Wayne's Whirled

So my friend Jenell headed out for a canoe camping trip this weekend and I knew she was running a little late.  Being the gentleman that I am I asked if I could help in some way, so she said it would be a BIG help if I could pick up the paella skillet that she left at work.

I’m not sure what you all think when you hear the word “skillet” or “pan” but I was thinking that it would be something I could swing by and pick up without needing a weightlifting spotter. Here it is (placed on the hood of my car for scale):

Evidently one makes paella in a pan approximately the size of an Acura six-cylinder engine.

So I was at my friend Jenell’s place and was looking around her cool little downtown apartment; here was the view:

Nothing too unusual, right? Cute little table, chandelier and way cool over-burdened purse rack all casting shadows. After being confused for a minute, I finally figured it out. Here is a photo from farther away:

It took me a second to realize that THERE IS NO CHANDELIER IN THIS ROOM! What you see is the SHADOW of a chandelier that she painted on the wall. Since all of the light in the room is on the other side it creates this amazing optical illusion that makes you look for the chandelier that is creating the shadow.

Well, it ain’t there.

So last week while I was up in San Jose I flew in early to catch up with my buddy Don who lives up there.  He had emailed me asking if I wanted to be picked up at the airport in the Mini or the Smart Car.  SMART CAR BABY!

Don pulling up at the curb

A lot smaller than a Mini!

Did I mention that Don is kind of a big guy?

Yep, I got to drive it!  It was like tooling around in a golf cart!

My friend Jenell is an interior designer for an architecture firm, though she has many talents OTHER than just spending other people’s money (as designers tend to do). I’m admittedly just jealous that she gets to spend other people’s money whereas I have to spend my own, but check out the bag she designed and made as a birthday gift to her best friend; cool or what???

I insisted that she give me some specifics so I could blog it, so here is her description:

The material is ‘100% cotton with a laminated coating’, which makes it super cleanable and the inside lining uses the same fabrics. The store where the fabrics were bought is called Bernina Connection [42nd St & Indian School]. I guess it’s a messenger bag, and i sewed a pocket inside for a wine bottle opener.

Did you read that??? A wine bottle opener! How cool!

I’m so glad that my friends are talented so I don’t have to be.

So I was behind this car the other day and realized that they are indeed capturing some of the most important things in life:

Who can disagree that we all need to coexist, that world peace is needed and that fish and chips rock?

Granted, my British friend Ray convinced me of the third, though he is HEAVILY partial to The Codfather rather than Pete’s…

So my Mom keeps getting me a subscription to the Vermont Standard newspaper, and though it can be a bit repetitive (let’s face it, not a lot happens there) there are always some high points.

For example, this amazing scoop by the paper; does CNN know about this???

Even better is the police log for the town of Woodstock shown below.  Keep in mind that this is for an ENTIRE WEEK and these are the events that were worth mentioning in the paper.  I can’t decide if my favorite is the car/deer collision on the 29th or the car/mailbox collision the day before.  Vote for your favorite in the comments!

Oh come on. Isn’t it enough that I have to take off half my clothes, place my Preparation H in a clear plastic bag for all to see and wonder if my belt buckle is going to set off the metal detector every time I fly? After all that indignity this week, I jumped on the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport free wireless to read some blogs while waiting. While trying to go to www.thedirty.com (formerly http://www.dirtyscottsdale.com) to see what the the douchebags and poseurs in Scottsdale (and elsewhere) have been doing, I got this:

It isn’t porn! If you want to block something dangerous, block anything that shows Ann Coulter talking.