Day215 - And I ate perogies… what could be better?

Saturday, August 2, 2008: Macungie, PA: Das Awkcht car show.

http://www.awkscht.com/

Tre, Nick, Troy, Tyler and I all headed out near Bethlehem for one of the Country's largest Antique and Classic Car shows.


There were cars here I did not know existed. Others were things you've seen on TV or movies. Just a wide variety of the history of wheels in motion. These are not all of the pictures - because my camera died before I took pictures of everything - only my favorites.

But, let's start with the AM. We went huckleberry picking with Pop-pop. It was crazy and I didn't want to go home.




On the way there, we saw this car. Sunroof FAIL.




This is officially my new favorite car. It is a Nash Metropolitan and probably the coolest fricking thing ever made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Metropolitan





They had a flea market that was selling all kinds of crazy stuff to make up to the wife and kids for dragging them around in the rotten heat. This was one of the cooler things there, a Poland seal for the grill of your car.




This was another super cool car. I think you can see I'm trending small lately.



It's a 1951 Crosley. I have about a dozen pictures of all the models that were built. Everything from Truck to cars and convertibles. I am hearting one big time.



One of my favorites was this. I think it's a 1904 Packard - but I might have the year wrong. It ran on steam and smelled like Knoebles. Seeing these guys drive them around was pretty spectacular.




I would much rather have one of these than any Camaro or Mustang. This is an automobile at it's most simple and elegant form.


Afterwards, we stopped at The Port Clinton Inn. I got this Buffalo cheeseburger which may be the biggest burger that I've ever gotten. It was quite a surprise - even though it was not as hot as I like.




Thanks Nick for taking us. We had a great day even if the end was a little dicey.

Day214 - Love affairs with paper samples.

Friday, August 1, 2008: Yana's work: Printing invites.

Yana very graciously agreed to print the text for the invite. She was so lovely for doing so.

I didn't take a picture while there, mostly because I was freaking out about getting these suckers done. I can show you what they looked like afterwards.

A couple of days ago, I cut all these ribbons. Then Troy sat in front of a very hot stove in July to seal all of the ribbon's edges on a hot burner. It was really a detail that helped make them look uber-professional. The next day, I spent i glueing 300+ pieces of ribbons into these bows. Today I glued the little gold seals.




Then, we had to affix the printed invite that Yana so graciously printed and cut.




The purple was a lovely irridescent paper. The white is an 80# bright white Cougar. It was as gorgeous as paper can get - Cougar is the way to go.




There was a lot of glueing. Then, it's little ribbon safety belt kept it together.




I know that you can't tell from this picture, but the outer paper was a very, very, very nice irridescent cream paper. It is probably the nicest paper that I've ever used. Ever.




Here is a line-up.




This is the box.




This was only half of the 150 that I was contracted to do. If I didn't have to rush home to Frackville to meet some prior obligations, I would have finished the whole of them. I'm guessing total hours for this is around 16-20 hours. That's a broad guess. And that is not counting time to nurse busted fingers from paper cuts and glue guns. But they are gorgeous. Probably the nicest I've ever made.

And I couldn't have gotten it done without Yana or Troy. So thank you both so, so much.

Day213 - Eat electricity you dirty bastard.

Thursday, July 31, 2008: My Living Room: Fly Killer

We bought this fly swatter last year. It is an electrified tennis racket. Talk about raising the bar on insecticide.




The only thing that previously had been shocked by it was my sister when she bravely poked her finger in it. She disregarded the safely screen and went for it. We saw a spark right before she threw it across the room.

It runs on two D batteries you see.




Back to the fly. That sucker dies a cruel and painful death with his head eventually exploding off of his body. Yes, it smells really very bad, but their is no dirtier infidel than a shitty fly.

Day212 - These fingers were made for burning.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008: My kitchen: Gold seals

I am currently under a deadline to get wedding invitations done. It is stressful and not always awesome living in this house right now, especially for Troy.

So, part of the invite was these little gold wax seals. 150 little wax seals.




First, there are two main types of seals - wax and a plastic polymer. The plastic are cheaper and can be found in most craft stores. This is what I used. These have a little wick that needs to stay lit to burn the faux wax. It smells a little like a burnt crayon, but worse.



And you can burn your fingers a lot.

I did buy some online that you can put into a glue gun but the stick was HUGE and would not fit in my smaller glue gun. So, back to the little candles.

I made a template so I had a general idea what size to go for. It took a lot of practice, but towards the end I got really pretty good at judging how long you need to keep the seal in the wax before you can move on. (Don't forget, the candle is burning the whole time. You need to be able to both press a seal while dripping wax into another circle. This is exhaustive.)

It also helps to have a little bowl of cool water to cool your stamp off in. Otherwise, you will not be able to remove it from the wax.




I didn't always make the best seal - especially in the beginning. You need to have a real idea of what kind of pressure to use as well. Sometimes the wick goes out and you have to relight it while praying that the wax you already dumped doesn't not harden. This is real juggling - especially since I did them all by myself.

To try to save some of what I did not do perfectly, I set up a little crucible using my Yankee Candle tart burner, a teaspoon and some foil. This worked so well and made the most darling shaped seals.




Here are the seals made with the crucible. They have a slightly different color and a more round shape. They used a little more wax had a larger profile. I don't know which I prefer. The seals at the top of the page look more natural, where as these look like buttons.




Either way, I can do with a vacation from manufacturing them again for awhile.

Day211 - My craziness knows no bounds.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008: My kitchen: The freezer.
I kind of freak out about order. I like stuff to pretty orderly. If you come to our house and you think it's just some big mish-mash of shit, your wrong. Even when it's a hurricane, it's an organized hurricane.

My fridge was a BIG problem for a while because I could never figure out how to get it in any kind of order. Frick, for 5 years we never had ice!

So, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought this rack that is designed to better organize your dishes. It took a little bit of work and some frozen fingers, but we are up and running with a more efficient model. Now we have ice! How frickin' great!

Day210 - Hot Damn Pt II

Monday, July 28, 2008: My Kitchen: Buffalo Chicken on a baguette.


I found this totally rad Buffalo chicken at the deli. It's a lunch meat, but tastes just like hot wings. Totally skrews with your brain just a little.

We put it on a baguette with some of the totally rad apple/celery slaw and there was lunch.





We took a walk to the park to feed some ducks and the mallard momma had a crush on Troy. Here is here stalking him a bit.

Day209 - Hot damn chicken.

Day 209
Sunday, July 27, 2008: My Kitchen: Avocado Chicken Skewers with Broccoflower.

So! More cooking today. Surprise, surprise. This summer will probably be remembered for the insane amount of food I ate/cooked.

These are Avocado Chicken Skewers. The recipe was from Healthy Living. This chicken was marinated in soy sauce, garlic and chilies packed in adobo sauce. Then onto skewers.



Here is a head of Broccoflower - a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower. It had the texture of broccoli, but the flavor of cauliflower. Weird but good.



I steamed it and then tossed it with garlic and olive oil. Really really good. The avocado bit of this was some avocado mashed with some spices. Really good as well. Troy almost ate it with a spoon.

Day208 - Really, it could go for more garlic, probably.

Saturday, July 26, 2008: My Kitchen: Roasted Tomato Mayo.

I'm not one to put a shitload of time and effort into on part of dinner. I don't have the patience to spend 4 hours to work on one ingredient of a 30 ingredient meal. That's why I buy my roasted red peppers in a jar.

So, it was a surprise that I spent an hour to make this mayonnaise. I doubt I would have unless it was for a quantity that could be used for weeks to come - like in this case.

First, you roast a whole head of garlic.




While that chugs away in the oven, you add all of this into a bowl. We've got salt, pepper, red pepper, celery, more garlic and applesauce.

**Quick note - I've been dicing onion and freezing it in a container in the freezer. It's making my life hella easier and it stays for a good long time. **




In a pan, roast tomatoes, rosemary, basil and salt and pepper until it literally falls apart.





Then, burn your precious fingers peeling the skin from the tomatoes before you dump it in a bowl with the garlic you burnt your fingers on and mayo.




Mix it up and keep it chilled in the fridge for a couple of months. If it will last that long. Troy has it about half gone already. So it was worth it if he likes it so much.




I also made some other crazy shit. Yana and Allen were coming over for lunch, and I love cooking for more that just us two.

This is a buffalo turkey burger. It kind of tasted like hot wings.




Instead of ranch or blue cheese, this slaw went along with it. I hate slaw, but I liked this very, very much. Two Tb of ranch, walnuts and 1/4 c apple and celery. Really, really awesome.




And oven fries. These are the only fries that I've ever made that came out good in my life. Trust me, I screw up frozen fries all of the time. The had a teaspoon of paprika, olive oil and some salt. In the oven for 30 minutes at 450.




So, yeah, I cooked a lot today. It took an hour just for the mayonaise and everything else was from scratch as well. All the recipes were from Healthy Living. It's pretty much my go-to-guide for cooking right now, and it hasn't let me down yet.

Day207 - Yes, it's nice and full.

Thursday, July 25, 2008: Medlar Field: Stache Night.

Tonight we went to see the Spikes for Moustache Appreciation Night. I've gone to see the Spikes a ton, but when supporting the Stache contingent, you go that extra mile.

I wore my stache as much as I could without feeling really self-concious about my carpet not matching the drapes. I did get my picture taken with other fans of the stache, including the hotness that is the nookie monster.

Me and the Spike. This is my 5th or 7th picture with the Spike, but none so beautiful as this.




This is the man I was really here to see.




Troy didn't have a stache. He had a ginger beard.




The interns had to rock them as well.




They put stache's on the score board as well.




I was secretly stalking this guy for a while.




He was pretty cool as well.





Troy has been stalking this tall farmer for some time.





Because it was such a nice night, and I have yet to site in a field of fire flies this year, we stopped on some farm road to be dazzled by lights.




That did not happen. I got stung by something in the nettles and we high tailed it out of there. I freaked out.

Day206 - Occasionally I walk.

Thursday, July 24, 2008: Bellefonte: Photowalk.

We went on another photowalk tonight. This time we stuck to Tallyrand Park and the Match Factory in Bellefonte. I've shot the park before, as did Yana, but it was still pretty awesome to go for it again.

I did something I've never done - EVER - in the 20+ or so years that I've been able to actually hold a camera in my hands. I was shooting 35mm, and I opened the back door before rewinding the film. I could have died.

Never, in all my life have I done something so dumb.

I'm just really used to shooting digital. And, more likely, sometimes I do not stop to think. Here are some of the shots that I do have because I was smart enough to shoot a little with my Fuji.

I love this one.







Mini-mallards