New vehicle

Well, I got a new vehicle for getting around in town. I got a scooter. It’s a Genuine Buddy International 150 cc. I got it at Magic City Motor Scooters. Thanks to Matt and Will for all their help with my purchase! It came in on July 3rd. I paid the balance on it and brought it home that evening. DH followed me in his car as I drove it home like a granny.

I drove it Friday morning before we headed to Huntsville, then Sunday afternoon to kickball. What, you have a problem with adults who play kickball? Go on with ya then. No one ever said I was really good at it, but I made several good catches last Sunday. I also fell on my ass and hit my head, but I didn’t drop the ball I caught. Unfortunately it was so busy last week that I didn’t have the opportunity to drive at all after work. DH had the time to play some on the scooter last week, and did. He has much more experience on 2 wheel motorized vehicles than I do, so I do take his suggestions on my riding to heart.

Then yesterday DH followed me as I tried the route to my office. I will take First Ave North to Roebuck, go on Five Mile Road to Carson Road. When we got into parking at my work, DH was not pleased with how I drove, especially on First Avenue North. I was much slower than the posted speed limit. When I was reading reviews of the scooter, the reviewer was going 10% slower than the speedometer read. So DH was telling me I was actually going about 10 mph slower than I thought I was going. That is not going to be safe on the roads! After walking around for a little bit, we headed back to the house. With a stop for gas for DH’s car. Now that I knew the speedometer was reading faster than I was traveling, I could mentally make the adjustment for it. And the trip back went much better in DH’s mind. There were some folks along First Avenue North who were out grilling in front of a store who thought the scooter was cool and wanted me to stop, but DH needed a pit stop, so since he was being so helpful to me I didn’t want to cause him additional discomfort with an unintended stop. So I thanked them for their interest, but told them I needed to head on. We got home and DH was much happier with how I drove back. I did stay up at very close to the posted speed limit, or with the flow of the existing traffic on the large roads. Actually knowing how far off the speedometer reads helped my driving back immensely. DH was not ready to say I was ready to drive to work on the way out, but after the trip back, he was willing to concede that with a little more practice I would be ok.

Today I went out after church on my scooter with DH following me on his bike. I drove around the block, then headed over to Forest Park on Clairmont. I did ok heading out, and we turned around Triangle Park and came back on Clairmont. Unfortunately, coming back up Clairmont my engine died. I tried to restart it, but it wouldn’t go. So DH went ahead on home to get gas, and I pushed the scooter up the road to a little more safe spot on the road out of the way. While I was there, I checked the gas level in the tank, since I was at about a third of a tank on my fuel gauge. After a few minutes, the scooter started up again, so I started back on my way home. I was really wanting to get home, because the weather was threatening. Rain was moving in and thunder was rumbling in the distance. But about halfway back to the house while on Clairmont the scooter engine died again. So I called DH to let him know what happened and where I was. He came back with his car and a gascan. Even though I wasn’t out, he added about a half a gallon to the tank and the scooter started again. I got it to our block and the engine died a third time. But I was close enough to push the scooter to the house. So I now have a call to Matt to see what I need to have done.

50 years

DH’s parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this past Saturday. DH’s mom is a lovely lady who is a joy to be around, and his dad is a wonderful guy. I am blessed to be able to have become a part of their extended family. DH’s brother’s family was in from Virginia, and a cousin was here with her boys.

We had gone to Huntsville for the 4th of July to spend family time together. DH had spent the earlier part of the week up there while I was at work. We don’t often get to see Nephew 1 and Niece 1, so him getting the opportunity to spend time with them is good. DH’s other brother lives north of his parents, and we went to his house for the 4th. We ate, and swam, and had ’splodies. DH likes having good ’splodies, so we had bought some nice star shells and a few roman candles. Its a good thing we aren’t planning on taking a plane, because chemical sniffers at the airports would probably not be very happy.

Then Saturday was fairly laid back. We beboppped around Huntsville for a bit, then got ready for the big evening. A limo had been rented to take us to dinner. We had to get the front curtains of the house closed so the limo would be a surprise. So a suggestion was made to close the front curtains so we could get a plain backdrop for family pictures. It worked without raising suspicions. Then we headed out of the house and DH’s parents got a huge surprise. A white stretch limo was waiting for us out in the street. DH had gone and gotten 2 bottles of bubbly to toast with in the limo. And there were plenty of glasses there in the limo to use. So all the adults received a glass of bubbly. And we headed to dinner at Conor’s Steaks and Seafood. The food was good, it wasn’t so pretentious that adults and kids were uncomfortable, and they were able to accommodate us all. Hooray! After we ate, the limo came back to bring us home. We ended up calling the neighbors so we would have an audience for the arrival. I mean, what’s the use of a limo if no-one sees you use it? Besides, it was a good excuse for the neighbors to learn that it was a 50th anniversary!

We got back home today. The kitties were very happy to see us again.

Music this weekend

Birmingham has a music festival this weekend, City Stages, and it starts on Friday the 13th. I’m hoping to see L’Angelus play again. DH & I saw them at City Stages 2 years ago. They were lots of fun.

Right now the weather forecast say there’s a small chance of rain for the weekend, and the temperatures should only be in the mid 80s, not the mid 90s. I’ll take that for mid June any day!

Finished World War Z

It only took me half a year to get the book and read it. It is an interesting read. There are parts that I was snickering at, and there are parts that are so true to life that I ached for. Check below the cut for more.

I’m a big ol geek!

Two things that will convince you that I’m a geek, if you weren’t already sure of it.

You can send your name to the moon! Take part in an experiment and have your name sent to space. I’ve already put my name in for this. Oh yeah. I may never physically experience space flight, but my name will make it out there!

I just recently found out that JMS, the creator and producer of Babylon 5, is publishing copies of ALL of his scripts for Babylon 5. So I purchased all of them for my birthday. Happy Birthday to me! DH will enjoy these too, so I don’t feel too badly about it.

Geek, Geek, Geek, I’m a big ol’ geek!

Sleep silliness

More sleep silliness.

mai restz, let me show u dem

You can hear them coming

We live under the flight path for the short runway. And DH and I are aviation aficionados. This afternoon a P-51 Mustang has been flying around over us. I’d say he was doing touch and gos, but the flight path wasn’t regular enough over us to be straight touch and go. He would fly over us toward runway 36, but his landing gear wasn’t down. Then he would fly length wise above runway 6, but he was slower and had his gear down for it. There’s nothing like the growl of that radial engine!

Then a few minutes ago we saw an AT-6 fly over us. Its been a lovely day for flying. And a fun day to see what is going over our heads.

Edited 2-2-08 I was mistaken. The P-51 has an inline engine. But that Rolls is definitely distinctive! The P-51 flew over us again this morning.

The Adventures of a geekgirl over Christmas Vacation Pt 2

Well, we weren’t blown away in the storms, but life has gotten more interesting in the mean time. So here’s the follow up on the holidays. The Biltmore House doesn’t allow photography indoors, so all the pictures I got were taken outside. I understand the necessity of the rule, but it would have been really nice to have gotten pictures of the library or some of the rooms inside. Its a lovely estate. The joys of being offspring of the robber barons of the gilded age. The behind the scenes tour that we took was interesting. We had the opportunity to see great hall from the pipe organ balcony, several different parts of the servant areas, the old electrical room, the furnace room, and pantry areas. The main electrical room had a huge board of the old electrical throw switches. It would have looked right at home in the Frankenstein movies.

Then we went and visited some of the gardens. The walled garden and the conservatory were lovely.

In between the house and the walled garden, I found an interesting looking bush. Its leaves were all gone, but the shape of the branches was striking. And after the walled garden, we walked around toward the spring garden. There was this lovely bridge for the road to go over and pedestrian traffic to go under.

The group split at that point and DH and his oldest brother and wife and I visited the winery and the other brother’s family with 2 minors went back to the cabin where we were staying for the week. The four of us saw the winery’s promotional video, then toured the facility and tasted several different vintages that are bottled there on the estate. They have some very nice wines, and we purchased a few. Then back to the cabin for us to have dinner and meet back.

After dinner we traveled back to the Biltmore. We had a candlelight tour of the house scheduled at 8:30 PM. We ended up getting there fairly early, and puttered around the shopping area at the house. It even though the wind was pretty chilly, it still was very nice. When we finally got into the house for the tour, DH & I purchased the audio tour guides that were available. When the tours aren’t led by a docent, I do like to have the audio tour guides for the additional information that they offer. There was a choir in the winter garden that was singing Christmas Carols, then there was an artist playing a hammered dulcimer on the second floor and a duo playing violin and harp on the third floor. None of the musicians were intruding on the others, if that gives you an idea of the scope of the size of the house. And on the top floor is the original architect’s model of the entire house! George Vanderbilt liked the model so much that he kept it and designed the room , as well as had a table built specifically for the model. It was amazing to me that an architect’s model was preserved so well for so long.

Over all, it was a neat place to visit. I’d love to see it when the roses in the walled garden are in bloom, or in the fall when the the leaves are changing.

The adventures of a geekgirl over Christmas vacation

As you probably guessed, DH and I were not at home for Christmas. In fact, we were in North Carolina with DH’s parents and brother’s families. We were right outside of Asheville. We stayed in a very nice rental cabin that was large enough to accommodate all of the families. The beautiful moonrise that I showed you earlier was taken on US highway 25 between Greenville, South Carolina and Hendersonville, North Carolina. DH’s middle brother brought the Christmas lights that were strung up on the porch railing that I took pictures of, too.

Up in the mountains, the sunsets were spectacular. I ended up getting a number sunset pictures.
I went a bit nuts with the sunset pictures. But I was also trying to figure out that new camera, and how well it took pictures.

Christmas morning was a laid back affair. Nephew 1 and Niece 1 enjoyed their gifts. In DH’s family, the stockings are openly stuffed by family members and discovered on Christmas Eve. That always puzzled me, since in my family stockings were empty until Christmas morning and Santa always brought the loot in them. In fact, when I was little on Christmas morning, the stockings were the only thing we could get into until Mom and Dad and everyone got up. I take that back. Santa always left a gift or two unwrapped and set up for us to play with. We could play with those and the stocking gifts until everyone was up and assembled at the tree.

That evening and night, we has SNOW! Yay! You could hear the snow flakes hit the windows and hiss a little bit as they melted. The porch was covered with about a quarter inch of snow on Boxing Day morning.

Boxing day was the day we were scheduled to visit the Biltmore house. We had a behind the scenes tour scheduled at 10:30 AM, and we were warned that if we missed the tour time we would be out of luck. We were a bit nervous, since the driveway was very steep. Thankfully it had been warm enough that the snow didn’t stick to the driveway or the roads. We found our way to the Biltmore Estate grounds, and finally got our view of the house.
Wow. The view of the house from the drive was incredibly impressive. Then the view of the lawn and the grounds from the front of the house was also impressive.
Greeting folks as they approached the front door was a pair lions, suitably attired for the season. Then inside the foyer was the first set of decorated trees. The Biltmore web site probably has a good estimate of the total number Christmas trees that are used to decorate the entire house. I can’t remember the number from the tour we took.

I’m going to have to continue this later. There’s more on the Biltmore, and then bookstores!

Birds and new cameras

I got a new camera to use, and I’m learning how to use it to its best effect. Out of ten pictures of a mocking bird, 3 are actually pretty nice. Here is one that I think is about the best of the lot.

Or here is a slightly different look at the bird.

They turned out pretty good.

Christmas Lights

For your festivities, I’m sharing a a pictures that I took. Its a picture of the lights that we’ve got strung up.

May your dinner be good, and the day joyous!

Merry Christmas to all

I’m here with DH and his family for Christmas. We’re hanging out and playing with their puppies. The full moon last night was spectacular, and I have a couple of pictures on my camera. But the picture in the little lcd screen was much less impressive than the view in front of me, so I have to wait until the pictures are downloaded to see if the come close to the grandeur of the scene we saw last night. DH’s brother and family are off to church for Christmas Eve Mass. And we have stuff to nosh on and lasagna in the oven to eat in a bit. The wines are chilling or cooling, and the other beverages are available. We have mulling spices, and I’ll be mulling some cider,and possibly some wine later. Tomorrow the gift giving frenzy will take place. But it will be a much more subdued frenzy than years past, since the kids are both older and there are no little ones to get adults up at the crack of dawn. We’ll sleep in and play later.

May your holiday season be filled with cheer, and the new year bring health, happiness, joy, and peace to you and your family!

Edit:The pictures turned out better than I first thought.

Happy first day of Winter

So its the first full day of winter in the northern hemisphere. Its a grey day here in Birmingham, and the rain is coming, eventually. Right now the rain line is in Arkansas and Missouri. So the folks delivering the angel tree items today should be in pretty good shape. Go rain! we’re still 20 inches behind on the rainfall for the year, so any rain is good rain here.

fun video for your consumption

This post is a link to a video on youtube.

This version of Sweet Home Alabama is good, and not quite your standard version of it. DH and compatriots found it. Oh my!

starting to get into steampunk

I’ve been a fan of the Girl Genius online comic for a while now, and have been looking around at some of the steampunk related things online. I’ve always loved the look of some older antiques, and been attracted to junk and stuff. Not to mention being a fan of the Jules Verne and HG Wells adventure stories. So the steampunk world is starting to call my name. Its a siren song, and I’m resisting doing more than reading some of the communities and posts out there.

I already own several sets of goggles that could be adapted to an interesting outfit…