working on the Studebaker

LOTR updated




I have to confess that I'm enjoying reading Lord of the Rings much more than I expected (sorry, Reid). Jeff is highly amused, since I expressed major skepticism before.


I enjoyed Parki's Guest Blathering yesterday so much that I've asked him to do another one later today. Stay tuned for that...


We've started using the phrase, "Think I'll go work on the Studebaker" as a euphemism for "Going to have a nap now". :-)


YAY, the noisy yobboes down the lake weren't up at 5 a.m. this morning. I got e-mail about the subject from a good friend of ours in Ireland which made me laugh out loud:



Why don't you oldsters lay off the party dudes at the other end of the lake? If you wrinklies can't handle a little bit of high-spirited good fun, maybe you should pack up your Bugattis and head back to Damp Squib Avenue, Boredom Heights. People like us, me and my party friends, are sick of being shut down by the man. You are a menace to our soul-groove.



:-D


Guest Blatherer: Brian Parkinson


Wind's kicking up Dorothy - get Toto inside.


Slept in this morning, as that strange slumbering second sight knew the day had a different pressure - it's cloudy here, and it looks like rain. This sort of weather is perfect, as what we really need around here is a day to slug about the cottage reading books etc. Which is to say that there will be no changes in behaviour from any other day, but it will feel different somehow. I rather like the rain, and I hope it's a huge great beater of a storm that rolls in - all boom and crack and torrent. That would be fine.


I just noticed over at EBay that a first edition set of Lord Of The Rings is currently bidding at $560.00 USD. Wow. I went a little EBay-crazy a while ago, and I still check it out every now and then - it's an amazing thing. If you collect anything obtuse, someone will be selling it. Jeff wondered the other day about an inverse EBay (where you post what you'd like to buy as opposed to sell) - this must be out there somewhere.


Yesterday after dinner we had a kitchen-chat after a great dinner (spagetti, with tomato and bocconchini cheese salad, and one-sided garlic bread). We re-grouped onto the couch, and Debbie valiantly tried to stay awake. Witnessing her brain unwire in the conflict between the inner pull for unconsciousness and the conscious desire to stay awake was amusing, to say the least. We barely made it past midnight. She doesn't remember all of what she said, and we're certainly not filling in the gaps.


"Nap time", Debbie just announced, followed by that door slam sound consistent with cottages everywhere. She's not just good at sleep, she's got TALENT.


Today I plan to do very little - I came here with three books, and true to schedule, two are down, with one to go. So, it's a reading day, interspersed with naps and food. Like any other day up here.


'Cept it might rain.









Today's Blatherpics:


- Watching the sunrise.


- My first LOTR comic! (posted on my LOTR page).


Today's Poll: (Courtesy Parki)

Are you happy in your job?

a small rant plus a Guest Blather

Parki's Blathering is up! See bottom of page!!






Got up at 5:15 a.m. this morning and went down to the dock to check out the sunrise. The lake was calm, brushed with mist, and the interesting reflection of the clouds in the water prompted me to take the photo above (though as usual, the picture doesn't do reality justice).


Ordinarily, I would have sat outside for a while, but this time the peace and solitude of the early morning were broken by noisy cottager neighbours down the shore. The lake has been busier this weekend as cottagers have started arriving. At first I figured someone else was up early watching the sunrise as well, but quickly realized that these people had been up all night, and were still partying. Their voices carried clearly across the quiet lake:


"F---, man, look at that f---ing bird! Stephanie, did you see that f---ing bird go by? Did you see it? Hey George, we're havin' a debate over here HAHAHA..."


Then they obviously spotted me.


"OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THAT GIRL OVER THERE! F---, here we are all passed out, and she's up at dawn. HAHAHA. What a f---ing picture..." Followed by uproarious laughter.


While I appreciate the fact that we all derive enjoyment in life differently, I have to question why people like this bother to come up to a place like this at all, a place with such breathtaking beauty and opportunity for quiet and reflection, away from the chaos of the city.


Okay, I'll stop fuming for now and move on to happier topics.


re: dehydrated milk in the hiking boot incident. Just to clarify on a previous entry (a few expressed genuine concern)...apologies for the misunderstanding: it wasn't that big a deal, really. :-) Jeff read the bit I wrote about the spilled milk in my Blatherings, as I knew he would (he reads them every morning), only minutes after I wrote it. I purposely waited on the couch while he was doing his morning Web browse so I could see his reaction when he read it.









Parki's here! We all spent yesterday lounging about, reading, napping, talking, listening to music. Jeff and Parki made a splendid dinner...steak with blue cheese sauce, rice, salad. I'm nearly finished my "Dot Com Survivor" song, with the help of Parki, Jeff, and some of my other technonerdboy friends. Late last night, we watched "Swimming With Sharks" on Jeff's laptop (are we geeks, or what?). Many thanks to Bryan Fullerton for lending us this DVD (he said that I would likely get extra enjoyment out of it because of my recent corporate experience). Kevin Spacey was amazing in this movie even if his character was a jerk.


Anyway, I've convinced Parki to do a Guest Blathering, but he's still sleeping. Stay tuned later today for a Blathering update!


Guest Blatherer: Brian Parkinson


The sun is shining, those damn teenagers next door have gone indoors after their all-nighter, good music is playing on the CD player, the fire is crackling, and all this at a shade after 9:00 in the morning! I'm awake (well, almost - mug of coffee at the left elbow) and ready to fulfill my duties as Guest Blatherer. It's the pressure of the assignment really, not so much the deadline. Another cup.


I've only been here for one day, and thus I don't have a necessarily consistent set of observations, but I think I know enough now to give you some idea of how Debbie spends her time up here - a bit of an insider report, if you will.


Debbie gets up at a shockingly early time, and begins the day by writing the Blathering entry that you have come to expect. One can see why she does this in the early hours, as it is absolutely beautiful here, but as well she has a responsibility to you, the reader, to have get Blatherings out in a timely fashion. This pressure is immense (as you might be able to imagine) and so it's likely that pretty soon she'll start charging money for Blatherings - big money, which only seems fair compensation.


After writing Blatherings, Debbie usually plays with Flash, but since I'm using her machine right now, she's out back riveting some body panels back into that Studebaker she's been lovingly restoring for some time now. It should be done by the end of this visit. Cool Deb!


Debbie is working on some music as well, and Jeff and I helped out a bit with lyrics yesterday. She needs a harmony voice to finish the one song off, so later today The Supremes are flying in for a brief recording stint. Diana Ross wasn't invited, apparently.


There are a lot of books around, and reading takes up a big portion of the day. For example, Debbie read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in one sitting a few weeks ago. She also took detailed notes at the same time, and has been releasing these observations on a related web site, a bit at a time. Debbie usually polishes off 8 or 9 novels a day - she is one of those rare people that can keep up with Steven King's output.


Food? Good food up here at Canoe Lake, for sure. Tonight's dinner promises to be really cool - who will win - Debbie or the Iron Chef?


There's always time for exercise up at Canoe Lake, and the routine seems to be either a brisk run to Huntsville, or to swim a few laps of the lake. This doesn't mean it's all non-stop activity here - there's plenty of room in the day for sleeping and lazing about as well. In the morning, Debbie usually finds time for an after-Blathering nap, a post-breakfast nap, and a brief pre-lunch nap. In the afternoon, there's the post-lunch nap, and then a rather long-ish pre-dinner sleep. After dinner, there's the slow slide into sleep, and then it's up early for another day!


It's always great to get up north, and what with the weather, sights, sounds and company up here, it's perfect - I couldn't think of a better place to spend the long weekend. It's time to sign off, and chill out on the dock.


Hope those damn teenagers keep it down tonight.




Today's Blatherpics:


- Sunrise this morning.


- Parki.


Today's Poll:

Do you own a PDA? (Visor, Palm, etc....if you don't know what a PDA is, choose "no")

picture from japan

LOTR updated




Parki's here! Haven't seen him yet, though...he arrived around midnight, I think, and I had to crash before then. From the dishes by the sink, I assume that he and Jeff were up late talking. I'm hoping to get him to post a Guest Blathering while he's here.


In case any of you missed the update to my Blatherings yesterday, be sure to check out the husband-wife blogs of my friends Reid and Luisa. Luisa's is brand new -- it's highly enlightening to get her perspective of a particular event compared to Reid's report on the same. I'm hoping their sons Ronnie and Michael eventually start up their own weblogs, too... :-)





Did more experimenting with our new camping oven yesterday...whole wheat biscuits. Hey, and they actually turned out okay! I fiddled a bit with the recipe, and gave the earlier attempts to Randall The Seagull. Actually, I've discovered that Randall is actually more than one seagull; I've just been assuming that the seagull that occasionally hangs around our cottage looking for a handout is always the same seagull. By the end of my baking experiment this afternoon, there were SIX seagulls out on the lake near our dock. Hm.


I wanted to experiment with my chicken goulash recipe (all from dry ingredients, including dehydrated chicken), but the blackflies were starting to come out for their late afternoon snack.





Jeff and I were looking at stats of electricpenguin.com recently, both through his stats program (Summary?) and the one provided by Samurai Consulting. For those interested, electricpenguin.com currently gets an average of about 12,500 visits/month, 65,000 downloaded pages/month. Most popular usage time: 10-5 pm EST (a lot of surfing from work, I see :-)). Most popular entry pages (in decreasing order): these Blatherings, my LOTR report, the message boards, the main Electric Penguin page, The Dandelion Report, Blatherchat, Harp Resource, OVFF Web site, and my comic strip. Most popular search strings this month so far: "dandelion", "monster mash lyrics", "the key of R filk", "debbiecam", "harp clipart", "pegasus", "school photo" (oh dear, that reminds me that I forgot to put up my Geeky School Photo page...must do that eventually), "Anabukin-chan", "blatherings debbie glasses", "debbie", "goatee", "harp teachers", "fragile sticker", "hockey monkey", "sushi magnets", "Dorsai", "Kim Holzer Leeds'", "Sherly Temple", "albert faille" and "anabukin-chan". Top 22 of 58 countries of users accessing electricpenguin.com these days are: U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia, UK, Singapore, Sweden, New Zealand, Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Norway, Italy, Russian Federation, Switzerland, Chile, South Africa, Japan, Israel and Ireland.


The Internet is so cool. I mean, how else could I be sitting up here at the cottage accessible only by boat, and still be able to exchange news daily with my Dad in Japan, browse postings by friends around the globe, collaborating with writers I've never met, all for the cost of a local phonecall? Despite all the stress and heartache I went through with the sale and eventual demise of Inkspot, I still love the 'Net. :-)


Today's Blatherpics:


- My dad has been teaching in Japan for the past couple of weeks. He e-mailed a photo of the class (Grade 3-4, I think); yesterday was his last day there.


- My whole wheat biscuit experiment.


- Jeff doing some prep for our hiking trip.


Today's Poll:

Are you reading this at work?

odn

My friends Reid and Luisa both have online journals. It is HIGHLY amusing reading them both, one after another. If you have a chance, do check out their versions of "what happened this morning". Parents with kids will especially appreciate these two perspectives side by side. :-) :-)


I accidentally spilled dehydrated milk into Jeff's hiking boots early this morning. I've cleaned them out, so hopefully he won't notice.


re: leftovers poll question a few days back. A leftovers anecdote of my own I forgot to mention...several years ago, some friends and I had a weekend-long party at my father's place while he was in Japan (with his permission, of course). Weeks after he came back, he noticed an unusual odor coming from one of his infrequently-used kitchen cupboards. Opening it, he found a plate of dessicated turkey dinner. =:-O


re: suet/raccoon fiasco (see yesterday's entry). To give the knife an extra twist...I stepped out of our sleeping cabin this morning to find a chickadee pecking at the pitiful crumb of suet left in the feeder. Figures.


Rained yesterday, so Jeff and I had another "laze about the cottage" day. To assuage my self-imposed guilt (I'm still not used to being on sabbatical), I chopped some kindling and restocked some firewood before settling completely into slug mode. Parki is coming to visit for the weekend (arriving tonight); hope he's not too shocked at how completely inactive Jeff and I can be. :-)





I'm not sure if I've mentioned the Outhouse Daily News before, a cottage publication I started years ago. Click here to see what the very first issue looked like. Circulation: 1. Jeff's the president of the Canoe Lake Leasholders' Association this year, and asked if I would write a brief history of ODN for the upcoming leaseholders' newsletter. For your interest, I am also posting it here:

---

HISTORY OF OUTHOUSE DAILY NEWS

By Debbie Ridpath Ohi


For as I long as can remember, I've been an editor of some sort. As a child, I produced Family Weekly, a one-page publication which I posted on the wall of our bathroom at home. In addition to the most recent exciting events of our household (such as the fact that my mother was making chocolate cake for dessert that night, or that our dog had thrown up on the living room rug), the publication also contained hand-drawn cartoons, short stories, and poetry. I recruited my young sister and brother as editorial assistants. When they had proven themselves appropriately committed, allowed them to have columns of their own.


My editorial aspirations continued over the years through high school newspapers, a publication for my university friends, newsletter for management trainees at TD, even a monthly news update when Jeff and I got engaged (title: "The Nuptial News"). The largest circulation I've had was nearly 50,000 people, with my electronic newsletter for writers, Inklings.


And, of course, there was Outhouse Daily News (henceforward referred to as "ODN").


I began ODN in the summer of '89, when Jeff and I built our cabin. I started ODN partly because I wanted to chronicle our stay at the Park that summer, and also to provide more interesting reading material in the Ridpath outhouse than the knot-tying poster which JBR (John Ridpath) had posted. The knot-tying poster is -still- in the outhouse, but ODN isn't. People started taking issues down to the main cabin to peruse at leisure, and that's where the ODN collection remains to this day.





The Underwood typewriter was quirky, tending to skip when the weather got too humid. Each issue was generally one half of a 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. Starting the second year, we photocopied a template to use at the cottage, with the title at the top, and a tagline at the bottom of each page: "We know a good story from a hole in the ground."





Although ODN was only supposed to be a one-summer project, the reaction from its readership was so positive (plus it was more fun to produce than I expected) that I decided to continue it. Everyone contributes, with Guest Editors creating issues when I'm not at the cottage. Issues include hand-drawn illustrations and cartoons, poetry, memorable quotes, in addition to the regular cottage news.


The Underwood typewriter died several years ago (as did Len's Flea Market), but the handwritten ODN continues strong. Format remains the same: one page, succinct news, occasional illustration. It's fascinating to read through the eleven years' worth of issues. Much laughter, cause for reflection, and a few tears.


A few excerpts from ODN:



"Last night we had roast beef for dinner cooked by Chef Harry. It turned out wonderfully even though a beetle fell in the gravy." (July 18/89)


"Jeff and Debbie arrived at around 3 pm to find Newf, Calvin and Rick planning an elaborate gourmet feast for the cottagers' party (a Newfoundland "scoff"). And what a meal! Polish mushrooms, melted cheese on salami rounds, toutin (fried bread), moose and caribou shishkebab, bass, trout, cod au gratin, salmon stuffed with crab, cod tongue (Newf makes the best cod tongue in Newfoundland, or so he says), moose stirfry, scallop kebob with bacon, baked beans, blueberry pie and icecream, wine, Screech. Newf presented a 'salt and pepper hat' to JBR. Other people included Holly & Roy with sons Graham & Peter, Missy & David Sharpe and Bucky and Matthew, Misty, Don Lloyd. Rick played guitar while he and Newf sang. Newf danced, too. There is enough food left to last until Thanksgiving." (Aug.29/97)


"JBR'S WISDOM FOR THE DAY: While it may be true that familiarity breeds contempt, without familiarity nothing would would be bred." (July 25/89)


"Outhouse Daily News Mourns Passing Of Its Co-Editor: We will sincerely miss the contributions of Chrissy Cat. No longer will her paws delicately select random letters from the typewriter keyboard to brighten the news of the day. a memorial service will be held for Chrissy tomorrow morning, 9:30 a.m., at the dock. All are welcome. The mice will be conducting a celebration memorial service by the dock, 10 pm. BYOC (Bring Your Own Cheese)." (May 18/90)


"CONVERSATION OF THE DAY


JEFF: Deb, how about we spend some time here next summer, say

about Aug.7-Sept.15?


DEBBIE (after a pause): We can't.


JEFF: Why not?


DEBBIE: Because we're getting married.


JEFF (after a pause): Oh yeah." (Aug.8/90)



"Debbie Tucker discovered a dead mouse tangled in her bedsheets

this morning. She did not scream or faint, much to her credit.

Casey denies planting the mouse corpse as a test of his beloved's

stamina in the wilderness." (Oct. 7/95)


"Jeff and Debbie are delighted to be the first to hear some of JBR's new stories from his trip. They are also looking forward to seeing how these stories evolve during repeated tellings in the coming years." (Jul.1/95)



Today's Blatherpics:


- Jeff and I share a romantic moment at the cottage.


- The current pile of ODN back issues.


- First issue. Click here for a bigger picture.


- Wedding announcement issue, by Harry.


Today's Poll:

Have you read an entire book at one sitting (picture books don't count for this particular poll, sorry :-)) during the past month?

outwitted!

Comic updated yesterday




In one of my earlier entries, I proudly declared my suet feeder to be critter-resistant (except to birds, of course). Jeff expressed strong doubts, and even made the brazen prediction that my feeder would be pulled down within a few days. I laughed at him.


Shortly after posting yesterday's entry, Jeff came out to the boathouse and told me to check out my feeder. Apparently he had been woken by the sound of the raccoon on the roof, and then saw it wrestling with my feeder. I snuck out to watch.









Wow...I had no idea that raccoons were so tenacious, and had such agile paws. This furry guy -really- wanted to get into the feeder. He'd alternate between sticking his paws into the cage and pulling out little bits of suet to munch on, and trying to get the cage open and/or off the tree by pulling, shaking, gnawing.









In the end, he managed to pull the cage off one of the nails I had hammered into the tree, finally leaving it dangling, suet partly eaten. He even started using the free nail as a paw support so he could get a better grip on the suet cage (see top photo).









Last night, Jeff and I heard a small commotion outside the cabin. Peeking out the window, I saw -two- raccoons fighting over the suet. One was slightly smaller, so I assume it was the female. The male gave up after a short while, but the female persevered.


And here's what I found early this morning:









Sigh. Even though the raccoons were not successful in pulling the feeder down, I must give Jeff points...I had no idea that they could be so resourceful. And I consider myself outwitted by a raccoon.


An Aside...


Yesterday, someone posted the following complaint in Blatherchat:



"How on earth do you think up these idiotic questions for your daily "polls?" Surely you can think of something more intelligent to ask..."



In reference to my bathing poll yesterday, for example, she pointed out that "there are a great many people in the world who don't have the luxury of running water. Or live where they have a reliable source of clean water. And a great many more who live in regions where water is extremely scarce and it is therefore a great luxury to bathe. So I imagine that going six months without a full bath or shower would not be a hardship for many, since that is normal in their lives. And I bet they'd love the million for doing so."


In case others have strayed over from Inkspot or my LOTR page, perhaps I should insert a gentle reminder here: This is my personal journal. It is not meant to address the socio-economic issues of the day, nor intended to be particularly deep or thought-provoking (though it may do so on occasion...be assured that this is almost always by accident). It was created primarily as a personal and creative writing outlet, and secondly for the interest of those who know me. If others are entertained as well, so much the better. Anyone else is probably better off looking for an online journal which has more serious aspirations.


Today's Blatherpics:

A raccoon takes on the challenge of getting into my suet feeder. In the third photo, note the attempt to chew through the chain holding the suet to the tree!




Today's Poll:

Have you ever gone to see a movie by yourself? (on purpose, not just because your friend didn't show up)