Under the Truck

This appeared on my desk this morning while I was off in the lab installing stuff.



I'm not sure why.

Receipt of the Beast

I stopped by Kroger this morning. I bought some apples, some soda and some half & half.



Apples. 13 cents for tax. Not a good total. Maybe I should have gone and swapped apples or put my thumb on the scale. We'll see how today goes.

At least there are three 7's in the date.

Bubble Lamp!!!

Margo (not her real name) got us a present for our office today:



It's a USB Perpetual Bubble Lamp. I've got it set up right next to the machine playing Pink Floyd right now.

Thanks Margo!

Gem of the Pacific

I finished reading the first book of the Hitchhiker's Guide series yesterday so I took a timeout to read my newly acquired book Hawaii, Gem of the Pacific by Oscar Lewis.



I had forgotten that the Hawaiian Islands were once know as the Sandwich Islands. Evidently The Earl of Sandwich was a good friend (or boss) of Captain James Cook so when Cook bumped in to the Hawaiian Islands on his third voyage he named them for John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. In an amazing coincidence I had just eaten a bacon and tomato (real tomatoes) sandwich for lunch.

The book talks about poi a lot. The more I read about poi, the more I really don't want to try it.

I looked for tikis. Not surprisingly there's no mention of them but I'd sort of hoped to find one in one of the illustrations. Nope. This illustration was nice though:




I found it interesting that the entire island of Lanai was bought by "one of the leading firms of pineapple growers" (Dole) in the 1920's. Evidently the pineapple industry is being phased out (pineapples aren't native to the Hawaiian Islands anyway) so tourism there is starting to increase.

On the whole it was a nice read. I don't really get along with history books too well but this one was made for kids and kept it pretty simple for me. :)

I also noticed that although the copyright date is 1954, the book goes all the up to 1960 in the last chapter so this has to be a later version. I thought they copyright was updated when there were reprints with additions but I guess I don't really understand how all that works.

Yard Sale Adventures #002

I managed to hit a few sales this morning. It was cool out, overcast and looking like rain. One of them was a full-house Estate Sale that I think got hit pretty hard on Friday. There was still a lot of stuff left and they were in 50% off mode. I got through a few more and stopped a local produce stand in Tucker to get some goober peas. Once it started to rain I dropped by my local Goodwill and called it a day.



Today's damage from the estate sale:

• Hawaii, Gem of the Pacific by Oscar Lewis (1954)
• Holland House Cocktail Mix measuring jigger (these are awesome)
• Texas Instruments TI-2500 Datamath Version 3 calculator (it has some corrosion from the original batteries that were left in it but who knows.... it may work)
  

Damage from yard sale:

• One blue Coleman cooler that fits in the boot of my car (great for transporting goober peas)
  

And from Goodwill:

• Two Trader Vic's Plain Coconut Mugs that seem to be in great shape. They seem like they must be a little more recent that some of the ones I've found references for on the web and in my books. The bottom reads "MADE ONLY FOR TRADER VIC" in a circle and then "USA" in the center.

Altogether I spent about $4 for everything except the goober peas.

Peas, peas, peas, peas

Eating goober peas

Goodness, how delicious,

Eating goober peas.

(yes, I grew up singing this song about them.)

roof

This is a picture of someone working on my roof.

Since some people ask...

Why Agent317x?



(You'll have to click on it to get a readable version.)

Some more info about Dynagroove here: Dynagroove

Tiki Army!

I found some Libbey tiki mugs at Cost Plus World Market today.



They're not nearly as bright as the photo makes them seem. Anyway I bought 2 of them for display and another 6 for daily use. I don't use too many of my other mugs too often so it will be nice to have some daily drivers around.

Tikiprint!

D&D strike again with this fine tiki-print shirt found at a Goodwill somewhere in Marietta (I think.) It's got tikis, tiki torches, a volcano, surfers, outriggers, and wahines on it. It's originally from Old Navy and is in great shape. Quite a find!

Thanks!!!

Happy Independence Day

Today was Independence Day.

The day started out at Margo & Jim's (not their real names) secret hideout. It's located north of Atlanta and south of Tennessee.




It's a mysterious place.



Lots of people were there.



Hans hunted crocs and kept us all safe.



After hangin out in secrecy for a while we went over to the city of Acworth to see my brother-in-law play with his band Cry In The Sun.





They played a good set and there was much rejoicing.

I think I got sunburned.

Yard Sale Adventures #001

We got out for some good quality yard sale adventures this morning. Yeah we ended up with more junk we don't need to add to all the existing junk we don't need. But at least it's new junk with new amusement value and cost us less than $10 total. Oh yeah... there's one tiki... that I really really did need.

In the first frame we find:

• a picture of a cat that sort of looks like Ginger as a kitten
• an Eric Carle book called Draw Me A Star
• a picture of a goat with watermelons and a chicken
• The Hardy Boys #36, The Secret of Pirates' Hill

Dave and Danielle get first shot at the Hardy Boys book. Otherwise I'll add it to my small collection of them. Perhaps I will finally get to read the ones I never had as a kid.



I eventually found A TIKI and some some other mugs:



I really just wanted the tiki but I got a "package deal" so they all came home. I have someone in mind for the aces mug. If she doesn't want it I might keep it around for a little while. The bird/parrot is more of a vase. I have wooden parrot and some brightly colored tikis that it will fit in well with. Front and center, the star of our show, is an Orchids of Hawaii R-3 mug.



He's in great shape. Both emerald green eyes are intact and there aren't any noticeable chips. He had some green gunk on his nose (candle wax maybe?) but that came off easily with a toothbrush and some soapy water. There are a few brown spots on the bottom of his lip but it looks more like the brown glaze used at the top and bottom so I'll just consider that some sort of tiki birthmark.



I have some other "peanut style" tiki mugs but this is my first Orchids of Hawaii one. I really like the eyes.. very cool indeed.

It's definitely been a good week for tiki stuff. :)