Day 6.131: Tale as old as time...

He summons up the courage to say hello to the TV star, then spills coffee grounds on her sandals...  Yes, that happened. Sorry Innae Park!  Sadly, not the first time I made a big impression on the local news folks.

Apart from that moment, we had a very lovely evening at Exile #4's piano recital. Her pieces (including the Beauty and the Beast theme) are embedded below.





Didn't she do well?

Day 6.130: Apparently eligible

I received a letter from AARP (isn't that an old-people thing?)...

"Our records show...you are fully eligible."

Click...American Association of Retired Persons...click...click..."anyone aged 50 or older can join"...

Not quite there yet AARP, but thanks!

Day 6.129: He had a stomic egg

It's nearly phonetic...

...but it does leave me wondering what my son thinks the problem is when someone says they have one!

Day 6.128: Pulled pork and what?

There's not all that much to report from today - a 12 mile run (me), two birthday parties (E5N1), a girl scout cake walk (Exile #3 with Exile #2).

The reason it was such a quiet day(!) was that I was home making pulled pork. This is an all day affair - it started at around 9 am with heating the charcoal and the meat was just ready in time for dinner a little after 6 pm.

It was a new recipe - from my Weber's Smoke book and worked rather well.  I much prefer doing the post-smoking finish of the meat wrapped in foil in the grill than taking it out and bringing it in to finish in the oven as one of the other recipes I used suggests.  I also like having grill temperature and meat temperature targets to work to - I'm a data-driven kind of guy I suppose.

On another topic, quite unrelated to today's activities - in fact related to yesterday's - can anyone guess what this is:

I have punctuation smiles to award to amusing answers and some more photos to reward a correct one!

Day 6.127: Five Rivers and a lively woodchuck

We went to Five Rivers this morning.  We chose the Vlomankill Trail because it had been a while - and this time of year when it is ice-free and not-too-buggy is definitely its most pleasant time.

Once again Exile #4 and E5N1 did some paddling (it's getting less unthinkable now - but the rest of us kept our feet dry).  There were interesting broken rocks on the beach - two are pictured.  Also, E5N1 wrote on some other stones - a message for Mom (with a heart) and one for me (with an exclamation mark)!

On the way back - a lively woodchuck crossed our path.

Here are some of the other things that caught my eye: