I was watching Dirty Jobs tonight and paused it to talk on the phone. Mike is working in a smoke house where they make bologna. I turned my attention back to the TV and happen to notice how I paused it…

Mike holding Meat

So – I always leave my camera somewhere besides in the truck when I need it. These would be so much better if they weren’t from my phone. This was the sky driving to the beach Friday night…

Hwy 17

Hwy 17

Driving over the Oak Island Bridge

Yep – been a WHILE since I’ve blogged – but I have a lot of things coming. Okay, so its mostly pictures, but those are worth a 1000 words right?

For those of you who don’t know, I bought a house – well a town house actually. I know its a little bit against the grain of where I want to be (on a dirt road, farm, etc) but seriously – one of the ways into my neighborhood is a dirt road so I’m safe.

Here are all the pictures from the listing

Front of the House

Kitchen

Kitchen from the living room

Living Room

Living Room from the Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Guest Bedroom

Office / 3rd bedroom

Back Patio

If you want to know whats on my mind today… Eric Church laid it out for ya…

I woke up early this mornin’,
An’ I’m already runnin’ late.
There’s a list of things long as my arm,
I wanna get done today.
Is it Tuesday? Is it Wednesday?
They’re runnin’ into each other.
Somebody tell me, when is my day?
Man, this life is sure bein’ a mother.

So tomorrow, I’m takin’ me fishin’.
Hang a sign on the door of my life.
Tell the world that I’ve gone missin’,
An’ I won’t be back for a while.
I’m so tired of only wishin’,
I could leave my trouble behind.
I wanna be front-porch rockin’,
With a big sun droppin’ in a blue sky:
Kick back an’ get high,
On the livin’ part of life.

They say to keep your spot on the ladder,
An’ keep that money rollin’ in:
They say keepin’ up with the feelies, boy,
You can’t back off one inch.
But I been puttin’ in my time,
An’ I’ve built up a pretty good deal.
I’m gonna spend some, maybe waste some,
Before my time comes an’ I wind up dead.

Yeah, tomorrow, I’m takin’ me fishin’.
Hang a sign on the door of my life.
Tell the world that I’ve gone missin’,
An’ I won’t be back for a while.
I’m so tired of only wishin’,
I could leave my trouble behind.
I wanna be front-porch rockin’,
With a big sun droppin’ in a blue sky:
Kick back an’ get high,
On the livin’ part of life.

When I get home tonight,
I’ll open the window an’ let whatever roll in.
An’ if there’s no breeze, that’s cool with me,
I’ll just raise myself, an’ wait on the wind, yeah.

Yeah, tomorrow, I’m takin’ me fishin’.
Hang a sign on the door of my life.
Tell the world that I’ve gone missin’,
An’ I won’t be back for a while.
I’m so tired of only wishin’,
I could leave my trouble behind.
I wanna be front-porch rockin’,
With a big sun droppin’ in a blue sky:
Kick back an’ get high;
Kick back an’ get high,
On the livin’ part of life.

Course – you can listen to it as well

Yep – I said the same thing, “where is Skippack?” Its the new headquarters of Penco Products where I had to do some consulting the first of this week. Its a great little shopping town filled with character.

I stayed in this cool hotel called Hotel Fiesole (http://www.hotelfiesole.net/home.html)

My Room:

The Bathroom (real marble)

Last night I took a walk around town and then found this nice italian place behind the hotel:

I had a plate of oversized tortelini stuffed with seafood and spinach tossed in a cream sauce with crab meat and jumbo shrimp. Seriously one of the best dishes i’ve had.

They bring cheese out for your to grate yourself (so maybe I don’t eat fancy too often):

Definitely a place worth keeping on the “bring the wife here one day” list

We don’t grow up – we just learn to mask it much better. I was in Harbor Freight today – I saw this and couldn’t help it

I had to be downtown for an early meeting this morning. The sky on the way was amazing. I need to buy a digital camera (yes I’m a nerd that doesn’t own one) so I did what could from my phone while I was driving.

So – I’ve had this bucket (yes a bucket) of coins since about 2005. Its a Food Lion gallon ice cream bucket that I probably stole from mom and dad back in the day.  Somehow, its just become the place where I threw my spare change at the end of the day. Over the years, the bucket has done its job of collecting coins and I decided this morning it was time to take care of the bucket. I lift this bucket and slip it into the passenger floorboard of the truck.

After eating breakfast with dad, I stopped by Harris Teeter and carried this bucket of coins in. I’ll have to admit, I felt a little dumb carring this thing in the store. I bet it weights 50 lbs so its not like I just casually stroll across the parking lot. It was more of a thank goodness for automatic doors and where I can set it down when I get to the machine.

So I start the machine, choose an amazon gift card to start, and dump in a handful of coins. Now remember, this isn’t the quietest machine in the store. About 10 min into counting coins, I see this little face appear beside me, then another. Two kids are watching this whole process, amazed. You know how their eyes get big and they just stare? So the little girl says to her little brother, he has 62.00 in coins. I’m sort of happy to hear this because I had started to wonder if they thought I was putting ice cream into the coin machine. When it rolled 100.00 she was like “wow”. Her little brother asked her “I wonder how many he has in there?”

I turned to him, smiled, and said to him “Do you want to see?”. He smiles and nods yes. Now at this point, I have to decide whether its easier to lower the bucket for him to see in or whether its easier to pick him up so he can see the bucket and the machine. Given I’ve never seen this kid or his dad (maybe even his mom these days), I opt to move the bucket. “WHOA” he sort of yells. His mom then walks over an apologizes for her kids bothering me – I told her it wasn’t a problem, I wasn’t in a hurry.

So, $211 into it, CoinStar flashes on the screen “Wow, you have a lot of coins” – I laugh at the machine. It doesn’t know I’m barely half way. Course, being the nerd I am, I start thinking about how they programed this machine. Who was the guy that put that message in and how they went about setting the thresholds to display certain messages. If it were my machine, I would have specific things flash up there. For instance, if you put in all pennies, I’d display some message like “Come on high roller, got anything serious for me to do?”. Even better, say 20.00 into it, I would start a little graphic counting “One for me, one for you” and then display “Just kidding”. Why do machines have to be so serious?

At $282.37, I decide I might do another card of some sort. Amazon will be happy with that. I close out that ticket and start one for Lowe’s. I did consider Itunes, but given that I’m looking for houses, I figured Lowe’s was a little more useful.

Anyway, 40 some minutes later, I finish the last handful of coins. Lowe’s and I will go on a date and spend 122.79 together shortly. I might blog that date too.

I quickly grab my receipt, my bucket, and sprint out the door…

In case you’re wondering – this was taken about the time the little kid asked to see it. I was serisouly about to spill over the top when I carried it in. $405.16 is heavy, trust me.

Nuff said… he gets towel dried, then dried with the hair dryer. I “asked” Quincy to pose after getting his bath – this is “Yoda Qincy”

What’s that smell? That was the question of the day as we walked into our beach house today. We haven’t been here in more than 2 months. Often the house can have a very “slight” smell when it hasn’t been opened up for a while. That’s acceptable – what we had wasn’t.

“Could it just be stale house smell?”
“Could it be the water from the toilets?”

No – it was something much more rotten than that.

“Did we leave something here that spoiled” – oh that’s close to the answer.

Mom then opened the fridge and about fainted – all we smelt was shrimp. We check the freeze – nothing. We’re usually smart enough not to leave anything perishable in the fridge/freezer. There, in the bottom was a pan of Shrimp Boil.

Now to give you a little background – this is what it looked like a couple months ago. Some of the best food you’ll put in your mouth.

Now – a couple months later – this is what it looks like – rotten and with a smell one can’t use words to describe.

And just in case you can’t tell how rotten it is, I took a close up.

Guess who got to clean out the fridge… my hands still smell