Inside The Perimeter

Apparently Irish folk musician Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle accident the yesterday. While I am not a huge fan of his work, I did enjoy what I heard, and was moved by his death at 56.

Yesterday I watched a short interview about woodworking with actor Nick Offerman on YouTube. The channel posting the video was called “Highland Woodworking”, so I thought it was from the (one time?) furniture capital of the world, Highlands, North Carolina. Nope, it was from the Highland Hardware store next door to George’s Bar in Virginia-Highland.

Wordle: four, my starter was CABIN (it was going to be CRASH, and then I found out about Hansard)

Not feeling it.

Wordle: four, my starter was YODEL

I have nothing.

Wordle: six, my starter was CRASH

On Saturday morning I did my self-appointed civic duty of picking up trash from the ITP-Estate to East Atlanta Village. While there was less trash than normal, it always astonishes me how shitty humans are.

Later on our walk Betsy stopped Molly, a woman that was once part of the Flickr/Twitter crowd back in the day, and introduced us to her. I see Molly out running almost every Saturday, and have seen her thrice on my bike rides to Trees Atlanta on Thursdays. Betsy asked Molly if she knew who I was, to which she politely said “yes”, but I have my doubts. Molly was someone in whom I had much interest, but she was probably too young and pretty to date me, and wound up marrying someone else from our collective.

I have been spending a lot of sweaty hours over three days in WLF digging out a specific, but unknown to me, pernicious and prolific weed from the farm’s borders. A lot of the plants were starting to go to seed, so I needed to do this ASAP. Have I removed all of them yet? Nope. Did I pull them all out with their roots? Nope. Will the return next year? Yep, though I hope not as densely.

I’ve given up watching Atlanta United this season. I predict Tata Martinez will step down as manger/head coach at season’s end.

Last night I made a new version of jambalaya from Emeril Lagasse’s book “Louisiana Real & Rustic”. This jambalaya used shrimp and ham instead of andouille sausage and chicken, and included a can of tomatoes. The fact that I had shrimp and ham which I needed to cook, made it an easy recipe to choose. Would I make it again? Absolutely, but I rarely have shrimp on hand.

Wordle: three, my starter was SLIDE

Happy Birthday to ITP-Reader David aka The ITP-Reader formerly known as “Lurker”.

Last night I did a good couple of hours volunteering with Concrete Jungle. A large group of people came down from John’s Creek (bless them) to volunteer, and they also brought some delicious Indian food that they shared.

For a long time I couldn’t understand why my credit card bill is so high this month, and then I remembered that part of it is a $1200 charge for a new bicycle…

It’s bad enough that I am spending way too much money, but this month my healthcare provider’s billing system decided to triple bill me. They have acknowledged the error, but I have created a recurring reminder to check my credit card to ensure two of the charges have been reversed.

Wordle: three, my starter was STAKE (this should have been the solution the day after the solution was STEAK ten days ago)

I’m back in Atlanta, which is good because I have a CHaRM appointment this morning as well as a Concrete Jungle volunteering shift this afternoon.

I probably should have spent one more night in Clemson so that I didn’t spend so much of my birthday driving home. I did have an interesting stop in Lavonia however, where I was surrounded by my elders at the bar and heard all of the town gossip. I was even gifted a beer, but in the end wound up paying it forward for a future healthcare worker’s next beer.

It appears that in my absence my neighbor’s have cleaned up the fallen tree. I was hoping to be out there when they did to spy on their work, and see if I could pay cash to have another problematic tree taken down cheaply. It was pissing down rain when I arrived home yesterday, so I need to get out there today and inspect, and hopefully see that they didn’t come over to my yard and kill my paw paw trees in the cleanup process.

Wordle: four, my starter was FAUNA

Happy birthday to ITP-Writer Paulie. Oh wait, that’s me! 😀

Also birthday greetings to Jen, wherever she is. She is one of the women who have dumped me during my Atlanta years. I always wished that she liked me, because I think celebrating a double birthday with your partner would be awesome.

Today would have been Alex Trebek’s 86th birthday, which is a big hint for today’s Strands.

In my life I’ve met two other people who share the exact date of birth as yours truly; one person was a friend in Huntsville, and one was a coworker at Echostar.

After yesterday’s session I imbibed at Keowee Brewing Company in Seneca, SC. It seemed as if I ate all day long yesterday, but it was 5:30pm by the time I got to Keowee so I had a burger for dinner since I figured I would get back to Clemson before 7:30pm.

I’m sitting in Clemson again today and will be making my way ITP after the session ends. It won’t be a direct drive however, because somewhere along the way I will stop for beer and food to celebrate my birthday.

Wordle: three, my starter was NAKED (as in a birthday suit)

Fun Fact: these have been the Wordle solutions on my birthday since the game started in 2021.

2026: ?????
2025: BURNT
2024: CADET
2023: FROZE
2022: TRYST
2021: CROAK

My last day as a sixty year old finds me in a classroom in Clemson, SC. I’m taking a course in the essentials of organic farm certification. I’m considering becoming an inspector, in order to make a few dollars to compensate for my five years of a lack of income.

My poor plant husbandry continues as more of my seedlings continue to die. This is getting depressing. Upon returning from the organic farm essentials workshop I am attending this week I am going to try to start again from square one.

Wordle: three, my starter was ANISE

I rode my bike 35 miles up at Sosabee on Saturday with the likes of ITP-Readers Barb, Sal, and Bob. Unfortunately I faded badly toward the end. Unless a miracle happens, Brevard is going to be a very tough weekend of riding for me.

With blueberries I picked at UFO and a box of cake mix I had at home, I made an accidental blueberry upside down cake yesterday. The blueberries sank to the bottom of the batter as it baked, so I had to flip it over to get it out of the pan.

Yesterday I fully canceled my Disney+ bundle when I discovered that ESPN will no longer be the home of Bundesliga. According to what I’ve read, USA Sports and Fandango will stream the games, which probably means that I won’t be watching many Bundesliga games any longer.

Speaking of Fußball, um soccer, I decided I was not interested in going out to watch the World Cup finale yesterday. I wasn’t feeling sociable and didn’t want to spend more money. Instead I watched at home using an ancient technology called an “aerial”.

Wordle: four, my starter was FAUNA

Happy birthday to ITP-Reader Barb! I will relish the five days I have during which your age is higher than mine. 😀

I had a really good day yesterday, especially since the Amazon package I ordered arrived yesterday when it was initially supposed to arrive on Monday. This will allow me to skip town at whatever time pleases me next week. I did make jambalaya for dinner, and it was predictably tasty.

I have come to the conclusion that my latest growing mistake has been to overwater my seedlings, essentially killing them through a process known as “damping off” which causes the plant to rot at the base. Always learning…

Wordle: three, my starter was WAGER