Jersey Bros : The Portraits : On Sale Now!!

JERSEY BROS by David McCarty | Make Your Own Book

Bad Ass Axe

I posted this elsewhere, but couldn't resist. It's just too cool. Makes me want to head into the forrest and chop things down. Of course my chainsaw is a lot faster, but not nearly as cool. Sold by the Best Made Company.

Even The Packaging Is Cool

Looks Like Something Out Of An Apocalyptic Movie

PACKING TIME from Peter Buchanan-Smith on Vimeo.

Velorbis Bags

For a Dutch bicycle company, they sure make some cool bags. This might have to become a fall addition to my collection.

Now That's A Bike

The Velorbis Churchill Balloon

Perfect for tackling bumpy roads and curbs, the Churchill Balloon gents commuter bike is the robust, hard-wearing brother of the Churchill Classic bicycle model. With black Fat Frank balloon tyres from Schwalbe it rolls amazingly easily with full suspension effect. You can also upgrade your standard black Fat Frank tyres for distinctive cream or brown versions.

The Churchill Balloon upright retro bike comes complete with luxurious brown leather accessories by Brooks – saddle, handle grips and mud flaps. Additional features include mud guards, chain guard, enclosed 3W dynamo driven head lamp and dynamo driven rear lamp, integrated frame lock, kick stand, ‘ding dong’ bell and rear carrier.

The steel rear carrier has an innovative hook on the side so that you can carry laptop bags, gym bags or grocery bags on the side of your bicycle. When you place your bag handles over the hook and bring down the spring loaded top flap, a special locking mechanism ensures that your items are securely held in place when cycling.

This is my idea of a bike.

Even the accessories are cool.

Car Shopping

Jane and I are car shopping today. The lease is up on her truck at the end of the month, so this is our last weekend to do something. I think I know what we want, which is a Toyota FJ. I've liked them since the first time I saw one, which I believe was the last time we were car shopping. Only then, Jane wanted a pickup truck. The FJ looks, to me, like a Mini Cooper mated with a Hummer. Or at least a baby Land Rover.

The truck was nice to have, but it's just too big for her, and frankly, not practical for 90% of what she uses it for.

I thought we'd get a smaller SUV, something big enough for her to load stuff in, but something she can park. Then I'll look for a used pickup, something under $3k that we can beat around in when needed. Pick up mulch, straw bales, wood.

So, for now, the Toyota.

I hate car shopping. The whole thing skeeves me out. I'll overpay just to not have to spend more time with these people. I don't like haggling. I don't want to pit several dealers against one another to get the best price (which is the best way to get the best price). I just want to know how much the vehicle is, I want the vehicle I want (not necessarily what you have on the lot), and I want to spend as little time as possible doing paperwork. I don't want you to show me how to use the trunk, or explain the nuances of the sound system. I'll figure that out on my own. I've mastered complex computer software programs without ever having opened the manual. I think I can handle an automobile made for the American public.

It will be interesting today. The salesperson is a woman. And she sounds young, though you can never really tell from a voice on the phone. I sent a request in to the dealer and she's the one who called me back. So, I guess she gets the sale.

P.S. I still hate car shopping. The whole thing is a scam. If I had not pushed back I could have way overpaid. We love the car so far, though.

Scarves

I love scarves. It used to be I had just a few, but then I realized that all those scarves I had bought my wife Jane over the years (Paris, Dubai, London) were just as good for me as they were for her.

Recently, I purchased several Arab scarves, which are great because they are large and square. They're better than a coat. I can wear a hat and a scarf and be warmer than than wearing a light jacket.

Scarves have been big recently in fashion circles, but I think I'm hooked. I'll be wearing them regardless.

Which brings me to seasonal fashion as it pertains to my own body image. The older I get, the more I prefer winter, where I can cover my body in elaborate ways and still feel fashionable. In the heat of the summer, there's not much left to disguise.

Cloth Napkins

I love good cloth napkins. I’m thinking of re-instituting a policy whereby we only use cloth napkins at dinner in the house. What’s the big deal? Buy enough so that it’s not an issue. Toss them in the laundry. It’s got to be cheaper and better on the environment that paper napkins. And it’s so much cooler. We need to kick it old school.

For awhile, we got really into paper plates, paper napkins and even plastic cups. What’s the deal?! What’s next, drinking wine out of Dixie cups. Hell, if it were up to me, we’d have our milk delivered in glass bottles several times a week.

The Disease of Kings

When I was younger, I always thought of getting old as a romantic notion. I imagined myself retired and puttering about, keeping myself busy with this or that but with no responsibilities. What I didn't count on was that my body would simultaneously begin to fail me. It just hadn't occurred to me.

Yesterday I was doing a little writing and was contemplating what I wanted to write about.

It feels a little like I don’t do enough anymore. That so many of the stories I wrote before came out of my misadventures involving hobbies, family, home repair or other projects. Our kids are grown and don’t do a lot of things with us. I tend to hire people to do house repair (and I always hated it anyway), and I don’t seem to have many hobbies other than surfing and let's face it, there are really only so many things you can say about surfing. It's a wonderful activity, but after one essay, you've pretty much covered the subject. I DON'T want to write about work.

What was I going to write about now, I asked myself. Did I need to become more productive around the house if only so that I had something to write about? It's not the worst idea in the world. But then something happened last night that may have given me a glimpse into my writing future.

Last night I realized I have gout. Gout! I mean, who gets gout? Here is a short list:

Henry VIII, Charles Spurgeon, Kublai Khan, Nostradamus, John Milton, Queen Anne, Isaac Newton, Charles IV, Charles V, Alfred Lord Tennyson, George IV, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason, Benjamin Franklin, Henry James, Frederick the Great, Curt Schilling, and perhaps most interestingly, the T-Rex skeleton called "Sue."

With the exception of Curt Shilling, the professional baseball player who famously helped the Boston Red Sox to win the 2004 World Series, all these other people are from another century, or two. This is not a modern affliction. It's more like a throwback. I live in a house built in 1725 and have somehow acquired an ailment from that time period.

If you're not familiar—and I certainly wasn't—gout is a kind of arthritis. It's usually associated with the swelling of a joint, usually the big toe, and is caused by a buildup of uric acid in the blood. If the uric acid levels are too high, they form crystals in the joint, causing pain and swelling. That's what I have. A painful, swollen bit toe. Bigfoot.

It has been called "the disease of kings" because it was associated with the intake of rich foods and alcohol. Swell. It doesn't sound much like the disease of kings. It's closer to something poor sailors would get, like scurvy.

There is no permanent cure. But you can lessen the impact by reducing your intake of beef, scallops, gravy, bacon, pork, lamb, asparagus, liver (I guess my beloved foie gras is out), red wine and beer (specifically draft beer). Actually alcohol consumption in general is supposed to be curtailed, which I don't see happening any time soon.

Instead you're supposed to drink a lot of water. This seems to be the answer to almost everything and I rarely drink water, let alone the 64 ounces or so they suggest. Who has the time to drink that much water? They also suggest natural cherry juice as a remedy. This I might be able to handle.

My ancient ailment is just one in a long, but new, list of afflictions I've had to endure since turning 40. I have a bad lower back, hemorrhoids, poor hearing, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to start getting stuff cut off my skin from years of overexposure to the sun.

Well, at least I'll have something to write about now.

Wet Rocks

I stopped at the liquor store on the way home from work yesterday and while browsing for a new chardonnay came across a wine description from a winery that among other things described the wine as evoking wet rocks. It wasn’t clear whether they thought it tasted or smelled of such. But then the smell and taste of a wine are so closely linked that maybe it didn’t matter.

It certainly got my attention. Wet rocks. Who is tasting or smelling wet rocks? And why would anyone want their wine to taste or smell like it. I’m not even sure that evokes anything for me. I’ve seen descriptions that evoke a sense of minerality before. Stone. Slate. Graphite. But rocks? And wet no less.

Here is a rather odd description of another wine I found:

"Packed, in a brawny, muscular style atypical for this lush vintage, with a gravelly undertow to the currant paste, braised fig and dark licorice notes. Picks up even more steam on the finish, with grilled mesquite, mineral and garrigue notes and a long, hot stone-filled finish."

There are so many things wrong with this I almost don't know where to begin. Are we supposed to be drinking this, or building a house with it?

For instance: grilled mesquite. Can you even grill wood? Doesn't it just catch fire? A gravelly undertow? A long, hot stone-filled finish? Garrigue? This one I had to look up. According to Wikipedia: Garrigue is a type of low, soft-leaved scrubland found on limestone soils around the Mediterranean Basin, generally near the seacoast, where the climate is ameliorated, but where annual summer drought conditions obtain.

Well, now I'm definitely intrigued. Rocks. Mesquite. Paste. Licorice. And an obscure Mediterranean bush.

In The Dark

You don't really realize how much you enjoy electricity until you find yourself cold, drunk and in the dark. That's been my experience anyway.

Last weekend we were hit with what has been only one of several blizzards in New Jersey. This isn't the typical hyperbole from the local action news team. This was the National Weather Service. We got not one, but two honest to God blizzards in a matter of a few weeks. The last one knocked out the power for several hundred thousand homes. We were one of them for a bit.

Late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, depending on how you look at it, we lost power. Now because we live a little off the grid, meaning that we have well-water, oil heat, and propane cooking gas, you wouldn't think we'd be that affected by natural disasters. But take electricity away and the pump that brings the water from the well no longer works, the pump that injects oil into the heater no longer works, and even the oven doesn't seem to want to work without the aid of an electrical current. The only thing that did work was the stovetop, but only if you lit with a match.

I woke to the sound of my wife Jane and her sister Bern coming into the house. They had spent the night whooping it up at Bern's house just down the street and when they woke up without power, decided to walk through the snow storm to our house. I looked over at the clock to see what time it was, and that's when I knew.

We've lost power before. In fact, it seems like it happens all the time. We live on a state highway and if ice and snow isn't bringing a line down, it's a drunk on his way down to the shore.

But I can't remember it happening when it's this cold and you can't get anywhere because there's a foot or two of snow outside.

So, we started a fire in the dining room fireplace, closed the doors to the other rooms, and opened a bottle of vodka. Frankly, what else were we supposed to do? We couldn't make coffee, as we didn't have any water. There was alcohol, plenty of ice, and canned mixers. We didn't have anywhere to be. We had nothing to do. We made cocktails.

I don't know the last time you sat in a room for eight hours with no lights, no television, no computer, no internet, and just drank and talked. I think it was college for me and there was cocaine involved.

Presumably, the snow also covered the nearby cell tower, rendering it nearly useless, because I normally have a full 3G signal on my iPhone and I was left with barely a cell signal. So even my powerful smart phone was rendered powerless.

So as the light of the day began to fade, so did the batteries in our phones. We were being plunged into darkness with no real connection to the outside world. We had the fire going, which put out just enough heat to keep us from freezing, but not really enough to warm the room and we lit candles which gave us just enough light to not run into things, but not enough to see anything.

At 6pm, Bern announced she had had enough and headed upstairs to bed. I can't remember the last time I went to bed at 6pm. Jane and I were left to drink and stare at each other. Eventually, we decided to argue about something, just to keep it interesting. Then we went to bed. It was 8pm.

I woke at 3am on Sunday morning with lights coming on all around the house. I got up and walked around the house, turning off lights, checking the heat, and running water through the pipes, before going back to bed.

In hindsight, I recommend eating something if you're going to drink for 12-13 hours, because the alternative is waking up with a pretty good hangover. I had been sick for a few days and my back was out from shoveling the weekend before, so when I first woke up I didn't recognize the hangover since I'd felt like shit for at least a week anyway. Eventually, it hit me.

Now it's one thing to wake up the day after a snowstorm with the prospect of digging your way out when you feel good. But if your back is tweaked, and your head won't stop throbbing, it's pretty miserable.

I'm seriously thinking about getting a generator.