If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing “Charlie The Unicorn” yet, I suggest you do. I am embedding the video from YouTube below. This is a very odd video, and like all odd videos, you need to see it a few times to see the humor of it all. It’s kind of like Napoleon Dynamite. You can’t just watch that movie once. We have probably seen it over ten times…kind of like this damn Charlie video. Although, I will mention that as weird as it is, it’s been viewed tons of times, so that says something.
Okay, the guy from Scott’s Lawn Service here in Hartford just called to schedule our grub control application. We went over the stuff and I told him that I had a few questions. I asked when I am supposed to plug aerate and apply an overseeding of grass seed. He told me that I should do the whole thing in early September. Then, I asked what type of grass seed I am supposed to put down. He told me to apply a grass seed with “Thermal Blue.” This is a Kentucky Bluegrass hybrid or something like that. It is really green grass, durable and survives hot and cold. Oh yeah, it also spreads to fill in bare spots, which is good.
I wanted to do a little more research on the grass seed, so I went over to YouTube and found a really neat video that had nothing to do with what I just wrote. I wanted to share it with you. It’s how they grow and roll up turf grass over in England (I think). If you are a grass guy like me, you’ll like this video.
As promised (almost), I drove down to the wood stove store today to check out the scene. I was having a little trouble with the price of the wood stove insert that I wanted and needed to see if there was anything less expensive. I also wanted to see what the free standing wood stoves looked like. We can easily put one of them in the fireplace.
When I got there, I did my typical “guy” stroll around to browse all the stoves and inserts. I see it every time. The guys walk in with their hands in the pockets making grunts and noises, like “hmmm” and “hmmph.” It’s so funny because I do it too. There is kind of a lot to take in. Good thing the sales guy walks out to put things in perspective. I must say, I really love wood stoves and stuff like that.
I saw the “Hampton HI300 Wood Insert” that I wanted. It’s just as nice as I thought it would be. If money wasn’t an issue, I would tell them to pack it up and bring it over. Since I really don’t want to drop that kind of coin, I am becoming more and more interested in a smaller free standing wood stove. Remember, we already have the pellet stove, so we don’t really need that much more heat. Just something to keep my toes warm, something that doesn’t use electricity and something that will burn all the wood I am cutting down so I don’t have to watch it rot in the woods.
The sales guy introduced me to the more “economical” line of DutchWest wood burning stoves. They are pretty good looking and don’t have a lot of frills. Here is a picture I just took from the brochure.
It’s cute, isn’t it? It’s also about $1000 less than the other one. A large part of the expense comes from the lining of the chimney and the installation. Heck, if all I needed was the stove, I could just run over there with the trailer and pick it up. That’s not the way it works anymore. Now, you need to have a 35 foot piece of insulated lining stuffed down the entire length of the very tall chimney and attached to the stove. All of that extra stuff actually costs more than the stove itself. At least I managed to drop the price somewhat.
I am hoping to have the stove stand on the stone outside the fireplace. The stove is 17 1/2 inches from front to back and the slab of stone is about 20 1/2. If we can do this, I can still access the side door to put longer (up to 19″) pieces of wood. That would be good. Otherwise, I will have to load shorter pieces through the front and cut about two inches off the stove legs so it fits inside the fireplace.
Anyway, I’ll get into all that stuff later if I decide to get this stove. I’ll make my decision by Saturday.
So my brother is in town again. He is here for a week and (at times) likes to see me. I guess he loves me. That’s nice, because I like to see him too.
Last night, we decided to go out to eat at Houlihan’s up in Glastonbury. I kind of like that place and the food is good. The only problem was that when I pulled into the Houlihan’s parking lot, the place was closed. I have no idea why. I sure hope they didn’t go out of business or something like that. My brother was in his car waiting for me. I drove around to meet him and told him that I had another place in mind right down the road.
We drove down Glastonbury Boulevard and made a right into the J. Gilbert’s parking lot. I have actually been wanting to go to this restaurant for some time because it looks pretty cool from outside. I always see a packed parking lot, so I usually avoid it. Last night I wanted to give it a shot.
We walked into the restaurant and found that even though there was a full parking lot, there were a whole bunch of tables open. I guess many of the cars belonged to people who liked to hang out in the bar area.
Okay, so here is my review of the restaurant:
- Good service, good atmosphere, good food, decent drinks
- Definitely not worth the money
Between the two of us, we spent over $100. That’s just crazy because all we had were two drinks, two salads, two entrees and two desserts. The entrees were “light,” if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, everything was very tasty, but a little sliver of this and just a few of that doesn’t really explain the $25 plus price tag for the entree. That kind of ticks me off, because I was freakin’ starving last night. I wanted to be fed.
Listen, if you are an independent restaurant and have a really talented head chef who brought his or her own menu with them when they arrived, go for it and charge an arm and a leg for what you’re serving. The average diner doesn’t know how to put a price tag on that. I am thinking of our last dinner up at the Mayflower Inn. It was so unique it was incredible. I wish I took a picture of it.
But, if you are a chain restaurant, don’t charge so much. What’s going to happen is you are going to get a lot of one time customers who leave to never come back. Eh hem.
I gotta tell you again, really nice restaurant, great service, good food, okay drinks, but no way worth the money.
This is terrible, just terrible. I think I have found myself walking down a very bad path.
Okay, so I already told you that I am taking some trees down in the woods next to the house. This is a good thing and it’s really starting to look nice over there. I actually took two more trees down today. I don’t like to do too many at a time because I would rather get used to the small changes I make and think about what I am doing before I go ahead and take down some more. Either way, I am building up next year’s supply of firewood.
This is where the problem starts. I still have about a cord of wood from the trees I cut down last summer. It’s is seasoning quite nicely and will make for some splendid firewood come this winter.
Now, I am almost positive that I have complained about the miserable (in)efficiency of a regular fireplace. We have one here and it does a really great job of sucking up what ever heat you already have in the house, out the chimney. Sure, the living room is warm, but you have to wear a snow suit in all the other rooms. Really, I don’t even use it much…just on those chilly spring or autumn evening when the pellet stove isn’t running.
So here I am, sitting on a cord of seasoned firewood and building up next year’s supply. What to do?
I am very happy with the pellet stove we got last year. It kicks butt when it comes to heating up about 3/4 of the house. To get that much heat, I need to keep it humming all winter. Last winter, I used four tons of pellets. I wouldn’t mind having a heat supplement helping out the pellet stove.
I am going to make a long whiny story short here. I really want a Hampton HI300 Wood Insert for the fireplace in the living room. Take a look at it:
I called the fellas down at the fireplace store today and told them what I wanted. He wrote up a quote and faxed it over to me. The thing is, it’s pricey. I know I’m not going to save any money by getting this little toy, so I’m iffy about the whole thing. To make matters worse, there is a tax credit that’s available called the “The U.S. Biomass Tax Credit.” It gives you back 30% of your purchase and installation price, up to $1500. That is just driving me crazy. You can learn about the tax credit here.
I know I am going to find myself in the car tomorrow or the next day driving down to the fireplace store. It’s bad, but I just want to feel that heat cranking out of that stove this winter. It even has a blower.
I was walking around up on the hill yesterday when I noticed the roses starting to bloom. It’s amazing that they are even starting to flower with all the rain we have been having. Actually, I think the rain kind of stopped. It’s just cloudy now and really not all that bad. It’s good walking weather.
I figured that I would give you a few flower shots, since I haven’t in a while.
There are three colored roses up there…pinkish white, white and red. I took a few pictures of the red roses, but they didn’t come out at all. They were all blurry. For some reason, my camera doesn’t like really bright colored flowers. It’s like there’s not enough contrast or something.
Anyway, here are those photos of what I think are Knockout Roses.
Pinkish white Knockout Rose with red roses in background
Man, I have been a busy boy these past few weeks. It’s been raining a lot and I seem to get myself into a bunch of work when I sit at the computer. Writing blog posts hasn’t been part of the work, if you haven’t noticed. Believe me, there’s guilt about the blog thing. I think it is going to ease up in a while, but that’s what I always say. Being creative on the internet is good, but let’s just say it doesn’t help the social life. Perhaps some sunshine could get me outside a bit more.
A few days ago, we were walking around outside and a light bulb went off in my head. I really hate it when that happens because I get a weird stare and start walking towards the garage to get some sort of a tool. I am not much of a planner (I think people call it spontaneous), so when I get an idea, I just start doing it. I actually have fun doing things that way.
This time, I got the great idea that the woods would look a heck of a lot better all cleaned up. If you remember back to last summer, I started taking down some of the smaller trees on the left side of the driveway. Well, I am going to finish the job this summer. I already took down a few more trees and need to remove about 6-8 more. It’s really cool because it doesn’t get any more sunny over there, it just gets cleaner looking with a nice “ceiling” provided by the very tall Oak trees.
I started raking part of the area and moved the wood piles over to their (hopefully) permanent home. I am going to have more fresh wood so I’ll have to figure something out for that. The reason I am moving the piles is because one of the trees that the current pile is leaning against is going to come down.
Here are some pictures of what I have done in the past few days. Do you know I would really like? I would like a little plow for the front of the tractor so I could just push all the layers of leaves down the hill instead of raking them all. That would be swell. Oh well. I’m not about to go buy another lawnmower attachment. I already have enough of them. Raking it is.
Looking down the driveway to partially cleaned out woods
Okay, so now that I have been doing this for about a month and a half, I figured I really should start writing about it. It’s just been burning me up inside.
Remember that post a while back where I said that I had found a nice “exercise” class up in Glastonbury (or I was looking for one anyway)? Well, that exercise class is actually Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. If you aren’t familiar with what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is, you can do a quick read-up over here on Wikipedia.
Also, if you forgot what got me all motivated about this in the first place, you can re-read my “How To Develop Stamina” post. That will refresh your memory with how frustrated I get with myself.
Anyway, as I mentioned in that earlier post, I have this never ending quest to get in shape. One of the major problems with this quest is that I am getting older and my body is slowly falling apart. Don’t laugh, you are in the same boat. Ha. The rule book my parents gave me when I was born didn’t mention anything about how I was going to have to work harder and harder at getting fit as I get older and older. I am thinking they decided to keep that one to themselves and are now getting a little chuckle out of it.
Now, let me tell you that by no means am I out of shape. I am actually feeling pretty good. I just want to be able to run a marathon tomorrow and not feel it. Yeah right. Laura keeps reminding me that people actually train for that kind of stuff. Either way, continuing to think that I am out of shape keeps me motivated.
At the time I was writing that “Stamina” post, I was actually looking for a martial arts class to join in on. I had always wanted to learn martial arts and even gave it a try when I was a kid. I think I’ll save that story for another post, because I took my one free class with three of my friends and things didn’t turn out too well. That’s what happens when you put four giggly idiots in a class with a bunch of guys who could damage us. It was actually really funny…to us. Anyway…
I first sat in on a Taekwondo class here in town. It looked really good, but I just didn’t get the vibe I was looking for in it. One of the main factors that dissuaded me was the fact that there were kids in the class. I was looking for something more mature. It looked like everyone in the class was learning a lot, but I just didn’t think I would fit in.
Next, I went up to visit a Karate school in Glastonbury. I had watched a bunch of videos from this school on the internet and was pretty excited. When I got to the school, no one was there. I actually stood in the lobby and called the place on my cell phone. I heard the office phone ringing and I hung up. I took a quick look around and noticed that this school also really targeted kids. I guess this martial arts thing is really popular with the youngsters. Oh well. I left.
To make a long story short, I started looking into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and started liking what I was learning about it. If you look at the Wikipedia page I linked to above and have watched any of the videos that I have posted, I think you’ll know why. To me, it’s challenging, smart, fun, great exercise and a very handy tool to have in your back pocket.
I found a nice school that teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu up in Glastonbury. I called the owner and was invited up to sit in on a class. Now, mind you I have never really been to a Jiu-Jitsu class before, so I didn’t know what to expect. He mentioned that I could wear sweats or something to move around in, but I opted to wear jeans because I didn’t even know if I was going to be interested in what they offered. I just sat on the side and observed.
The night I sat in on the class, I learned that this was actually something I was really eager to get involved with. If you took a really quick glace at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), you might think it looks like high school wrestling. The difference between BJJ and wrestling is that in wrestling, you try to pin your opponent and in BJJ, you go for a submission, such as an arm bar, leg lock or a choke. Also, BJJ has a more practical side and can be used as self defense.
After a month and a half of pretty fast paced training, I would say that I have been bitten by the bug. My instructor actually was laughing about that this morning. As I was laying on the mat sweating, I reminded him that I didn’t even know what BJJ was two months ago.
The school I train at offers three classes a week. I haven’t missed any yet. My instructor and another guy also like to train one to two extra days per week. I go with them any time they ask me. I usually end up going in four times a week and sometimes five, like I did last week. It’s really, really good exercise, but I will admit, my body gets tired. I just need to get used to it.
For the first two weeks, I gotta tell you, I was kind of in pain. I had a few back spasms and my muscles wanted to strangle me for what I was doing to them. I thought I was down and out for a few classes when I had the spasms, but I still went in and worked it out. Believe it or not, practicing BJJ is sort of like going to the chiropractor. You go in with a back problem and come out cured. It’s amazing what someone stacking you will do for your back muscles.
Since then, things have been going rather smoothly. I purchased a new gi, a mouth guard and some knee pads. These things have come in really handy, especially the knee pads and mouth guard. I was watching a video a few weeks ago and the trainer was attempting to express how important mouth guards are. He then pulled out his front teeth to let the point sink in. He told the class that he lost all of his front teeth the very first time he went to train. I bought the mouth guard after I saw that video.
During the month and a half that I have been learning Jiu Jitsu, I have noticed some pretty nice changes. Firstly, I look a bit better muscle-wise. Things look more toned. Also, I can see my abs again. I never thought that would happen. I’m not sure if my stomach muscles have been built up more or if I lost weight. Either way, my good ol’ college six-pack is starting to show again. I think the real secret lies behind the creatine and soy protein though. Those supplements helped a lot in college and continue to help tremendously now.
I really wish you could see me spar with the guys in the class. You would probably get a kick out of it. It’s amazing how much I have learned in just a month and a half, but it definitely shows how much I have to learn. But, like anything else I get myself into, it’s pretty much a life long trip.
I had considered writing all about the different moves I learn here on this blog, but then thought better of it. I can well imagine that most of my readers really don’t know or care what a “Scissor Sweep” is. Well, if you do care what it is, check out this video for a demonstration.
You know, now that I put that video up, I am realizing how I can actually post a video for every move I learn. If I put a video up with some text, you guys won’t get bored and I will be learning something too. Hmmm.
Okay, I am outty. I just thought I would share the reason I haven’t been writing all that much lately. I have been so busy with this and work. Till next time.
So apparently the Peonies are in bloom right about now. We have some very colorful pink ones over in the front/side garden. They really are some thick and substantial flowers.
Just wait until you see these pictures. The larger (more bloomed) flowers are so pink that the camera couldn’t get the color right. They almost look neon.
Okay, the purpose of this post is to show you the steps of a Peonies blooming. Strangely enough, we have a whole bunch of Peonies blooming right now and I was able to get five photos…one during each step of the bloom. It’s really neat. It’s like I took a picture every few days of the same flower. Check it out…
Closed Peonies bud with ants on it
Peonies bud opening slightly
Peonies flower about half-way opened
Peonies flower almost bloomed all the way
Fully bloomed Peonies
That last picture of the fully bloomed Peonies looks a little weird. I have a feeling we’ll be getting some better looking flower very soon.
I was looking through Amazon the other day for a variety of things when I came across a DVD set. It was called, “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Blue Belt Requirements: Fundamentals for All.” It looked really cool and had great ratings. I almost got it. Then, I decided to check out YouTube to see if there were any excerpts from the DVD set. I didn’t see any, but I did find a few awesome BJJ videos. I thought you might want to see them.
Check out the beginning of this video. There is an interesting interview. Of course you should watch the rest of it too.
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