Brian Bilbrey ⁽⁷³⁵⁾

Brian Bilbrey May 23, 2021

23 May 2021

Well, it's been nearly two months since we last chatted, sorry for the inconvenience (as the Creator said to his Creation (in the fifth (I think) book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy)). A fair bit has happened in the interim. I have four ladders. This is a story about the fourth ladder. A couple of weeks ago, I was putting some items up in the garage attic. Two or three trips up and down the ladder. All done, I came down the ladder and it failed on me as I reached the third step. The wood broke…

Brian Bilbrey March 28, 2021

28 March 2021

In our first week of spring, we had lows in the 30's and highs in the 80's. Fortunately, I'm using Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. I've managed a bit of yard work over a couple of weekends, and the first mowing of the (front) lawn was yesterday. Today? More rain... a nice follow-up to the 2.15" of the moistness that visited us four days ago. (Sorry, California.) This little cute chipuggle joined our household eleven years ago yesterday, having made a trip up to Maryland from a kill shelter in North Carolina the very day we brought her home. She's now…

Brian Bilbrey February 19, 2021

19 February 2021

Yep, we have ice and snow, but not anything like those folks that Ted Cruz abandoned when he went to vacation in Cancun. For one thing, after just a couple of days, we're supposed to go above freezing for several hours today. Yesterday's snow was a disappointment - we got a third of an inch of ice, instead of 4-6 inches of snow. None of that stops folks around here from getting out in their cars and spinning about on the roadways, crunching into one another. Lexi usually goes upstairs to bed when we sit down to play a board…

Brian Bilbrey January 31, 2021

31 January 2021

I'm counting from 20 January, with a tiny bit of hope in my heart. We've been staying busy, but some stuff has been going on. The dog dish holder was a four day project. The actual cutting and assembly was a matter of a couple of hours. All the rest was staining, and coats of polyurethane, with drying and light sanding at intervals. It's much nicer looking than the old one, and a couple of inches lower, which is good for a little dog. This is a two-to-three hour job, as I first do my normal inside-the-roaster cleaning that happens…

Brian Bilbrey January 11, 2021

11 January 2021

Sadly, it's not a case of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, it's shoe after shoe after shoe ... What's up there? A millipede? The news, it is nearly uniformly terrible, so let's take that as read. We're doing okay. I'm baking. Who doesn't need cookies, even in the best of times? They're even better in these times. So I made a double batch. Lexi, the chipuggle rescue mutt, is around 12 years old. Being warm seems to be more of a priority for her these winter days. So, laying on an electric blanket and covered in a…