BURNT ENDS  08.30.2012



hi, come meet the woman who sat across the aisle for us during our bus ride down to Kansas City! she snores when she’s awake, eats potato chips with her mouth open and hums along with her music which is blaring so loudly in her headphones that she can’t hear her obnoxious, ear-piercing ring tone as people repeatedly call her.

then one time when she did notice her phone ringing, it was some guy named Jerry from a dating site who wanted to meet her. she called him “honey” and told him to be patient because she had just left town for a few days and assured him that she is definitely worth waiting for. we know this because her booming voice apparently has no volume control.

but all that faded away when Beka’s cousins picked us up from the bus stop and took us to a place called Oklahoma Joe’s (which is inexplicably located in a gas station) for some awesome barbecue.

ELEVEN HOURS THERE  08.29.2012



Beka and i heading down to Kansas City today for her cousin’s wedding this weekend. we’ll be in the City of Fountains for a week and catching an overnight bus back to Chicago next Wednesday.



Beka and i went to a Korean spa that recently opened just outside the city for a mini honeymoon thing today. it’s quite a large establishment, relatively speaking, and has a wide variety of amenities that include half a dozen or so themed sauna rooms, a theater with recliners, massage stations, cafeteria, free wi-fi and lots of comfortable chairs.

the regular price is $25 a day but Beka had a $10 off coupon so we got in for a not-bad-at-all total cost of $30. we ended up spending a bit over seven hours there going from sauna to sauna and then getting work done while eating woefully overpriced Korean food at the cafeteria.

we stopped at a nearby Korean grocery store on the way out and then drove home with the windows down while eating red bean ice cream.

ABSOLUTE BELTERS  08.26.2012

this weekend is one of those “perfect storms” in terms of motorsports that i follow:

  • MotoGP round 12 at Brno Circuit
  • Moto2 round 11 at Brno Circuit
  • Moto3 round 11 at Brno Circuit
  • World Superbike round 11 at Moscow Raceway
  • World Supersport round 11 at Moscow Raceway
  • World Rally Championship round 9 in Germany
  • British Superbike at Cadwell Park

let’s just say i did not stray far from my computer today.

CHICKEN AND POTATOES  08.23.2012

sign #814 of gradual domestication: getting excited because our new glass baking dish doesn’t flex in the oven like our metal baking tray.

SHORT FOR SIGMUND  08.22.2012

i just heard about this guy who went hiking in upstate New York and accidentally dropped his DSLR into a stream where it has remained until somebody found it, tracked him down and mailed it back to him three years later.

it’s nice to know that there are still good people out there, people who would find a lost camera and go through the trouble of reuniting it with its owner. perhaps some good samaritan will reunite me with my beloved Nikon D200 (serial #3093098) and attached Nikkor 18mm-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR (serial #US2010205) one day.