Michael Slade: Everyday Things

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 03:03:37 GMT

I have not posted in a while. The last few weeks have been busy. Two weekends ago (Aug. 2-3) was Twins Days festival in Twinsburg. Nearly 3000 sets of twins descend on Twinsburg for a festival. It is the world largest gathering of twins. Nearly 40,000 people attend the festival, which triples the population of Twinsburg. It is a lot of fun as you go through your typical weekend activities like shopping and church, and see twins everywhere. A number of twins have set up websites that chronicle each year’s festival. For a sample of pictures see (Twins Days - the UNOFFICIAL homepage, Group Photos, Twinsdays 2002). This past weekend, the rain finally slowed down to a sprinkle, allowing me to finally get the lawn mowed, and some of the downed trees cleaned up. On Sunday, Beth and I attended a birthday party for two of our nieces.

[Now listening to The Awakening by Pat Metheny Group from Imaginary Day (09:28)]

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 02:55:49 GMT

When we drove back from my parents, we drove the last 60 miles in a torrential downpour. When we got back to Twinsburg, it looked like a thunderstorm had come through, but it did not look like alot of rain had fallen. Only some twigs and leaves were scattered all over the roads. We got home and started unpacking the car. I then took a quick look out the back, and saw that were not as lucky. A number of trees were heavily damaged from the thunderstorm's winds (see Photo Album). I probably could have waited one week to take down the old trees, and let the storm bring the trees down, saving myself all that work. I am in the process of cleaning up the mess.

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 02:46:41 GMT

This past weekend, my wife Beth and I headed down to Beavercreek, Ohio to spend the weekend with my parents. Beavercreek is an eastern suburb of Dayton, Ohio, and just west of Xenia, Ohio. Saturday morning, I worked on my mom’s computer, which was a very old Pentium running Windows 98. I quickly diagnosed that both the floppy and hard disk controllers were failing. My mom decided to get a new computer. Best Buy was having its usual sale, and my mom got an E-Machines Athlon 2400 with a DVD and CD-RW running Windows XP. I spent a few hours fighting with the controllers on the old computer to transfer some documents and old programs to the new computer. Later Saturday evening, we went to the Cold Stone Creamery. After reading Robert Scoble’s post about going there a couple of weeks ago, I remembered when my friend Brian took me to one in Monrovia, CA when I was in LA for the PDC in 2001 and I wanted to get back to one. My parents found out from the owners, that a new store is going in 10 minutes from their house. The first store is going in the Cleveland’s far western suburb Westlake, which is about an hour drive from our house in Twinsburg. My favorite: Sweet Cream with Snickers and Oreos mixins. My wife enjoyed the tour of my parents’ flower and vegetable garden. She would like to do something like that at our house. We headed back Sunday afternoon.

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 11:36:54 GMT

After viewing the devastation from the flooding resulting from Monday’s 5 inches of rain in four hours, Beth and I consider ourselves very lucky and very thankful. The raging stream in our backyard was gone by 11:30 PM on Monday night. A few hundred feet downstream, the stream empties into Tinkers Creek. Just a couple of miles north, a number of homes in northern Twinsburg were flooded when Tinkers Creek overflowed its banks. Just a couple of miles southwest in downtown Hudson, two men drowned in the basement garage of a condominium complex while trying to help the elderly residents save their vehicles from being swept away.

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 03:38:18 GMT

After yesterday’s attempt at taking down an American Elm tree (see Misc Home Projects), I figured nothing could top it. Today, we had nearly 5 inches of rain in just a few hours. This caused our neighbor’s pond to overflow, plus water was coming down the driveway, swept past the garage, and down the hill. The pond normally drains through 50 feet of tile underground in the middle of the back yard. The overflow from the driveway and the pond combined, and the drain tile could not handle the flow. The overflow became a 50 foot wide torrent several inches deep in the backyard. I have put up several pictures and two videos detailing Mother Nature’s fun (see Photo Album).

Sun, 13 Jul 2003 05:29:40 GMT

My wife Beth and I saw the musical Lion King at the State Theater in downtown Cleveland on Saturday night. We joined our friends Paul and Andrea for dinner at the Hanna Restaurant, and then saw the show. We all enjoyed the musical. It is a 45 minute drive from our home in Twinsburg to downtown Cleveland. Cleveland’s Playhouse Square is the second largest performing arts center in the US, with five different theaters: Allen, Hanna, Ohio, Palace, and State. It is second only to Lincoln Center in New York. This past season some of the musicals we saw included Aida, 42^nd Street, The Producers, South Pacific, and The Full Monty, as well as the Cleveland Opera’s productions of Tosca and Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

[Now Playing: Don Sebesky - Symphonic Sondheim - Comedy Tonight (02:42)]