Weekend Update – the gods of lawn maintenance are displeased

August 18, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

We had a national holiday in France on Friday and I made the most of my 3-day weekend.

Instead of the stuff I needed to do I did this:

1. Got up at 7:30 on a holiday
2. Went up into the mountains with a group of Expats for a hike and a picnic – got some great pictures and had fine food
3. Worked on a design for wooden wine box/kitchen cabinets
4. Completely filled my Leuctterm1917 design sketch notebook – took 2 years
5. Watched a girlie movie with my sweet wife
6. Started a new notebook – a Rhodia Webbie this time (I like the paper better)
7. Spent too much time on the interwebs
8. Started formal permit process for garage shop and apartment above at our place in Seattle
9. Sanded, sealed and painted the “T” supports for the workbench/buffet table
10. Rough turned 4 oak bowls from a piece of tree blown down in a storm
11. Sent some e-mails out that I had let sit too long
12. Coated the bowls in wax and will let them cure for a year.
13. Cleaned and organized GROP – oak shavings were EVERY where
14. Composted the shavings with some grass and kitchen scraps
15. Sharpened all my lathe chisels
16. Brained myself on a low hanging bike – said f-word more than once
17. Went to a run along the river
18. Called my Mom and talked for a bit
19. Checked on the kids
20. Cut first 5” top sections for Cornebarrieu Workbench
21. Need a proper circle saw… the 18v battery saw is out of it league on 1.5” beech
22. Worked on the small cabinet rosettes for our neighbor – he also asked me to install a shelf while I was at it…
23. Played with the puppies – while Stamps-With-Foot had a girls night
24. Got sucked into Pinterest
25. Updated website a little (here and Tumblr)
26. Watched a little too much TV/YouTube
27. Took puppies for a walk around neighborhood a couple of times
28. Rode my bike about 10 miles – muddy
29. Cleaned and tuned single-speed bike
30. Played with puppies
31. Did some grilling with beer in hand 
32. Got up Sunday morning and worked for a few hours, – because I thought it was Monday. Damn it!
33. Closed office door and did not return for 24 hours
34. Told wife her hair was very pretty
35. Went for a walk with wife and puppies
36. Made a small parts organizer out of a broken wood bowl
37. Got glue on my favorite shorts
38. Wrote some snail-mail
39. Surfed the interwebs until I fell asleep with the iPad on my chest…
40. I did not mow the yard again. The gods of lawn maintenance are displeased with me.

Outdoors this summer with my son

July 31, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A summertime fixture for my son’s summer visits has always been some time outside. We have canoed, hiked, ridden bikes across international borders, camped, road-tripped, National/State Park hopped, etc… This year was no different except we did those things in France.

We canoed along the Canal du Garone in my 2014 Father’s Day present – a Big green 3-person canoe. The Ruminator learned about the magic of portaging and that stinging nettles should not exist on this earth. We hiked into the Ariège Pyrenees, climbing 5900+ feet in 4.5 hours. That night we slept in an high alpine Refuge (his first), ate great food, and saw the most amazing mountain waterfalls, wildflowers, streams, and lakes. There were high green fields dotted with cows, sheep and goats before we walked above the tree-line and blue ice floating in the deep alpine lake at the base of the Refuge. It is a memory that I will carry with me for the rest of my days!

There was bike riding, lawn mowing (had to throw that in!!), soccer, long walks and one attempted swim session. He got turned away because he showed up with swim trunks to the pool and here in France you have to wear Speedos – no really, I swear. We also visited one of the prehistoric parks in the area (there are three?!) and got to throw spears at targets as part of one of the interactive displays. There were deer and bison 3D archery targets out in the field along with paper animal targets and we only learned that the 3D ones were just to look at and not to aim at. This information only came after one of my spears sailed over the bison’s neck, clearing it by 2 inches from 50 yards away. I got a stern warning…

Being outside with my kids is one of my true pleasures in this life (My daughter HATES backpacking and sleeping on the ground and is more of an RV girl). I look forward to many more years of it and the inclusion of more children and grand children.

France – The first 30 days.

January 11, 2014 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Still Love France.
My French has gotten SO bad.
I did forget how slow things are to get done here.
You want a buy/lease a car? Three weeks-ish.
You want cable and internet? 1 month.
Want it to work? 1 more week and 14 phone calls
Love my J-O-B
No such thing as coffee to go… even if you get it in a tiny paper/plastic cup, there is no lid.
Really like the house here. The 16″ thick concrete walls and steel shutters give it a homey crypt-like feeling.
Miss our house in Seattle.
There are doctors who speak English, but their receptionists who book the appointments don’t…
You want groceries on Sunday? Nope, not going to happen
I also forgot how amazing the eggs and meet are.
Want to sit and have coffee and talk to my mom, miss that.
Bread goes with EVERYTHING! Awesome bread.
Having a really hard time finding a shop that sells wood lathes – only power tool I want/need here.
The weather here in winter is better than summer in Hamburg.
Miss my furniture. We have been “Camping” since Halloween and I am about 99.9999% done sitting on the floor to eat my dinner.
Want my tools like a junkie wants their cooking spoon.
Stamps-With-Foot is buying enough cheese to make the regional sale figures blip.
Our dog< Brodie, has fully integrated and will cop a squat in the middle of the street, sneering at anyone who dares to question his right to do so. He goes to restaurants with us like he is a little prince. The wife slips him duck breast, cote of Beaof, and aged cheese under the table. I had 2 glasses of $4 wine that we bought at the grocery store with dinner tonight. It was awesome. No, truly. Wish my kids were here. I miss Starbucks, but I have a Killer espresso machine in the kitchen. Can now watch Netflix and BBC One with country specific VPN accounts - sticking it to the man! Miss my bikes. Can't wait for them to arrive next week (insert giddy face) The designer dog food here is sold in breed specific bags - really. It is crap, but it is packaged well. I have lost a little weight because I am not eating crap and started running again. Very, very nice wooded trail near house - miles and miles long. Flying to Florida for work next week and am bringing home coffee beans, dry dog food, and Cajun Seasoning. Packed an extra duffle bag... Went for a drive in the country today and happened by a 16^th century chalet with turrets and a moat about an hour form the house.
The thought of Stamps-With-Foot driving in France scares the Hell out of me!
Life is damn fine on the whole.

Touching the earth

March 8, 2012 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

My father-in-law, The Chatty Buddha, spent almost a week with us during the holidays and he likes to get me up REALLY early to run at the beach. Before each of these runs, he must say any number of chants and incantations to make the weather as crappy as possible – really, really. Anyway, just before we go and run through blizzards and gale-force winds, we will sit at the breakfast table and I will try to get a half a cup of coffee down while my father-in-law hums and vibrates with nervous energy. He tries so hard to be Zen, he really does, and I can only imagine how hard it is for him to sit and meditate while vibrating like the quarts crystal in a calculator watch.

On the first morning of this years annual Christmas-to-Jotunheim run, he just couldn’t contain all the penned up joy of expectation. He was asking questions, quoting Hafiz, stretching, standing up every 3 seconds…. I was shocked that he could focus his gaze on a single object and that he hadn’t yet vibed his way into a parallel dimension. His son was sitting with us and in about the same state of no coffee/walking dead as me. We needed a few minutes of calm before charging once more into the frigid breach, so I looked at The Chatty Buddha and told him to touch the earth – at the moment of enlightenment Buddha is said to have touched the ground with his right hand. It is depicted in about a billion statues. There was a brief moment of silence as he stared at me with his piercing blue eyes. A giggling smile broke out across his face and we all three had a big laugh. For the rest of their visit this year, he would start to spin like a dervish and remind him to touch the earth. He would look at me sideways, squint his eyes, and slip back into our dimension. In the spirit of the above, while we were in the UK and Ireland recently, I took some pictures for just for him – see below.

MIA – last seen with paint on new pants and sawdust in eye

December 1, 2011 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I realized yesterday that haven’t posted anything for almost a month: no astute observations, not one pointed remark, no weird OCD-driven lists, no pictures of adventures at home and afield…. Nothing. Hmmmm. I have just been REALLY busy!! It started with painting the living room, the kitched paint was next, we expanded into wiring a hot tub, I decided to finish up a furniture project, the breakfast table “needed” to be cut down, fancied up, and refinished. I am heavy into finishing my incredibly overbuilt and way too complicated kitchen cabinets, Halloween came, there was Thanksgiving prep, I had to put the garden to sleep for the winter, blow all the water out of the yard irrigation system, clean the gutters (4th time this year – grumble, grumble… hate neighbor’s tree… grumble, grumble…). On top of it all, my J-O-B was INSANE: lots of late nights, weekends, travel, OT, pressure, stress, etc…

There is some proof of all the work that we have been doing – I have semi-updated the pictures on my project page, but remember that most were shot with an iPhone in crap conditions. None of this pics are going to get me into National Geographic!

It hasn’t been all work though: I have been able to go to the range with my cuddly .45s and punch holes in some zombies a good bit – fine, fine stress relief. I mentioned Halloween – Stamps-With-Foot and I outdid ourselves again this year at our local Halloween party. We went as Wednesday and Pugsly Adams – a big hit at the festivities. I went as a pimp to work – think Will Ferrel in The Other Guys movie: grill, blond ‘fro, leopard coat/fedora, purple faux croc high-heeled side-zippered boots, a pimp cane, crunk cup, loads of bling, coke nails – I had it down. A my fellow engi-nerds let me down though… Not one other costume in my group – not even a funny t-shirt!! Sales had some good ones this year, HR was all in, the fiber optics group brought game, but Engineering sucked it! How is it all those people with big brains, imagination, and vast amounts of reasoning ability could not come up with something?! There are WOW players, Trekkies, SGA initiates, one D&D uber-geek, and every single one of them (including the female members of our team) have slave-girl Leia dreams…. They let me down, but I soldiered on and even gave a new-hire tour and orientation in my pimp-o-rific attire. I will not forget or forgive their breach of the nerd code! Philistines.

Speaking of my J-O-B, the long hours, travel, all the late meals out, and my general lack of physical motivation has gifted me with 20 extra pounds of fat compared to this time last year. In essence, it is my own fault – my bikes are all sitting there waiting on me to love them, I have a sweet pair of new running kicks, A gym membership that we pay for every month, and a dusty yoga mat. I HAVE to dig deep, put away work and get my butt moving or I will be the size of Jabba the Hutt in no time and the Wife is not into Slave Girl Leia…

I think that brings it all up to date for the most part. I will try to be more diligent about keeping up when life starts swirling around me.

New Running Partner

April 15, 2010 / Matt Talley

The Nike+ App came with my iPhone and I just started playing with it last week. So far, it has been fairly accurate (after I calibrated the sensor on a local running track) and I have used it on road runs and on a recent trail/hill climb outing and so far the difference between the accelerometer and the GPS distance in minimal. The Nike+ uses so little battery compared to the GPS function that I have tuned the location server off on the phone to conserve battery for important things like phone calls and work e-mail.

I love to run and I find that if I have a partner I get faster and faster until I finally plateau around the 7 minute mile mark for 5+ mile runs. I think that I have the potential to be faster, but since I suffer from Multiple Activity Disorder, I don’t commit the time to train appropriately and I have never invested in a coach to help. My lovely bride hates to run, so I do not have a live-in training companion and so far have not found a neighbor with a similar schedule that is a runner. Nike+ is filling a gap. It is giving me some positive feedback, documents distance and pace, and I can virtually race with people across the country on the inter-webs. I have a couple of buddies in Missouri, Colorado, Germany, California, and Arkansas that run and am hoping to get them set up with Nike+ as well so that we can run as a “group” from time to time.

Driven Outside

Tag: Running

Weekend Update – the gods of lawn maintenance are displeased

Outdoors this summer with my son

France – The first 30 days.

Touching the earth

New Running Partner