A Living Text

One of the worst times of my life was when I briefly lived in North Carolina. We owned a nice townhouse on golf course, in a costal city. It seemed great until the first morning of life there when I took a shower and saw a roach crawling up the outside of my shower curtain. This was followed by roaches in the kitchen, in other bathrooms, etc. We moved from North Carolina to Michigan after four months of living there; it wasn’t just the roaches, but they didn’t help.

So I despise the thought of living in the South due to the bug factor. However, we’ve been in Virginia for three years, (I love it), and most of the weird bugs are reserved for the humid summer. Until this year that is. A month or so ago the kids found small roaches on the landing about three different times. That was it, and then it seemed to be done. Until today. When I woke up bleary eyed and confused I walked into our bathroom. As soon as I turned on the light, something black dropped from a shower curtain. I am nearly blind without my contacts, so I didn’t know for sure, but I was pretty darn sure that it was a roach. I quickly found a pair of glasses, and sure enough, it was a roach. It seems like the North Carolina roaches were a lot smarter, they would run and immediately hide, this one sat there. It was about 3/4 of an inch long, not large by scary standards, but way too large for me. 

I looked around in a panic for something to shoot it with. I know that we have no deadly chemicals (for bugs) in the room, so I tried CK One on it- nothing. I doused it with Comet. it twitched it’s feelers a little, ad sat there. I figured it was in the pile of Comet, so I could run downstairs and get something better. I ran through the hall and stopped to see a light on in my oldest’s room - (’Why is your light on??!!’ - that’s another story) I was relieved to find Raid Ant and Roach in a downstairs closet, and ran back upstairs. Now, I thought I remembered something about roaches sensing motion or waves or something, and sure enough, when I got back to the bathroom, it was gone. Now I feel like a serial killer is in the house in a bad movie - where is it? I am panicked and looking everywhere, shooting off blasts of Raid into corners. I looked for a trail of Comet to lead me to it, but I didn’t see anything. I worked up the courage to take a step into the bathroom and saw the vile thing in a corner. I then blasted it with Raid and it immediately expired. Whew - a sigh of relief…

Now, roaches in N.C. didn’t die immediately from Raid, they fought it for 20 minutes or so. Either Raid is deadlier now, or this is some weaker type of roach. Also, a NC roach would have been gone as soon as I left the bathroom and I’d have never seen it again. So that’s a positive. But suffice it to say that as I took a shower I was pondering a move to Pennsylvania.

Usually I live a sedentary life and don’t like going places, other than the daily hour each way commute. I do love going to Annapolis and D.C., and other locales around here, but I generally need to do other things, and don’t get out all the time like when we first moved here. But this week, we went to King’s Dominon, an amusement park, for all of one day. Then tonight we are going to see the Nationals play, and I’m excited to see their new ballpark.  I’ve become a Nats fan since our move here coincided with their first season, and it’s hard to root for the Twins from a distance eternally. Yes, the Nats are bad, but they’ll get better.

Finally, we are going to the snooty and pretentious Gold Cup on Saturday. My company gets a tent there, so it will be fun to get out and see the horses, and the 60,000 people in hats. I do have a seersucker suit that I purchased for the occasion, so I should fit right in.

We just returned from Ocean City, MD and points north. It was a wonderful time, as any time by the beach usually is. We were in traffic next to two buses of Brad Paisley near the Wilson Bridge on our way out there. The hotel that we were at, the Princess Royale, had two women’s retreats going on while we were there. One was Calvary Chapel, I think from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The other was Christ Community Church of somewhere (see this link).

Ocean City is a massive conglomeration of mess, with huge buildings and tourist trap places hawking food, candy and t-shirts all over the place. The beach is the best thing about the place, other than that, it’s sort of a spring break, Las Vegas type location. But as you drive north on the strip, you move from Maryland to Delaware, and suddenly things are nice, clean, and attractive. Delaware must have good zoning laws. The buildings are short, the signage is better, and things are more clean and appealing. This was our first time in Delaware. Today we drove up to Rehoboth Beach on our way home. There were lots of really nice developments on the way, with great town-homes and condos. It looks like a good place to live. The Atlantic is a wonderful body of water. This is the view from our deck:

We took our time getting out there, and ate at my favorite place by the water, Hemingway’s in Stevensville, across the bridge from Annapolis. Get the fish and chips if you go, it is fantastic. 

Spending two days alone with my wife is a rare experience, and one that is always superb. Adding the beach to that time is icing on the cake.

To the one I love.

I despair of anything to write about. Who cares about politics - does it matter? And do I have anything to say that anyone else hasn’t said? Probably not. I do have a couple ideas in mind, but don’t make time to write them out, so they probably aren’t that exciting if I can’t even care enough to write them. I am excited about the Clone Wars movie this summer, that ought to be fun. I hope Prince Caspian is good, but my hopes aren’t up too high. I’m really tired lately. Work has been very busy. Add the commute and I don’t have much energy for things such as blogging. I did rake more last weekend. Yes, I am still raking in March. That’s what I get for living in the forest - General Beauregard’s revenge perhaps. Spring has sprung. Buds are everywhere, things are growing.Easter was wonderful, the service was great. We re-watched some of the Gospel of John movie. That is a great movie. It was moving to see the end of Jesus’ life, and then His resurrection.  Considering trips to the coast, New York City and points elsewhere.Anxiously awaiting the next update of Buzzword which should add some cool functions.I moved all of my 401k into bonds to avoid the current turbulence. I have a sense that things are going to even out and stabilize. The bad news is a trailing indicator, I think the worst is behind us, but then I don’t know anything more than anyone else, so that could be totally wrong.OK, enough for tonight. 

 My grandfather, Lester Forest Moar, while in the Navy. He served aboard submarines in WW I:

I’ve been uploading and touching up pictures of my ancestors as part of a project to digitize all of the genealogical work that I have done over the years. Here is one example: 

Finally, a name for my ailment! But I don’t have it as bad as these people do.

I got some books from my wish list on Christmas, they include:

And one great CD that I wanted, and which is great:

OK, it has been slow around here whilst I prepared for and went on a vacation. I spent Saturday in beautiful, snowy downtown Chicago which was about as close to Christmas perfection as you can get. Here is a Christmas like song from Eisley, the best American band in the world today: