Christmas catalogs

Those catalogs can save some time, but sometimes they just drive you crazy.

Costco

A Costco warehouse store opened up near our house.  We joined and took a Saturday morning walk around the warehouse.  You already know that these stores sell groceries and housewares in a way that would re-write the 10-days of Christmas, but it is still pretty neat to see in person the vats of peanut butter and M&Ms by the barrel.

The Costco shelves are piled to the ceiling with groceries and housewares.

A shopper walks from the frozen foods toward the soft drinks.

Slo mo

Here's the story at normal speed: a dog chased a squirrel.

Nothing more to it than that.

In slow-motion, the story is considerably different.

Larsen nosed through the bushes in the back yard, and quick as a wink, a gray squirrel shot out of the garden, streaked across the lawn, and disappeared through the fence to the neighbor's sideyard.  Even in slo-mo, the squirrel was an absolute linear streak from point A to point B. 

Larsen sprang out in pursuit.   He quartered.  Now let me slow it down to super-slo-mo.  Each time Larsen crossed the squirrel's still-hot path in the yard I swear that I saw something register in Larsen's noggin.

Here in super-slo-mo, you can see a nano-second catch or spark each time Larsen crosses the squirrel's path.  It's like the path of the squirrel magnetically snaps Larsen's head toward the line of flight before Larsen catches himself and continues with his quartering.  This little catch occurs with each crossing until Larsen gets to the fence and faces the squirrel's last known (to me) position.

This whole thing took a second or two and was nowhere near as obvious as my description makes it seem.  It was very cool because you could see how quartering works on a neutral backdrop (a plain lawn).  It showed that the dog is not lost when he goes past the scent in a way that seems inefficient if you had an eye mark on the path.  It is more like he is reducing uncertainty about the path of the prey (since not every critter takes a straight line) and that he is tracking with his nose not his eyes.   

We return you now to normal speed.

Re-enactors

Larsen and I hiked along the Allatoona shore at dawn.  The fog and steam hung over the lake.  Civil War re-enactors were rolling out of their cots, lining up, and starting their morning fires.

Civil War re-enactors line up at daybreak.

Wood for the sweet-smelling camp fire.

Auto heaven

Larsen and I walked through Keswick Park last night.  Keswick is a hip-pocket park off Johnson Ferry Road near Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

For a little fun, we decided to go cross-country.  I dropped his leash, and we huffed our way up a hill that borders the park.  We picked our way through the poison ivy and brambles to the top and popped out behind a cinder-block building that had a couple of cool Fords in the back lot.

You'll recognize the first one as an Edsel.  It's a 1958 Bermuda station wagon!  Two-tone 50's-style aqua and white color scheme with woody sides.  Wouldn't that be cool to pull your dogs and gear around in?

The other is a 1964 Thunderbird.  Just think about gliding into the country club in that awesome sled.  

Larsen gets a laugh out of the Edsel Bermuda.

We'll have fun, fun, fun.

Sunday dinner

For us, not for him.  I cooked these filets on a cedar plank.  Just salt and pepper and let the smoke do the rest.  The result was a nice crust on the outside and a sort of steamed and delicate finish on the inside. 

The two left-hand side pieces are farm raised, and the right-hand side piece is Alaskan King salmon, which is now on special as the season winds down.

Salt and pepper is all it takes with the cedar plank on a hot fire.

After Saturday's hike and swim at Lake Allatoona, the boys settled in for some he-man-style work hanging shelves in the garage.  Larsen watched as I measured twice, cut once, and still had one support board one inch longer than the other.  I tried, with fair success, to make sure that the cabinet was level in two dimensions (side to side and front to back).  Larsen was the ideal companion: amiable, interested, and uncritical.

Larsen does not mention that the support boards are of unequal length.

Tru story

The Tru Nord compass.




Now, this is a little funny.  I was walking in mid-town Manhattan, right in front of Grand Central Station, and a guy stopped me and asked "which way is west?"  I put down my packages, and reached into my pocket for my Tru Nord compass.  "Well, let's just see!"  I pointed west to him and he sort of disagreed (with a compass!).  "New York is on an angle," he said, and walked off.  I wondered what he was talking about, and only later figured that what he was really asking me was where do the "west" streets start (we were on E. 42nd at the time and (evidently) the dividing line between E. 42 and W. 42 is 5th Ave).

I wonder if he went home that evening and said, honey, you won't believe what happened to me downtown.  Only in New York!

Atlanta Dogwood Festival

We were too tired from our busy week to attend the ADF in Piedmont Park in downtown Atlanta, so we scoped out some dogwood trees of our own.  Here are a few intrepid little trees that try their best to soften some of the pretty rough edges around Chamblee. 

B-Side

What seemed to be an afterthought can turn out to be very important.  Of course, it helps if the A-side is good too.  This was the B-side to "I Want to Hold your Hand" (1964).



Ringo really gets into his drum kit.  George hides behind the amps.  Check out that girl's glasses at the 2:30 mark.