Sturgeon’s Law Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, “Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud.” Oddly, when Sturgeon’s Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to ‘crap’.
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After breakfast at the usual place we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. A nice little 3–1/2 mile trek and we had the woods practically to ourselves, only seeing a group of three people walking one trail over and a woman walking what looked like a dozen leash less dogs, some of whom trotted over to give us a closer look. When Donna asked her how many dogs she had with her, she replied, “Too many.”
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1220
For the first time in quite a while we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. From slightly chilly at the start to just right at the finish, it was a great day for one. For the drive home we even got to drop the top on the Emperor. It was a busy day in the woods too, we saw 5 folks on horseback, 3 fox squirrels, 2 people entering as we were exiting and 1 lone jogger.
Friday we ordered the cabinets and counter top. Yesterday we bought a pendant light for over the sink, the white subway back splash tiles and picked up our online ordered faucet. Today we meet with the contractor and set a date, he starts demolishing our kitchen on February 4th. I also wrote him a deposit check of 30% of his fee and it took two tries. I ran out of room the first time when the figure was X thousand, X hundred, X tens, X ones point XX cents, so we rounded up to X thousand & X hundred dollars.
This evening we spent our $200 microwave allowance on a really cool retro looking microwave, a 4 slice toaster and a new electric teapot.
The only thing left for us to buy for the project now is the under cabinet lights and it is turning out to be harder than I thought. The little puck lights I first picked out were going to be like $80 for both sets. The contractor poo-poo’d them as they were more homeowner DIY and not really set up to be hardwired in like he planned. So I started hunting the web for something more appropriate and mostly found stuff the pushed the $400 mark for our set up. Gotta find a sweet spot somewhere in between those two.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1192
While sitting on the couch last night using the laptop to plan today’s geocaching adventure to Columbia, Donna was watching Diners, Drive-In and Dives. We were thinking of eating lunch at California Dreaming, but our plans were changed by the 10:30 episode of Triple D, which featured a place called Pawley’s Front Porch.
First stop though was Sesqui-Centennial State Park in northeast Columbia that has 10 geocaches. Looking at the map at home it seemed like most of them were on the shorter loop that closely circles the lake. Turns out I was wrong, they were scattered all over the place, on and off, some of the dozen or so miles of trails. We ended up spending 3 hours and walking 6.4 miles finding 8 of 8 of the caches attempted.
After driving to 5 Points in downtown Columbia, we circled the block, asked directions and still got turned around. We ended up walking the last block before finding the restaurant around 1:30. After a 30 minute wait we were seated and ordered our burgers. I had the Wadmalaw (chipotle BBQ sauce, fried pickle chips, applewood smoked bacon and cheddar cheese), Donna had a Rockville (sauteed Vidalia onions, wild mushrooms and gruyere cheese) and Joan opted for the Front Porch (cheddar cheese.) The fries and onion ring sides were alright, but the burgers were awesome and worth the wait. Three hours later I was still full.
N 35° 13.149, W 082° 19.929
From the Pearson Falls History page:
A military man, farmer, and an engineer, Captain Pearson bought the Glen as part of a large tract of land that he wanted for his family. For years he and his heirs allowed generations of young people to picnic on the great stone table-rock that you will see at the foot of the Falls. Botanists and bird-fanciers from all over the country have come to discover and catalogue the wonders of this Glen area.
In 1931, the Tryon Garden Club bought the property in order to preserve this unique mountain Glen. Through the generosity of an honorary member and careful planning, the club members purchased the several hundred acres of this wildlife preserve. Although open to the public, the property remains under the ownership and protection of the Tryon Garden Club.
Over 17,000 people visit Pearson’s Falls each year. It is also a wildlife preserve, and outdoor laboratory for the botany departments of the surrounding colleges and universities, and the site of frequent field trips for local science classes. Pearson’s Falls is designated as a North Carolina National Heritage Site of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, a North Carolina Birding Trail Site, and is placed in the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Gardens.
The trail this photo was taken on goes from the Mange to Rabbit Valley crossing several major thoroughfares in the woods, including Pioneer Trail, yet it has no designation of its own. I like to call it the Clint Eastwood Trail.
We did in fact go find the new cache in Hitchcock Woods this morning, but we didn’t just park, walk to, find and leave of course, we took the long way. The temperature was in the middle 70s, but the humidity felt higher and by the time we were done with our 3–3/4 mile walk my T-shirt looked like I had been running from the “Others” along with Jack, Kate and Hurley. It was a very nice walk and I think we saw or heard more woodpeckers eating breakfast than we saw humans.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1056
As noted yesterday, FOX did show the Phillies — Giants game here locally. I can understand it though, as the “local” MLB team of interest is the Atlanta Braves and they are in the same division as the Phillies, so the Braves fans could watch and root against them (they better root hard as the Braves trail the Phils by 9 games in the standings.)
So I listened to the game on the radio, all except for an inning of the Sox — Yankees game that FOX broadcast as bonus coverage. That bonus coverage was due to the difference in the style of play in the two different leagues, the National League tangos and the American League waltzes. The Phillies and Giants are in the NL and those guys play like they have someplace that they want to go to after the game. Their game was finished in 2 hours and 14 minutes. The Yankees & Red Sox play are in the AL where it seems like they have no place they would rather be than on the baseball diamond, so it took them 3 hours and 25 minutes to play those same nine innings.
The FRS scored first, 2 runs in the bottom of the third inning. The MFY came right back and scored 2 in the top of the fourth to tie the game. I almost turned off the broadcast because because I had a feeling that the Red Sox were going to lose this game too. Lucky for me their attitude was better than mine as the Sox then answered back in the bottom of the 4th with 5 runs. The Yankees never got close again and lost 10–4.
Donna and I along with friend Joan went for a 4–1/2 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning. We were in the Woods for a little over two hours and saw 2 different people walking 2 dogs each, three high school cross country runners and three folks on horseback. Busy day.
For the first time in quite a while we took a walk in the woods and were not looking for an ammo can or 35mm film canister well integrated into the environment, we were just going for a walk. To beat the heat we stayed close to home and enjoyed Hitchcock Woods virtually to ourselves early this morning. I am not a botanist and I’ve never played one on TV (nor have I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately), so I have no idea what those two different yellow flowers are, but patches of them were blooming within feet of each other along the west side of the Ridge Mile Track.
Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1033
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