got the Samsung C417. Cingular sells a USB data cable for it, so I figured my chances were good that it did what I wanted. No such luck. So after one call to Cingular where they assured me that it did work, another where they told me to return it to a local corporate store (couldn't because it had been refurbished), and finally one where the very good customer service rep called the local store and got them to agree to take it back, I tried to find a new phone.

They didn't have the one I wanted, the Sony Ericcson W300i. OK, fine. So I told the guy my requirements and he told me that the LG CU400 would suit my needs. OK. I bought it and the data cable.

No. It didn't work. Sigh. I needed the LG CU500. The 400 didn't have the chip to store the photos on that the computer could read. I went back to the store again. Politely scolded the guy who sold the 400 to me and got what I needed, including a chip.

Works perfectly. Finally. The irony? This is the phone that Jeff originally got online. We now have the same phone, and I could have just saved a lot of time and frustration by getting the same one in the first place. Sigh.

But, hey, look: Kaylee:

And here it is after I downloaded it to my computer and fiddled with the colors a bit.

Not too bad.

And I spent last evening making custom ringtones. That was kind of fun. Currently, my phone rings to "Dracula From Houston" by the Butthole Surfers. :)

Hey ... lemme out ...

I know I've been quiet

It's that whole new job thing. Ending of the old and starting of the new. I start next Monday with no real break in between. I wish I had one, but there's a really cool training session I want to attend at the new job, so I'm willing to just jump right in.

In other, less dull news, flowers! This is what it looks like when a hard freeze hits a big, old bleeding heart plant. It was about half the size when we moved in five and a half years ago. It's probably been set back a bit, but not totally. It's approximately four feet from droopy edge to droopy edge.

And these are Lily of the Valley, just about to pop. Maybe by the end of the weekend. The side yard will smell absolutely gorgeous. They're much happier since we pulled up a lot of the bishop's weed.

These are some flowers in our bog. I can't remember what they are, but they're pretty damned cool looking. You can also see a lot of other happy bog plants in the background.

And not all of our tulips melted. Some survived.

I love hip hop

I do.

Then again, I think its portrayal of women is tacky, if not reprehensible. Apparently, I'm not the only one.



(and here's the original)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So much is going on here right now, not the least of which is that I'll be starting a new job in a couple of weeks.

My old (still "current" for the moment) job wasn't willing to give me the challenges I wanted to take on, so that was pretty much that. In a couple of weeks, I'll be an employee of The Ohio State University, in a job where I'll have all the challenges I can handle!

So if things are a little hit and miss around here for the next couple months, that a good deal of the reason why.

(And the picture of Cordy through the fence? Because she's cute. :)

It's spring...

... and that means the FalconCam, a springy lunch, and crappy weather on the way.

Garden in progress

We ripped up the old garden in the alley a few weeks ago and rearranged it. This gives us more useable space and also gives us bigger and safer walkways.

Since we dumped all of soil, we're slowly filling in the beds as we need them. Spreads out the cost, as well as giving weed seeds less of a chance to blow in.

So far, we have a brown turkey fig (in the foreground right), a bed full of lettuces, spinach, and kale, and a bed of Chinese leeks and Egyptian walking onions. I also moved one of the little containers of radishes out back, too.

The chainlink fence is mostly to remind people that it's a private garden, and not for everyone to pick from. :)

The girls are ready for spring

Cordy got her hair cut, and I made them matching spring collars. Happy spring!