Happy Anniversary to Us!

It's been one year to the day since we got married! We celebrated by going to the last day of the Renaissance Festival out in Bonner Springs with Cliff and Sara, who celebrated 8 years together this past week. It rained like the dickens Saturday nearly all day, so the fairgrounds were soggy in places, but not a complete slop pit. We managed to keep the mud below our knees, and nobody fell in it, despite the number of beergarden pitstops. All in all, the day was absolutely beautiful, around 75, mostly sunny with a nice soft breeze.

We finished up Sara's Halloween costume (pirate, it will be awesome) with accessories from the various vendors there, learned a bit of history, and met Captains Jack Sparrow and Barbossa. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush had walked right off the set into the festival, these guys were that convincing. I wish I had gotten a picture of them, but I didn't get my camera out fast enough.

I tried on a barbarian hat, which as you can see, was not large enough for my massive cranium. Clearly I am far more evolved than a barbarian. RenFest is a very dog-friendly place, and we ran into a four month old Weimaraner named Sammy with one blue eye and one brown eye, so I had to snap a picture. Here he is, posing very patiently while he waits for his treat.

Sara and I took a break at a wine tasting, and had a fantastic time at that. One couple had been sitting there for some time, and by then they were very social. We passed around our cameras and camera phones for everyone to see snapshots of our pets and ate cheese and crackers and grapes, and of course, the vino. Two Musketeers came through on patrol, ensuring general order, and were kind enough to pose for this shot. On our way out, we found a Henry VIII cutout and John braved the splintery, tetanus-enhanced stairs behind it to pose for this one.

And now, my friends, it is time to follow through with our last ceremonial duty as newlyweds: eating the top of our wedding cake. Mom wrapped it up nice and tight for us last year, and we kept it in the freezer, and have been thawing it all week in the fridge. We unwrapped it last night, and snapped a picture. Not bad for a year old, eh?

I'll let you know if we survive it. ;)

Cave Springs

We visited Cave Springs today, in Kansas City. It was an interesting place, with several old chimneys left over from whatever houses used to stand in the area. We walked a good portion of the trails and managed to work up quite an appetite! I took the camera along and got a few neat pictures, click here to check out the photos. I also found a toad on the porch later that afternoon that sat so still for me, I guess he was ready for his close-up.

Danger, Will Robinson!

I got this email today, and I wanted to share it with y'all. My spam filter is pretty good, but this one got through. This is what is known as "phishing," the art of convincing someone to reveal their most important information, such as passwords, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, you name it. This one is pretty slick, but with a bit of careful examination, we can see how the magician makes the rabbit appear from an empty hat. Have a look-see, my comments are in red.

---------- Message Text Follows ----------
From: Bank of America [noreply-mail@google.com] Here is our first clue. BoA would be sending email from username@bankofamerica.com
Date: Sep 12, 2007 6:07 PM
Subject: Unauthorized Activity
To: Nothing to see here, move along. Oh wait, no, this is blank. Ask yourself why.

Dear Bank of America client,

Bank of America client? You mean they don't know my name? Huh, that's weird. Even weirder, I don't have a BoA account.

You have received this email because you or someone had used your account from different locations. For security purpose, we are required to open an investigation into this matter.

This is the hook they use to scare you into reading further. Good, isn't it? Also, note the bad grammar. Without getting too technical, that whole first sentence is wonky. And "for security purpose" is a classic native Chinese speaker's mistake, though the writer is clearly familiar with English business phrases. (For the record, China has a problem with online fraudsters that they're not really trying to fix.) What BoA exec is going to let a form letter out of their mail servers looking like that? But our intrepid black hats are hoping you're too alarmed to proofread.

In order to safeguard your account, we require that you confirm your banking details. Red Flag #3: No self-respecting financial institution will EVER ask you for this information via email. Email is notoriously lacking security, and why would they need that info? They already have it.

The help speeed up to this process (Say what?), please access the following link so we ca (???) complete the verification of your Bank of America Online Banking Account registration information. If you use online banking, you're already registered and verified. You will not have to do this a second time.

DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK, BUT LOOK AT IT CAREFULLY.

http://211.72.75.244/icons/www.bankofamerica.com/sslencrypt218bit/online_banking/

It has some of the right words in it, bankofamerica.com, sslencrypt (by the way, there's no such thing as 218-bit encryption, computer numbers are always evenly divisible by 8), but the important thing is the beginning of the address. You're looking for the text between the second and third slashes. That string of numbers is an internet address that is in no way shape or form associated with Bankofamerica.com. In fact, it's owned by a company called Asian Pacific Network Information Centre with a post office box in Australia. Doesn't sound much like BoA, does it?

If we do no (no? No what?) receive the appropriate account verification within 48 hours, then we will assume this Bank of America account is fraudulent and ("it" belongs here) will be suspended.

More scare tactics, bad grammar and and stupid spelling mistakes.

The purpose of this verification is to ensure that your bank account has not been fraudulently used Bullhockey! and to combat the fraud from our community. Bullhockey and more bad grammar!

We appreciate your support and understanding and thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Not bullhockey. Because if you do what they ask, they will have all the information they need to ruin your life.

This is actually where the email ended. Had this been a real email from a real bank with whom I really had an account,it most likely would have included names, email addresses, perhaps even telephone numbers of bank personnel with whom I could speak should I have any questions or concerns.

Hot Summer

I figured it was time to poke my head up and say we're still here! Not much happening around here, it's been a hot few weeks. I'm getting a couple of tomatoes now and then, but they're not doing as well as I'd hoped. The few I'm getting sure are tasty, though. A lady brought in a few sacks of beefsteak maters to work last week, so we're getting by. ;)

I did manage to get a few pictures of a couple of cacti that are putting on a show right now. They bloom at night, so the pictures don't really do them justice. I'm not a photographer. :P

This one is my favorite It's about 5 inches across, and before it opens, it sticks the long green pistil in the center out like a tongue, retracts it, then opens up. It's like it has to taste the air to make sure it's right to open.

This one is of the same bloom earlier that night as it opened. It's not in perfect focus because I couldn't hold the camera still enough for the low light conditions, but the colors are much truer than the other picture.

To check out the whole album, click here, and here.

Here's another pair of blooms from the cactus we call the Maneater. I grew up with this cactus most of my life, and Mom finally gave it to me a few years ago. These blooms are about 3-4 inches across, and covered with ugly gray hair on the outside. I'm expecting an especially good show out of the Maneater here in a few days, there are 7 (yes, seven!) blooms getting ready to go, all at once.

Well, that's it for now. Stay out of the heat!

Quickie

Hi there, folks, just a quick post to let you know I've made some changes to the blog. To the left there you'll see a list titled "Extended Family." Those are links to other blogs that some of our family members have set up. The Glezens are Chad and Shannon (John's cousin and her husband) and their three children. The Epema Family is my cousin Stacey, her husband John, and their new daughter Lucie. The Wolfes are Bryan and Dana (John's cousin and his wife), and their new son. Stop by and say hi! (If I've left anyone out here, just drop me a line and let me know, I'll get it updated right away!)

Also, I noticed that comments moderation had been turned on, so that I would have to manually approve all comments. That has now been fixed, and you can type expletives and libel all you want, and there's nothing I can do about it. (Well, not entirely true, but I'm a big fan of the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, so there you have it.)

Glass House

Ok, so I finally got around to those pictures of the house I've been promising. It was a beautiful day today, with the knee-high grass blowing in the spring breeze.... Okay okay! Our lawn man's most basic tool was in the shop this week. He'll be by soon, I promise!

As you can see from the south side, it is a house of windows. And windows. And more windows. There are even (as you will see below) windows inside the house. I think the architect owned stock in Windex. The short-wide windows near the top are what we call the clear story windows, and they provide the bulk of our daytime light throughout the house. Starting on the left side of the house, the first set of windows (behind the weeds lush tomato garden) is the master bedroom, the next three (behind the green barrel composter) are the office, and the three beside that is a storage room that used to be a bedroom. The six tall windows that look black are the sunroom windows (if you squint you can see some plants). Just to the right of the sunroom, you can see the corner windows of the kitchen, and then farther over is the last room of the house, another bedroom. Currently it's storage, but eventually it will be a game room.

This next picture is from the northwest corner, off the back of the master bedroom. It shows the curve of the house, and the flat garage roof on the left. Not much to see here.

Here is a shot of the longest hallway in the world. This is the most dramatic view of the house's curve. The clear story windows on the roof above the sunroom are on the wall on the right, above the ones you can see on the left, which let light into the rooms behind that left wall. Here's a better shot. (Hey! You! Stop zooming in to look at the cobwebs!) The exterior clear story windows are higher than their interior pals so as to not be blinding all the time: there's plenty of indirect light to go around. Some of the interior windows are paned, some are open--in this case, that's a bathroom window, and it's open to let the steam out. The master bedroom is behind the camera, and we're facing toward the game room at the end of the hallway.

If you'll walk with me down this hallway, to your right you will see our living room, which is between the sunroom and the hallway. I had to include a picture so y'all wouldn't think I cheated on putting the kitchen back together. ;) Yeah, the fridge is still in there, but that is only until we get the grout in the kitchen sealed, because John put his foot down on moving the fridge more than once.

Well, that's our house! Um... the clean parts anyway. Maybe I'll clean the other rooms and take more pictures. Hah!

PS: Does anyone know anything about this? It's hanging in the hallway, and it's such a curiosity, but neither John nor I know anything about it. There's another one in similar colors and matching frame, but it is of a donkey instead. Drop us a line or leave a comment!

Awww, Look, It's A Kitty!

John's Pinky: the Update

Also, for those of you dying to know more about John's finger: He is now back at work and doing well! There's still some swelling, as you can tell from these pictures, but he's able to curl it up just like a regular (but short) finger. It will be sensitive for a long time (months at least), and the skin is still baby soft from the gallons of antibiotic ointment he's used, but it works, and looks mostly like a finger.

The Kitchen Floor

Well, the cat is sort of out of the bag anyway, so I guess it's time for the big reveal on Extreme Makeover: Burkholder home edition--that is to say, not so extreme, we just did the kitchen floor. It was much tougher than simply allowing ABC to buy us a two week vacation while leveling the house and starting from scratch. Though if Ty Pennington ever stops by, I'm chaining him in the garage until my house is perfect.

But first (keeping true to the format of the show), teasers:

Step 1: Completely destroy the current floor. Oh, say hello to Simon, the new kitty. Where did the stuff that belongs in the kitchen go, you ask? Why, the next room over, of course!

Step 2: Rock chalk, Jayhawk! Ok, not really, it was more of a chalk powder on a string, but that's beside the point. Chalk lines! Woot!

Step 3, 4, and 5: Slowly, carefully, lay your uncut tiles. Or better yet, pay someone to do it for you.

Step 6: Don't forget, kitties like to help!

Step 7: Plan your tile cuts carefully, then...

Step 8: Conquer!

Step 9: Grout, grout, and more grout! Oh yeah, and more grout!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, where Ty talks a lot more than he needs to, and then, we'll be back after these commercial messages... the big reveal!

Step 10: (I'm seriously simplifying things here.) Mop it, and put it all back. The island has carpet glued to the bottom of it, so it slides around to where you need it most today. Kinda nifty!

I couldn't stand not having a kitchen for more than two weeks, so I made the executive decision not to paint the walls until summer vacation, when hopefully I'll have more time, and possibly sanity, but we all know that's asking a bit much. ;)

Extreme Makeover: Your Home Edition is brought to you by the makers of Prozac and other fine pharmaceuticals, get yours today!

New Widget!

I've got a new widget that sends out an email every time I update my blog. Click here to get on the list!

Slings and Arrows

John was about to wrap up his shift at work Monday night when he got the tip of his right pinky finger caught between the edge of a wooden barrel and a conveyor belt, causing what the nice ladies in the ER characterized as "near amputation." Of course, being that the cutting surfaces he employed were not recently honed by a professional nor designed for cutting in the first place, it was a bit of a mash-up, and the surgeon made the decision to simply finish the job John had started. The end result was that John lost all of the last bone in the finger and a small part of the next. The doctors said it would heal faster than if they'd tried to save it, which may not have succeeded anyway. He should be back to normal in a couple of months

Never fear, however, John is not allowing his new handicap to slow him down. He will take only two days (Edit: hah! more like two months!) off from work, during which he will undergo intense physical rehabilitation using a high tech computer program known as "Counter-Strike."

Here's our hero now, in good spirits, thanks to Walgreen's Pharmacy. Click on the picture for a larger version!

Our One of a Kind House

I thought I'd post a little info and a few pictures for those of you who haven't been able to come see our house in person. It is a fantastic and strange design, that's for sure. I don't have the whole story, but what I do know is that it was commissioned by John's parents sometime in the early 80s. It is, as far as I know, one of a kind. They poured the foundation in 1985, according to the date beneath John and Lucy's handprints on the edge of the porch.

The design is definitely unique. It's a single story earth contact that takes advantage of passive solar design aspects. For instance, it faces south and features a row of what we call "clear story" windows along the top central wall in the house to let in lots of light. Nearly every room in the house is well-lit for most of the day. Another remarkable aspect is the curve. Take a block of clay, and pull the two ends of it toward one side, into a rainbow shape, and you'll start to get the idea for our house. In fact, here's a picture of our house from space, courtesy of Google Maps. I outlined our property (as best as I can figure without going to the effort of hiring a surveyor) in red. North is up, etc.



It's not very clear about the details, but you can definitely see the curve the house is defined by. The front (southern) face of the house is mostly windows, and is shaped in profile in a style that always remind me of chicken coops for some reason. Here's a view from the west, facing east. The rat's nest of weeds on the right is my tomato garden. Click on the link, cuz this file is huge.

clicky

If you'll notice the roof is sectioned into sort of upside-down checkmarks. Behind the "foot" of each checkmark (on the wall beneath the overhang) is a horizontal row of windows. Those are the clear story windows I was talking about earlier, and they run darn near the entire length of the house. It's 2am, and I can't find all of the pictures Mom and I took a while back, so you'll have to bear with me until the sun comes up again and I can get outside with my camera. The nearest checkmarked roof section is the master bedroom, and the tallest section of checkmarked roof covers the hallway that runs the length of the house. There's a door that opens from the master bedroom onto the porch, which, with the retaining wall that keeps the tomato garden from eating my porch, makes for a cozy little nook.

One more before I go, here's a picture of the sunroom from the outside. It's the small gray rectangle on the south side of the house in the first picture. (The large gray square on the northeast side of the house that looks almost like a--very large--afterthought is the garage.) One of the clear story windows can be seen in the far upper left corner of the picture. Place another 14 or 15 in a straight line to the left, and you'll get a fair idea of what they look like.

Another clicky
for the big image file.

Oh, and if you want to leave a comment (which will always be welcome--I love to hear from you!), there's a nice little link to click right below that says "# Comments." Come on, try it, you'll like it. Everyone's doing it. It's cool. First one's free!

Leaky Roof of Doom

Well, some of you know we recently suffered a leak in our roof. I woke up one morning to find water pouring down an interior window between the kitchen and the sunroom, both sides of course, where it wasn't possible to apply the time honored leaky roof solution: an old cooking pot. After many amusing antics and some odd but sound advice from friends, we called a roofer, who came out a couple of days later to give us an estimate. While we were waiting for them to mail us said estimate, we found another leak, this one in the garage. Thankfully, it was nowhere near a window, or even anything that could possibly mold later, and we were able to use the time honored solution.

Time passed, as it is wont to do, and we woke yesterday morning to the unpleasant-but-necessary sound of elephants on the roof. Figuring they had done the job (yet wondering why they had been walking over the master bedroom--on the opposite end of the house from the two leaks), I called them this morning to finalize the bill only to be greeted with unpleasant news: the whole roof was shot. The culprit was hail damage, probably from one of the big storms that blew through this past fall. Considering that, it's rather lucky we didn't have problems sooner.

As a homeowner challenge, I think this won't be as big a deal as the hot water heater was a few months ago. (Cold showers are a big checkmark in the "NO" column for me, anyway.) Barring any blizzards or monsoons in the next month or so--you never know, it is Missouri, after all--we should be able to get the roof replaced without too much fuss, if the very confident gentleman at the roofing business is to be believed.

However, there is still the matter of the kitchen floor, which is a laminated wood flooring, and not looking so good after stewing in roof juice. Sara's husband Cliff is wrapping up a floor tile/painting/trimming project in their own kitchen--or he will be if Sara ever stops adding things to the project--so we'll probably appropriate him for our slave skilled labor. He did a fantastic job on his very first tile job: our main bathroom, and with all the practice he's gotten in their kitchen, well, I think all we need to do is settle on some tile.

As soon as we're ready to start work, I'll post some pictures.

Wish us luck!