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Back to gerritt.net LONDON AND PARIS IN SIX PICTURES February 27, 2005. 4:29 PM Daryl and I returned last night from our vacation overseas, three days in London and three in Paris. I'm sorting through the two-hundred plus pictures I took and I'll be posting my London-Paris photo page in the next day or two. For now I've decided to simplify the trip into six photos, the first three are of London and the last three are of Paris. Write your own captions, and check back soon.       -G * Email Gerritt THE HUNTER HAS BECOME THE HUNTED February 18, 2005. 5:09 PM Do you remember watching The Fox and the Hound either as a child or with your children? The classic animated movie that Disney brought to film in 1981 is, for me and many young Americans, the only exposure to fox hunting we've ever known. It is therefore the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about the recent laws passed in England to outlaw hunting foxes with dogs. Images of men in red woolen sweaters on horseback surrounded by droves of braying hounds tracking the scents of a fox flashed into my head, thinking this kind of thing was lost in the olden days of Britain. To my surprise it has only been this week that the hilariously-dressed protestors finally outfoxed the hunters and got the law passed. I bring this up because I'm leaving for London tomorrow, and this being my first vacation overseas, was on the lookout for civil disorder happening in London and Paris. If the worst we encounter is some guys dressed in fuzzy fox outfits, then I'm not too worried. I will not be updating for the next week or so because of my trip, but I'll have a full report of the Brothers Lang World Tour when I get back. I'd also like to take the time to congratulate Tom and Amy on their recent engagement. I'm so happy for you both. -G * Email Gerritt TAKING A LEAK February 14, 2005. 5:59 PM Just when things with me had seemingly calmed down a bit, I awoke to that all-too-familiar drip drop sound of a leaky pipe. I had just woken up late Sunday morning after recovering from a late night beating the guys at poker, to find the untimely drip of water falling through the vent fan in my bathroom. Luckily, most of the drops fall right into the toilet and cause no harm to the floor, but a day and a half later I'm starting to worry about the drywall in the ceiling and the wiring for the fan. Finally at 5:30 this evening the new owner of the condo above me came home, and I told him the condo association would be sending a plumber and locksmith to break into his condo tomorrow morning and stop the leak. The problem is that he just bought the condo last week and doesn't live there, which is why it took him so long to find the note I left him. Bad timing dude. Luckily for him, I'm just renting this place and my landlord told me not to do anything until the condo people show up. If this were my place, I probably would've had a locksmith here yesterday and had him send the bill to the guy above me. We'll see how this all shapes up tomorrow when they finally come and fix the leak, the ceiling fan, and probably replace all the drywall in the bathroom ceiling while I'm at work. -G * Email Gerritt A NEW CAR!!! February 10, 2005. 11:59 PM There's a new love in my life. With every saga that ends, another one begins. I'd been watching the sad decay of my old Subaru Outback for many months, and with a repair job totaling thousands of dollars, it just wasn't worth keeping. I bought a new car. Brand new. Forty-six miles on the odometer to be exact. That's an incredible swap from my 137,190 miles that it took to break the Outback. After much deliberation between a big wagon and a something smaller and more affordable, I took the small car route and bought myself a shiny new Mazda3. After hours of endless paperwork at the dealer this morning, I drove away with it, shining midnight blue under a mackerel sky. About once an hour during the day, I would spontaneously blurt out "I can't believe I bought a new car!" Driving around I'd glance up now and then and say "I can't believe I have a sunroof!" Buying the car was painful, almost as painful as saying goodbye to the Soob for the last time, but the new-car feeling is such a rush that I almost wish I'd done it earlier. A new saga begins for me, but the storied Outback will never be forgotten. Rest in peace, dear friend. -G * Email Gerritt GOOD NIGHT, SWEET SUBARU February 8, 2005. 11:44 AM It is now official. My car is dead. Blew a head gasket that'll cost almost what the car is worth to repair. So now, I find myself with a nice little rental Mazda, and only a few short days to find a new car to buy. I'm a bit worried because I don't want to pay for it, ever, and I can't seem to find something I truly like. I wanted all-wheel drive, but a new Subaru is too expensive, plus I'd like to try something else. So I think I've settled on a Mazda, like the one I'm renting right now. Still in question, however, is whether it is worth paying for the repair to the Subaru in order to get more money for it in a trade. I'm sure gonna miss that old car, it seems like only yesterday when it turned 100,000. -G * Email Gerritt ONE, TWO, THREE, AWWWWWWWW. . . February 6, 2005. 11:18 AM   Yesterday the National Zoo allowed the first public viewing of their three-month-old cheetah cubs, two males and two females born November 23. Melanie and I were lucky enough to get to the zoo at the perfect time, on a perfect sunny spring day, to see the four puff-balls rolling around with their mother and staring curiously at all the people taking their picture. They were so cute and so fascinating that they even managed to trump the usual crowd favorite panda bears, orangutangs, lions, and tigers. The National Zoo is totally free, since it is run by the Smithsonian, which in turn makes me more likely to spend money in the gift shops and food stands. It is worth visiting, but gets mobbed with people in the summertime. -G * Email Gerritt WASTE NOT February 5, 2005. 9:48 AM Someone decided it would be useful in some way to install one of those programmable scrolling LED-style signs in the cafeteria (say: "CAFF") at work, to display different vitally important information to the employees. However, someone with a sick sense of humor programmed the large blinking sign to say: "Energy Conservation Month: Remember to conserve electricity." On my way this morning to see the new cheetah cubs at the National Zoo. Pictures tomorrow, if they're still out by the time we get there. If not, you can always watch them on the Cheetah Cub Cam. -G * Email Gerritt |
