Spring projects start and an ultimatum of sorts.

February 15, 2011 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

It seems that La Maison du Talley is in constant project mode. There are two furniture refinishing projects happening in the unfinished side of our basement, there is an inch of sawdust on my shop floor, the front and back yards are still in various stages of completion, and my project idea/sketch book is quickly filling with new stuff.

I have finished a good number of things on my plate and have vowed to finish everything currently under construction or re-construction before beginning anything new. I decided that as winter closes and spring dawns to take advantage of the better weather and rising temperatures (better for painting and finishing) and get some stuff knocked off. In that vein, I had a very productive weekend:

I built and installed an irrigation system for the backyard made with ¾ PVC. There are drip hose attachment points, ball valves, and splitters for ancillary hose attachments. I built it so that I can later install a timer for watering the fruit trees and veggies when we are out of town and a coupler to flush the pipes with compressed air before the first freeze every year. The total cost was less than a $100, I spent maybe 8 hours of labor from concept design to finish, and the shear convenience of it will pay off in spades in the years to come.

Last spring I acquired the top half of a built-in dish cabinet/hutch that had been ripped/sawed out of a 1920’s house. It was missing one side, had no back, covered a thick coat of unknown layers of paint, and scrapes and gouges all over it. I looked past its current state and saw some potential for some period appropriate and beautiful basement storage, so I picked it up for a steal and brought it home. It languished there in the basement, covered with plastic and accumulating junk on top through my shoulder recovery, the excitement of the summer, and during our fall of rest and relaxation.

I got serious about it a couple of weeks ago and after, squaring the cabinet with joined pipe clamps, I installed a beadboard back – real beadboard and not the plywood facsimile. I had Stamp-With-Foot help glue and drive a few nails so she would get an appreciation of the scope of the rebuild. I also took her with me to the millwork store and she picked out some decorative edge molding that I incorporated into a built up crown detail. I really appreciated her input as it made the project seem more like ours than just mine. After re-gluing and adding screws to all the joints, I installed a new side piece and 3” structural beams for mounting it to the wall – it will be holding a good bit of weight and I wanted the load evenly distributed on the whole piece.

My little wife helped me man-handle it into place and attach it to the walls. I spent an evening last week gluing up a custom top with clear grained popular and pine – it will have additional recessed storage in the top. While milling the edges on the top edge, I realized that I had used my father’s tools to do almost the entire job. I made me both smile and a little sad. My father helped give me the skill to build cabinets and furniture; he taught me that doing something right and making it beautiful were one and the same. I am using his tools because they became mine when he passed away and it made me wish that he were still here to see my adult ability to build and create, to help teach my son (his namesake) the same lessons I learned, and to just sit quietly and listen to him talk about his day and experience his warm smile.

I spent Saturday night and Sunday evening installing the new top and bits of trim. I built all the pieces perfectly square and there was a hiccup during installation as the walls of our 1928 house and the actual dimensions of our “new” 1920 cabinet are anything but… I called the wife down, she gave me her opinion (better than my own in this case) and I spent some quality time with a razor-sharp draw knife, a svelte jack plane, and creatively used a couple of long shims to make it all both work and look good. All the trim is now installed and the whole thing turned out really nice. We will do a little more scraping before priming the bare wood and paint it all with a gloss white trim paint. I will ost about it again when the finished cabinet is ready for unveiling.

Note: Stamps-With –Foot has now informed me that this is the last project that I will do in the house until I install a dishwasher and build the additional cabinets in the kitchen. I will NOT complete the 1942 Philco Radio refinish, nope to reseeding the grass, the nook table remake will wait, no new fruit tree planting, the crown and headboard in our bedroom has been pushed and gym entertainment/storage cabinet is nixed until the Kitchen is done…

Throwing Vonnegut Quotes About.

January 23, 2011 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

On a trip to the UK just before Christmas, I had an early morning bid’ness meeting near Cardiff, Wales and stopped on the way back to London in the pedestrian town of Castle Combs – pronounced “Cwms” – for lunch. A co-worker suggested the stop and once a again, “Peculiar travel suggestions are like dancing lessons from God”

I ate a fantastic meat pie and had a ½ pint of local cider at The White Hart. The place, staff, and food were all top-notch! It was a nice little lull in the midst of a hectic, pressure-filled trip.

Castle Combs is a time capsule of 15^th century buildings, streets & houses and seems to be a popular place for filming. It was used a location for the 1967 film Doctor Dolittle, an episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, the 2010 version of The Wolfman, and for the coming Steven Spielberg production War Horse. Who would have thunk it?

$Post & Beam - Wattle and daub construction from the 1400\'s - 2010$

German Christmas Markets and My Ornament Fetish

January 17, 2011 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I had to take a quick trip back to Hamburg, Germany for work just before Christmas this year. Aside from all our close friends there, the thing that Stamps-With-Foot and I miss most about Germany are the Christmas markets. This is how Christmas should be done everywhere: booths selling hand-made small gifts, warm candied peanuts, hand-blown glass ornaments, hot mulled wine for sale on every corner, hand-painted pewter ornaments, Christmas music, grilled sausage, happy people holding hands, groups caroling, smiling kids, young lovers sneaking a kiss behind the huts…

I had about 3 hours between getting off work and having to drive to the airport, so I walked through the ice and snow to a couple of the larger markets, bought ~$400 in ornaments (we/I have a Christmas tree decorating fetish…) and small gifts for my lovely wife and the kids., then I took some pictures of all the wreathed ambiance.

$One of Hamburg\'s many frozen canals$

The City of Light

January 14, 2011 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

Just before Christmas the news was filled with people stuck in the major European airports for days due to weather delays. I was one of those souls. I, however, made lemonade out of lemons and spent an afternoon roaming central Paris, the city of light!

I was bumped from two flights and told to come back to the gate for the next available flight – in 12.5 hours! Uhhh… OK…. I have been to Paris enough times over the last 10 years to have a pretty good handle on the transport system. From Charles de Gaulle Airport there is a RER train that, for $10, will take you into the heart of the city, a trip that takes around 35 minutes. It had been snowing like mad that morning, but when I stepped off the train at the Saint Michel Metro stop, the grey skis parted and the sky turned a brilliant blue. It stayed that way for three hours before the clouds and snow moved back in.

I rushed over to Notre-Dame because in the 20-odd times that I have been to Paris, I have never been inside. It always seems to be summer and the line to get in is normally oppressively long so I skip it. Being a COLD winter day there was no line at all! I removed my hat, opened the door walked into the naïve, kneeled, crossed myself, and proceeded to tear up like a little girl. It was stunning!! I walked around the church for almost two hours, exploring every corner. There was so much beauty and a glossy magazine worthy picture opertunity at every turn. I just wish Laurel and the kids could have been there to see it! We will be back.

I reluctantly left Norte-Dame and headed over the Seine to Shakespeare & Co. bookstore. It crowded dusty shelves make me oh so happy. I browsed, listened to the proprietress’s sweet voice laugh and chit-chat in both French and English, I took a few pictures and bought a couple of books. From there I walked to a Crepe stand in the Latin Quarter and ate my savory crepe in the shadow of the “oldest” tree in Paris.

At 4:00 I headed over for the Catacombs tour. 6+ million of Paris’s former residents now reside in former quarry tunnels under the city. In a word, spooky! I left the hour long tour is a pensive, reflective mood. I took the RER back to the airport, my “scheduled” flight was still active and I settled in for a wait. After a few more delays, I flew out just before all flights were cancelled and an hour before Terminal #2 was evacuated because of the weight of snow on the roof.

$The picture doesn\'t do this scene justice. The statue backlit by the window was beautiful!$

$Close up of a Bishop\'s tomb$

$a close up of the \"nun-dragon\"$

My OCD results for 2010

January 1, 2011 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

2010 wasn’t a bad year according to the crazy/obsessive spreadsheet that I use to track my daily life – It could be worse, some people spoke Meth to pass the time, I have spreadsheets. While super-nerdy, I have never shopped my derriere on the street corner for a new template or some cool calc function…

Anyway, I wasted sometime in 2010 cyber hoarding and we got sucked into a number of DVD series that hypnotized us in front of the idiot box. But, on the whole though I feel better about 2010 than I did about 2009, since I spent more than a quarter of the year rehabilitating my again repaired shoulder – the 4^th time is the charm!.

Successes were: I snuggled with my cute little wife, drank great beer, had a second wedding, read a bunch of really good books, ran a good bit, cycled some (not as much as I wanted/needed to because I was lazy!), My shoulder is now stronger than before the latest accident, traveled a little (work and pleasure), got to do some serious work around and to our home. Here is how the numbers for the year shook out:

	2010	2009	2008
Running	218 Miles	127.8 Miles	139.5 Miles
Cycling	710 Miles	1271.3 Miles	945.5 Miles
Days Hiked	3 Days	7 Days	10 Days
Books Read	31 Books	23 Books	41 Books
Days Off	33.5 Days	32.5 Days	98 Days
Gym	45 Times	4 Times	33 Times
Miles Traveled	34021.30 Miles	26,533 Miles	61,341.3 Miles
Camping	0 Nights	3 Nights	8 Nights
Overtime Worked	310.87 Hours	204.4 Hours	0 Hours

2011 looks like it will be a good year as well. I have some building and woodworking projects that I am really looking forward to (skin on frame Kayak, kitchen cabinets, detailed carvings…), my shoulder feels great, Snowboarding is on the schedule, I have a short list of peaks to climb, we are finally getting the basement exercise room squared away, so I will be able to train while watching DVDs (I got a SWEET Classic Warner Bros. Cartoon set for Christmas), There are a couple of cyclo-cross and road racing events planned, I have committed to finishing the first complete draft of my own book, I have a fantastic summer with the kids planned, a climbing trip with The Big-Belly Orthopedic Redneck Climbers Assn MAY be in the works for August, I will get to see the family more, and I will get to read some books that have long waited for my attention (Life in a Medieval Village, Theodore Rex, Just My Type, America’s Best Travel Writing – 2008,…) and some great new releases (Keith Richard’s Life, Carriger’s Heartless, Bryson’s At Home, The Second Book of General Ignorance, etc…). We also plan to spend the year simplifying our life and the amount of crap we have, paying down some debt, planting a HUGE garden, and generally living a lighter existence. 🙂

	2010	2009	2008
Running	218 Miles	127.8 Miles	139.5 Miles
Cycling	710 Miles	1271.3 Miles	945.5 Miles
Days Hiked	3 Days	7 Days	10 Days
Books Read	31 Books	23 Books	41 Books
Days Off	33.5 Days	32.5 Days	98 Days
Gym	45 Times	4 Times	33 Times
Miles Traveled	34021.30 Miles	26,533 Miles	61,341.3 Miles
Camping	0 Nights	3 Nights	8 Nights
Overtime Worked	310.87 Hours	204.4 Hours	0 Hours

Halloween – Past and Present

December 28, 2010 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

There are certain advantages to being married to a costume designer whose resume includes stage, TV, and film production… It takes the Halloween costume planning and execution to a whole different level. There are no half-ass Wal-Mart last-minute plastic ensembles allowed in the Talley house. Oh no! Outfits are tailored, accessories are found after hours of internet trolling, wigs are clipped and styled, and the fat suits are tubby perfection! Stamps-With-Foot took a small little ember of Halloween love in me and made it into a choreographed 3-alarm house fire. Below are some pictures of our costumes past and present.

$Matt\'s Pumkin 2010$

Matt and Laurel’s AWESOME Holiday Newsletter 2010

December 27, 2010 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

We sent this note out with our Christmas cards this year:

Hello Friends and Family!!

It has been quite a year for us and as neither of us have the necessary literary skill or dextérité to write a full clear, concise, and truthful tale, we have decided to send out the truncated version in list form. Those of you who received a very thorough list earlier this year detailing Matt’s adventures with building some garden boxes may recognize this style.

Happenings for 2010…

Matt has shoulder surgery and spends New Years Day hopped up on pain medication
Donald and Matt find venue for Matt & Laurel’s 2^nd wedding
Large cedar tree is removed and we complete a back yard makeover
Matt catches world record Great White shark using a cane pole and stink bait
Fly to San Francisco for Emmy and Nick’s gorgeous January wedding
Brodie dominates a 100 lb. bulldog in playground skirmish. DOMINATES
Our own wedding planning stress begins…
Try to adopt 2^nd puppy – ends badly when she and Brodie do not become friends
Laurel and Matt plant their first garden together
Laurel becomes a salaried employee
Matt travels to Tobi and Brian’s wedding in Orange County, California – Laurel had to work (joys of becoming salaried employee…)
Laurel makes cousin Rosie Brezynski a dress for her 8^th grade graduation dance
Unfortunately miss Matt and Lola’s wedding in Sedona, AZ on a lovely Monday
Drive to California for Grover and Stacy’s beautiful Mt. Shasta June wedding
Carlton comes to Seattle for his first visit
David and Maria show up for our 1^st summer BBQ
Matt, Carlton, Donald Burton and David Brezynski cycle from Vancouver, BC back to Seattle
Carlton rides 154 miles in three days at nine-years old, even peddling backward up a few hills…
Matt real tired
Spend fourth of July on a houseboat at Bainbridge island, watching fireworks from the deck
Madison comes to Seattle for the second time – spends two weeks text messaging and facebooking
More wedding planning – original budget shot
Wedding stress almost makes Matt cry
Sarah and Laurel remake Laurel’s fairy princess wedding dress
Matt and Laurel miss Henrik and Britta’s wedding in Hamburg three weeks before our own, but get to be the first stop on their three week honeymoon in the US
Brodie sires 19 litters of puppies – he feels being “fixed” is just a state of mind
Matt’s mother Nelda flies to the West Coast for the first time
93.743% of the people we love in this world fly in for our wedding
Matt loses shooting bet with Ross – the SHAME!!
Matt and Laurel have 2^nd wedding – Laurel looks stunning in her dress and makes Matt cry
Nelda, Henrik, Britta, Herbert, Mark, Matthew, and Lola all share our one bathroom for the days leading up to and after the wedding
Brodie is the most photographed wedding participant
Matt Builds most over-complicated garden boxes in Seattle
Laurel gets promotion at work and Matt becomes a stay at home video game tester
Laurel helps costumer friend Sarah with a production of Alice in Wonderland: A Rock Musical
Try to adopt another puppy (same one as before) – Still hates Brodie and incredibly gassy
Travel to Eugene, OR for Thanksgiving weekend
Matt completes his circumnavigation of the earth on his 1895 Penny Farthing
Matt takes 10 months to complete a hutch refinish project in the living room
Matt goes to Paris and Hamburg in December for work – Laurel tries to stowaway in his luggage
Christmas Eve 2^nd Annual Zombie Shooting Fest planned.
Christmas at home with Laurel’s mom Beckie
Laurel and Matt plan to climb Olympus Mons to greet the New Year for its caldera rim.

We look forward to another year of working on our home, welcoming guests from near and far, having the kids out to visit, puppy snuggling, garden planting and other adventures not yet known. We love you very much and are blessed to have you as part of our lives. All our love, Matt and Laurel

…A number of people didn’t get the jokes above and seemingly didn’t notice how the word “truthful” was in bold/italics in the header of the letter. My mom told everyone about our New Years mountaineering trip and my fishing skills. A friend asked if we were keeping any of Brodie’s puppies. I had cousins who voiced their concern about fireworks so near a volcano… A distant (and very old) relative of my wife’s actually asked if we were polygamists due to the second wedding… He really and truly asked it in writing, in the Christmas card he sent us in reply! Man, I can’t wait till I am old so I can have no filter and get away with it!!

I have a warped sense of humor and anything in the above list written in italics should be seen as a humorous untruth. For the record: we are not polygamists, we will not be traveling to Mars for New Years to visit Olympus Mons, Brodie fathered no puppies after the snip-snip, I do not test video games as a profession, the furtherest I have ever ridden the Penny Farthing is 15 miles, and the world record Great White was caught by Alfredo Cutajar off the coast of Malta on April 16, 1987. 🙂

Death threats for a tree

December 6, 2010 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

I am having a personal crisis of conscience: I love trees, I really do, but I want evil things to happen to one particular example of flora in the neighbor’s yard. Less than a year ago I spent an entire morning precariously balanced on a 1950’s vintage wooden step-ladder, pulling pine needles out of the gutters of our new home, saying dirty words the whole time. With that experience fresh in my mind, I had some limbs trimmed a few months later that were on my side of the fence and hanging over our roof so that I wouldn’t have to worry about the downspouts clogging. The best laid plans of mice and men… Just because I have a smidgen of OCD, I did my yearly gutter/shingle inspection and upon popping my head up above the edge of the roof, I almost had an aneurism! Every gutter on the south end on the house (under the neighbor’s tree) was filled to overflowing with fvcking pine needles. Son of a…. I spent four hours raking my yard/pulling debris from the gutters and plotting the murder of a pine tree. Driving my hate was the realization that I have spent a week of Sundays and $1000+ engaged in a losing battle with this conifer. Are there hit men for trees? Would they make its demise look like an accident? How would a tree “slip in the tub” or “leave the gas on?”

It is really not the tree’s fault. I am the interloper. I am the higher ape with a Machiavellian need for order in my yard. The tree is just being. I realize these things on a intellectual level, but all that flies out the window the second I see a heap brown needles in my soft, green perfect grass, I start day dreaming of copper nails and the sweet lullaby of chainsaws.

My Thanksgiving Holiday:

November 30, 2010 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

7.5 hour drive with sleepy sick wife and gassy puppy

Serious traffic on I-5

I hate Rubber-Neckers

Arrive in Eugene, OR after 10:00pm

Build fire & sit in hot tub. Last relaxing moments of the trip.

Confusion about sleeping arrangements

First night in comfy bed.

Wake early and had yummy coffee

Wife is extra yucky sick

Wife ingests cold meds, feels better

Short climb of Mount Pisgah

Roped into smoking/roasting turkey

Wanted to start drinking

Had to move rooms.

Issued foam mat to sleep on.

Smoked turkey for 2 hours and fended off Father-in-laws constant “help”

No lunch

Put turkey in oven to finish

Started drinking beer

Brother-in-law MIA

Brother-in-law usually has holiday coping chemicals

Missed Brother-in-law

Called and texted holiday greeting to friends and family

Father-in-law (a chef by trade) scary when cooking

Sharp stuff in kitchen – I retreated to the living room

Where the HELL is Brother-in-law!?!?

Drank another beer

Turkey took too long in oven

Father-in-law stressed

Turkey finally done – 1 hour late

Rest of family arrives

Really missed Brother-in-law’s chemistry set.

Brother-in-law shows up with just stuffing…

Matt sad

Everyone eats

Food was amazing!

Lone PWT family member ravages all the desert pies before anyone else

Drank another beer

Had seconds – turkey and mashed potatoes were yummy

5 mushroom gravy was incredible!!

Ate 4 pieces of pie

Felt pregnant

Had one more wheaty hopped beverage.

Passed out and into food coma

Woke up to screaming running children with back in knots

Had coffee

Regained humanity

Went for 3 mile run

Shopping at the crazy hippie holiday market (not the official name, but it should be)

More coffee

Found some humorous Christmas gifts

Made some clandestine purchases for Stamps-With-Foot

Met mother-in-law at the crazy hippie holiday market

Eye started twitching as the conversation/visit began

Wanted a harsh opiate to calm my nerves

Informed Mother-in-Law that her dog is banned from my house

Maybe she heard, maybe not…

Want to put out a mafia hit on her little dog that marks in the house

Went to a couple of local Eugene stores with just Stamps-with-Foot

Got some great new earrings (2ga. Clear silicone tunnels)

Returned to Fathe-in-laws

House empty.

Stamps-With-Foot and I took a hottub

Off to dinner with mother-in-law – where are those fvcking drugs!?

Drank LARGE beer

Went to see Hairy Potter Movie (I guess now I am officially out of the cupboard…)

Had to pee 3 times during movie 🙁

Sleep

Up early

Coffee

Humanity

Had a precious hour to myself

Hottub

Read the paper

Enjoyed the quiet!!

More coffee

Took a look at “classic” 1960 Plymouth Valiant we were given for free

Determined it was a money pit

Will decide what to do with it later

More holiday shopping

Got last of my Mother’s Christmas taken care of

Third BIG coffee

Laurel had a nap

Relaxed dinner with Father-in-law and his girlfriend

Really like both of them!

Each told neighbor horror stories around the fireplace with medium amounts of beer consumed

Realized I am the “You Kids get off my lawn!” crotchety neighbor – am OK with that

Missed my lawn a little

Sleep

Up at nine and gone by 11:15am

Home by 6:15PM

Wanted to kiss my threshold

Never want to leave home again

Still want to help Mother-in-law’s dog go to the “farm”

The Sights of Steamcon 2010

November 22, 2010 / Matt Talley / 8 Comments

“Steampunk is for Goths that have discovered brown.” – I love that quote and it makes me giggle every time I think about it. While I can really get into the Victorian Zeitgeist, making your own cool stuff, recycling old gears into art, bargain hunting at flea markets, and retro-fying 21st century gadgets – I think that it is the roll playing sub-set that has kept me away from embracing the movement. Well, that and I already have WAY too much crap going on and not enough time/money to do any of it that well. I can’t add another hobby, but like I said, I can appreciate some of the aspects of the movement/genre/fashion/cult/trend/??/….

Anyway, when I saw that the largest Steampunk show in the US was going to be held in Seattle this year, my interest was piqued. When I later read that Gail Carriger was going to be signing her books and meeting fans, well that sealed the deal. Don’t judge me! I picked up her first book, Soulless, at an airport bookstore on a trip and that tiny little woman’s writing is so God damn good that she hooked me (qwerky, well built characters and she uses English as an offensive weapon…). I will drink some beer later, burp and scratch while watching some football or hockey as my man-penitence.

Stamps-With-Foot and I got up early on Saturday, I proptly forgot the camera, and we headed off to the wilds of the SeaTac Airport Marriott for our chance to say hello and gush at Ms. Carriger. We did just that and found her to be very approachable, genuine, funny, and sincere – all that you could ever want an author that you meet to be. Buy her books! We then decided to take a walk and look at what and who there was to see. HOLY CRAP! we stepped into a mess of nerdy, techy, historically inaccurate stew! All ages, races and genders were present and I was shocked to see that the male/female ratio was 50/50ish. It may be profiling, but… at most tech, comic, or game conventions there are significantly more males of the species and the few ladies in attendance have their pick of which Spiderman loving, +2343 hit-point having, IT professional they will be going so be spending time with. Steamcon seemed to appeal to both sexes equally and there were some truly beautiful people walking around in costume, shopping, flirting, and having a great time. The costumes were interesting and for the most part very well done: Victorian fantasy accessories, sexy boots, tiny hats, spats, ray gvns, a steampunk Geisha jet packs, a saddle(?!), parasols, wings, accoutrements that looked like they took months to build, some really good art, pith helmets aplenty, monocles galore, and some characters of questionable lucidity. The people watching was A++. I would wager that more nerd-nooky was had this weekend at that hotel than the combined amount in all of the western US up to this point in 2010. I took a few pictures with the iPhone and below are the best of them. Sorry for the pixilization.

$Oh the Utilikilt was out in numbers. Unless you are from Scotland, don\'t wear a kilt!$

$Some ladies rocked the bustle and some didn\'t... Not sure what was going on here.$

$A pretty Good Great White Hunter. He didn\'t have Mummy Jerky though.$

$This is a test. If you are a male over the age of 10 and these boots don\'t make you have impure thoughts, then you need to to start playing for the other team!$

$Laurel\'s great new hat she bought at Steamcon 2010$

CycloX/Winter Commuter Bike Build

November 11, 2010 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I picked up an old (1999?) Specialized Hardrock from Stamps-With-Foot’s uncle a couple weeks ago. She somehow agreed to let me have another bike. I figure she is either having an affair with a non-cycling Adonis and her guilt has allowed this acquisition OR she has come to understand that my bike addiction is not like heroin or gambling or video games and as long as I don’t spend the mortgage or dip into the spawn’s college fund then she will tolerate all the frames and wheels hanging in the rafters.

Anyway… My new whip will be used as a winter commuter and CycloCross bike. It is an 8-Speed and the derailleurs and chain are not as finicky about the water and gunk as my regular 9&10 speed training and race bikes. It is all Aluminum and tough as a coffin nail, so it will not rust and should take the beating that my lack of CycloX skill will subject it to on race days.

Shortly after bringing it home, I stripped off the knobbies, flat bar, grip shifters, scary seat, and brake pads. I had a set of drop bars, some 26” slicks, and KoolStop pads waiting for it and dropped by Recycled Cycles for some used shifters, grip tape, a shorter stem, and cables. I hit gold while there and as set of PAUL Cross Lever in-line brakes just fell into my basket… They looked BRAND NEW and I got them for ½ of retail! The Wife was not amused at the total for the shopping trip, but to her credit there was no beat down, no yelling, no sleeping in the garage threatened, etc… She may have picked up a pair of shoes at equal cost though…

I spent a night after work rebuilding and tuning and I must say that I am VERY happy with the results. The day after I finished, I took her on a shake-down ride home from work, my normal 16.3 mile commute. It poured on me the whole way and the bike felt solid, the ride and shifting was smooth, gearing was just right for carrying all the additional cold/wet weather gear. Like all the rest of my two-wheeled mistresses, this bike also has a woman’s name: Christina. I named her after the actress, Christina Hendricks because she is not some effete tofu-munching, carb-dodging runway model. She has curves and muscle, and is sexy in an Olivia De Berardinis sort of way.

Yes… The shop is a mess. I have a couple things in-process. No funny quips required.

FV*K#%G Daylight Savings Time

November 10, 2010 / Matt Talley

I REALLY, extra, super dislike daylight saving time, especially come that time in the Fall when I have to set the 20 or so clocks in the house/cars back one hour. It means that my commute home is in the dark and I have to light myself up like a disco ball so that drivers on their way home after a crappy day at work won’t run over me – again. I don’t care if some Victorian Kiwi (who should not have taken his mind off Entomology) thought it was a great idea that would increase the available light for his bug collecting. The practice has become unnecessary and annoying in the 21^st century. 90% of Africa doesn’t observe it. China, Japan, and India think DST is bunk. Most of Central & South America and Australia have let it go, and yet in the USA only the state of Arizona has the foresight to opt out. First we toss out DST then we adopt the metric system. My little soapbox rant for the day…

Make sure you VOTE!!

October 25, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

If you don’t vote then you can’t really bitch about politicians, government, the economy, spending, the environment, taxes, etc… November 2nd is rolling up fast and regardless of your political affiliation , you need to get off the couch and do your part.

What I have to put up with every night…

October 24, 2010 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

The following pictures are how every night of my life now goes. Cute sleepy wife goes to bed and puppy follows her. I follow mere seconds to an hour later and this is what I find:

Stamps-With-Foot sound asleep, Dog (Brodie) on my side and in my spot. Wife snuggling dog. I walk in and without fail this is the reaction I get:

Wife: ZZZZzzzzzzzz….ZZZZZzzzzz

Brodie: “What?! You got a problem monkey? I was here first, this is my spot! Don’t even think about disturbing me, I’m comfy and set for the evening. You should have got here first…”

I ignore him, walk around the bed to hop in and turn off the lamp and I am greeted with this face:

Brodie: “If you touch me I am going to EAT YOUR FACE OFF – I swear by all that is Holy (salmon kibble, the stuffed monkey, & chasing kitties) that I will FVCK YOU UP if you… Hey!… NO… Stop… Damn it!!… Fine, I will sleep on the other side of her, but tomorrow night I am going to attack balls if you try this sh!t again…”

With that pronouncement he then makes a couple of turns, flops down with a huff, snorts a couple of times, may pass some gas just because and then begins to snore like a fat old guy with sleep apnea and a deviated septum. Modern love with a dose of belligerent puppy.

Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show

October 23, 2010 / Matt Talley

I do like me some bicycles. I really like the ones that some guy welded/brazed in a small dim shop near/at his house. Tool marks, thoughtful frame geometry, pump bosses, bottle openers, hammered fenders and the inclusion of S&S couplers make me feel all funny on the inside. I never miss a chance to fondle a hand-built frame.

Stamps-With-Foot was planning to drive down to Portland to help a friend out that is an artist/costume designer on a new stage production. I was on the fence about riding along, as talk of sewing and fabric makes me as attentive as a narcoleptic on ketamine, until I happened upon the notice that the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show was in Portland on the same weekend. That sold me and I immediately fired off an e-mail to my lovely bride stating that while I was going with her, there would be abandonment for the better part of a day while I alternately drank coffee & beer at the show while groping steel frames and taking illicit photographs of possible two-wheeled mistresses. Her reply was something like – ‘Fine, but you’re driving and you can’t buy ANOTHER bike…” Deal. I don’t have to buy the cow when the milk is free…

I went to the show with my buddy Dave, who doesn’t share my obsession for bikes, but he is a fellow gear-head and also posses a keen mechanical knack, so I knew he would be good company. The show was small and somewhat pricey to get into, but atmosphere was lively, the people watching was excellent, and there was LOTS of eye candy! I wanted to put a down payment on an new road frame, but the more I talked to the builder the louder Stamps-With-Foot’s voice became in my head. I kept getting flashes of me standing outside in the rain with my new frame, no coat, shivering in a wet hat and the dog looking out the living room window at me smugly…

Below is an image gallery of some of the sights and lines that we found there.

...and beer on a bike was the first thing that greeted us upon entering the door!

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Kindle, I Heart You!

October 10, 2010 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I have made the leap into the arms of technology once again. After months of internal debate, fondling display models and endless questions & comments, I bought a Kindle 3 this weekend.

My wife gave me the cash and “permission” to buy my e-reader crack of choice for my birthday. We were in Portland this weekend and since Oregon has no state sales tax, I figured it was the right time to buy. We did go to two different stores to find one in stock and were greatly assisted by the magic of the iPhone and its ability to look up store locations and phone numbers on the fly. I opted for the plan-Jane cover and the wifi-only model: I don’t NEED a Cole Haan calf skin leather case, polished with the tears of a busty virgin for $100 and am never joinsin’ for a book so hard that I need 3G coverage. After loading a couple free books, I bought a Steampunk novel and downloaded a newspaper to take a shake down run. Results: Matt likey!! It is small, light, simple, and a pleasure to read.

I spent Sunday morning sitting at a friend’s table reading the International Times Herald, drinking coffee, and popping doughnut holes into my mouth. It made for a really nice rainy Pacific Northwest morning inside. I will include a gallery below of my e-reader lovely next to the Moleskine medium square-ruled notebook that I use for work

Fresh out of the box in Portland

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Unduly expensive and complicated raised garden boxes

October 7, 2010 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I have spent something like 40 total hours of labor over the entire summer and spent ~$250 to build the most over complicated raised garden bed boxes within a four mile radius. I have obsessed over the design & materials, changed the layout and location no more than 4 times and used child labor (my 9-year old son) during construction. We now have Garden Boxes that can support the weight of our entire house and my wife mentioned that I might need an intervention.

It all started when we decided to grow some veggies and I didn’t want to use treated lumber from Home Depot. I considered landscape bricks, but the total project cost would be over $700 for three 8X3X2’ beds. I wanted to use 3-inch thick cypress beams, as that particular wood is rot proof for 50+ years, but that type of wood is outrageously expensive here in the Pacific Northwest ~$1000 for the needed lengths. I considered redwood, but it was also too pricy to be left out in the yard, half covered with dirt. The predicament was solved for me when I happened upon a bunch of 4”X10”X8’ fir beams that were end cuts from a beam roof construction project in the neighborhood. As they were “scrap” I picked them up for a song.

In addition to the boxes, there will be an espalier apple tree and two columnar apples on that side of the yard. I wanted the garden boxes to mesh with that plan and still be functional, pretty, and to fit in with the style of our house & yard. To help with that goal, I decided to lap joint the corners of the boxes and use hardwood dowels to both keep the joints together and as homage to the period craftsmanship of our home. I know I have OCD. Since I was already using dowels, I wanted to marry the planks together (see drawing) so that the whole structure would be stronger and resist and bowing in the middle as the dirt pressed on the sides of the beds. I felt it might also be nice to add replaceable cedar top rails to shed water and to take the brunt of any abuse. I may have over-thought the concept and might have been better off just using concrete cinder blocks…

The finished product with espalier apple trees cartooned in.

Here are the exact steps to take in building raised garden boxes just like ours:
Plan obsessively
Re-design twice
Buy lumber – get great deal
Bring home and cover with tarp
Let sit for a month
Measure and layout each joint with son’s help
Let son drop board on your shin
Try REALLY hard not to say curse words
By son ice cream.
Limp for a couple of days
Carefully cut all end notches with son
Tell him no when he wants to run the circle saw
Tel him no when he asks again every 10 minutes
Lit it all sit for 2 more weeks
Find really expensive combination square your son left in the grass
Smile because you love him anyway
Drill all dowel holes in the middle of the individual sections with spade bit
Let sit for a week in rain because you forgot to tarp it
Assembly all sections dry for 1st box
Realize that the pieces are now warped and twisted more than a bit
Say a LOT of curse words
Hand-fit each joint with a mallet and chisel
Cuss some more
Purchase ¾” X 2’ auger bit
Assemble 1st box with glue and dowels
Get HUGE splinter in palm
Say hurtful, mean things to the lumber & loudly question the legitimacy of its parentage
Cry a little while digging the jagged hunk of wood out with utility knife
Use Super Glue creatively as first aid supply
Spend a full hour getting 1st box square using one hand
Call it a night
Make sure the thing didn’t move while you were sleeping
Drill corners for dowels
Almost burn up drill
Look at sky and count to ten
Run out of waterproof wood glue
Say dirty words all the way to Home Depot
Buy bigger drill, glue, and more dowels
Apply glue and hammer in dowels with wooden mallet
Look over to see puppy chewing on your hat
Say the F-word
Retrieve soggy hat
Clamp box up with 8 huge pipe clamps
Let joints dry/sit for a week
Construct next two boxes with minimal dirty words
Let sit a further week
Ask 15 year old daughter if she wants to help
She will look at you like you are insane for the mere suggestion
Try not to break her phone when she returns to texting
Look up and count to twenty – repeat
Spread out boxes in yard and turn over
Apply two coats of white primer to bottoms of boxes
Get paint on favorite pair of shorts
Let wife help paint over primer with green outdoor paint
Look up and notice that wife has painted halfway down the box…
Take paint brush from wife
Say sweet things to her and laugh about the extra paint coverage
Let boxes sit for two days
Finish painting bottoms green (keep ground moisture out and blends with grass)
Let sit a week
Position in yard where they should finally go
Ask visiting friend for his opinion
Take his advice (as it is better than your plan) and reposition
Let wife see
Move 3 more times to make wife happy
Move back to position friend suggested
Let sit for a week
Get married to wife a second time and almost loose mind to stress
Have house full of guests for a week
Try not to kill Ross when he makes fun of your yard
Drink lots of beer
Buy gravel and hardware cloth for box foundation
Cut sod from under box locations and move to bare patch in front yard
Wife will work hard in front planting lavender and arranging sod
Lay hardware cloth and pour gravel footings
Spend Saturday with wife finally placing boxes
Drink beer and wine until you hurt the next day in celebration of your hard work
Let sit another week
Cut top rail on table saw
Decide to really complicate things by adding hardwood splines to top rail joint
Devise special spline jig for table saw
Cut last rail too short
DO NOT throw anything, close eyes and count to ten
Revert to cussing
Trip to Home Depot for extra cedar
Re-rip and re-miter last rail
Glue joints of rail and try not to glue rail to box
Wait 3 days and cut away spline waste
Find “cute” little ceramic tiles from the 1920’s that wife will love for boxes
Spend 2 nights in shop making custom cedar frames for the tiles
Add corner splines to match boxes just because
Measure twice to find box center
Attach tiles to front of the boxes with proper outdoor screws
Coat top rails with food-safe clear coat
Wait 2 days
Apply another coat and repeat
Show wife your handy-work and wait for her to swoon
Point out the joint details and all the thought that went into the build
Wait for batting of eyelashes and the swoon…
Mention the period tiles and their perfect symmetry
Keep waiting…
Waiting……………

A drawing of the project shoeing some of the detail

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Taking a bit of a vacation

October 1, 2010 / Matt Talley

It has been almost two years since we moved from Deutschland and I now believe that I have enough distance to finish my book about our life there and the funny/sad/wonderful/disturbing things that happened to us. I had maybe 65 pages written, but in but I put the manuscript down for a while because I found that it was overly biting and my sarcastic prose leaned over the hateful line when discussing my former employer. No one wants to read a travel essay that is spiteful. I hope to have it done and edited by this summer. Publishing in the current economy is part luck and part Voodoo so it might take a while (and a couple more re-writes) before it is Amazon ready.

I have promised myself not to rush things and to use a real publisher. My ego is not so big for me to even consider a vanity press. If my musings are not good enough for publication using a legitimate publishing house that will be rude to me, not answer or return my calls, edit my work with a heavy hand, and take 80% of the book’s profit, then I don’t want it out there for the world to read and snicker at.

Soooo… I have decided to slow my blog postings about the ironic crap I find out in the world from day to day, leave my witty observations in my head, and commit myself to using the time I would spend here on crafting my book. For now, I will continue with project updates, book status, and life events and after I am done with “A Year of Ordered Chaos” I am sure I will have loads of material and opinions to blog about.

Stupid freshman mistake

September 29, 2010 / Matt Talley

I feels extra-smart… Like i gots me some real serious book-learnin’, whew-ee!

My wife, Stamps-with-Foot, went online last night and tried to comment on my Kindle lust post. She gave me a wry look and said that the comments weren’t working. I glared at her with the same suspicion your IT guy at work gives you when something is supposedly “wrong” with your computer. I issued the “move over” command – I have been studying how IT works and nerd-bravado is something like 72.61% of their technical skill set – and took her laptop. Sure enough, the comments were off. Huh? I turned them back on and in just a minute the very same thing happened with the next post that she wanted to make some witty quip about. I then spent close to an hour, hunched over her netbook, figuring out what was up…

It would seem that when I updated the appearance on my blog template a month or so ago, I somehow turned off all the comments on all my posts. I have had swarms of e-mail lately and zero comments, so I wondered what was going on; now I know – I clicked the wrong check box and that was that. I feel extra-smart.

BOOK SALE P0RN

September 27, 2010 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

Some people collect books out of compulsion: odds and ends, with no order to their accumulation. We have our issues, but to call it a compulsion is a stretch. Unlike many of our bibliophilic brethren, we can actually sell a book from time to time and are somewhat choosy where and on what we spend our money on. I think that our current library sits at about 1,200 volumes, equally split between history and fiction. With the purchase of our home and my subsequent attempt to return all the period architectural details and furnish the living room as the original owners might have done, I have started to gather a few editions that could have been found in our home that first Fall. I have 1928 editions of:

Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle,
Hermann Hesse – Steppenwolf (German edition)
Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Virginia Woolf – Orlando: A Biography
Margaret Mead – Coming of Age in Samoa
Agatha Christie – The Mystery of the Blue Train
The Common Book of Prayer
Felix Salten – Bambi: a Life in the Woods (Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde)
Herbert Asbury – The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
André Maurois – Disraeli
T. E. Lawrence – Revolt in the Desert

To add weight to the our pre-stock market crash collection, I been on the search for a complete set of 1909 Harvard Classics, the 1917 Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, and a set of the 1910 11th edition set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, as this is THE edition to have (for the Über-booky folk). All taken together, this will give our parlor a true sense of period nerdiness. None of the above volumes are particularly pricey ~ $6 each in decent condition and ALL of them are available for download since enough time has passed that the works are in the public domain. The wealth of information contained in them isn’t the sole point for wanting them; it is also their tangible quality – the faded bindings, the smell of their paper, the care taken with the block-printed illustrations… These are all books that have witnessed the same history as our little home and deserve a safe and revered place there.

This past weekend we attended the bi-annual Friends of the Seattle Public Sale, where we usually pick up some Travel Lit, a few mountain climbing related tomes and the odd cookbook. Well, on this trip I hit the motherload! I found 14 mountaineering books that are on my “List” and in the Sets and Rare Book Room I happened upon a complete set of 1910 of the EB. I may have swooned. I snapped up those bad-boys faster than a lawyer cashes a check. The set is of Ex-library stock and there is some serious shelf wear on a couple pieces, but nothing that would keep them from being used for another 80 years. For a grand total of $33, I walked out a very happy little hobbit. I will work on the rest of the list as further opportunity presents and as time and money are available.

A few notable biblio-quotes:

“Anyone who has got a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.” & “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The book can produce an addiction as fierce as heroin or nicotine, forcing us to spend much of our lives, like junkies, in book shops and libraries, those literary counterparts to the opium den”
-Phillip Adams

“I cannot live without books.”
– Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams in 1815)

“With thought, patience, and discrimination, book passion becomes the signature of a person’s character. “
— Nicholas A. Basbanes

One bad-@ss little kid!

September 23, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

You know his dad was the videographer/director. It is a cute and slick short film that makes me want to bribe my kids into doing something half as cool: A Star Wars film short using our dog as Yoda (some CGI green will be needed), my son as Luke and daughter as Leia. Oh the sibling light-saber battles that we could have! Stamps-with-foot (my wife) and I will have a cameo: I will be Chewy and she can be one of those saucy blue dancing girls with a thing for wookies….

What would you take?

September 21, 2010 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

You don’t really own anything you can’t carry on your back at a dead run
~Daniel Keys Moran

I have a work acquaintance who sends me (and about 50 other co-workers) all sorts of right-wing, end of times, liberal government=evil sort of crap a couple times a week. Last week, we all received a forward telling us how to prepare (lists and such) for “the coming breakdown of society.” Really, she sends this sort of ranting dribble all the time. I haven’t done anything about it because it makes me laugh AND I pick apart her forwarded ramblings and use their lunacy, lack of factual basis, and flawed rhetoric to verbally beat the proverbial sense into her on breaks. I haven’t figured out if she just likes the debate and that is why I am included or if she has a humiliation fetish and waits with glee after sending me Sarah Palin quotes or a comic declaring that the Health-care Bill is the same as a 1930’s National Socialist agenda come to pass.

Her “run while you can” e-mail got me thinking about what we would do if the wife and I had to escape a Tea-party horde. If you had to leave your house RIGHT NOW, what would you take? I mean now and you were never coming back. Where would we go? Why are you going? Are you running from the Feds? Has the zombie apocalypse come? Is there a crazy red-headed woman at the door with a chainsaw? What if the house was on fire? Natural disaster? Mafia hit? Terrorist attack? Plague? Famine? War?

Could you walk/run 100 miles with all that stuff?
Where would you go?
How would you get there?
What would you do for food, money, shelter?
Why this stuff and is there anything I would cull?

In most of this cases I would like to stay at home, dig in and wait for a sunny day, FEMA, a Presidential pardon, the 82nd Airborne, etc…. But sometimes one has to run like a chimp whose balls are ablaze. If given a few minutes to gather and run what I would take? All the technical clothes I can fit in my bag (down jacket, rain gear, synthetic shirts and pants, hat, trail running shoes, hiking and running socks) my S³ kit, mess kit, external hard drive, laptop, couple of t-shirts, a pair of jeans, my dad’s favorite pipe, wallet/purse, passports, birth certificates, every bit of cash and coins we had, the 12ga, every 12ga shell I can lay my hands on, pocket knife, sleeping bag, all the coffee in the freezer, I would wear hiking boots out the door, carry a charged phone, assorted cables, lots of extra batteries, five or six yard waste garbage bags, lighters, and I would throw the bike in the car – I could ride my bike till the wheels fell off once the gas is all gone {throw in the spare tubes and maintenance kit that I always ride with}. Lastly, I would take with me a plan of where we are going and have an alternate destination – just in case.

The wife would be toting similar, but I would load her down with camping and non-perishable food, a couple rolls of duct tape, and all the meds and bandages in the house. We’d throw her bike as well. The Mrs. would take the dog. Yes, there are reasons to leave him, but she would not listen to a single one. Mentioning the words BBQ/starving/alternate plan/him or us/tastes like chicken and looking over at the dog, within 24hours of said words, would get me shot and castrated in reverse order so we won’t be going there…

The sleeping bag and tech gear will get us where we need to go in the best shape possible no matter the weather. The bikes will get us there faster than our own feet. Cars run out of gas – bikes don’t. The trash bags would keep us and our gear dry. The coffee is included as possible currency and because I have an addiction. The shotgvn and shells are to keep us safe or fed and Daddy’s pipe because one must not forget the past. The hard drive and computer are so that we have records (personal and financial) once we arrive where we are going. Could I cull any of the above… Nope. Can I carry it all across 5-6 states? Yep.

This was just off the top of my head and I figure I could gather all this stuff into a pack in less than 4 minutes for a really quick departure and we could get just about anywhere with it. Give me some time to plan and it may look a little different. Also, if our place was going up in flames the list would be a lot different. First I would make sure Laurel was safe (she would already have the puppy) and then I would just grab papers, computers, photo albums, keepsakes and run out into the street and wait for our bad-ass Seattle fire department to douse the flames and prey that some of the rest of our crap was salvageable.

So what about you? What does your list look like? Why are you running?

Crap I gave up to be an adult:

September 21, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Afternoon naps
eating just the frosting
sword fights with sticks
Nu-Grape Soda & Kool-Aid
being Chuck Norris
wearing Super Man Underoos
sneaking out
believing in Santa Claus & The Easter Bunny
skateboarding
#2 pencils
closing eyes when brushing teeth & washing hair
building Lincoln Logs, Legos, and erector sets insomnia before the first day of school
action figures
Penmanship
sneaking a peek at a copy of Playboy
wearing a backpack with both straps over shoulders
Trapper Keepers
just kissing a girl
not wearing sunglasses
jaw-breakers
playing Army
afternoon back-lot baseball
ugly church shoes
curfews
the violin
being a stuntman when I grow up
cheap beer
believing everything parents said was true
indifference to coffee
poor craftsmanship
casual friendships
smoking pot
wearing a cheap watch
fleeting crushes
unplanned nakedness
my own invincibility
a 1971 GMC Truck
having people notice when I did something cool or right
thinking I was a genius
counting irony as an emotion
having a really fun job
delusions of being a professional climber & cyclist
dismissing the wisdom of teachers
English being the only language I’d ever need
having nothing to lose
indifference to insurance coverage
idle weekends
nonchalance about money
an uninterrupted night’s sleep
riding motorcycles
drinking a 12-pack of beer
ignoring news and politics
clothes with the names of pro sports teams on them
crappy fiction
20/20 vision
eating over half the pizza by myself
peace in the Middle East
linear thought as a rule
Not knowing what the IRS stood for
a full head of hair
watching the Three Stooges after cartoons on Saturday morning
reliving that which I supposedly left behind
plausible deniability

Dog walker review

September 19, 2010 / Matt Talley

Apparently we are now effete bourgeoisie snobs: we have a house cleaner and a someone who walks our puppy when we are not home. Well, we are between house cleaners right now (message me and I will tell you who NOT to use), but we have found the greatest dog walker in Seattle: David the Dog Walker

Stamps-With-Foot, my lovely bride, loves her puppy more than me: He eats better, gets constant scratching and cuddling, is offered the premier seat on the couch during TV time, and gets snuggled like a baby all night. I have accepted it, moved on, and I am better now. Anyway, we both work and while Brodie is the most chill dog you will ever meet, sleeping 20 hours a day, we (especially Stamps-With-Foot) feel bad about leaving him in his kennel when we are away at the J-O-B.

Right after moving to La Maison Du Talley, we got a recommendation for a walker from the West Seattle Blog and while the service was fine at first, she went downhill fast: forgot to walk him sometimes, would come just before 5:00pm, took off with no notice and we would have to scramble to find an alternative. We happen upon David and his wife, Angela, also through WSB and we clicked immediately. They run a real business: certifications, a website, insurance, everything. They are both incredibly consciousness about what they do, have a back-up when they go on vacation, they let us know right away if there was anything out of the ordinary, AND Brodie loves them. David and Angela have worked with Brodie for almost six months and I cannot give them or their service high enough praise.

Fall is here – Riding and running in the rain

September 17, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

My ride home on Wednesday was a soggy one. I had planned on a little drizzle, but what I got was a downpour. I forgot to put on the fenders so I had water, mud and road grit striped up my butt and bag. It made for an annoying commute, but it was a self-created annoyance. I should have dressed for the worst and fendered-up. On the positive side, all the cyclists who clogged the Interurban Trail last week in the sunshine were gone and there were only a hardy few, sporting full rain gear, lots of lights, and waterproof panniers. Last night I came home on my normal apres-work 3-mile loop. By the time I got home, my shoes were water-filled and heavy – let’s call it resistance training.

Yep, fall is officially here. My strawberry plant’s leaves are turning red, the heirloom tomatoes that I have fought to save all summer are finally turning from green to red, and it is now time to install extra lights and the fenders on my commuter. This time of year is both comforting and scary for us lovers of the two-wheeler. The trails and paths are free of our spandex clad brethren on their first ever “road bike”, there are very few kids on big-wheels to dodge, the ladies after-work-walking-club (the one that walks 6 abreast on the trails like a Spartan phalanx) has retired to the treadmills at LAFitness. I find that my ride is quiet and boring and drama free… Except that drivers tend to lose what little ability they had to see cyclists. Even with three blinking lights attached all willy-nilly, fall and winter commuters are spooky around intersections and shared roadways.

The Sweetener Formerly Known as HFCS

September 16, 2010 / Matt Talley / 7 Comments

Forgive me, but I am going to rant a little here… Yesterday, the New York Times reported (also picked up by CNN) that the Corn Refiners Association petitioned the United States FDA to “officially” re-label high-fructose corn syrup as “corn sugar.” Thinking that the name change will improve the image of the “much maligned sweetener.” Yeah, and Stalin was a cute teddy bear with a heart of gold… Oh! Corn Sugar, well that is a different story, pour some more of that on my snowcone! Mmmm, coffee with Corn Sugar is just like coffee with REAL sugar… Fvck that.

What I really like is the new TV commercial ad campaign (Laurel told me about it this morning and I spent lunch watching the ads and parodies on YouTube) promoting HFCS as a “natural ingredient” made from corn. HFCS is NOT a natural substance. It does not occur in nature. That is like saying Einsteinium or Americium are natural substances. Fvcking lobbyists. Apparently, according to the ads, it is fine to consume in moderation. Hell, I can ingest Arsenic in moderation as long as I know what that quantity is. What is the correct daily consumption amount for corn syrup? How do you calculate it?

HFCS is in everything from bread to lunch meat, coke, the honey at KFC, and something like 9 out of 10 prepackaged foods found on your grocer’s shelves. Americans are fat. HFCS is in everything… Brits and Germans are getting fat and HFCS is quickly gaining ground in their packaged food. This is not differential calculus – it is simple math: HFCS+you=lard ass. Changing the name will not make us any less fat. I quote from an industry source:

“The ingredient is a favorite of food makers for practical reasons. Compared with sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t mask flavors, has a lower freezing point and retains moisture better, which is useful in making foods like chewy granola bars. And because the corn crop in the United States is heavily subsidized, high-fructose corn syrup is also cheap. As a result, it’s now used in so many foods, from crackers to soft drinks, that it has become one of the biggest sources of calories in the American diet.”

Cheap, easy to use, & government subsidized… There is a lot more wrong here than just a product with a bad image in need of a name change!

Traveling light is the key to airport happiness

September 10, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Have you flown anywhere recently? It SUCKS! Getting through security means stripping, flights are canceled, there is no free food, getting a seat in an exit row or behind a bulkhead now costs extra, rental car rates are insane, lost bags are the rule, everyone is pissed off, and I recently paid $30 hotel tax on a $120 a night room. I can’t throw my hands up and stay home – I work in the aircraft industry and often fly on business trips with NO notice. Instead of just bitching about it all and suffering through, I decided to see what I could do to make the experience better.

I have drastically cut out the amount of crap I carry. I used to travel in a suit, carry my laptop, assorted files, my running shoes, a couple changes of clothes, a couple books, my notebook, a camera, S³ kit, extra batteries, pens, noise-canceling headphones, etc… For an overnight business trip now, I travel in running clothes, fold my work clothes flat next to my laptop (sometimes I leave the laptop and just take a Bluetooth keyboard for the phone), never check a bag, pack a couple of Clif bars, take one book (soon to be an eReader), one Moleskine notebook, an extra dress shirt, 2 pens, my iPhone, phone charger, 1 set of extra socks, small apple earphones, undies and undershirt, tooth brush, deodorant, toothpaste, and floss. I use the soap and shampoo in the hotel – that is what it is there for. I grab a coffee in the terminal before the flight, pick up some fruit, and I am not beyond some social engineering to get a better seat: ‘Excuse me, but I am feeling really ill. Is there an aisle seat near the bathroom?’

I pack just as light if I am flying to see the kids or as a tourist. Couple shirts, flip-flops, extra jeans, hat, S³ kit, and I refuse to take a laptop on vacation. It is not worth the security hassle and I may be tempted to work instead of relaxing or enjoying myself. I have also been graced with a wife who does not pack a steamer trunk full of shoes for a weekend getaway. It feels really freeing not to have to wait at baggage return or lug a heavy weight suitcase around.

I addition to the above, I have spent years (and lots of pain) developing Talley’s Rules of Travel. I hope it helps someone:

Horrors of horrors! I dropped my iPhone in the toliet at work!!

September 10, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Son of a… How has my life turned into a sitcom? Crazy relatives show up at the house, I have hillbilly neighbors, my dog is cuter than me, and now I have dropped my iPhone in the fvcking toilet. It is like NBC has the cameras rolling on my life (could be worse – it could be a Soap opera: lying, cheating, poison, jail, drama, bad acting, eye-patches…). My company’s CEO just happened to be in the stall beside me (how does that occur in real life??) and giggled like a little school girl as I exploded with hateful curse words and looked on in horror as I had to fish the damn thing out. I turned it off, ran to the sink and washed it with foaming soap. I them wrapped it in towels, ran to the production line and put it in the heated epoxy/potting chamber. All was good for the first 10 minutes and then it turned itself back on?!?!? I turned it off again, but noticed that there was some color run in the screen. SH!T My company provided the phone and doesn’t have iPhone insurance, so if it doesn’t turn back on, I bought a new iPhone…

I just got through making fun of Adam Brown for his super-nerdy waterproof phone case. I really wish I was that geeky! This would be more funny story than possible expensive tragedy. I just e-mailed him for info since if the thing does turn on, I need to protect it. If not, then I will need to encase my “new” phone in a potty-proof wrapper.

Update 9-17-10:

The phone did great with the drying out process. I turned it on a couple of days later and everything worked fine. Two days after that, I hooked it up to my computer to sync and I was asked if I wanted to download the latest and greatest software. Sure, why the Hell not? After the download, the power and home buttons, stopped working if the phone was disconnected from the computer, but worked fine as long as it was plugged in. I am sure it was some sort of weird latent damage caused by the dunking in the potty that showed up later because of the diagnostic check and cycling that accompanied the new download. The phone is now a brick and after a HUGE rigmarole at work, I was given a new one, though it wasn’t free. It looks like I get to share the cost of the new unit. I guarantee that this one will be covered in layers of protective geeky love.

Our Second Wedding

September 9, 2010 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

The ladies

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While most people wait until their 20^th anniversary to marry their spouse again, we decided to move the time-line up a bit and do it on our 3.75 year anniversary. We is just sort of roll like that… No really, we eloped those long many years ago in Southern California just before our move to Germany. We had planned to have a get-together for family and friends the next summer, but life got in the way. Life kept getting in the way. There has been some increasing pressure from a couple of friends and my mother-in-law to get it done already.

During a visit at Christmas last year (I was still heavily medicated from the latest shoulder surgery so I was in an agreeable mood…) my father-in-law and I went running at Camp Long and happened into the lodge, a WPA built stone and timber craftsman beauty. Donald and I talked about it being a perfect place for a wedding reception and then enrolled Laurel in the idea of having our “DO” close to home (the park is 1.5 blocks from La Maison du Talley) this would simplify planning and logistics and with the rental of all ten cabins on the site, there would a place for everyone to sleep off what promised to be a beverage filled evening. Simple was the plan… Stress was the eventuality, but to see Laurel dressed in radiant white, surrounded by our family and friends was worth every hypertensive moment.

With the amazing help of those gathered, the day of our ceremony went off without a hitch. Our caterer was GREAT, the beer was cold, wine flowed, Donald made killer appetizers, Herbert was on flower and wine delivery duty, Matthew delivered the Nana and was a terrific MC, Henrik was took more pictures than Matthew Brady and Annie Leibovitz combined. Michael delivered the beer, Dani played the violin as if she were truly an angel, Beckie made the cakes beautiful, Gin read the poetry with great flair, Emmy arranged the flowers was Laurel’s rock, Sarah remade the dress, Miguel added the sweetness, the Aunts decorated the hall, Jan was maestro of our crazy little orchestra, Bob the photographer was on time and worked it, Leif was the official dog walker extraordinaire, Brodie was an awesome ring bearer, Nick steamed dresses, Nana folded programs into the wee hours, and the entire Brezynski family was the oil that made it all run smoothly.

The ceremony was held outside in the large meadow and an old Burton family friend was the officiant. I saw my beautiful bride being walked by her father and I cried like a little girl who had her Princess Pony taken away. She looked amazing and graceful and so happy. We said our vows, everyone cheered and at some point I stopped crying. Pictures were taken and we all retired to the lodge for drinking, eating, speeches, dancing, and laughter. As the evening closed, I gave my bride her wedding present. A gift that will always remind her of me and will speak to our journey through life together: a restored 1967 red Schwinn Twin tandem bike. She wanted to ride it in her wedding dress – one of the 10,000 reasons I love her.

Minimalist self-rightousness

September 4, 2010 / Matt Talley / 4 Comments

With a transcontinental move a few years ago and two international relocations in the last four years my lovely bride and I have done a fair job at parring down our worldly goods and keeping our propensity to collect superfluous crap in check. Tyler Durden from Fight Club was 100% correct when he stated “the things you own end up owning you.” When you have mountains of crap you have to first pay for them, then maintain and replace them when they break, and you must immediately run right out and buy the latest and greatest version.

This group realization for the need downsize is now in full swing (could it be… the economy??) and you see more and more minimalism in both furniture design, production staging, fashion, bicycles, computers, etc… I see the occasional article like the one recently about a guy who has whittled down his life to 57 things and he is super-smug about it – 57 things? Really‽ I NEED a lot more shit than 57 things. Go through my SSS kit, thrown in a spork, bowl, pocket knife, thumb drive, soap, shampoo, camera, a few cables, watch, wedding ring, glasses, computer, notebook and a couple of pens and I am standing there naked with over 60 things.

I can identify with his hypothesis that “we’ve been duped into buying things by an advertisement-dominated society for the last 50 years.” However, I need some of that stuff that I was brainwashed by the media to run out and purchase: iPhone, eReader, Global kitchen knives, my bikes, the super-cool Freitag messenger bag sitting next to me right now, etc… One has to weigh true need, want, and desire for themselves to determine how much is too much and how much is enough. I feel that the wife (Stamps With Foot) and I are doing fairly well, but we could still stand to par down some, (do we really need 4 computers, boxes of long-canceled checks, and my 4^th grade notebook rantings?)

For years American suburban life has been all about keeping up with the Joneses: Big house, fast car, big truck, boat, HUGE TV, toys, toys, toys… The glut of articles and blogs and books about moving to a more minimalist life style is a sure sign that the Joneses may not be as important as they once were. However, moderation in any movement is the key. If I lump all the stuff I have read about making life simpler lately, it feels as if there is a thread of one-upmanship that pervades: “I can live with less shit than you…” Some of the authors are crazy-smug (like the 57-things guy) about living on friend’s couches and having all their world possession in a backpack (padding their $3000 laptop…) Instead of the Joneses, there is now the Schwartzes: a section of our proletariat, riding fixed geared bikes, sporting skinny jeans, typing away on their MacBooks, drinking expensive coffee, texting away on $500 smart phones, getting ironic tattoos and swapping stories about how little they can subsist on

To my mind minimalism today is less about freeing yourself of all your crap and more about your attitude towards the stuff you have. Do you NEED that new Blu-Ray player or do you WANT it? Are you buying that to last forever or just until…? Does it have a life-time warranty? Are you actually going to use or wear it enough to justify a high initial price (price per wear principle). Can you rent it, borrow it (books), or do without it?

Now, before buying something new, I try to have the need vs. want conversation and while mildly successful, there are still some things that I just have because the are cool toys and I like to either play with them or look at them. Would my life be simpler without ALL the bikes, 4 snowboards, a book press, 2 TVs, and a competition pellet gun?? Yes, it would, but that life wouldn’t be half the fun. For me and for us, I think the trick to not falling into the pit of conspicuous ownership is to be careful with what we spend our money on, and whether it is a need or a toy we should buy the best quality available so that we get years of use and enjoyment out of whatever it may be that our hard earned greenbacks are being traded for.