Row Row Row

Things I saw in or near the water during Sunday morning's canoe trip:
-Dead fish
-Branches
-Condoms
-Basketball
-Cranes/herons
-Ducks
-Turtles

We went north up the Chicago River, near Addison, as far as Bryn Mawr before heading back. Except for a break to have a snack, we spent about 3 hours on the water. I ended up in the middle with Jeff steering and Richard up front; leaning back against a wooden railing while sitting on a seat cushion did not make my back too happy. Oddly, my arms are not as sore as I expected them to be. The weather was great; just enough breeze and sunny but not too hot.

Poor man's kaleidoscope

Last night I gave my bathroom a fresh coat of paint. This morning I was putting it back together, and happened to look through the long, square towel bar (one of those cheap metal ones that everybody has had in their bathroom at one time or another). I was able to capture a sample of the effect in this photo.
Yes, I am easily amused.

Another baby

Eliza and Trey

As of yesterday, another newborn amongst my friends. And is it just me, or does Big Bird seem to be defying gravity in some way?

So that's finally done...

The project that took all summer to get done is finally complete. The shower leak is fixed and the whole thing has been re-tiled.
The guy sent out from Handyman Connection did a nice job and was very efficient and easy to deal with. So I would recommend them; my only complaint is that it took a while to actually get the work scheduled and done.
So...now I'm realizing that I probably ought to repaint the bathroom. Sigh. It never ends, does it?

Music Fests

Pitchfork this weekend and Lollaplaooza next weekend. I'll be posting reviews and notes about the concerts on the audio vortex blog.

Review, Book

I had been meaning to pick up Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life for some time now. And, like most things that fall victim to my procrastinatory tendencies, I was quite happy to have finally acquired and read it.
Take your basic ordinary life. Chronicle various bits of it. Categorize those bits and arrange in encyclopedia form. That is the basic premise of the book, and on that level alone it would be interesting. And yet, in the midst of this well worn format, Rosenthal slips in the bones of a narrative, a story of family, love and occasional tragedy (or near misses) intermingling with the daily routine. In other words, the quintessential themes of life.
It's an easy read, but not in the simplistic sense. It's more along the lines of thinking, on just about every other page "I've done or seen or felt that." This allows Rosenthal to make an almost immediate and I daresay chummy connection with the reader, and from that point you just want to sit and devour the rest of the book.
Rating: Straight Flush.

Silence

After having a leaky tub faucet for a criminally long time (see earlier posts from April here and here) work finally began today on fixing that and re-tiling the whole shower (I have some water damaged wallboard on one side).
So, there is no longer a steady cascade of water emanating from the shower. The silence is deafening.

virtue vs. vice

A Tribune article today talks about a study in which it was concluded that in the long term people are more likely to regret virtue over vice.

Kivetz [the researcher] argues that the over-emphasis on virtue and prudence in American culture contributes to the impulse toward over-indulgence.

"I'm not saying, 'OK, be decadent' … but balance is important," he said. "I think people should strive to have a little more balance, and balance also means enjoying life more."

There's that word again. Balance. Some might call it karma. Anyway, it's an interesting piece of research, and while the conclusions are presented in such a way as to suggest the findings are surprising, I think most people would come to the same conclusion if they really thought the question through. After all, nobody ever gets old and tells stories about all the virtuous things they did in their youth.