Brugmansia

In case you don't know, Joyce is a fantastic gardener. We all benefit by the beauty she coaxes to grow all around us. Here is another one of her green thumb results - one of our Brugmansia - or Angel's Trumpets plants.

As you can see, the flowers open pointing downward. These plants are actually NOCTURNAL - they are most fragrant at night - because they are pollenated by moths!

Gas Prices

They just keep going up - gas prices - as if that's news. Kind of like when the local TV stations put a camera reporter on site at the post office the night of April 15 and show us the last minute tax return filers - how can they call what they do NEWS? Here's my fill-er-up today - $156 - and that's only for 39.5 gallons - the tank holds about 45! How far can this keep going?

The good news is that the Corvette is back in action. After dying on me when I drove to Dayton a couple weeks back - it now has 8 new fuel injectors and boy does it GO!

Gas Prices

Last night David Letterman jokingly (I hope) said gas prices will reach $10 per gallon by labor day. I filled up the Suburban this evening - the bill was about $125! Notice this was for 35 gallons. As it turned out I had almost 1/4 of a tank left when I went to the pumps. This tank holds 45 gallons. Extrapolating - a full tank would have been $160 at this price.

When I was in college I had a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle. The tank held about 10 gallons and I can remember at Ohio State going to the gas station when they had price wars. You could buy gasoline at $0.25 per gallon. An entire tank for that bug cost less than one gallon now. Actually, I bought that car for $200! Just a little over the cost of one tank of gas now. I heard someone talking recently about their old pickup truck that they were selling. The other guy in the conversation only asked one question - 'how much gas was in it?'

Ciao Vanderbilt

The final dinner of sophomore year at Vandy. Here we are (Fred, Danny, Ally, Susan and me) at Logan's Roadhouse. This was a LATE NIGHT dinner, especially for Fred and I who are really on eastern time. The entire day's schedule was pushed back because Fred was prevented from getting an early start on packing Danny's dorm stuff because SOMEONE (I'm not going to say her name but her initials are Gabby) was sleeping in. We had a lot of fun at dinner tonight discussing politics, world peace, and many other easily solved issues. Rumor has it that Fred may be back at Logan's tomorrow too.

And, in furtherance of my education, I learned today that studying at Rice University is considered to be studying abroad by some (or is that a broad?)

April 15 is almost here

We did it. Joyce and I sat down this afternoon and wrote all the income tax checks - Federal, State, City - 2007 filings and Q1 2008 estimate payments. I'm glad that ordeal is over. My good friend Gary still has 6 months to go - two more extensions. He still has to pay the taxes - just doesn't have to do the filing until October.

Ohio River Disconnect

Just leaving another fun day of my volunteer scuba diving gig at the Newport Aquarium and I had to stop and snap a picture of what might be considered a little business interruption situation. Once the bleeding hearts have all of us taxpayers pay for the fools that borrowed all this subprime money - maybe they'll want us to bail out the fools that pur their homes and businesses in the flood plain and then act surprised when they get flooded! Oh wait - I think they already have used the declaration of national emergency to bail out many of these folks. Why are they even allowed to build where we know it will get flooded?

A Great Product can make your Day

Today I used a GREAT PRODUCT - and I was motivated to put it on paper here. We live in an older house in Hyde Park, Cincinnati. Our first floor powder room is in the process of being redone. The light fixture above the mirror and sink had a push button switch which we knew where to find but none of our guests could ever find (a little embarrasing when dark out so no window light). Part of the project is replacing the light fixture and the new fixture, of course, does not have a switch on the fixture. Now, here's the rub. The place where a light switch should be located - on the wall opposite the hinge side of the door - has our brick chimney behind it. No way to run wires or insert a switch box behind the wall. Check out RunLessWires - they make a fantastic wireless lightswitch which requires no batteries for the remote switch and will mount flush on the surface. They market these to people that have log houses which of course do not have hollow walls. This switch was easy to install and works like a charm and most of all - eliminates the problems that I had.