The Legacy of an Antique

I’m not very big into antiques. In fact, I think I don’t much care for them at all. I’ve stopped at antique stores before, and browsed through the old roll-top desks and the antique china cabinets. I’ve seen the old grandfather clocks and the coffee tables that were built back in the early nineteenth century. And I do a whole lot of yawning, but not much else. That stuff just doesn’t do it for me. But I got a phone call yesterday that changed everything.

Well, not everything. That’s just a cool way to close the opening paragraph of a column. It changed something though. My grandmother called, you see. And she’s the last living grandparent I have. She happens to be my dad’s mother. Happens to be. I mean, I guess she happened to be the one to marry my dad’s dad and thus, happened to end up becoming my dad’s mother. Funny how that happens. She actually didn’t even call me. She called my dad. And she had something she wanted to pass down.

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Here be Space: Collector of Collections

I’ve been home since Saturday. But I’m still getting used to it. Like I said before, it feels like I’ve been in a different airport (and hotel) every week. And indeed, I pretty much have. It’s nice to get home and know you’ll be staying there for at least a little while. Our next trip isn’t scheduled until August, so I have at least a month here before I have to use a suitcase again. Gah, I’m so tired of putting stuff into suitcases.

But you know what I’ve found about being back in the house? Well, besides the fact that when you’ve been gone for a week you get to see what your house actually smells like. I’ve found that it’s too big. You know, 7500 square feet can just get overwhelming for a guy like me. No, seriously it’s only about 2500 square feet, but when you’re home alone, it feels like a whole helluva bunch of wasted space. Of course, when you’ve been living out of a suitcase in a hotel room every other week, you start realizing that you’re doing just fine without all your big luscious space. And furthermore, all your stuff.

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Bacon Talk: Pirates

Good morning fans of the bacon! Let’s talk about pirates! Well, I guess I need to specify since there seems to be so many different definitions for the word these days. One, for instance, means ‘someone who copies and resells media for a profit’. Another means, literally, ‘someone who climbs on board and takes someone’s ship by force’. But the kind of pirates we want to talk about today are the third definition in Merriam Webster’s Seriously Revised Dictionary of Words for 2011’s New Edition of Vocabulary. Yes, that definition is ‘someone who has a peg-leg, a hook for a hand, and quite possibly an eyepatch’. That’s the cool kind of pirate.

My wife and I, for the last two years on our Florida trips, have gone on the pirate ship cruise down at John’s Pass. See, I say that my wife and I went on it. Well, of course the kids went too, but we really just took them because we couldn’t find a babysitter. And no one gets more into the pirate talk and grabbing the ladies’ booty than me.
But what else is there to do? My town has Pirate Days once a year. Is there anything going on in your town to pay homage and respect to the good old-fashioned pirate?

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Bacon Talk: Tree Houses

Good morning, friends, family and – well, good morning to you too, enemies. Welcome to a special edition of Bacon Talk. That’s right, folks, tomorrow is International Bacon Day! But aside from being knee-deep in all that hoopla, I really just have one word to say right now. TREE HOUSES. HELL YES, TREE HOUSES! Sorry. I got a little carried away there. Almost choked on my bacon. See, you know that nostalgic feeling you get in your tummy sometimes when you think of something cool, like opening a pack of Topps baseball cards back in 1984 and pulling out the stick of gum, popping it in your mouth, and then sorting through them to see who you got? Hoping it was a Jim Sundberg or a Bobby Valentine? Yeah. I get that same feeling every time I think of tree houses. Because son of a bitch!
I get so excited thinking about tree houses that it makes me just want to quit my job, go plant some bad ass oaks in my yard, and start construction on one tomorrow. I’m talking like a three-level freakin’ mansion in the trees here, friends. Every time I Google Image search for tree houses, I start squirming in my seat getting excited. I love me some tree houses!
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Coming Out of the Closet

During the Great Robot Fiasco of 2010 a couple of months ago, where my Pusher and Shover Robots malfunctioned and tried to push my red-haired wife down the stairs (instead of my grandmother), I spent a lot of time in my closets. I spent time in my water closet testing and replacing parts on my air handler. I spent time in my master closet testing and replacing circuit breakers. I even spent time in some of my neighbors’ closets looking through their clothing and enjoying the various scents attached to the legs of their slacks and dresses. But now, my friends, it’s finally time to come out of the closet.

Yeah, see, I really just wanted to say that. It feels good to say it. But it feels even better to finally be out of the closet. See, after several long hours spent in all these closets around my house performing repairs, I realized some of those closets could use a good once-over cleaning. I realized I had junk on my shelves in the master closet that had been sitting there for years. Just shit like picture frames and curtain rod holders, cabinet knobs and stacks of important papers, electron shufflers and relastics diodes. You know, the stuff you find in just about every closet in America.

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Lost Treasures

Over the last couple of years, Captain and I have analyzed and cataloged the inventories of over seventeen thousand couches. We took our science team, which consists of our Department of Couch Research, our Department of Breast Analysis and Appreciation, and our entire Ministry of Sexual Relations. Don’t ask why we needed those departments. But you can see how couches have to do with sex, at least in some respects.

Anyway, what we endeavored to do was to find out what people had lost in their couches. And there were plenty of treasures to be found. People with children usually had a few Legos and some small plastic pieces of play fence. People with cats found a lot of cat hair and an occasional chunk or two of litter, sometimes a play ball (you know the ones with the little bells in the middle of them?). But the most popular items we found in people’s couches were French Fries and pennies. Ninety-six percent of the couches we cataloged had at least one of each beneath their cushions.

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Expensive Hobbies

I’ve kind of gotten into this photography thing. I have always had an eye for it, and a desire to get passionate about it, but just never had the equipment. Well, now I do. Anyway, I’ve been taking pictures of everything lately. You know, you have to take a hundred shots to get ten good ones. If you’re lucky. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. Well, I haven’t gotten to a level yet where I can make an exposure work no matter what. But I almost always can see when there’s potential for a good one.

A picture I took with the D40So I went to the dive shop the other day to get some equipment. This – uh, by the way, is a subject change here. Now I’m talking about SCUBA. A buddy of mine from work is a PADI instructor and runs classes at this dive shop. So he got me a discount on the SCUBA gear I needed, because I’m taking a dive trip here next month. I’ll be diving for sharks and buried treasure down in Key West. That’s okay, you don’t need to be jealous.

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The Mystery of the Keys

I have a keybox mounted in the wall in my secret room. Yes, I built a secret room in my house, because during one of my many excursions into the attic, I noticed an area that didn’t have a ceiling, and there was a bunch of wasted space. So I built it in, utilizing it for something cool. There’s nothing big in there, just my guns and some dirty magazines. You know, the usual. And my keybox. Now this is an American Security Company keybox, mounted between the studs, in my secret room. I have a buddy who works for ASC, so I get a pretty fair discount on their fine products. This keybox is stronger than – well, stronger than something pretty strong. You couldn’t pry it open with a crowbar and a sledgehammer, unless you wanted to.

Anyway, it’s mounted with the lock side right up against a brick wall, so there’s no room to pry it anyway. My point in all this is that you can’t get into that son of a bitch unless you have some dynamite and just a stupid desire to get at my keys. You know, it’d be easier to just steal my car. You know, without the key. Okay, so I’ve told you about the keybox.

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Treasure in the Woods: Part 2

Okay, I finally have some time to make the update I’ve promised for so long. Like a week. Stout and I made our trip back out to the spot in the woods, shovels and picks in hand. We started digging up around the entrance to the suspected underground lair. We knew we’d found a hatch in the woods just like they did on Lost!

As we dug and picked, we determined fairly quickly that it was going to be a small door. Until we finally found one edge of it. Then we realized it wasn’t a hatch door at all. Nay, not a hatch! But it was a door indeed. The door to a treasure chest! This might be even more exciting, we decided.

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Treasure in the Woods: Part 1

Sup, peeps? I don’t know what the hell happened to my other column. I guess it’s gone. Oh well. Some quick hits: We found a drummer. Bud from the Transcenders is going to roll with us for a while. We got together Sunday and played with him. That was the fact.

The Space BarThe Space Bar is almost ready to open for business. Just a few small details, and we’ll be serving White Russians with Buttery Nipples. This image is an artist’s conception of the finished product.

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