1521 Tour – The Attic

This post is one of  a series of remembrances of various aspects of my childhood home – 1521 Ninth Street in the Fairview neighborhood of Altoona. My home,  as detailed in RIP - 1521 Ninth Street,  was converted into a handful of spaces in a parking lot last year.

Unlike a number of other properties in our Fairview ‘hood, 1521 Ninth Street didn’t feature a garage of any sort. So to accommodate the storage of the collection of George Carlin’s stuff that accumulated over time, a number of alternatives were employed.

These included storing stuff in the dead-end corner of the TV room (behind the Downstairs Powder Room), in the upstairs hallway (where we used to store extra furniture, mattresses, headboards, and the like), and in the tiny “back porch” (which was usually filled to the brim – almost to the point of decreased navigability).

ACC Quarterfinals Friday

A couple of months ago, I took in the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals Friday in Greensboro – both the afternoon and evening sessions. Lots of basketball – four full games – starting at noon and ending around midnight. Throw in the travel sandwich around the games and that was a pretty long day for Your Faithful Servant.

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

Quite a few years back (2007 and 2008), I completed much of the work required to convert an extra bedroom into a mini-home theatre. I say “mini” because the space is a bit constrained and I wasn’t going to knock down walls and install sound-deadening drywall with sophisticated acoustic treatments like contractors do for dedicated “real” home theatres – the whole “build a room inside a room”. 

I ended up installing some recessed lighting cans and dimmers, laid new A/V cabling, painted walls and ceiling, and installed in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, a projector mount, and wall sconces. The bedroom closet was converted into an equipment closet.  About the only thing missing at that time were the essentials – an HD projector,  projector screen,  and some HT recliners. 

Ice Storm 2014

What else is there to do when you lose power during an ice storm other than blog? A quite tedious account of Your Faithful Servant roughing it while off of the grid during the ice and freezing rain event that hit the NC Piedmont on March 7 and 8, 2014.

3:45 AM Friday Morning. Lost power in the middle of a peaceful sleep. Awakened by the beeping of the fire and CO2 detectors as they transition from AC to battery power. I can hear that distinctive freezing rain sound, but that is about it. No crackling of fallen branches nor the sizzling pop of blowing transformers (those sounds were seared into my mind in 2002 when I lost 13 trees and power for four days). So I surmise this will be a baby storm and go back to sleep after grabbing an extra blanket out of the closet and setting the Android to wake me at 6:45.  62 degrees upstairs  (which is the thermostat -programmed setting for the 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM window at Nedimyer Manor). 

Can’t Blame Nature for This One

I don’t eat a whole lot of bread, but when I do, it is usually Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread. (Didn’t mean to channel the Dos Equis Man there.)  Like many others, I try to fight the good fight with eating healthier, but I backslide – a lot.  Fooducate gives this bread a B+ grade (2 Food Points) and the Nutrition Facts are pretty solid, but I simply like the taste of it over the other mass market wheat breads.

Minor League Trip - Charleston Riverdogs

• Date: July 13, 2013
• Venue: Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park
• Location: 360 Fishburne Street Charleston, SC 29403 
• League: South Atlantic
• Result: Augusta 4 – Charleston 1

 

What a crappy winter we just had.

I realize that  this proclamation, originating from someone who lives in the Southeast, probably elicits equal parts scorn and ridicule from loyal blog readers who have suffered though a real winter the last four months or so in the Northeast or Midwest. But it is all relative, isn’t it?

Multiple ice storms with loss of power. Snow and the dreaded freezing rain and wintry mix. Unseasonable cold. Weird and wild fluctuations of temperature  – 71 degrees on March 2 to 16 degrees only 36 hours later in Hilltown.

No better time then to lay down some memories from a warmer time – past summer’s minor league baseball trips. We’ll start with a trip to Charleston last July.