Month: March 2005

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The Salt Lick, yard work & red hot chile peppers

I shopped for land on my way home from work on Friday evening. I drove down Fall Creek Road between Llano County and home. I found a 2 acre lot that I didn’t like. The Texas hill country is very, very rocky. Elise and I would love to own a small plot of land and I figured it’s never to early to start shopping. I’d like to be a small time rancher one day – maybe have an exotic game farm.

When I got into Austin, I drove around to pick up John’s birthday presents. After that, went home and guarded the TV.

Elise had to work most of the day on Saturday. I raked leaves, fertilized the lawn, pruned the crepe myrtle, spreaded mulch and potted three really cool willow plants that I picked up at Central Market a few weeks ago and put a wireless VPN router up for sale on Ebay. After all of that hard work, I treated myself to a 1GB iPod shuffle.

Elise came home around 5 and we headed out through the nasty drizzle to meet up with friends for dinner at The Salt Lick. Despite the horrible weather, the restaurant was packed. The Salt Lick provides a great atmosphere but Elise and I have never been true fans of the food. This time the food was fantastic (although we’re true Rudy’s fans). We were very impressed that our service and food was top notch given the crowd and the weather.

Elise and I ran into our neighbors as we were leaving the restaurant and stopped to chat for a while. On the way home we stopped at Blockbuster and rented Garden State. Awesome movie.

Elise went to church Sunday morning. I updated HartzVictims.org with a very disturbing post. Elise came home and we went for a late lunch at Hill’s Cafe (great comfort food). Elise had the pork loin plate. I had the Redneck Philly sandwich.

After lunch we drove back to Oak Hill so I could pick up some goodies at Wyatt’s Nursery. I’m going for a full-on pepper garden this year (I had great luck last year) – Anaheims, cayennes, habeneros, jalapenos and poblanos. I’ve been doing a lot of research on chile peppers and am really excited about a fruitful summer – a lot of sweat from not only gardening in the Texas heat, but also some new culinary endeavors.

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Glowing Time of Neversleep

There’s not many things that bother me. One of those ‘not many things’ is being made aware of time should I wake up sometime during the night.

Scenario: Josh awakes from a deep slumber sometime during the night to see a man about a horse. On the way, Josh accidentally sees the clock on the dresser and notes that it is 5:47 a.m.

“That leaves me around an hour to sleep”

I can never go back to sleep after seeing the clock. I will lay in bed and think “I’ll bet I have less than an hour to sleep now.” “I wonder how much longer now.” “If I open my eyes, I’ll bet I could see that the blinds are starting to glow from the early morning light.”

It always, ALWAYS happens. It could be 1:30 a.m.: “I only have five hours left to sleep.”

I might doze off, but for some reason I become stressed and overly concious of time. I hate it. It’s a disease.

We bought our house a little over a year ago. With the house came a water softener. Water Softener is smart as it does its brining thing very early in the morning. When Smart Water Softener is all out of salt, it likes to call out: BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEP………. BEEEEEEEEEEEP.

It’s not a quiet beep either. Invariably your humble narrator gets out of bed to silence Water Softener. This very thing happened just this morning – early this morning…

I, the Dark Knight, rose from slumber after I’d heard the taunting, roaring BEEEEEP coming from the Soft Water Dragon who was bellowing from within the Guhraj Dungeon.

This quest was two-fold: Silence Soft Water Dragon and be not blinded by the Glowing Time of Neversleep.

I slowly rose to my feet and checked my armor (that’s knight talk for scratched my nether regions). Stealthily I made my way to the far side of Kitt Chun Island where I attained a trusty lantern from the Drawer de los Junke.

I continued my journey to the Guhraj Dungeon along the south shore of Kitt Chun Island. My peripheral caught light from one of Neversleep’s glowing minions. Wearily I looked away, traveled onward toward the beep and avoided the spell of Neversleep.

Before long I found myself at a tall door that separated me from Guhraj Dungeon and Soft Water Dragon. I flung open the heavy door, shined my lantern into the eyes of the dragon, checked my armor again and farted.

While the dragon was momentarily distracted, I quickly lifted his armor chest plate and with grace and precision, pressed the “Silence Soft Water Dragon” button.

Alas, the kingdom was quiet. It was time for this Dark Knight to check his armor again and make his way home.

Exhausted, I traveled back the way I came as this was what I thought the safest route. Traveling west along the south bank of Kitt Chun Island I came across two minions of glowing time. My will power prevailed as I looked away and traveled toward my lair. It was upon crossing the threshold of my own chamber where I was confronted, head on, by the evilest of Neversleep minions: Redglow of St. Sleepsnomore.

I harnessed my Dark Knight powers, checked my armor one last time, closed my eyes, found my way back to my cot and made no eye contact with Redglow.

I silenced the Soft Water Dragon and had not been blinded by the Glowing Time of Neversleep. I was home and safe to slumber. I knew not of time, could easily fall back to sleep and be well rested for the day ahead.

“That dragon, oh, how he angers me when he bellows in the cold, early mornings!” I victoriously proclaimed.

My princess stirred and responded: “Yes, especially at 4 o’clock in the morning.”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.”