Nation's designers welcome in the new 'economy-inspired' paint colors for 2012

Benjamin Poore Introduces 8 New Hues

For the New Economy

Already offering you designers more than 3,000 shades, Benjamin Poore says its new 8-strong Color-less Stories collection not only reflects your clients' zero options for a bright future but also introduces a whole new concept in paint science by doubling the number of failures in each formula to create a full spectrum of color-less hues. 

Benjamin Poore says it's re-created the can with its new Color-less Stories paint line. The collection's nine palettes contain 240 hues of what the company calls an incredible array of dull-spectrum non-colors, which are achieved by omitting five to seven pigments rather than the usual three and celebrating the more depressing black and gray tints as filler. The company claims the paint is richer and the darks have more depth, emulating our less than vibrant economy and the deep despair our government is providing us, especially with elections coming up in 2012. 

The pigments being blended to create these nuanced hues have no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Because the company makes its own colorants it can ensure that when pigments are mixed into low-VOC paint the total VOCs remain under 50 grams per liter. This has less meaning considering a quicker death nowadays by starvation instead of breathing in fumes but is progress nonetheless.

The overtones generated from careful blending of no pigments will be readily apparent to builders, architects, designers, and homeowners who have all but lost everything they ever owned.  Natural versus artificial lighting will affect dynamic changes in the paint's otherwise drab characteristics throughout the day. "With Color-less Stories there's a complete lack of complexity and compromise to the color experience that is amazing," states Jay Romez, Benjamin Poore's director of color marketing, in a release about the new line. “This new color line accurately represents what our Congress and House of Representatives is truly providing the country now – a total lack of leadership and a total failure to act fostering a complete lack of trust and hope for any kind of even dismal future for this country”  he goes on to say, “the colors are right on target”.   

 The palettes assembled to debut this new paint mixology include an array of un-inspired shades of grey with individual colors ranging from a muted gray called sea salt to the vivid grey of the certain approaching Great Depression II . Each palette evokes a different place or mood to give the collection a personal feel—earthen blackish hues, elemental light greys, fiery blacks, fluid black-greys, black dead fields, naturally neutral, shades of gray and 'forclosure pewter' an uninspiring hue of a sickly national grey.

"And after all..." says Jay,"....the country WAS only black and white during the depression."

It's always something...

Big Ben Leans - but which direction?

Big Ben is leaning.  I’ve heard about this too and decided to look into some British history to see exactly which way it might actually be leaning.

With some help from Wikipedia, I fount that prior to the mid-19th century politics in the United Kingdom was dominated by the Whigs and the Tories. These were not political parties in the modern sense but somewhat loose alliances of interests and individuals. 

The Whigs included many of the leading aristocratic dynasties committed to the Protestant succession, and later drew support from elements of the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories were associated with the landed gentry, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.

By the mid 19th century the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party, and the Whigs had evolved into the Liberal Party. In the late 19th century the Liberal Party began to pursue more left wing policies, and many of the heirs of the Whig tradition became Liberal Unionists and moved closer to the Conservatives on many of the key issues of the time.

The Liberal and Conservatives dominated the political scene until the 1920s, when the Liberal Party declined in popularity and suffered a long stream of resignations. It was replaced as the main left-wing party by the newly emerging Labour Party, who represented an alliance between the trades unions and various socialist societies.

So it seems that it’s really leaning in the direction of your point of view.

From the bridge the Conservatives claim Big Ben is leaning to the Right.  From the other side, the Labour Party claims Big Ben is certainly leaning to the Left.

It’s not leaning much yet.  Experts say 1.64 feet (9 mm per year)  this is 1/16th the lean of the Tower in Pisa. They conclude:

"Our resident expert believes it will be between 4,000 and 10,000 years before it becomes a problem. They don't know what's behind the acceleration, however, and say that there's "No real proof what has caused it"."

An American entrepreneur has suggested moving Big Ben to Washington DC to solve the problem of which way it’s leaning and, hopefully someday to fix it.  

This was not approved, however, since experts estimated that the Administration, Congress and The House would not be able to agree on this for at least 15,000 years.  Big Ben would then share the Mall Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in its horizontal resting place.


It's always something...

Unstable Eddie

Dinner at O’Hare only takes up so much of a 3 hour lay over.  Especially when there is no one to share it with.  So I dragged my carry-on around and around.  I finally tired of the endless trek up and down and retired briefly to gate 28, flight 871 to Seattle.  A four hour flight to be sure, but I just had to sit for awhile.

Across from me sat a middle aged woman and a man-boy kind of person - not sure if he was her son, or grand son or what.  She was having an animated cell phone conversation and he was immersed in some sort of video game.  He was doing something on a screen which I couldn’t see, raucously poking it and shaking it, making odd faces of pain and occasional joy.  He became really agitated now and then and his mom (?) would just tap his arm to stop his stomping feet.  I noticed one of those medical alert dog tags around his neck.  I blew out some air and glanced sideways at an imaginary camera filming this (kind of like on ‘The Office’).

I sat there for a moment or two more and noticed the woman had one of those ticket pouches some folks carry around their necks who take cruises and such.  Their boarding passes were neatly tucked inside.  The clear plastic allowed the seat number to be seen.  8F was on the top ticket.  Uh huh.  What was MY seat number I wondered.  Yeah, I checked.  Mine was 8D.  which is an aisle seat.  8F is a window seat, which meant, yes, the hidden ticket - HIS ticket, had to be 8E.  which was NEXT TO ME.  Holy God!  No.  PLEASE, no.  I was sitting next to Unstable Eddie.

I had another hour to brood about this and wondered if I should go have another martini.    I elected against that, having just had two plus a large glass of wine.  Maybe I could maintain my altitude.

They announced that our airplane had a mechanical malfunction and that it would take too long to repair (like maybe re attaching the left wing or something) so we all did the Bataan death march with our belongings down to gate 23.  Mom (?) was extremely annoyed at this but Unstable Eddie found it somehow entertaining.  Added to the melee was a gaggle of what looked to be an African refugee family, or perhaps a small village in Somalia, queuing up behind their sponsor who was confused about ticketing and paperwork.  I swear to God the little kids looked like they had just got off the photo take at CNN, wearing dusty ragged clothes and such.  This was just weird.  They all got on the plane and I never saw them again.  

We boarded.  I had to, of course, get up for mom (?) and Unstable Eddie as they put all their crap in the overhead and clambered into their seats.  Eddie crash landed into his seat and began arguing with mom (?).  He got out the video game along with a packet of tablets, a syringe case and some sort of blood tester thing from his Darth Vader Space bag.  His mom (?) opened a book.  Eddie spilled some pills into  his hand and quaffed them down with a gulp from the 32 ounce Diet Coke he had brought on board.  Then he tested his blood.  Then he opened the syringe kit, took one out and stabbed his stomach with it.  His mom (?) turned the page.

I gave a long sideways glance into the camera that was surely filming this.

As soon as we were airborne Eddie got up, made an uncomfortable scene struggling past the beverage cart and went to assumedly drain 20 ounces of fluid in the first class toilet.  (we weren’t in first class).   Fifteen minutes later I had to get up and let him repeat the process.  His mom (?) flipped another page.  Eddie returned, finished the 32 ounce Diet Coke and ordered two more from the Attendant.  Then he passed out.  His mom (?) flipped another page.

I looked at my watch.  Two more hours to Seattle.  And Eddie would awaken soon.

It’s always something.

Good to Go

Watched a report on the status of “Good To Go” on TV by Robert Mak a few days ago.  I’ve got my little G-T-G thing on my windshield, as demanded by WSDOT.  Looks like this thing won’t start now until late July, right about when Seattle gets its two weeks of blistering, sultry hot 78 degree summer.  Well, I’m ready, by god. 

Yep, a toll for all seasons it’s touted to be.  There’s a different charge for different times on different days – and – if your car happens to be blown off the bridge midway, you won’t be charged for the trip!  How cool is that?

Mak interviewed a State Legislator who was making some noise about maybe this toll isn’t enough.  Maybe they should toll BOTH frickin’ bridges.  Yep, you just wait.  It’ll happen.  In fact, hell, maybe they ought to just toll the beegeezus out of every route to anywhere.  We HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. 

I’ve done a little map to help the lawmakers who can read get a jump on this idea and trump it up down in Olympia. 

Note also that we go “out” to Issaquah…”over” to Redmond…and “up” to Monroe.  Kind of a Seattle thing I guess. 

So, we’ll pay a toll everywhere we go.  The next step is for the State to tattoo a barcode onto our foreheads and we can pay tolls for, say, sidewalks, public buildings and stairways, the waterfront…..just imagine the possibilities for sorely needed State Revenue. 

A barcode that has stopped moving on the street could signal a death possibly by a mugging or being hit by a car, maybe passed out from inebriation, any number of things.  This way, aid can be directed to the toll payer in hopes of saving them so they can continue to provide revenue.  Nothing wasted.

It’s always something………

It's almost here!!

It’s coming next week!  June 21^st!  The first day of summer for us folks north of the hemisphere.  The Earth sort of tilts this way and that.  And when it’s on the backward (or is it forward?) tilt that means the northern hemisphere does a leaner towards the sun.  

The sun, as we remember from 8^th grade science class is 5,778 degrees Kelvin, 5,5505 degrees Celsius, or just more commonly known as 18 bazillion firkin degrees.  This is really, REALLY hot, fusing something like 620 million METRIC TONS of hydrogen each second.  Almost an equivalent of the amount of oxygen Sarah Palin’s ignorance sucks out of a room.

We don’t burn up, of course, because the sun is damn near 150 million kilometers away.  What we DO, is set out the barbee, put on our shorts and sandals, our SPF 45 and hit the beach.  That is, everyone but Seattleites.  (I still think of little beeping, orbiting people when I see the word ‘Seattleite’). 

No, Seattle is different.  This year we had measureable rain on 87 of 131 days through May 11.  That’s like, 66%.  Now, counting the days when we had a TRACE of rain the statistic jumps to 104 of 131 days with rain (wet is wet whether or not Mr. Peabody measures it at the airport).  F’ing ridiculous. 

Anyone watching the weather channel can see the problem here.  What apparently happens is that THE ENTIRE PACIFIC OCEAN evaporates each year, travels up, swirls over Washington and condenses, falls and runs back to fill the ocean back up.  WHO the HELL would want to LIVE in a place like this?  Just ask the little beeping, orbiting people. 

I wouldn’t want to live in Alaska though.  No oxygen.

It’s always something.

I Gave My Life for You

I gave my life for you, Continental Army so you could defeat the tyranny of the British monarchy.

I gave my life for you, Marine Corps so you could take the island and step closer to winning the war to keep our freedom…

I gave my life for you, U.S. Army 4^th Infantry, so you could take the beach at Normandy…

I gave my life for you, Caen Canal Bridge so our troops could use it in the quest to defeat the Nazis who threatened our freedom…….

I gave my life for you, guy at the LA airport, so you could have the freedom to spit and call me ‘baby killer’ when I got home on leave from Viet Nam…..

I gave my life for you, media, so some of you could keep the right to berate our presidents…..

I gave my life for you all, so you could choose to hate or love and be free to express yourselves…..

I’m still on the battle fields where they could not find me to bring me home, at the bottom of the sea, in the dust in the air and, here, in Normandy where I lie in pristine rows at peace with my brothers and sisters,  that eternal peace which passes all understanding……

Remember me.

COWBOYS SOUGHT HIM

I'm researching and writing a chronicle on my mother's family history in Salina, Kansas.  Just starting it.  I have a newspaper clipping on the death of my great grandfather written in 1910 or thereabouts.  I have copied it here.  How writing styles have changed..........this has run on sentences run amok.  I guess the newspaper folk in Salina Kansas in 1910 considered themselves lucky finding anyone who could write at all............

as written  --

Andrew Stockenberg, who died three weeks ago of leakage of the heart and dropsy, at his home on south Connecticut, was known as far back as forty years ago as the neatest cobbler on the plains, and drew many cowboys and not a few Indians to his little shop on south fifth street to have their chaps and gauntlets mended and their shoes and boots made as well as the Indian’s moccasins.  He was known for miles around as the best man for the cowboys to have to fix their leather upholstery because of his reputation of his neatness.

At that time even an occasional buffalo would come grazing around the small village of Salina, almost into the main streets as if in search of the neatest cobbler to mend its boots which were worn and cut on the sand swept prairies. 

Indians were numerous who visited the little shop either in search of new moccasins or repairs for the old ones.  And all liked and greeted with good cheer the neatest of cobblers who made their leather goods look as good as new, their Indian moccasins soft and pliable and artistically trimmed, with new designs on the cowboy’s high stout boots which fit so well, and soft new leather well arranged in the seats of their well worn chaps.

As time went on and the buffalo disappeared and the Indians became a rare sight, and the cowboys fewer, the men up and down the dusty wooden shack lined street came more often to the little shop in search of the neatest of cobblers to see if he could make for them a couple of pairs of shoes.  Many times during those years the cobbler toiled far into the night to supply the demand for his handiwork in shoes and boots.  No “boughten” boots for those men with this cobbler so willing to work, who could make such soft boots that fit so well and wore so long.  And no patches seemed as nice as those put in by this cobbler, none mended so neatly into the worn places of the boot or shoe and none had so few rough spots.

Through all but the last six years of the forth seven years of his life in Salina, Mr. Stockenberg continued as a business this work of making shoes, and in these latter years many prominent business men would visit his shop that was moved to to his home on South  Connecticut to have him make their shoes.

Mr. Stockenberg was a foreman in a big store factory in Chicago and bought a farm although he had never before seen it out near the Salemsborg church.

He had made up his mind to leave Chicago and farm, in peace and quiet the rest of his life, so leaving his family he came to Salina and went out to his farm, but at the close of the first day declared it was too much peace and quiet and came back to the small village that was known as Salina.  Then he decided to open a shoe shop, after listening to the arguments of the cowboys and residents regarding the need of one.  His family, composed of his wife, two sons and two daughters, joined him although lacking considerably in enthusiasm of the wild nature of the country.

it's always something

Excitement about the Smallest Things can Make Your Day

A high point in my day has become getting the mail delivery.  It’s true; we get mostly bills and an endless jetsam of advertisement waste.  The great thing about all this crap you get in the mail is – it’s bulky.  What’s so great about that, you may ask?  Well, it means that the postal carrier has to put a rubber band around it.  And, the rubber band is FREE!

Hot damn, yes, you heard right – free.  Now, I’ve been diligent about saving these over the years and have a collection such that I never have to go to Office Max to buy rubber bands.  Going to Office Max as many have heard about lately is a hellish venture for some.

The Post Office rubber bands come in a variety of shapes and wear.  Many of them are pre-discolored with newsprint that tells folks “this person is a recycler; a consciences consumer, always reconsidering something used instead of crackin’ open a new pack of stuff.”  Gives me a sense of pride. 

I’ve got lots of rubber bands nowadays.  Our architect business is down to the nubs and we don’t have any plans to roll up and secure with a rubber band.  They have other uses though.  They held up our plants until they all died.  You can use them to keep the sole of your shoe from flapping.  And you can use them instead of expensive file folders to hold repossession and past due notices together so you don’t lose them.  They can even serve as a fastener for button less jeans. 

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s bundle.

It’s always something.

Shingles - More to 'em than meets the eye

Where to begin with this?  Got back from Kansas Tuesday April 5th at midnight.  I had spent two full weeks with my mom, cooking, taking care of her and watching all the programming fox network provides its minions.  Got a HORRIBLE cold the 2nd week there in Kansas.  Couldn't tell at first, what with a combination of the good ol’ Midwest hay fever resurrected in my sinuses and the constant smoky haze of Marlboro 100 lights (that's light, as in - hey this will kill perhaps just a teensy bit slower than the regulars).  Geezus frick-a-monda what misery.

I noticed a rash on my face the night before my flight back to Seattle.  Tuesday flying all day I checked it during trips to the flying can and at layovers.  I was becoming disfigured.  By the end of the day my face was swollen on the left side and I looked like I had just lost a prize fight, gone out into the alley, got mugged, and then shot in the face with a shotgun.  I think this is why folks were giving me lots of extra room at the airport.  Next day I went to the doctor.  He said I had the Shingles.  And, yes, it's as bad as it's advertised to be.  In my case the virus had awakened from its slumber and found the jail cell door wide open, as all my antibody cops were fighting the cold and no one was in the jail to keep guard.  These malevolent little virus bastards, now fully awake, found themselves on 'John's face nerve Ave.' and decided to make up for the lost time since they had participated in my Chicken Pox so long ago.

My teeth felt like I was having constant dental surgery with NO NOVACAINE.   This lasted for 3 days, even with the Vicadin.  My eye was swollen shut.  My mouth and chin were swollen so I couldn't eat except through a straw.  Then I got sick on my meds.  Come to find out the pharmacy mis-typed the instructions and I was taking 6 times the normal amount.  Medicine vomit is a curious experience.  There’s no real substance, no volume.  Nothing floating to survey as to what it might have been before partially digested. 

I'm better today - just mild pain - and the wounds are healing on my face.  I’ve gone past the ‘frightening little kids’ stage of facial disfigurement.  It’s been nearly a month and I still can’t sleep comfortably.  I have this ‘St. Elmo’s fire’ thing wafting over my face all day and my eyes still hurt.  I’m hoping I don’t have the ‘long term’ version of this which I’m told can last forever. 

If you have had the Chicken Pox and are getting’ on to 60 then I’d suggest getting the Shingles Vaccine.  (I kept seeing the advertising for this and for the longest time wondered why one would need to be vaccinated against being single.) 

It’s always something..

here's some good information...

http://www.shinglesinfo.com/index.html

Back when the world was black and white

Well, Internets, I’m in Salina, Kansas this week and next.  My mom is 90 years old this year and still living on her own – sort of.  She’s needing more care and my brother’s family needs a break so I’m here for awhile. 

Mom was the 7^th kid, born 1921.  Ten were in her family.  Six girls, two boys, mom and dad.  In one house, four bedrooms, one bathroom.  Kitchen had an icebox and a wood-fired cook stove/oven.  You put a big cardboard sign in your front window on the day the ice man came by, with the amount of ice you needed; 25, 50 or 75 pounds of block ice.  He would pull the block down with tongs, go around to the kitchen and heft it up in the top compartment of the ice box.

The stove was fired with wood.  I don’t even want to know how difficult that was.  No hot water (they heated buckets on the wood stove).  Washed the clothes that way.  No dryer.  You ran the clothes through a wringer and hung them outside.  Six girls, two boys must have made wash day interesting. 

For baths, same drill.  Heat buckets of water from the pump on the stove; carry them through the dining room, living room, boy’s bedroom, mom and dad’s bedroom to the one bathroom in the corner of the house.  Take a bath.  Drain the water into the yard.  Put on your clothes from the clothes line after ironing them with an iron heated on the wood stove and you’re all set to go out and walk to wherever you need to go.  The boy’s Sunday shirts and dad’s shirt were starched with a mix that mom would make on ironing day.

Their dad had the car all week, traveling in western Kansas selling china and crystal for an outfit in Kansas City.  They couldn’t order stuff on line. 

This all sounds like geezer-speak, but danged if I haven’t been impressed with all the things my mom’s family didn’t have.  What they did have was a closeness that you don’t see too often these days. 

All except for my mom they’re all still very close – in the dirt about a mile from here.  And as one may or may not choose to believe, now in a better place with more conveniences.

It’s always something.

That dang Comet Elenin

So I'm thinkin', was the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan recently due to this comet thing?  (see last blog below).  March 15th came and went and nothing bad really happened, other than another usual tragically bad day for me.  Gee.....maybe....dooya think?

It's always something.

Mark your calendar - March 15

In the interest of passing along life-saving information I am putting this on my blog.  Of course, I "snoped" it and found it in an article on "bad astronomy".  So, here are links to You-tube posts I found interesting.  If you're reading this blog it stands to reason that, 1) you're a professional time-waster and 2) you are interested in occasional humor (which, I admit is only occasional here in my basement).

This stuff is classic.  I just love "the truther girls"  I've become a follower....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hfo0RLxMrA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVJ3ETfSDtc&feature=related

it's always something

Another One Bites the Dust.....

Well, Johnny Nitro sailed off to the Big Gig last Saturday night.  Never new the guy.  He was a cousin of a friend of mine, guitar player, from San Francisco living up here.  Sounds like he, as many musicians, led a few years of ‘dog life’.  That’s when you age 7x faster than you should.  I figure B.B. King has to be what? 150 – 185, somewhere around there with this factored in?  He had to sit down for Obama’s gig, but who can blame him?

I’ve been reading the obituaries more often in the Sunday paper.  I don’t know, it just seems interesting now.  Kind of like when you’re in line, nearing the row of windows you sort of start looking left and right to see how short the other line is.  You can count the people to the window easier in the other lines than in your own line.  Yeah….I check the years of birth and sort of am relieved to see more in the 1920’s and even 1930’s than late 1940’s.  But still I check.  Kind of morbid I guess. 

Every now and then someone born in the 1960’s kicks it (yeah, and the guys I knew who went to Nam) and I think “man, they came and went and here I still am…”

I swore to my family the other evening that I didn’t want them to leave me in a vegetative state – to be dependent on a machine and fluids from a bottle.  They came over, unplugged my computer and threw out my wine.

It’s always something

read more about Johnny:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/20/BAN81HR1FE.DTL

Your Fortune Awaits.......

February 3 was the date heralding the New Chinese Year.  2011 is the year of the Rabbit, according to the neighborhood bulletin board in the Chinese/Cantonese restaurant down the street.  Canton is supposedly in Southern China. 

I guess southern Chinese food is like chop suey with grits and ribs maybe, or perhaps Barbeque sauce on the side.

It all tastes much the same to me.  But then I’m not an affection-ado of Chinese cuisine.  I do like Sum Dum, that type of meal where a horde of wait staff wheels around carts laden with various cooked (mostly are cooked) things.  Some of the really fresh entrees have not died yet and other entrees seem to have been dead quite some time.  Almost all of them, dead or alive, are slippery and elude the novice chopstick.  I usually stab it with one stick and eat it like a corndog.  This makes some of the staff frown and gives them something more to talk about in the kitchen.  Did I say talk?  I’m sorry, yell.  I’ve never been in a Chinese kitchen but all seem to have a certain constant din.

My favorite thing about a Chinese restaurant meal is the fortune cookie.  A simple mixture of egg white, vanilla extract, unbleached flour and sugar, the fortune cookie can be just a cookie or a new life.  They’re usually positive and chime in along the lines of astrology in their significance.  All depends on the reader.  They’re fun when they make you think you have friends and will get rich.  I’ve grown to depend on them from time to time, being an architect. 

So there’s this guy in Missouri who’s down on his luck and he has purchased 365 fortune cookies and is living each day by what they say.  Here, check it out for yourself…

http://www.mydailyfortune.net/

I don’t know.  I think I’ll just keep enjoying them whenever I have Chinese.  Every now and then you open one that makes you think twice, however.

It's always something.....

Weather Rodent

My friend, Mr. Cranky, posted this li'l fellow on Facebook today and I can't leave my post without passing this along.

Seems like Punksutawney, Pa. isn't the only town here in the U S of A that has this ridiculous tradition.  They have one of these in Wallingford, a neighborhood of Seattle.  "Wallingford Phil" lives in the crawl space under the Safeway on 45th St.  Having survived being eaten by the homeless, ol' Phil has been faithful, coming out on Feb. 2nd every year.

Feb. 2nd traditionally is the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.  In Seattle it's darn hard to tell where the middle is, especially between two equally cold and grey periods of time.  Thankfully, Phil knows, and his emergence helps reset the clock. 

Folks in Seattle can't remember a time when ol' Phil has not seen his shadow on February 2nd.  

"...yeah, it's usually cold and freeze-ass windy around these parts come the first week of February..."  chimes in Fred Mortz of Wallingford.  ".....dang if it ain't sunny though.."

And danged if it doesn't always come true in Seattle.  6 more months of winter.  The skies break sunny for a week or so, right after the annual soaker on the 4th of July.  Then it's time to shake it of and hobble back to the crawl space.

It's always something.......

Getting Ready for Summer in Seattle

I was rummaging around in my basement the other day looking for our lawn chairs.  What started my search was seeing the sun come out.  It was only for five minutes or so.  This is quite an event in Seattle.  Folks take the day off early, the floating bridge traffic snarls due to blindness for drivers and one can see some of the Northwest mole people out on the wet grass, shirts off reading their articles on green living recycling in the balmy 45 degree filtered sunlight.

Sure, I know it won’t be nice until summer.  But I was excited – and just couldn’t wait until July 15^th, the first day of the week-long Seattle summer.  With only a week of summer I figured I would get the drop on it by repainting my lawn chairs now with Rust-oleum.  They would certainly be dry by June.  Plenty of time to get them ready to run out to the yard and use them for the summer week.

I found the lawn chairs finally.  They had accumulated a bit of rust.  Looked high and low for my can of Rust-oleum but it wasn’t in the basement.

I went out to the garage and found it on the shelf.  The irony of the condition of the can was not lost on me.  I’m heading out to Costco to get some green spray paint.  Maybe I’ll see if the summer furniture is on sale yet.

It’s always something…

Pause for Reflection

Sometimes you see something that is just so stupid it grabs you.  I saw this in a New Yorker Calendar last month. 

It’s always something