Todd Bradley’s Galaxy

48-49.jpg (JPEG Image, 702×524 pixels) – I’m printing this out and posting it on my wall at work.

I’m subscribed to the Broomfield freecycle email list. If you don’t know what freecycling is, you should learn! See here. Anyhow, someone named Mary just posted this ad yesterday. It left me reeling.

My husband just graduated from university and has not yet found a job.
As such, if anyone has a swingset or fort type thing that they have
outgrown, we would truly appreciate giving it a new home. Thanks, Mary.

I’m trying to figure out what Mary is getting at.

Is her husband a Super Doogie Howser who graduated from university at age 8 and now wants a swingset?

Or is he an adult who is so dejected from being unemployed that he has retreated into his inner child and wants to play in a “fort type thing”?

Perhaps she’s trying to find something for her out-of-work husband to do with his time, and installing some playground equipment seems like a good idea.

I saw my first Hummer H3 on the road yesterday. It was, of course, near the shopping mall. It’s noticeably smaller than the H2, which Beth thinks looks like a tank and I think looks like a small school bus. I get a sense that GM is really grasping at straws at this point. The H2 really doesn’t appear to be substantially different than the Jeep Cherokee or any other midsize SUV. From looking at it, it looks like just another SUV built on a pickup truck chassis, only with four giant plastic panels that stick out over each of the wheels. That said, it at least appears that it could be useful for offroad driving, unlike it’s bigger cousing the H2.

My prediction is that this is the end of the line for the Hummer. I’ll bet they won’t make an H4.

Last night, Beth and I went out on a date. First was dinner at Taigun, which is our favorite Japanese restaurant in Broomfield. They’ve changed their menu a little and everything we had was quite good. Then we went to see “Saint Joan” as performed by The Upstart Crow in Boulder. It was long, with two intermissions, but good. I worked some on the play in a technical role, helping put together props, so they offered me a “comp” ticket but I refused, and paid full price instead. I really didn’t feel like I’d earned a free ticket, although in hindsight I did work around 6 or 7 hours on the play. That’s nothing compared to the time you put it in you’re really working on the play but seems like enough for a free ticket, maybe.

Anyhow, today we went back to Boulder to see “The Tempest” as performed by the Longmont Theater Company. It was set as a B-movie science fiction story, which errily paralleled the “Space Monster on Danger Beach” play that the Conviviality crew is working on this summer. It was a free performance, outdoors in the plaza next to the Dushanbe tea house. And, of course, it rained on us. So they took an unexpectedly early intermission and continued after the rain stopped. I really liked the set and costumes they put together, highly inspired by Star Trek. The actors’ performances were more consistently good than Saturday night’s Joan performance, and Beth definitely liked Tempest more.

I can’t think of another time when we saw two plays in two days.

Kitchen Remodel

For those who couldn’t make it to our “kitchen warming” party last weekend, I put this web page together with a few “before and after” photos of our kitchen remodel project.

The party was a blast, although it took a lot of time to prepare for and I spent most of the party cooking and preparing drinks for people.

Ex-Bush Aide Who Edited Climate Reports to Join ExxonMobil – New York Times – Why doesn’t this surprise me?

It makes me wonder if our government has some secret plan to make distribution and sale of petrochemicals a government service, just like Social Security and public education.

I’m a bachelor once again this weekend. Just me and Rufus Poofus Underfoot. I took myself out for some Mexican food for dinner and then came home and watched “Swingers” for the first time ever. This is a great movie! I was inspired to rent it after listening to a recent review of it on Reel Reviews, one of my favorite podcasts.

BBC – Radio 3 – Beethoven Experience – downloads – Cool, free Beethoven MP3s, courtesy of the BBC. Now, why doesn’t the US government support the arts as well as the British government?

The US government seems to always ask “how much less can we support culture in our country?” while the British government appears to strive to do more.

Johnny Cash – Wow, this music video just gave me goosebumps. It goes with a Nine Inch Nails song that Johnny Cash recorded about 6 months before his death. If you have any clue of what the song’s about and know anything about Mr. Cash’s life, I’m sure you’d agree this is a very powerful song and video.

Threadless T-Shirts – Dark side of the Garden, by Glenn Jones – If I didn’t have so damn many t-shirts already, I’d buy this in an instant.