Back when we lived in Chicago we would enjoy Chicago-style Hot Dogs. No one ever had to slap the hot dog out of my hand because I never put ketchup on a hot dog. (That’s a no-no in Chicago).
We’ve found Chicago-style hot dogs here in Tucson but we’ve also discovered Sonoran Style Hot Dogs. Oh my universe. I’ll let the recipe speak for itself.
Earl, Jamie, and I went out for happy hour tonight. We finally had the chance to meet Homer and Matt in person and we had a very nice time chatting and enjoying a few drinks together. We look forward to meeting up with them again soon. I’ve followed Homer’s blog for many years; it’s always a delight to connect In Real Life.
Afterwards we went to a Mexican restaurant they recommended. The food was very good and I look forward to going there again.
A wonderful evening.
I’m always in search for the perfect keyboard. I type a lot for a living and I need to feel as one with the keyboard.
Since I do all my work on a Mac and because I’m a vintage computer enthusiast, I decided to get a “classic Mac” keyboard with the traditional clackity-clack sounds.
It’s a good thing I work by myself in my home office. Co-workers at adjoining cubes would have flashbacks to ‘Nam with the racket I make on a keyboard.
This keyboard is a delight. The keys are well spaced, the feel is exactly what I’m looking for: not too mushy, a positive response, and a good confirmation sound.
I bought the keyboard from Matias Keyboards. A little pricey but worth it. I’m quite pleased with the build and experience.
iPhoto reminded me that six years ago today I was on an airplane and snapped this photo on my way into Detroit. Good times.
It was 107ºF this afternoon when we decided to go for a drive. We tend to drive around with the windows down instead of using the air conditioning. Though the air is hot, we still enjoy the breeze and the experience of smelling the world around us. Plus it saves a little bit on gas.
I decided to drive us to the top of Mount Lennon. It was 78ºF at the summit. The experience was recharging for me.
We certainly picked the best year to move to the desert. Reminder… it’s still spring.
No regrets, just slight sweats.
I always enjoyed family gatherings in my Grandma and Grandpa Country’s back lawn. Looking back at things, I also enjoyed the same sort of thing at Grandma and Grandpa City’s house as well. I guess I just enjoyed excuses to eat with friends and family. The country and city experiences were markedly different but equally enjoyable. And this is not me trying to be some sort of mediator or balancer. It just was.
When it comes to siblings, it’s just me and my younger sister. But I always felt part of a bigger family because we would get together with cousins (and aunts and uncles) very often. Living across the street from Gram and Gramps, coupled with weekly gatherings on Sunday, made for this type of closeness. While at school I was often called “weird” or “strange” or “odd”, amongst a wide assortment of other vulgar names that can be attributed to my homosexuality, my cousins rarely vocalized anything about my eccentricities. My sister and my cousins are the only ones my age I felt comfortable around, as they would just go along with my latest scheme of staging a parade or turning one of the barns into a school or buying bags of candy at a general store and having a “candy picnic”, where we chowed down a bunch of sugar and went into subsequent sugar comas. I was nearly equally (is that proper grammar?) as close to my city cousins, but because we didn’t see them as often and there was a little more of an age spread, I’d tone down my grand plans and just hang out in my weird way. It was still a pleasant experience.
As we got older, it was apparent that our life experiences would take us in different directions. Because of this my comfort level around my cousins waned quite a bit but never fully dissipated. I purposely mask my “eccentricities” because I guess at this stage of my life I’m suppose to act like an adult, but honestly this takes a lot of mental effort. Using mental energy in this way is exhausting, in fact, very exhausting. I’m literally tired of doing it.
It’s been a long process for me to make peace with my off-kilter or askew way of thinking and use less effort in trying to fit in. Instead I now just focus on not scaring the heck out of people or at the very least making people wonder if my UFO is parallel parked on the roof.
I still look back on the memories of these family gatherings with a smile and fond thoughts. I also wonder who selected the colors in that afghan on the ground and why weren’t we using a solid color blanket instead of an afghan that was meant for the back of the couch. Or as it was called by my city family, the Davenport.
Sometimes you just have to admit that life isn’t all cotton candy and roses. My mood has been crap this week. I never feel like I’m a genuine citizen of society, but I’ve felt like I’m way out there all this week. My disjointed-ness finally settled down yesterday morning after a decent night’s sleep.
Notice there’s no wardrobe credits for Elizabeth Montgomery or Agnes Moorehead on this clip from “Bewitched”. The ladies in the cast all brought their own clothes to wear in each episode from the third season to the end of the series (unless a spell sent them back in time or something). At the beginning of the week they’d work out what they needed for the production that week, brought in their clothes, and the wardrobe department would clean and press the garments for Friday’s filming.
That’s all I’ve got today.
I see a lot of chaos in this photo. I’ve scribbled the family’s Chinese take out order on my the notebook adjacent to my work computer. The left margin is not flush. I’ve written the letter “e” in two different ways. The blotted out area is my Tucson phone number, written old school without an area code, and of course this is all mingled with a few scant details about a work project I’m working on. This particular work project is one of several projects I’m coding in parallel.
Luckily, the Chinese Food was very good.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!