Lundy Says-Vital Info from Lundy Wilder

More Morocco Photos

2010-10-17T15:47:00.006-05:00

Camels in front of the modern side of the river. We walked across the rocky riverbed to get to the ancient city.

Dave on a terrace overlooking an ancient adobe village on a hill side. This old settlement has been used in lots of movies. Especially the Jesus movies. We walked across a wide dried up river bed to go climb into the old city. It is a UN Historic Landmark w/ official status and all.

Up into the Atlas Mountains. Mostly very dry except for the valleys where lots of fruit trees and are and vegestables are grown. Lots of sheep...very Biblical looking.

Daniel said the water table in Morocco has dropped from something like 20 ft to 65 ft. Everything is much drier and many streams and rivers are dried up what once ran all year. Now they only run when the snows melt. Wells must now be dug much deeper. I am really convinced that there are way too many people in both countries we visited on this trip. I do nto know how they grow enuf food for the population in Morocco. Ditto Spain. Madrid now has 4 million people, all around the city are miles and miles of futuristic prison-looking high-rises, that look like the ones you used to drive thru to get into Chicago. (I think some of them are now torn down , but it used to look like a space movie to me.) I remember Barcelona being the same....I was told that the TV and such promotes birth control and since it is a socialist government that they do anything they can to irritate the Catholics. We don´t see people going to church here at all so I don´t know if the old Catholic notion of tons of kids is alive and well or not. But there are too many people everywhere. I am glad I wont be alive in 50 years.

More photos

2010-10-17T15:35:00.007-05:00

A bicycle fish peddler rode down the street calling out his wares. He and/or his bike-shop smelled to HIGH HEAVENS of old dead fish and cats followed him all the way...click photos to see a little bigger. I didnt want to upload them too big or it would take forever in this hotel lobby.

Me, Ouidad, Daniel and his daughter Manu and a big delicious dinner of couscous with veggies and chicken in Daniel´s home.

Stuff for sale in the old city market. A lot like it was in Jerusalém. Pretty claustrophobic.

Didnt buy anything there. Was just not up for a 30 minute haggle in very foreign languages and that is the only way. Time is of no matter in Marrakesh, so they consider the selling process just that, a process.

More Photos

2010-10-17T15:08:00.007-05:00

The old city part where there is a big open area where snake charmers, monkey trainers, and various entertainers hang out and put on a show. One of the big attractions for locals are the story tellers, where you see a crowd of people gathered around...lots of smoke in the air from vendors selling stuff cooked on small charcoal fires. Hard to breathe there.

One of the mosque towers near the old city part of Marrakesh.

Dave relaxing on the sofa on the inner terrace of the upstairs guest area at Daniel´s house. Note the cement floor. It is an old hex tile floor.

Ok--finally got it by way of a lot of work-arounds. And the Spanish version does not have the links to post, etc, in the same location as the English version, so you can´t just guess BTW.

This is a photo of a dead tree along the street and on top of the wacked off truck are crane nests. So it is made into sort of a sculptural thing. This was in a very clean, nice small city , Uarzazate, near the motion picture hot-spot of Morocco. Lots of Biblical and Ben-Hur type films are made in the area. Some Russell Corwe gladiator film was made there and one of the locals we met had his "crew" pass framed in his mud house and photos of himself and R.C.

2010-10-17T15:08:00.000-05:00

Attempting to post more photos but dammit all google accounts redirect immediately to the Spanish version and I cant figure out which link is the new post one and one is to report the blog as offensive and I dont want to hit the wrong one !

Marrakesh Photos

2010-10-15T15:43:00.005-05:00

One photo here is of a modern Marrakesh house, everything is the same color, new and old. Everything !

The whole work force plus us posed for a photo out front. Daniel is the one in the "centerfold" pose.

Outside at the factory we had hot tea and cookies in the shade.

At the Syba Tiles factory

2010-10-15T15:37:00.004-05:00

This is one of our mold patterns , it is a very complicated one.

On the floor are the tiles that Daniel is making for us. He is almost done with the tiles for the order.

Inside the factory it is amazing that they get so much done in so small a space. Very well organized.

Here we are standing outside of Syba Tiles in Marrakesh. Me on left, the factory director, Danile the factory owner and Dave.

More photos from Marrakesh

2010-10-15T15:35:00.004-05:00

Donkey carts are mixed in with regular traffic. And on one pays any attention to the lines on the road.

The outside of Daniel´s house.

Photos from Abroad

2010-10-15T15:28:00.003-05:00

Dave on the outer terrace. We had sunny days every day.

The inside part of the terrace outside our bedroom on the top floor of the house.

Daniel´s daughter in the fairy winds (upside down) and the fairy skirt that we brought her.

2010-10-12T13:50:00.002-05:00

Hello from Madrid. Dave got the little laptop to get online so maybe now I can post some photos. In Marrakesh I just didn't have time. We shortened our trip there by two days to allow for more time in Spain.
We love Spain. And there is so much to see.

Daily Beach Update

2010-06-18T19:10:00.003-05:00

Check the daily beach update video from Gulf Shores and Orange Beach
Rebecca is so cute, she could tell you that your hair was on fire and it would seem like good news :o)
Check Daily Beach Update

The Pres in my Neighborhood

2010-06-14T21:46:00.005-05:00

Pres Obama and about 50 secret servicemen and motorcyclists flew by this afternoon. It was a thrill to me ! It was impossible for me to tell which of the several identical black suv's he was in and I think that was the whole idea. Click photos to see them big. Click again after it opens to see it really big.

In the back of my head I sorta expected to see a magnetic sign that said Mr.President, or flags waving or the Pope-mobile and a smiling, waving Mr. Obama.

Dave and I took our folding chairs and some light picnic supplies up to the end of the driveway. Immediately a sheriff showed up and kindly told me that the Secret Service wanted us 75 yards back ...we both agreed that was excessive. He told me to move our chairs back about 20 ft since there were thick palmettos and trees and he couldn't see us there from his 'post' . So we did.

He told us that the caravan would come flying by fast and he was right. Since the whole road was closed, they could do as they pleased. First were several police and sheriff cars, then about 15 motorcycle police then more unmarked cars of various colors, then a bunch of black suv's with very dark windows. We waved and took photos as best we could. I had a pad and pen w/ me in case they broke down or stopped and needed a jumper cables or something, I was ready for an autograph ;o)

After I was back in the house I got phone calls from 2 friends both telling me they were stuck in the worst traffic jam in their lives. Seems the caravan went on down to the beach highway and then up Hwy 161 and then on to a bar on the water called Tacky Jacks...who knew !! I bet those tourists who just happened to be there got a huge shock. I saw on the news that the Pres was chatting w/ diners and shaking hands etc..in this outdoor watering hole. I bet he used the rest room too as turns out he did take the Mobile Bay Ferry across to Fort Morgan. The ferry does have a bathroom but it is a hot metal box about as big as a matchbox and in 100 degree heat...I think one would cook in it.

Locally it seems our road was the only one totally shut down and announced in advance, so the poor people getting off work in town and the people just driving on Beach Hwy all got stuck behind barricades and sat in their cars in 100 degrees for-e-v-e-r.

The Pres is spending the night in Pensacola tonight. I wonder where? I fully expected him to go to one of the nearby military bases. But he didn't. I am so glad he came here and actually saw the water and beaches for himself. Surely to goodness his attention to this matter sends a message to B-P. And also to other oil companies who may have previously taken safety short-cuts.

Photos of oil on our beach

2010-06-13T23:10:00.004-05:00

Took these photos today on West Beach here in Gulf Shores. Really sad. No clean-up in sight when we were there. We were told that some men show up at high tide and remove some oil from the sand manually w/ shovels and then tide goes out after they are gone leaving most of the oil.
Click the photos to see large versions.
Lundy

2009-12-30T17:48:00.001-06:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

SUPER Sick-O Ex-Judge in Mobile on Trial

2009-10-20T22:39:00.004-05:00

Trial of former judge Herman Thomas

It is 'off the scale' horrible what all this sick-sick-sick black judge in Mobile Alabama has been doing to young men in his courtroom for years.

The amazing thing is that the local newspaper there is not even covering this shocking trial.

The smaller little paper "The Lagniappe " has been:
http://www.lagniappemobile.com/articles/2737-what-didnt-happen-in-the-thomas-trial-today

So why is the big old Mobile Register not printing the horrific things that this man has been up to all this time and the details are coming out in court ? What is up with that ?

This man even took advantage of retarded people "The other sodomy charge involved Witness 4, who has an IQ of 55."

Just makes me want to cry.

Night Sky Viewer

2009-10-20T21:57:00.001-05:00

Might work on the blog, might not...

Please enable JAVA^TM to use the Mini-AstroViewer night sky map.

Sky map by AstroViewer^®

Pumpkin Stencils Free

2009-10-20T21:49:00.002-05:00

Free pumpkin carving stencils and templates www.PrintPicnic.com

Ain't Online Shopping Great !

2009-08-04T19:53:00.002-05:00

Just got back from Office Depot up in Foley. I need to print and put together more tile catalogs. I bought what I thought was the right clear plastic pre-punched covers...the photo showed a punched plastic cover...got all the way home, opened them and guess what...they are not punched for the comb binder thingie that holds it all together. I am so mad.

I went back to a place I had ordered my pre-punched paper from before www.mybinding.com and am ordering the correct thing sent right to the door, free shipping and no sales tax. Should have done it in the first place. They have all sorts of do-it-yerself presentation folder and catalog stuff.

Sofa Arrives

2009-08-01T12:11:00.003-05:00

Most amazing thing about the new sofa. Who would have expected deluxe customer service from a Russian guy running a LA, Calif online el-cheap-o furniture store w/ Asian knock-offs of contemporary Italian designs ? The sofa got delivered on 2 pallets all wrapped up like a major mummy. No visible damage to the exterior.

Once I got it upstairs, I could see that a piece of framework had come loose and was showing against the sofa back and was at an odd angle w/ the top of the wood bar pushing against the covering like it could poke a hole over time. Didn't look like something i could fix myself. I called the online store and reported this. Told them I had made photos if they wanted me to send them. They did and I emailed photos. Owner said he'd have someone come by and fix it...like RIGHT...my friends kidded me... "My sister is currently in the Ukraine but the next time she passes thru Lower Alabama I'll have her swing by and fix your sofa."..ho-ho-ho....wrong....my phone rings early next morning and it is a regional "Furniture Medic" who sets up an appointment to be here on Monday.

Can't believe it. Then that afternoon the owner out in LA, CA calls to check to see if someone had contacted me about the repair. WOW--what majorly excellent customer service. I can recommend this online shop...http://www.lafurniturestore.com

The sofa is in 3 pcs. The piece w/ no back can be swiveled around to be grande footrest in front of the sofa for Netflix time. Got to pick up some of those teflon disks at Lowes today to facilitate that happeneing. Eventually want to do casters but will require some leg-engineering.

Custom print fabric on demand

2009-08-01T04:47:00.002-05:00

How cool is this ? Print-on-Demand Fabric
Want to recreate your favorite vintage tea towel or put your own spin on a Liberty of London print? Head to Spoonflower, a Web site that allows users to print their own designs on fabric. Launched last year out of an old sock mill in Mebane, North Carolina, the site has rapidly attracted a crafty fan base of 15,000 users. The process is simple: upload a file (JPG, TIF, or PNG), select from multiple placement options, and check out. Prices range from $5.00 for an 8” x 8” swatch to $32.00 per yard of upholstery-weight cotton sateen, and designs are printed (using eco-friendly, non-toxic pigment inks) within five business days. Textile design veterans and amateurs alike can enter the "Fabric of the Week" contest, which is voted on by fellow Spoonflower users. Winning designs are offered for sale as limited-edition fabrics at Spoonflower’s Etsy shop. I may just upload my tile designs and make sofa pilows to match my floors.

Polypodium leucotomos

2009-08-01T04:18:00.006-05:00

Why is this stuff not more well known ???

I read a little sniplet of info about this extract of a fern from Honduras that prevents you from sunburning in a ladies magazine about a year ago. Then when I was headed to Dominican Republic ill prepared for full-tilt-beach-boogie sunshine I ordered some thru Amazon. Took the capsules as suggested and sho nuf...I used no sunscreen and got zero sunburn out on the Punta Cana full-sun beaches...and we even took a Hobie Cat for a sail. It worked for me. I figured that if Polypodium leucotomos could protect one's skin from the UV rays that maybe it was a better investment to take the pills daily than invest in wrinkle creams and potions.

Originally I bought a product called Heilocare...bright orange capsules. This time I found it for less sold as Sun Pills in yellow packaging. Looked at Rite-Aid and low and behold, they had it and it was on clearance, half off. I bought all they had for $7.50 a package of 30 pills.

When I tell people about this stuff, they roll their eyes. So I did some web searching for facts. Seems several of the biggie Med Journals have published studies and it seems to work both as a topical and a systemic protection agains sun damage.
Here is a full-on real medical study report.

I plan to take it daily for a while....see if I can stop the ravages of old age. Of course, some exercise might help too !

What's that you said ?

2009-07-14T16:23:00.002-05:00

Kinda funny,..http://www.elwp.com/Joe Cocker.swf

Mobile----the IM-port-ANT city

2009-07-13T19:29:00.001-05:00

How could I have missed this video for so long. See what Mobile is all about.

Paper Extravaganza

2009-07-12T15:35:00.004-05:00

Entire city of the future created of paper by hopeful Japanese art student. See photos of it w/ different lighting and close-ups.

Extra seating

2009-07-09T19:03:00.003-05:00

I know it has been ages since I posted to this blog...I feel guilty about it, but you know, of all my time at computer, this made me absolutely zero money....

Trying to decide what to do. Thinking of posting Gulf Shores related posts to http://www.gulf-shores-alabama.net on some new section....that site at least makes a little bit of $ and adding new stuff is a good idea.

Might put the family stuff here...unless it has to do with sharks or something else beachy.

OK--watch this video--very short--very cool...make sure you have Flash installed, it is free, might need shockwave player or something too.

Flux chair from flux chairs on Vimeo.

I think this is a fabo design...can it be adapted for lower setting beach chairs ???...I will ask, and market them !
This chair is great for people in hurricane zone who need to get everything from first floor upstairs really quickly...wonder if it is comfortable...anyone know ???

Headed to Memphis

2009-05-15T21:32:00.002-05:00

I seem to never have time to post to the blog anymore...I sure do look forward to my days returning to a more leisurely pace when I could read about interesting things and share them.

Tomorrow I drive to Memphis. I called to rent a car so I would get better gas mileage than my Trooper but Enterprise was sold out. So I am trooping up to Mempho to see Momma. She has not been doing well and my sister, Lisa has had FULL responsibility to deal w/ her ailments, doctor app'ts, and m,ovingher into the skilled nursing area of The Village at least for now. We have a meeting on Monday aft w/ the staff at The Village to discuss our options.

If we could find someone who wanted to share Momma's cottage and keep an eye on her, that might work, but we dont know who that would be. There are no spots available in Assisted Living and one guy has been waiting 2 months, so Momma would be on the list after him. One optionis for her to get a suite in the Cantubury Court wing, the Alzheimers unit but have the ability to come and go until a assisted living suite becomes available.

We have hidden her car keys and she is furious. I think she is scheming on the phone to somehow get back on the road. Not safe. Not gonna happen.

It is such a shame that she is just now settled into her cottage properly . with the boxes all unpacked and such. We even went out and bought a deciduous holly and dug out the Village ornamental small tree and put her holly in this winter. Now she may not be there to ever see it have berries. At least not out her window. And it was seventy bucks !!!

In all 4 children's opinion she cannot be in charge or her own meds any longer or not have someone in the same building w/ her. Too many falls, too many nights on the floor in blood, etc...

I told here the other day that I could bring her down here, I said well you are miserable up there, you'd just be miserable here...so no big deal !

Tonightis
my sister Cary's son, Harrison's wedding. I am not there. Neither is Momma or Lisa. This health crisis with Momma pre-enpted everyting. I had a plane ticket and was suppose to stay at a nice suite w/ Momma who was goingt to ride up with Stephen. He was going to stay with his son Christopher in Knoxville. I suppose he is stayng w/ Chris but I had to cancel my flight as did Lisa. has been tending to Momma for about 5 days, all day every day...she is exhausted. Momma is unappreciative of her efforts and thinks everyone is ganging up on her. Which is true.

I am so sorry to not be at Harrison's wedding. He is marring a gal named Beth who is in nursing at Vanderbuilt. I think it is a grad degree, i have kinda forgotten, maybe Nurse Practicioner.

Lovely weather here but oh so dry. Need rain like crazy. Thank goodness I have a well and pump at both properties.

I am close to being moved out of Hardwood drive and now need to sell it. The houses on the street are going for about half of what I paid....boo hoo. Not good.

That is all I have time for, Lundy

Wolfram|Alpha-- New search coming...

2009-05-06T08:07:00.003-05:00

Check out the new search method from . You can request that you be added to the small number of beta users.
From Wikipedia:

"Wolfram Alpha will be an answer-engine developed by the international company Wolfram Research. The service will be an online computational data engine based on intuitive query parsing, a large library of algorithms, and A New Kind of Science approach to answering queries. It was announced in March 2009 by British physicist Stephen Wolfram, to be launched in May 2009."

Personally, I am still finding LeapFish to be a great way to search. Everything , well every major search engine at your fingertips and it s lighting fast.

Sunny, humid, windy and no rain

2009-05-03T00:29:00.002-05:00

Good weather for moving...and it is taking over a week. But no rain in so long...weeks...that I am moving hoses a lot. I had to put in French drains and that tore up a big part of the yard and driveway, so had to have tractor level it all after drain work and install 4 pallets of St. Augustine grass. All that has to be watered every day.

It is after midnight and i need to think about getting sleepy...I worked all day at Hardwood going thru clothes. D finish. It is SOOO depressing how fat I have gotten...i started tonight on Major Diet and now that i have 3 flights of stairs, that should help too. I go up and down all day, moving stuff.
Dave and I went to Win-Dixie and Brunos for Fri nite excitement. Found out Bruno's Grocery in Orange Bleach is closing...the parent co has been in reorganization, etc...for a good while. Seems the stores sold out to another co, all but 3 stores and OB Bruno's is one of them. Publix has opened about half a block down...that can't help them.

Made nice free Mothers Day card to print and make, A 3-D flower bouquet that pops-up. Go to http://www.PrintPicnic.com

too tired to type more...

sequential dates

2009-04-05T17:20:00.000-05:00

Barbara Taylor emailed to say:
At five minutes and six seconds after 4 AM on the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be 04:05:06 07/08/09. This will never happen again.

Google's (very good) April Fools Joke

2009-04-01T18:51:00.002-05:00

I always forget and Google always does a spectacular job of doing a April 1 joke...I am busy reading about the new Autopilot feature in Gmail on this page and going "WOW" this is amazing and I finally realize that it is April Fools when I read this:

What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?

Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.

Battery powered beach wheelchair

2009-04-01T18:26:00.002-05:00

My good friend Jerry Nasello has invented and made several very cool power beach wheelchairs that go over all kinds of sand. Jerry designed it after he was diagnosed with ALS during the construction of his and Mary's beach house. Now that Jerry is in a wheel chair full time, this is the only way that he can get out to the beach from his house. He has made extra power beach wheel chairs to rent to vacationers down here. Great idea I think. Have a look

Toothbrush water fountain

2009-03-13T09:31:00.004-05:00

Brush and Rinse...simple concept. Back of toothbrush has engineered curved scoop shape to re-direct a stream of water into your mouth--pre-order for $1.18....later 5 bucks.
Or invest in the co. , buy stock, you might get one free.
Now selling a 5% stake in the Brush & Rinse Intellectual Property (patents). For more information email support@Moq7.com

Meatload Cupcakes

2009-03-13T09:24:00.002-05:00

I think it is a good idea, portion control and all. They look cute, all meatloaf-y w/ mash potato 'icing'. A piece of sundried tomato would look cute on top. Meatloaf Bakery

Best recipe I have found so far is on the little paper fold out label on the big jar of chopped sun dried tomatoes from Costco.

Listening to Webinar

2009-03-10T20:55:00.002-05:00

At this moment I am one of about 300 people logged in to a online seminar called a webinar. Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney) is answering questions about how he makes money online. He has a blog that is visited by about 40,000 individuals each day.

It is a pretty universal topic. Even Martians want to know how to make money online. Jeremey has made a ton of it. A big help to him is that he is a self taught programmer. Lots of the stuff he talks about is edgy. At this point he has made enuf that he can do experiements.

His two posts that have drawn the most traffic are the one where he talks about loosing something like 200 lbs. & shows photos (he got some stomach surgery) and the other one is where he is holding a check from Google for + $132,000 dollars. That photo has been passed around and even used illegally and he has had to get lawyers.

He is a very open and chatty guy.

Look at this one--wildly wonderful

2009-03-07T00:05:00.003-06:00

Sofas,sofas,sofas

2009-03-06T12:52:00.002-06:00

I have looked at a zillion sofas this morning. I was also cleaning up a web page that i made a while back that had links to a lot of Italian leather sofas and knock-offs of Euro style sofas. It was amazing how many dead links there were.

I don't know if it that they closed shop[ of late or if it was just a flash-in-the-pan idea that never really worked out. But a lot of the online modern furniture shops were gone and in their place were pop-ups for garbage. Yuk !

Anyway, the web page is all cleaned up and a lot of images of leather sofas added now.
http://www.scrapbookscrapbook.com/DAC-ART/leather-sofas.html

Green or Blue ?

2009-03-05T21:10:00.006-06:00

Lundy is trying to decide if she should order a lime green (like the green on small sofa in photo) or a sky blue sofa...oh wait, this is not Facebook, I can type in first person...

I have located a semi-circle sectional sofa that comes in leather in good colors. I called LAFurniture (Not Lower Alabama, but the other LA) and asked about getting swatches. They came today. I got 3. Each one is aprox. 1/2 in. x 1/2 in. ...no kidding. Much smaller than a postage stamp. Smurf size. But I can see the colors OK.
The blue is about like the blue on the sofa here minus the deeper blue on the loose pillows. The green like the green on the little sofa.

Of the 3 they sent me 2 are great. This makes it hard to decide. One is the exact shade of the lighter blue in the tile floor and the other is a wonderful rich deep lime green. The blue would be very serene and matchy-matchy. The lime would really pop, but is that a good thing ? I mean it would REALLY pop, and a semi-circle sofa is gonna be attention grabbing no matter what color it is.

I have my momma's old sofa here but since I think I am going to try to rent out the Hardwood Dr house as a bed and sorta-breakfast, I will need it here. Plus it is very traditionally styled sofa and would require that I use other furniture in the new living room whereas this awesome sofa will be all I need.

I have been doing deep web searches and the same sofa seems to be imported by several different people. Prices are usually similar. All of them are on west coast, I have been looking for someone on east coast that imports it. No luck so far.

Sky Blue or Deep Lime Green ?

Who has time for all this

2009-03-01T22:56:00.002-06:00

Between Facebook, emails, multiple email accounts, and all the rest...I just can't keep up w/ Twitter, and LinkedIn, Alibaba, Hi5, and the rest...and besides, catch this interesting bit of news:

Matthew and Michelle Reed, along with their 2-year-old son and newborn baby boy, are the first of what could be a stream of people to move to Dothan under a program that offers Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate and get involved with the city's only synagogue, Temple Emanu-El.

A family that's been part of the reform congregation for decades funded the $1 million resettlement program and launched it last year, fearing the congregation would dwindle and die without an infusion of new blood.

With one new family already in the fold, and hundreds of others expressing interest, the goal is to bring as many as 19 more Jewish families to this mostly Christian town of 58,000 in rural southeast Alabama over the next five years. AP Article

Mardi Gras Parades

2009-02-25T07:30:00.007-06:00

Yesterday afternoon was fun. I skipped the morning parade in Gulf Shores but went to the Orange Beach parade. I was at Silver Beach Condos to take photos of the snowbirds and the party given by Picard Rentals for their website. Once back here, I edited 90 photos last night !! But now they are ready to add to their site today. Picard had a cook-out in the parking lot, fun and games before the parade started.
Today is suppose to go up to 70 degrees---yeah !!

My friends at Picard Rentals climb up on the balcony over the elevator lobby and throw fancy beads and surprises during their snowbird (old folks from the north who rent during winter) party and before the parade comes by.

Down here Mardi Gras is a family event and the local churches all have floats. Everybody but the Baptists that is.

The guy by the orange float is my very good friend Mark Berson who is pres. of the Chamber here. The float had a big shrimp in the front but i didn't get a good photo of it.

Back from Parades

2009-02-24T16:48:00.003-06:00

I didn't see the Gulf Shores parade but I did see the Orange beach parade up close. I took a lot of photos. I didn't want to ride on the Chamber float this year...you have to be there at something terrible like 7 a.m. and it was 37 degrees at 7 a.m.
This afternoon it was nice and warm, total sunshine. Perfect day for a parade.
I took a bunch of photos of the Snowbird parking lot party for Picard Rentals.

Happy Mardi Gras !

2009-02-24T10:37:00.002-06:00

Today is Fat Tuesday...school is out and parades are all day, even a boat parade later on today. It is gonna be 60 degrees and sunny. I am wearing long-johns under my jeans.
TTFN

I think he can do it

2009-02-17T19:42:00.003-06:00

One of these days I think I will try to hire this guy to get my life organized:
Create a Perfect World w/ Cool and Innovative Ideas

Send Valentines

2009-02-03T21:38:00.003-06:00

Well, Valentines Day is your chance to make amends to all the people who send you Xmas cards every year and you don't send cards to and also to contact all the old friends that you wish you had time to keep up with. Heather and I have made these great Valentines for you to print for free....we put them all on PrintPicnic. See www.PrintPicnic.com free printable Valentines.
Grab a pair of scissors an some double stick tape and you can make them 3-D.

Speaking of 3-D, did you hve your 3-D glasses for Superbowl Ads ? Also for that insipid so-called-comedy "Chuck" that was broadcast in 3-D the next night ?
I am all about 3-D, I love it, but pleeeeese, give me Masterpiece Theater" or 'My Name is Earl" in 3-D , not that stupid show "Chuck".

I think ALL tv should be in 3-D.

Well, new topic, now my 'ring' finger on my right hand is becoming a 'trigger finger' ...holy cow. I sure can't afford surgery on another finger. Why am I getting trigger fingers one after another ?

I read up on it online, am taking Ibuprofen and changing up hands from how I usually use them,,,,doing right handed stuff with left hand and vice versa. Do you have a backwards keyboard I could borrow? Oh wait, I'd need to move all the plastic keys around for that to work. I think. Anyway, Mayo Clinic says to sleep in a finger brace...fortunately I still have some bailing wire to make one. It also says to go get a shot in your joint...I might do that if I can find a hand doc that I have confidence in. My thumb surgeon retired right after my case. Right now I have no time to go traipsing off to big cities in search of hand specialists. If I am going to do that, I need Botox specialist in the worst kind of way. This has been a big time wrinkle year for me. Boo Hoo. I suppose one has these plateaus and then,,,whamo--Grand Canyon....this has been a G.C. year for me.

BUT...dear friends of mine have way worse problems than wrinkles...so I have a lot to be thankful for.

Fool the Eye

2009-01-23T08:28:00.003-06:00

This clever 2 Gig flash drive from www.wishingfish.com looks like a severed USP cord. Cute.

Home Inspectors are Pessimists

2009-01-22T20:10:00.002-06:00

We got back the inspection report on Momma and Daddy's house...you would not want to live there. According to the inspection report, this moldy, termite damaged, leaky, shack is about to collapse. Well, maybe not collapse right away, but certainly over time. Boo hoo....we will have to see what happens. The buyers have asked for a contract extension to recover from their shock. This is a hopeful thing...if they wanted to walk away , they could.

I am hopeful that they will submit an amended contract, asking for a fix-it-up allowance...maybe their son-in-law is Norm Abrams. Who knows.

I just realized that I have these very dark hinges on all the doors in the new house and that is a mistake. They look like holes in the wall from across the room. Oh well...I suppose I will white-wash them eventually. I have been over there white-washing ceiling panels today. There are TONS to so. I get them done 10 at a time and then I have to take a break.

We still have a leak under the first floor bathroom...water had run out into the hallway today. We shut the water to the whole house off until our plumber can get back to tend to it. I talked to him yesterday, his son broke his leg and he is in the hospital to have tests run for this critical high blood pressure thing that has been going on for a while.

It has just been work-work-work since I got back from Mempho. My bookkeeper people want all this info in preperation of taxes and making W-2's and all that. Plus my tile shave been specified for the restaurant floor in a Golf Club house in the Miami area...yeah ! But I have gotten a ton of emails and phone calls from contractors who are bidding on this project. Dasve has helped me tons, I have had to quickly make up all sorts of contractor, designer, architect and distributor price lists. Dave is good on Excell so he is making me all these charts. I als o got a good call from CA about the tile today, someone who presents 'new' products to architects and designers once a month. I wish I had some time right now to do some promotion of the tile....hopeflly soon. I want the tile to be my main gig.

I submitted a huge list of domains to the folks running a big domain auction at the end of this month. Out of about 50 they chose one to be in the auction...giftwrapping.org
Hope it sells for enuf to pay my domain costs for the whole list.

Big news around here is this guy who was flying his private plane and called in w/ engine trouble and then jumped from his plane and parachuted down safely. His plane was on auto-pilot but ran out of gas north of Pensacola and crashed. Thankfully it did not kill people on the ground. He was arrested at a Tampa campground. He screwed up becasue when he called in engine trouble, the ground control sent up military planes to have a look ( there are tons of bases around here !) and they saw the plane flying along pilot-less with the door standing open !! I think he miss-calculated and maybe meant to let the plane go down in the Gulf...oh well...now probably his (almost former) wife is stuck w/ the plane monthly note and no insurance money for the demolished plane and a husband in jail. Bummer...

Was cold as 'up North' here for last few days but is suppose to be in 70's next couple days. Yeah...

Inaragaral Day

2009-01-20T10:12:00.003-06:00

Pretty sunny, but way chilly day here.

I need to design a contemporary bed frame that my carpenter or Dave can build out of ordinary wood. I want a sloped headboard for coffee and reading in bed. For TV watching too. But upright for reading like newspapers. I have just never understood why people would want a vertical headboard. Anyway, I figure that I can make a wood frame one and use a staple gun and some batting and vinyl or upholstery fabric and do a quickie cover-up over wood frame. I need legs on it too to set mattress/box springs (maybe as that is not really necessary but I already have a normal king set) on. I could do legs that show or legs that get covered w/ box pleat or mini-pleat bedskirt. I kinda like the look of the crushed pleat fabric on bedskirts...Fortneroy (sp?) style. I also like Hula grass skirt raffia, but I guess that is for another bedroom !

I also like up in air exposed legs but bed is heavy and it takes some serious legs. Maybe bro. Stephen can weld some creative legs for me.

We made a bed frame in Memphis once using milk cartons on the four corners. Plywood under mattress. Made navy blue bedskirt to cover all of it. Used it 25 years.

I have to go out and buy a disposal this a.m. I think someone stole mine....Ahrrrrr.....
Dave, Dan and I , have already spent too many hours looking for it, if I find it (not likely) I'll give it for a Xmas present.... :o)

Glad I am not in Washington DC today !!! On TV it looks like Gandhi's funeral. I can't imagine looking for a porta-potty or keeping warm or getting in the traffic. I do wish I was there w/ a couple cases of knit hats to sell tho !!! Enterprising people would have gone to fabric stores and bought up all the marked down polar fleece and quickly chopped out thousands of scarfs and be selling them. That stuff is light weight to carry around. I'll be glad when my house is done and I make a lot of money on tile or something and I can quit thinking like this !!!

Momma got a contract on her old house while I was in Memphis. First contract to have come on the house.

Got call from Momma's real estate agent...house inspection yest. turned up bad termite damage under house. She has a termite co contract, but the fine print can give them loopholes. New potential buyers are spooked, I am told. Our agent is on top of it and doing everything possible to make this sale work. She needs to unload that house asap...on market 2 years, priced from 800,000 now down to 500,000 in the totally stagnant Memphis market--the nations capitol of bankruptcies. No lie.

We need to sell that house. There is also $400+ monthly utility bills, taxes, insurance, satellite connected burglar alarm, yardman, ...huge burden. And risk.

And speaking of Stephen...he now as a patent on a clever bug, slug, ant proof dog bowl. A project he has been working on for some time. You just never know what the Pridgen kids are up to. Did you know that Lisa and Henry went to Africa few months ago? Can you imagine Lisa in Africa ?? I have not seen the photos yet, but they went on a mission trip for church planting w/ local pastors.

I am off to buy a disposer and white thinset to do a trial of the mosaic countertop idea that i have.

Memphis in the Meantime

2009-01-13T21:48:00.004-06:00

Today was sunny and chilly. Momma and I spent most of the day at Dr office, errands, getting prescriptions, buying her a deciduous holly to plant here at Village of G'town, etc...she has yard man lined up to come tomorrow and secretly dig out the Village planted smoke tree that she hates and plant the holly we bought at Dan West's. She and I also loaded (I loaded) the loose bricks at the old home driveway edge to be used to widen the narrow driveway here at the Village. Momma's faithful yardman, Man, will do the digging. I will do the supervising. I am sick of getting out of my wide car into a squishy flowerbed every time I come to see her. They scrimped on pavement. We will fix it. Much easier to say "I'm sorry" to the admin. for unauthorized landscaping than to get permission.

Turns out she has some pneumonia in her left lung. She has a 1 week round of antimicrobial. Doc didnt want to start her on anything else, like maybe Wellbutrin for depression right now, one thing at a time. The doc was nice and friendly and really did not want to hear about 3 complaints in what was suppose to be a follow-up visit from some recent past ailment, but turned out to be a 3 new separate complaint visit. I had to verbally snag him as he tried to escape. Whoa Doc, we have only covered 2 points, come back and have a seat.

She was amazed that he sorta, no make that completely, brushed off the hot-flash--night sweats complaint. He also brushed off the IBS complaint and said she should see a specialist about it or my cousin Dr. Skip Pridgen in Tuscaloosa. I told him that she needed one dr that could oversee all of it, not different docs in different states when it would be mostly her by herself consulting them or him. He still would not address the IBS issues.

She thinks she picked up the cough and pneumonia in the visit to emergency room about 10 days ago..who knows, maybe so, but she has been coughing for a couple years but can or will only remember coughing for last 10 days. If what I tell the doc doesn't match what she has already decided, she tells us both to hush-up. She coughs much worse when eating or drinking...bad sign.

Looks like there is an accepted contract on Momma's Freeman Oaks house subject to the house inspection. That should happen this week, so she should know something by Monday. I asked Ward W. to pls call me or one of the other kids w/ all details as Mom tends to get things confused and he will not pick up on it at first, maybe. She is a great faker...speaks with tons of authority I told him. He understands.

We had dinner in the cafe here. Momma told me bluntly that I was not dressed properly for the dining room. I thought I looked jes fine.

We were on our way walking to the Cafe (across the hall from dining room) when I saw Ruth Morrow walking to dinner. Ruth was wearing hose, black kid pumps and a smart black and white 2 piece wool suit with a classic bowed silk blouse. She had matching clutch and perfectly coifed hair (as she has had every day of her entire life) . I asked her if she had been somewhere important today...no, she was simply dressed for dinner.

We had a good supper in the cafe at a table with mom's friends Charlene Mattingly, Dorothy ?, (me and Momma). They had a very lively and laughter-filled conversation which included news, gossip, reminiscing, and scrambled facts. It was a hoot. They all speak w/ great authority on all subjects. The word 'proper' comes up now and again...as in "proper upbringing" , done in the "proper manner", "done properly". It is not said in an snooty uppity way necessarily, just a pronouncement that something has been done in a way they approve of, not in a casual, sloppy, or sinful way.

Folks, this is the end of an era.

I tried to imagine what an upscale retirement home would be like for me and my friends...I think take-out and to-the-door delivery would have a bigger emphasis. Maybe more live music, maybe more experimental opportunities. I don't know tho...maybe when the marbles start to roll around a bit , we'll be just like the group here. But I think there will be a lot less stockings and hosiery.

News from Memphis

2009-01-12T20:48:00.003-06:00

They have cold winters up here ! So far, not so bad, but it is suppose to get r-e-a-l-l-y cold later this week. Luckily I brought ear muffs and gloves and my $10 Walgreens fluffy muffler/scarf.

Today Momma and I went to W-M and several stops, plus app't at PT for first visit. It was mostly an evaluation but she sent Mom home with a page of 6 exercises that I am just about sure that momma will do at most once or twice at most if left to her own devices. She is suppose to go back for several twice a week sessions at Campbell Clinic's (big Mempho ortho group) PT dept. A super tall beautiful blonde girl with a nice Southern double name did the strength evaluation on Mom. When asked if she ever fell or had balance issues, Mom was all smiles as she reported, Why no, she is just fine, maybe a little weak, but otherwise fine. On the side, I was doing hand motions of person collapsing on the horizontal.

That adorable Geary Irwin took us to lunch at the Mexican rest. in the OakHall shop ctr on Poplar. We met Geary there and had a great visit. She is amazing. About a size 2 still, cute as can be and 85 yrs old. She has this swingy whiter hair and a bounce in her step and still works 2 or 3 days a week at The Pink Palace gift shop. Her mind works at 150 mph still and she is so witty and sharp. I love spending time with her, a great role model.
All 3 of us ordered the mushroom and black bean quesadillias. I asked for extra fresh chopped cilantro. I would have to rate them as so-so. Not bad, but certainly not divine or inspired. There are great cooking shows on TV 27/7 now....why don't all restaurants aspire to great heights w/ seasonings, crispness, freshness, etc...I just don't get it.

Tomorrow Momma has an app't w/ an internist, Michael Pruitt. She likes him. I know him from way back. She is seeing him about several things, one being her persistent cough. I think she is aspirating. She thinks she picked up something in the emergency room last weekend. She seems to forget that she has had a cough for last couple years. Daddy had a big problem w/ the food going down the wrong pipe thing , as did Mr. Kaestle, a friend of mine who died of old age. Unfortunately other than making all your food have the consistency of goop, so it slides down in one blob, I dont think there is much they can do for the swallowing thing. We used to tell Daddy to swallow w/ his head tucked down, chin to chest, because the therapist told us to tell him that. But I tried it recently, and it is uncomfortable and takes the fun out of eating. Daddy almost never did it, and she prob won't either.

Momma got an offer on the old house today...The agent, Stepehn's friend Ward Walthaul (sp?) brought a contract. Trouble is that the amount offered is not enuf for her to pay off the mortgage she took to move to Village of G'town, so I don't know. She signed it but later Cary called and said that Herbert said not to. But it may be too late and a done deal. I was there and she signed it (I didn't know how much her loan was and the details of all that). I was just glad to think that finally it might be sold, her taxes are huge, ins, upkeep, etc...The buyers also want a home inspection and they can walk away if they don't like what they hear. So it is not for sure but one good thing is that they do not have to sell a house to buy hers.

Momma has been really weepy and it is no surprise, this was her first Xmas w/out Daddy, their anniversary was Dec. 30 and now the finality of (maybe) finally selling the home. I told her this was very normal. I was sad the day I closed on Miller's condo. Also same thing when I sold the VW Thing that Miller and I had bought together. I knew it was best to sell them but still was sad over the whole situation.

I am in the library of Village of G'town and ready for a cold beer. So I am ending and heading back to the cottage. Besides, Momma got me a cute 20 dollar dress at W-M today and I want to try it on. Guess whenever I get around my sister Lisa I get real fashioned minded :o)

Family News

2009-01-06T20:50:00.003-06:00

Momma is not doing so well. She had a minor wreck on Friday and I talked to her Fri night and she sounded fine. Turns out that she got up to go to bathroom that night and never got off the potty.
The security guy at The Village found her on the floor late Sat. She was bleding from hitting her elbow.
(There is a pull cord right by the potty in Momma's bathroom but she didn't use it. )

They called Cary in K'ville who in turn called Lisa who is skiing in CO, so Cary got Daddy's sister and her husband to go see about her and they took Momma to hospital. When Cary called hospital Sat morning she found out that Mom was back home, she had called a cab at 4 a.m. to take her home !!!!
Now she is too weak to do much. We don't know why. But, i remembered the shots that she got in her back vertebra a week or two ago and wondered if there might be a connection.

Stephen drove up Sunday and fixed her food and did stuff for her. He went back to be at work on Monday and Cary along w/ Frances drove over from K'ville on Monday. Today they took Mom's car to repair place and tomorrow they have an app't w/ the Campbell's Clinic Dr. who did the back shots.

I know that Momma has just really gotten all settled into her 2 Bd Rm cottage but she may have to move to the apt. part of Village of G'town if that is a higher level of assistance. We are looking into all that now.
This was Momma's first Xmas w/out Daddy and their anniversary is Dec 30th, they were married something like 56 years. She was really 'down' over Christmas, understandably.
My plan right now is to go up to see her on Sat. I'm planning to stay for 4 or 5 days then really do need to get back here to get this house finished.

Cary told me today that their good friend, the mayor of K'ville, Bill Haslam is running for Governor of TN and the paper announced it today and said Herbert, her husband is going to be his finance manager.

The mayor named longtime friend and Knoxville lawyer Herbert Slatery as his campaign treasurer, with Nashville consultant Kim Kaegi to serve as fundraising coordinator.

His family owns the Pilot Truck Stops and gas stations. Sometimes Cary flies to Memphis for the day when there is an extra seat on the Pilot jet.

Today I whitewashed tons of components for the coffered ceiling that goes in the Lv/Kit area. I have a ton more to do...prob all day tomorrow and then some.

All for now...

One of these days I will return...

2009-01-05T22:21:00.003-06:00

to blogging about useful and cool things.

Meanwhile, I am overwhelmed with stuff to do. We got the Cert. of Occupancy on the house before the end of 2008 which was our goal. But there is tons-tons-tons left to do. Some of it can wait, but some of it, must be done now. One of those now things is the Cuban ceiling effect in the main bedroom. The ceiling is 20+ feet tall. We have scaffolding set up in there now, on top of the fabo tile floor and it is so tall, I am scared to climb up to the top. I want that ceiling primed, painted and outfitted with little strips of wood before I move in. The room is so big and so concrete that the echo is unreal. I am not kidding....you cant even stand in there and talk face to face with anyone. The wood ceiling effect should help.

Also, I realized that the house basically has no closets. Ted often overlooks closets when drawing plans, He just says to get some armories. So I looked on ebay and low and behold, the same folks that I bought the fancy sideboard from way back in 2002 had these two incredible Italian gigantic armories for sale. One is mahogany and one is walnut but they are very similar. Both have 3 mirrored doors each and fancy-pants carving on top. I made him an offer on both of them together and he took it. One is in N.Y. and the other is still in Italy and has to be brought over.

The thing is, I got these huge antique armories for less than the construction cost of trying to make closets somewhere in the house and they will be a lot more fun to look at. It wil be several months before they arrive.

My tile biz is keeping me really busy too. Since all the tile is custom made for each order, you end up talking to the clients a lot usually. One couple drive over from Waveland, Miss to see my tile floors this past weekend. Really nice people. They travel a lot and love these floors from Argentina visits.

But my real big deal is making the reproduction tile for an important Los Angeles landmark that has been 20 years in the process of deciding what to do with the historic property. The total order is over 10,000 tile. But the hard part is the tile have to be exactly like the 1920 tile which is no longer made in this country. And every step has to be approved by a whole panel of board members and historical society folks. We have to have custom molds made and lots of strike-offs sent via air freight to California for approval. Lots of little twists and turns to this big job but will be a real feather in my cap in the end.

I think I am going to Memphis to spend some time w/ Momma this weekend. It has been a while since I was there. Almost a year. She has been really understanding about the house project taking all my time, and Cary has been really good about going to see here several times this year.

Snorkeling in Canada

2009-01-04T19:03:00.001-06:00

Alcohol may have been involved...

Wall Stickers are BIG

2009-01-04T15:46:00.002-06:00

I see more and more brands of wall stickers and removable wall decor including 3D Clock Art. I have put together a list of many of brands and suppliers of removable wall stickers.
These are great for people in apartments, dorms, or anyone who wants a quick shot of color in their life. The wall words can be inspiring until you get so used to looking at them that you forget they are there. Then it is time for new wall words.

And speaking of 3D, I can't wait till the Superbowl halftime show in 3D. I have my glasses ready.

Suddenly It's Christmas

2008-12-24T21:16:00.000-06:00

Weird weather

2008-12-10T08:04:00.003-06:00

I am siting here using the computer, expecting to lose power at any moment...TV says big storm headed to me w/ rain, hail and 60 Miles per Hour Wind !!! Sixty Miles per Hour !!! Holy Guacamole. This is way stronger than a tropical storm, I think hurricane starts at 60 mph.

update;;weatherman wrong as usual. storm not so bad and center already past us. but it looks like another one is over New Orleans now and headed here later today.

New Cement Tile Floor

2008-12-08T17:34:00.003-06:00

Click photos for bigger view.

We started work on the tile floors this past weekend. Very exciting to see this finally happening. Our Mexican crew, headed by Roy, started laying bathrooms on Sunday. Today the big living/kitchen area got started. The name of the tile in the Lv/Kit is Surf "Agua" . It comes in other color schemes too.

The tile have all been crammed into a storage container on the property and they weigh so much that it has been next to impossible to locate individual patterns to send to people as samples and such. Now I will have some room in there to find stuff.

Short Christmas List

2008-11-26T17:08:00.004-06:00

One thing, here it is:
Well, two things, I'd like 2 of these for new living room. In leather por favor. Check w/ me about color. Maybe a pale blue.

They'd be perfect w/ the floor in there.

The Peel

Best Turkey Ever

2008-11-21T18:19:00.002-06:00

The recipe that I think makes the best ever T'day turkey was first in House Beautiful about 20 yrs ago. This is a recipe from Gene Hovis--Uptown down Home Cookbook.

Gene Hovis was a black man from the Carolinas originally and made it to top social circles in New York by way of food. His obit is here in NYT

It is the best turkey I know of.

Marinate is :
2 cups soy sauce
2 bay leaves crushed
6 juniper berries ( I have some nice ones from Penseys Spice)
1 tbs. dried rosemary crushed
1 cup sherry vinegar
1 cup white wine
1 cup honey
fresh ground pepper
1 tbs poultry seasoning
1 lg onion chopped
3 or more cloves garlic crushed or minced

Combine all marinate ingred. in lg saucepan and bring to boil for 5 min, cool.

and I marinate it in a big cooking bag tied up tight around it and placed in a big bowl so I can rotate it over a day or two. Marinate at least 24 hrs, rotating bird.

Remove from marinate and let reach room temp.
preheat over 350 F
Pat bird dry and rub w/ butter and peanut oil (or whatever you have )

ROAST UPSIDE DOWN 15 min to the lb.
For last 45 min, turn bird right side up.
If starts getting too dark make AL foil tent.

Let rest 30 min B4 cutting.

Now since I love the marinate, I pour it back in the pan for roasting and let it mix w/ bird juices.

It cooks up w/ dark skin mostly due to the marinate but also the honey browns to dark.

I use some big meat forks that I got from some mail order catalog to flip that hot bird, but to be safe and not scald one's self, if it is a big turkey, man-power is called for here.

Couple of Quick Things

2008-11-16T20:13:00.002-06:00

1. Tell any school teacher that you care about to sign up for www.donorschoose.org because if Google does what it did last year (and Yahoo the year before) they send out thousands of Xmas gifts where the receiver gets to go to this site and fund a school teacher's project for $100.

2. If you use your camera to review and delete images off your camera's data card (SD, etc) one at a time while it is still storing the remaining images on the card, you shorten the life of the card. I read this on Photo.net or PC World or some reliable source, can't remember where but it was recently.

3. If you have any extra rechargable camera batteries do not store them uncharged. The life of the battery is longest if you full charge it and then store it. The charge will dwindle over time, but the battery will take more charges and last longer than if you stored it uncharged. Seems weird, but the last I bought had this warning with it.

November Notes

2008-11-16T18:33:00.005-06:00

I am sorry that I have no time to add amusing stuff to this blog anymore...maybe this time next year.
Evey moment of my waking time is needed for stuff I have to do.
Today is Sunday and I used a hose attachment to squirt water on the exterior of the new house as high as possible to see if there are any skipped or missed places in the waterproofing sealant...there are. I would wet an area dn then take a photo really fast before it evaporated. I can reference the photos tomorrow spraying from the man-lift as we have one more day before it is picked up by the rental company.,

We had it for 2 months this time, I probably should have bought one !

I think I have sold the crane..YEAH !! One of the equipment listing companies that is used to large dealers listing their stuff for sale, Equipment Trader, or maybe it is Machinery Trader, anyway, the first listing is free. I only needed one. They had something like 22 pieces of equip. in my category (rough terrain crane) but I got a call the first day. I have only had one call but it is a good one. They have my bank info and are suppose to transfer the money in and send a trucking co to pick it up after I see the $ in the bank. The fellow who works at this Wichita, KS equip. dealer is real nice and has sent me photos of his lake house that he has been working on for some time now. He calls it a lake 'cabin' but that is like Villa Lagoon being a concrete 'cottage' . Anyway--I will be ck'ing online to see if the funds are deposited a couple times a day starting tomorrow.
It is a wonderful thing to sell the crane in this market. Someone told me on Fri that people they know were going to Louisiana to buy heavy equipment at an auction since it is all selling so cheap right now.

Today I placed a bid on a kitchen sink on ebay. About half of what the kitchen supply places sell it for. It only comes in 3 colors so I will buy the white speckled one. I like the black but it would be the only black thing in the kitchen and would look odd. Speaking of kitchen, Valerie and Billy of J and J Custom Woodworking are making my curvy kitchen cabinets and curvy island. I have to figure out about countertops. We cannot get the Cert. of Occupancy inspection w/ out the sink being set. The inspectors are being real nice about working with us to let us know exactly what HAS to be done and what we can let slide till we get to it. We HAVE to have our CO by Dec. 31 st and everyone knows how Gov't offices basiclaly shut down in Dec. (ever had a court date in Dec,... prob not).
I went to look at some huge quartzite slabs in the Summerdale/Robertsdale area that were suppose to be aqua blue-ish. They were not, they were grey-ish. Two that matched were basically grey streaks and one odd one did have blue in it, but the blue was dark cobalt specks, like milky way streaks and not the turquoise color I had hoped for. Besides, I couldnt afford it anyway.
So now I am leaning towards using my solid color cement tiles on the counter tops. Trouble is that I do not have time to order them special for my job and I will have to use some that are suppose to go on the floor.

Aaron (our carpenter) has finished my sturdy wood storage ranks for my tile samples in the basement, so I will begin digging thru the tile in the container tomorrow. I need to make room for a sample ordeer that will be delivered in next few weeks and it will be a huge help to be able to grab samples and pop themin the mail w/out digging. Th etil eis so incredibly heavy that is is on eay task to find what you are looking fo rin the storage container.

The 'sheetrockers' have started, they got the main bedoorm ceiling started on Fri. and they want to be fisnihed on Tues. so I have to be there all day to do stuff like sprinkl;e a line of boric acid powder in the area between the interior walls as they work. I also want to try to foam insulate the wall of the laundry room and hall to living room, for noise sake. Working w/ my magnesium oxide wallboard is not easy. It doesnt score and break like gypsumboard and they have to use screws instead of nails. We had to hire commercial rather than residential crews for it.

OK--now time for me to edit a bunch of photos and get them up on www.ConcreteCottage.com tonight.

Did see an excellent film the other night. The Counterfeiters, aka Der Fälscher. Had some Russian it it, also German, English, Hebrew w/ subtitles. Dave was translating the Russian parts. True story--"Stefan Ruzowitzky’s stark and intriguing evocation of a largely unknown area of Second World War German history: the use of skilled prisoners to create counterfeit currency for Operation Bernhard, a plan to flood the British and American economies with fake cash". Pretty sad movie, made me cry a couple times. If I taught school it is one of those films that I would show my history students.

OK--got to get busy--if you want to see more of what is going on here, take a look at www.ConcreteCottage.com as that is where most of my 'web' time goes.

DR Photos

2008-10-21T21:17:00.008-05:00

A funny sign at a local gym on the road between Santo Domingo and Punta Cana .

Photos from the tile factory and some installations of their product.

A link to Villa Lagoon Tile is good to place here !
Now photos of Santo Domingo that I took the first day.

We stayed at a lovely all inclusive place in Punta Cana. Some of these photos are from Santo Domingo, I'll put those first. The coast all along Santo Domingo has rocky coral inlets and little caves. The water makes a big splash in some of them.

These photos are from restaurant of typical food and fun music and dancing. The walls has photos of Pres. Carter eating there and others of Brandgalina. Matt Damon too.

We were invited to a fabo luncheon at the home of our host's parents. The tables were set in a small tent on the front yard that faces the Caribbean. The food was, hands down, the best we had on the trip.

Got to visit an architect's weekend home whihc is this incredible three story tree house in palms on the beach.

more from the DR

2008-10-20T19:01:00.002-05:00

internet still difficult. big resort but some of the biz center's computers don't work properly, we show up forgetting the tiny slip of paper w/ our 24 minutes of access code , so just one thing afer another..so only answering urgent email. The beach is fabulous, there are a bunch of Russians here. It is a fam trip to get a bunch of Russian travel agents excited about sending vacationers here I suppose. They dont smile much and they dont communicate at all w/ us. Today we saw people from Korea, and a lot of German speaking people. Last night we had dinner in the reservation only japanese restaurant. definately not Benihana , was kinda funny actually....food mediocre at best. this huge AI resort (all inclusive) is owned by a Spanish an and the food is basically without seasoning, which is what I experienced in Spain.
hese places are located in an area where all there is are huge AI rsorts..so wandering about looking for local estaurants is not much of an option. but the architecture is incredible and the showershave tons of hot water. I have made friends w/ folks here to get back in touch w/ afer I return and do tile biz and after all, this is what I came for, that and to photo cement tile installations. So i am a happy camper. And no tummy upsets at all, so this is wonderful...

Dominican Republic

2008-10-19T18:36:00.002-05:00

Great trip...have seen a lot of very nice tile installations and taken a lot of photos. Our little group of tile showroom owners and interior designers is a super group of folks. We are on our own now at this HUGE all-inclusive resort. I have about 2 more days. I was all scared of coming here before I came , from reading forums, mostly at www.dr1.com but so far, it is wonderful. I'd come back in a heartbeat. Of course, it helps that I am hob-nobbing with the elite here !! A fabo lawn party on the coast was just the best. I took a ton of photos but will have to wait to get home to upload them.

I have taken a lot of photos of great tile installations in ancient and new construction for the website and established much better biz relationships for obtaining and selling my tile.

I see numerous trips to the DR in my future !!!

Greetings from the Dominican Republic

2008-10-16T15:54:00.004-05:00

Trip went fine getting here. Airports are never fun but it wasn't too bad. Nice hotel right smack dab in the center of a 3 million people city...Santo Domingo. I am going to try to upload some photos if the hotel will let me use my USB thumb drive in their computer. Later on I may pay for the 24 hrs of wireless, but I have not yet. Wasnt sure I had brought my laptop power cord, buty found it this afternoon. Anyway, everything great here so far. Lots of horn honking. Reminds me of Jerusalem in that respect.
Tonight is the tile company cocktail reception. Slept late and then had a big breakfast at the hotel buffet and omlet bar, lots of tropical fruit. Then walked around mostly along the shoreline drive. Then to the pool for some reading and short nap, now in the business center. This hotel is great. Hotel Santa Domingo.
Climate here is about like Gulf Shores when we left town. Warm sunny days, cooler nights, humidity like Alabama. Friendly people so far.

Well it does not seem to recognize the USB port, so I guess it is disabled. No photos till later.

Now on different computer, accepted the flash drive. They have these humongous lanterns hanging in the lobby area of the hotel. I mean these lanterns are about maybe 10 ft tall. GIANT...

Carlos Santana's Next (possible) Career

2008-10-06T09:04:00.002-05:00

...on Friday the rocker said he sees himself one day heading up a church in Hawaii..."I'm going to stop playing when I'm 67 and work on what I really want to do, which is to be a minister, like Little Richard," he said to Rolling Stone.

"I'm not sick of what I do, but I find that God gave me the gift of communication even without my guitar and with the ability to get people unstuck with certain sections of the Bible having to do with guilt, shame, judgment and fear." Read more...

Adorable, smart beagle dog

2008-10-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Sure makes me want a doggie.

Bon Secour Auction

2008-10-03T08:30:00.005-05:00

Big bankruptcy , big auction. Bon Secour Village here on the Intercoastal Waterway...first photo is the proposed marina part of this huge development that was even to have public schools located inside. Second photo is what the marina looks like now. Bon Secour Village Auction

Curved Cornice is Up

2008-10-03T08:10:00.004-05:00

Cornice is in place and getting last back-fill today. DAC-ART steps are almost complete on the south side. The area over the central panels lacks the decorative effects.

Redneck Fire Alarm

2008-09-30T19:22:00.002-05:00

Thanks Marti for this clever idea. It looks lovely in your home.

Ship wreck

2008-09-23T16:57:00.005-05:00

After these last 3 or 4 hurricanes in the vicinity, this old ship was tossed ashore. People said they saw it back in 1997 and has made occasional appearances over the years. Now it is a big attraction on Ft. Morgan beach, just down the road from me. It is located between mile markers 5 and 6.

And it is way longer than it looked on TV and in the newspaper.

The boat had burned to the water level and what you see now is the part that was underwater still very much intact, blops of hardened molten metal and lots of charcoal where the fire was.

Doesn't this look like a one of the spooky ships from the Pirates of Caribbean movie ?

Funny Cake

2008-09-22T10:36:00.004-05:00

Okay so this is how I imagine this conversation went:

Walmart Employee: 'Hello, Walmarts, how can I help you?'

Customer: ' I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week.'

Walmart Employee: 'What you want on the cake?'

Customer: 'Best Wishes Suzanne' and underneath that 'We will miss you'.

from my niece, thanks Frances

Papercraft

2008-09-20T10:34:00.003-05:00

A bunch of very well done paper models from all over the world you can print and construct.

Funny Quote.

2008-09-18T21:54:00.000-05:00

Google quote of the day...

Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God's final word on where your lips end.
- Jerry Seinfeld

Kashi Pizza

2008-09-17T14:32:00.004-05:00

Well would you look at this roasted veggie pizza ! Usually the Kashi brand is really good about having an actual product that not only tastes great but that looks like the image on the package. They are blowing it totally here. I threw on about a cup of sliced mushrooms and onions and cooked it anyway.

The top photo is the back of the box. GET REAL KASHI !!

Mid Sept Report

2008-09-17T14:32:00.002-05:00

Today we got a truck w/ the three huge curved cornice pieces that we have been waiting on from DacArt. I got a phone call from a friend asking why I had the whole highway blocked w/ this semi flatbed turning around to back in my driveway....so I went dashing over. No make-up or hair-do, but I did take time to slap on some lipstick. And sure enuf, there were the three cornices and the rest of our concrete steps. I took photos which I will try to get onto http://www.ConcreteCottage.com later today.

I had to quickly paint concrete acid stain onto the two curved cornice pieces that they managed to get on the ground face-up. One still has to be flipped over so I can get to the parts I need to color. But two are finished now so I am back at Hardwood Dr and they can place the two that are colored before I get over there to color the third one.

My good friend, Becky, who lives in Baton rouge sent me a bunch of photos that show how bad her neighborhood got torn up from Hurricane Gustav. She lives in an older , established neighborhood with very,very tall trees. It is sorta like the Hein Park area in Memphis or Morningside .Anyway, he house is basically undamaged but some of her trees are THROUGH her neighbors homes. She said there was no electricity but that she and Warren have a natural gas (or maybe it is propane) generator, so they have A/C. And they are 90 miles inland. And this happened before Hurricane Ike. I can't imagine how high insurance for coastal locations is gonna zoom to.

I finally got the Island Winds West condo completely re-done. Lots of hard work, but it looks nice. Dave helped tons. He worked several long evenings up there in that condo. Plus the big furniture swap on a Saturday. Heather's husband , Russ stripped wallpaper from both bathrooms, and re-painted them. We all scrubbed, painted, swapped furniture, swapped out bed linens, repaired stuff, and Heather and I scrubbed some more and replaced a lot of kitchen stuff and it was the hottest part of the summer. Now we are done, I had better sell it fast.

Now Google will recognize your face !

2008-09-03T22:39:00.003-05:00

I am not making this up...

Picasa Web Albums, Google’s free and therefore widely-popular photo-sharing tool, added facial recognition technology to online photo albums Tuesday.

The system now lets you automatically tag your photos with your friends’ names (pulled from your Gmail contacts, if you have them). The technology is frighteningly intuitive and quick to learn, suggesting the appropriate name tag when it recognizes your friends in photos you’ve uploaded.

Turn on the “name tags” feature and Picasa will automatically scan the pictures you’ve uploaded, picking out the ones it thinks have faces in them. Then, you can attach name tags to individual photos of people, or to groups of photos the software has identified as showing similar faces. It makes for a fun little game, tagging the people you know with the matching Gmail contact. Picasa quickly starts learning who’s who as you continue to tag your way through your pictures. After tagging for a bit, it will be able to recognize your friends and automatically suggest name tags of the people in your photos.

Read more on WebMonkey

Gulf Shores after Gustav Photos

2008-09-01T20:57:00.004-05:00

Just added a new page to the Gulf Shores website for everyone who wonders if their condo or beach house is OK...
http://www.gulf-shores-alabama.net/hurricane-gustav-gulf-shores-alabama.html

Happy Labor Day

2008-09-01T14:54:00.003-05:00

Our labor days were the last two days. Stephen came down and really helped by burning a pile of wood scraps that had gotten way too big. It wind had blown all that scrap around it could have done a lot of damage. Plus it was all piled on the south side of the house, facing the glass. The photo shows where the pile WAS.

We put the hurricane panels in the south facing windows. Dave closed all the remaining hinged shutters on the guesthouse. In the morning, Juan and Jose came over and helped move furniture about from living room to condo and condo to condo, etc...more on why we had to do that later. Juan and Jose also helped secure loos building materials in our rented container. There is a ton of cement tile in the container too.

The upper shutters have since blown off, but they were there when Harry made the panels for the lower ones. They have 2 x 4 frames behind them and are really heavy and hard even for two adults to get up into place. They are strong tho--no doubt about it. But I am going to have to re-think the whole hurricane shutter issue once we get thru all this. The new house is getting impact glass, like car windshields.

The rust (iron) on the guest house wall is there because of the ground water irrigation and I just have not taken the time to get it off. I prob will now, it looks so awful. I have some stuff I can spray on it to dissolve it.

Everyone was so concerned that if we had high wind, the cornice pieces might blow off the top row of blocks. They are not attached all the way yet. They only have threaded rods thru them now and will get rebar and back-fill concrete when al of them are up there. For a while, Dan, my builder, wanted Mike, the crane operator to take all the cornice off and set it on the ground. This would have cost about an extra 1000 bucks (which I do not have). In the end, since the Hurricane Gustov headed more west, we decided to risk it.

Hurricane Gustov in Gulf Shores

2008-09-01T14:27:00.004-05:00

Well it looks like we are not getting it nearly as bad as it could be. Streets are clear some have water over them, but we were able to drive down Fort Morgan pretty far before the police had a blockade due to water over the road. I am posting some photos from about noon today.

We went out to Mobile Street, off Fort Morgan Road in Gulf Shores. The newly built wood ramp out to the beach had some damage at the low end. There was one other car out there w/ some curious people like us. No other souls in sight.

It was not raining when I took these photos but the wind was blowing hard. The sand in the air hurt. I got sand in every part of my body.

Now, at 2:30 p.m. it is raining hard as I type this. Internet connection is iff-y. but then it has been iff-y for last few days, they said 'server problems' . In the last photo you can see my friends Mary & Jerry's fortress. It sits a good way back from the beach and has some serious dunes between the house and the surf. A good thing !

I am posting some photos now of the preparations and how hte bulkhead looked right before this storm. Dave and I had worked so hard to plant wildflower seed and rye grass as a nurse crop on the recently packed and bare dirt in front of the nice flat "sidewalk" created where the left over cornice blocks had been set along the water line.
We had put out 100 feet for loose weave burlap to protect the littl esedlings, and only removed it when the broad leaf plants were pushing it up.

It cost me 2 grand to have these huge cornice blocks lined up along the water and they did a great job. The little plants had come along so nicely, I watered them lightly most ever day and if the vegetation had been in place long enuf to form a thick ground cover, I think we would have been ok, BUT, it is all washed out now. The cornice blocks are now sitting all askew and the loose dirt that did not have time to e properly, is washed away.

Whew !

2008-08-31T20:58:00.003-05:00

My legs ache, I am so tired. We worked steadily for 2 days getting ready for this storm, we just couldn't take any chances on which way the storm would turn. Stephen drove down and even w/ one arm in a cast , he worked all day on Sat clearing and burning construction wood debris so it wouldn't blow about and damage stuff.

Stephen got up really early and drove towards home and still he said traffic got very thick up around Hattiesburg --he was planning on taking county roads and old highways.

Dave was a huge help getting all the computer stuff out of the Lagoon House and into Hardwood Dr. He worked all day too. He and I put all the heavy wood hurricane panels in the south windows on guesthouse where the shutters used to be. It was tons of work.

I have been going to PT for my shoulder. The doctor in P'cola gave me a shot in the joint and said I might be able to avoid surgery which it looks like maybe I cAN.

tYPING on itty bitty laptopn so hard not to hit caps lock...wich they would move thT KEY OR do away w/ it forever...migth b e a script to disable it on a keyboaRD.

Tile Floor Designs

2008-08-13T18:53:00.003-05:00

Go to http://mosaicohydraulicos.blogspot.com/ my Mosaico Hidraulico blog
to see some cement tile floor designs that are possible using Villa Lagoon Tile.

I have used actual photos of the tile in the assembly of the floor patterns. I love this one for a hallway and it is layout I have in mind for the short hall from Foyer to Guest Room.

Tile Delivery

2008-08-04T19:49:00.003-05:00

The cement tile for the house arrived today. Included with it were a lot, but not all of the samples. I was only able to unpack the boxes on the top level of the stacks on the pallets. It was incredibly hot and they are incredibly heavy and I have a torn rotator cuff muscle. My doc appt is tomorrow w/ the shoulder surgeon in P'cola. My app't is a 1:30 p.m. but it pretty much takes your whole day to make a trip over to Pensacola.
The tiles look fabo. For some reason, some are nicely polished and others are not. I will have to write the factory and see how exactly they brought up the great shine on some of them. I sure wish they had e ALL of them. I ordered them all polished. I think it will be a lot easier to communicate effectively after I make the trip to the Dominican Republic to meet the owner and visit the factory.

Anyway, I do have 2 customers who have been waiting on samples, so I shot emails off to them tonight, with photos.

Good Tile Publicity

2008-08-02T16:02:00.004-05:00

The popular decor blog, Apartment Therapy LA Edition featured my Villa Lagoon Tile yesterday. They wrote a nice chunk of text and used several image off the site. They linked to my website. This is a good thing, in terms of people seeing it and also 'link love'.

And speaking of the tile, my BIG order is in transit between Port of Miami and Driveway of Villa Lagoon. We have rented a 20 ft container to store it in until we are ready to lay it. I hope that the order includes most of my samples of the tiles in the other colorways as I have several people waiting to order a sample or two before they place a real order. One is a big custom home in the midwest (as I recall), and another is a doctor's sunroom addition or remodel in Florida. My very first (besides my own) real order has already been placed & paid for. It is the Surf "Aqua" for a kitchen in NYC. She will get delivery after Sept 15th due to the factory relocating. But that is only about 6 weeks away...can you believe it !

Shoulder MRI notes

2008-07-29T21:36:00.002-05:00

CONCLUSION:
Findings consistent with a partial tear of the supraspinatus portion of the rotator cuff tendon approximately 1 cm. from its humeral insertion and partial tearing also demonstrated at the conjoint portion of the tendon itself. Tendinopathy infraspinatus portion of the rotator cuff tendon and change of underlying bursitis.

Now it is the shoulder

2008-07-26T21:24:00.003-05:00

Absolutely unbelievable....when my hands were still in bandages from thumb surgery, I picked up a latex stretch band that had been around for years and while carrying it from room to room, I wrapped it around my shoulders and pulled it tight in front of my arms and was thinking that maybe I would start doing some resistance band exercising if I kept it near the desk. The next day I felt sore in the upper arm and when I went to the thumb doctor for post op follow-up app't I asked him about the area where I was having the pain my upper shoulder.
Weeeeeellllll...it got worse every day and worse and worse...even tho I was 'babying' it.
I have since been to the shoulder specialist in P'cola and then had a MRI yesterday here in Gulf Shores. I didn't even ask how much it is going to cost me, I have been in agony.

I pick up the MRI results on Monday on CD to take w/ me on Thurs (I think it is, got to look it up) back to the shoulder doctor. I suppose I will have to have surgery, it hurts that bad.

Now here is the amazing part...MY BODY GOT MAGNETIZED OR SOMETHING,....
the Imaging Center where I got the MRI is right behind W-M so I ran into the store for a couple of items. I went in the garden center entrance, as I always do and set the doorway alarms off. The manager of that dept just happened to be standing nearby, I said "Roger, how come I am setting off the alarm, ?" His reply "it is probably your cell phone'..wrong...it was my BODY !!!

When I exited, I set it off again and they wanted to see my receipt (Roger, who knows me wasn't around), and no matter what I did, the alarm went off. I had on no metal, no watch (still in purse from MRI), no earrings, etc...and I pushed the cart w/ my purse in it on thru the doorway, and still every time I moved back and forth the alarm went on-off-on-off. The W-M employees were amazed.

So you know that stuff about magnets curing your ills? Magnets in your shoes or blanket, etc... well, I should be damn near perfect now.

Amazon Down ?

2008-07-17T22:14:00.003-05:00

Right now it is difficult to access any Amazon pages. I couldn't get home page to load so i tried an internal page, managed to get to one more then nothing....It costs them big money when this happens but it should make us feel better just to know that even Amazon has server issues sometimes.

The Radford clan and me

2008-07-16T20:57:00.003-05:00

Today was a real treat, long time family friends, Patty Ozier, Margie Andrews, Peggy Ozier, Nancy Andrews, her daughter Claire and Claire's baby all come over today. It was so great to see all of them.

Click the photo to see it BIG

Phones down in Gulf Shores

2008-07-15T12:01:00.002-05:00

I t know if it is 911 of phone service or what. I did a few searches in Technorati and similar but found nothing. Our Cingular/ATT and our T-Mobile service is down. Our ground lines will not make long distance calls...tried from two locations. Too weird.
Tried calling repair at Gulftel (aka Centurytell-groundline) but is staying busy continuously.

Guess I will build a fire, can anyone send me the smoke signal code?

Scrapbook About Miller

2008-07-09T11:03:00.004-05:00

After Miller's plane crash, there was a picnic where the faculty,students and staff at UTSI presented us with a memorial scrapbook they had made about Miller's time there. I have only just now gotten it scanned (thanks Heather :o) and added to his old domain, www.MillerWilder.com. He had registered the domain and added scraps and bits of information to it in a verrrry casual way. Just for fun.
I continued to pay the hosting costs so it remained online. Now we have added all the scrapbook pages that the UTSI folks so lovingly put together. You can see them here:
http://www.millerwilder.com/memorial-scrapbook-index.html
Looking at it still makes me cry.

My Tomatos

2008-07-08T22:07:00.002-05:00

I planted these tomatoes from purchased plants about a month ago. I stirred some time-release fertilizer into the potting soil bags and just stuck them in. The large cherry tomato plant uses so much water that I have to keep a hose dripping into the bag.
The short stocky one was labeled Patio Tomato, the big one was labeled a Cherry tomato but the fruit are more like grape tomatoes. It is loaded with tiny tomatoes...still green. I have already picked 3 ripe ones from the Patio tomato. The other two small plants are Thai basil and mint.

The Sheer Look is Here

2008-07-04T16:49:00.003-05:00

Remember when television commercials were fewer and longer?
Ck out this Frigidaire Appliance commercial, Just makes me want to go out and buy several:

New Cement Tile Photos

2008-07-02T17:46:00.003-05:00

I got photos of 4 more tiles today from the Dominican Republic. They look good to me...the slight variations in colors and such add to the good over-all look when a whole floor is down...www.VillaLagoonTile.com

The first one turned out a bit different than my drawing. The 'vine' part was not suppose to be a big heart...it was suppose to bethinner too...oh well...this tile goes in my bathroom. The one with the black background goes in my bedroom.
You can click the photo to see them a bit larger.

Great for the 4th

2008-07-01T20:55:00.002-05:00

Nice sky jump at airshow w/ our flag.

Tropical Nails

2008-07-01T06:38:00.002-05:00

I was looking for something, I forget what, and ran across this site about miniatures. It had these little fruit 'canes' where you could slice off thin slices and do stuff w/ them. I couldn't figure out if they could be eaten or what. One sentence said they were good for cakes. Then I saw these fingernail creations. OMG...let's just hope that the pointy look doesn't catch on.

Note that the black ones have a slice of watermelon and an apple slice.

Dessert we MUST try

2008-06-29T14:18:00.002-05:00

I ran across this totally by chance. I remember in 1969 making Helen Corbitt's recipe for chili in a popcorn popper in the Memphis State dorm. Momma had told me who she was and I still have her cookbook w/ recipes from the N-M spa called "Helen Corbitt Cooks for Looks"
anyway--doesn't this sound interesting:

Rizzoli’s Lost Desserts doesn’t come out until November, but publicist Pam Sommers was nice enough to send us a recipe from Dallas’ Helen Corbitt, the famous chef at Neiman Marcus’ The Zodiac Room, and whom Stanley Marcus once touted as “the Balenciaga of food.” Hit the jump for the recipe.

THE ZODIAC ROOM’S
Caramel Soufflé
With Custard Sauce

Helen Corbitt’s legendary Caramel Soufﬂé is the type of dessert meant to be served from a trolley cart. It is a big, marvelous caramel meringue and paired here with a vanilla custard sauce (crème anglaise). Corbitt must have been inﬂuenced by the Portuguese molotov pudding, another caramel meringue and essentially the same dessert. To my taste, however, Corbitt’s sauce is inﬁnitely better than the overly sweet, eggy, yellow one that accompanies the pudding. A friend once told me that the purpose of Portuguese desserts is to use up the egg yolks left over when the nuns had used the whites to starch their habits. I have no idea if this is true, but if the molotov sauce is any indication, maybe it is. The Portuguese inclusion of toasted almonds adds visual appeal and is a crunchy contrast to the marshmallowy quality of the soufﬂé. I’ve added them along with a hard caramel drizzle to the original recipe given to me by Bertha Shields, who worked with Corbitt in the 1950s.
Two very similar classic desserts are île ﬂottante and oeufs à la neige. Both, like Corbitt’s soufﬂé, feature a soft meringue drizzled with hard caramel and ﬂoating on a crème anglaise. “Floating island,” however, is a large baked meringue, while “eggs in snow” is composed of individual meringues that are poached rather than baked. These two desserts differ from the soufﬂé in that the basic meringue is ﬂavored with vanilla rather than caramel.
Serves 6 to 8

About 3 tablespoons butter and 1⁄4 cup sugar for
preparing the cake pan
8 large egg whites, at room temperature
1⁄8 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar, plus 1⁄2 cup for the hard caramel drizzle,
if desired
1⁄2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons sifted cornstarch
Crème Anglaise (see recipe, page 190)
Raspberry Sauce (see recipe, page 190)
1⁄3 cup coarsely chopped toasted, blanched almonds (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Butter and sugar a 3-quart soufflé dish.
2. Using an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites together with the salt on low speed; gradually raise the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form.
3. Meanwhile, place 2 cups of the sugar, the cream of tartar, and 1 cup water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Cover and boil for 3 minutes. Uncover and continue to boil until the syrup is a dark caramel, and a candy thermometer reads approximately 375 degrees.
4. The egg whites should be ready by now. If they are ready before the caramel, turn off the mixer. The whites can wait a few minutes, but they must be ready before or at the same time as the caramel. So adjust stove heat and mixer speed accordingly. Or turn one or the other off for a bit if necessary. As soon as the caramel is ready, very slowly pour the caramel into the egg whites, beating constantly. Do this very slowly or the caramel may not incorporate properly.
5. Once all the caramel has been added, beat in the vanilla and the cornstarch.
6. Very gently spoon the mixture into the prepared soufflé dish; the soufflé mixture will rise above the top of the dish. This is okay as it will rise further when cooking and then sink as it cools.
7. Place the soufflé dish in a bain marie (a larger pan with boiling water to a depth of at least 2 inches). Put in the oven and immediately lower the oven temperature to 400 degrees. After 5 minutes, turn off the oven. Do not open the oven door. Let the soufflé bake for 15 minutes more, then remove it from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. It will be golden and crusty on top.
8. Loosen the sides with a long knife and invert onto a serving plate.
9. If desired, make the hard caramel drizzle: Cook the 1⁄2 cup sugar with 3 tablespoons of water as described in step 3, until the caramel is dark. Pour it over the soufflé in a thin stream to make an interesting pattern on top. Let harden.
10. Serve cooled, accompanied by crème anglaise or raspberry sauce (even better with a tablespoon of Poire Williams added), or both, and sprinkled with the toasted almonds, if using. Or omit all sauce and simply garnish with fresh berries.

Real Big Stuff

2008-06-26T16:51:00.002-05:00

I saw this huge ice cream cone light online and thought it was GREAT ! Then I found this website of Great Big Stuff...and they have lots of interesting things in JUMBO sizes.
Big Fun ;o)

Doggie Obedience School Winner

2008-06-23T09:13:00.001-05:00

Drop.io A new file drop site

2008-06-17T09:21:00.004-05:00

A new (to me) file share site called Drop.io

If you have a big file, like a video or folder full of pix or whatever, you can upload to drop.io and then let others (that you choose) retrieve the file for free.

There have been other file drop sites around but most dont seem to be able to support themselves so they go away. But they are really handy for stuff too big to email, so I am glad to find this one.

Thumbs are doing well

2008-06-14T19:45:00.003-05:00

Thanks to everyone who wished me well when I had thumb surgery. Both hands, ...I felt like a silly person w/ monkey hands for a couple days. But now they are becoming healed.

I got Dave to take the stitches out last Wed since the skin was growing over them and grossing me out and he skin was trying to grow over a knot and the attached cut ends of thread so the skin was all irritated and hurting like a splinter in your hand. So he took them out for me.

At my app't on Fri. the doctor was somewhat astounded that we did that, but hey...it was about 10 days post-op and the stitches needed to come OUT. I still cant bend my thumbs back all the way that I used to be able to...seems that I had extra wide range-of-motion before, acc'd to him, but they were in splints so much for 6 months that those muscles and tendons and such are probably never gonna stretch out like they were before. They are 100% usable now and that is all that matters.

I asked him questions about several other areas of my bod while I was there. I told him that I wanted my money's worth. Mostly he responded that getting old was the pitts and I should expect such things and did I think I was gonna avoid all the getting old stuff...and I said YES, if I could.

He ended up X-raying both my thumbs in 3 positions to look at the joints. I told him that they looked like they were twisting to me. Same pronouncement...old age. Me and Bob Dylan it seems(see previous post).

Thoughtful comments from W.A.

2008-06-14T19:26:00.004-05:00

I read this on a machine embroidery website, of all things, but if you read it slowly and think about each line, it makes sense..

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down." Woodie Allen

Now it just so happens that I have a W.A. movie that came from Netflix this week. I never saw it in its entirety. I think that once I watched it half way thru and thought 'this is dribble' and turned it off...but here it is a million years later and I still read references to it constantly...so I decided to watch it in totality. I feel 'in the dark' every time someone references it. Seems like I remember it being in black and white, or maybe that was just my impression.

Last week I watched (on several chunks of time) "No Direction Home" a two CD set of a movie about Bob Dylan. It kills me to see him looking old. I think of Bob Dylan as AGELESSSSSSSS. Dylan and his music were the biggest and most constant thing ever in the background music of my entire college life. I cant even think about the time when no one knows who he was.
He had 4 kids and never mentioned them in all this long interview movie. I looke da couple of them up online. One is a film producer, he even looks old himself ! Another one is a son who has a couple kids himself now, he was on David Letterman the other night as a solo singer. No where nearly as mesmerizing as his dad. Hard act to follow, no doubt. So Bob Dylan is a grandfather. Wonder what kind of grandfather he is ?

Even w/ 4 hours of interviews and film clips, they basically said nothing about his personal life...I was disappointed in that. It is the kind of thing you can listen to and look up every so often, and if you miss something you really want to see, then use the back button (if you can read it in that tiny print).

Here is another interesting quote that I ran across today:
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

I do not know who Robertson Davies is or was.

villa-lagoon-tile-trellis-shell-antique

2008-06-11T19:35:00.001-05:00

villa-lagoon-tile-trellis-shell-antique, originally uploaded by lundini1.

New photos arrived today from the factory..yipee...I am posting this via the Flickr auto post thing...Cement Tile

villa-lagoon-tile-savona-beach

2008-06-11T19:32:00.001-05:00

villa-lagoon-tile-savona-beach, originally uploaded by lundini1.

I am testing the flickr auto blog this thing.