Things I Learned While Working on a Habitat for Humanity Project

1. When laying 12" floor tile, hire a professional. There's a reason they're so expensive.

2. If you must lay 12" floor tile yourself, get a good pair of kneepads. If you're horizongally challenged like I am, make sure the straps don't cut into the back of your legs. Otherwise you'll be bent from the waist all day and your hamstrings will be wonderfully stretched, but also screaming.

3. Bill Clinton made it so that we will never again be able to say "kneepads" without thinking of Monica Lewinsky.

4. People who think you're with an all-female construction company will stop by and ask for your business card because they think you'll be honest and meticulous. Maybe we don't have to worry about layoffs after all; if the worst happens we can form an all-female construction company. Any suggestions for names? My colleagues didn't seem to be crazy about "Chicks with Dicks."

5. Put the stirrer on the drill, then put it in the bucket of water and thinset, THEN turn it on. Don't just plunge the spinning stirrer into the bucket. All hell will break loose.

6. Habitat is a really good organization that deserves everyone's support.

7. Ken Johnson of Amarillo Grilling is an awesome guy, whose business means there are TWO awesome 'cue masters in the area. (Dave Finkelstein is the other one.) If you're looking for someone to cater a party and you're within 100 miles of Oakland, NJ, give Ken a call.

Best Google Doodle Ever

If you haven't seen Google's special interactive Jim Henson 75th Birthday Commemoration doodle, go try it out now while it's still up.

Here is the story behind it:

Caturday

Funny how many people in this video are male.







(via Elayne)

Effin' Hippies.

Up in Cape Cod, in the Commie Heathen Godless Liberal Jewish Homosexual state of Massachusetts, they got a rousing start to the holiday weekend last Friday at a local Stop & Shop:

Monday morning blues

Wellington the Basset Hound's got 'em:

Now this is just mean.

Hilarious, but mean:

Cats, on the other hand, don't put up with this kind of crap:

(That last one is funnier because the cat looks just like my Maggie.)

There aren't many things that make me wish I was young again, but this is one of them

For the most part, I really don't have problems with getting older. Sure, I worry about the future; about money and the environment and how the crazy weather we had this winter is just an early warning sign of things to come. I think about what it's going to be like to be old, and whether I'll be able to just check out in my sleep like my father-in-law did, or if I'll be tethered to a bed in a nursing home, full of bedsores and lying in my own urine until the next overworked and underpaid aide comes in and smacks me around out of sheer frustration. If that's how it all ends, and I'm lucky, I'll have Alzheimer's and won't have a whole lot of awareness of what's happening.

But for the most part, getting older has freed me of many of the things that bothered me when I was young. I refer to myself as fat in my crusade to take back the word from people who use it as a value judgment associated with all kinds of things I'm not, like lazy and gluttonous and gorging myself constantly on MacDonald's hamburgers and Dunkin' Donuts. I no longer feel like I have to try to be tall and thin and WASP-y with silky blond hair even though I'm short and chubby and Jewish and have hair that's thinning and never behaved anyway. Instead of competing with other people at work, I can be the "elder statesman", explaining to younger colleagues that getting up at a full-division meeting and complaining to your boss' boss' boss that not having full development access to the system isn't fair is not the way to get what you want.

Some of this is luck. I'm fortunate in that I was laid off from my last job just before the economy went into the crapper and managed to luck into a related but very different area in a company where a department was being built from scratch and having a pulse and a brain was enough to get hired. But it's required sheer, hard work and 80-hour weeks to build the skill level that I've needed. If anything happened to this job, it remains to be seen if any other employer would look past the crows feet and the size 16 and the gray that creeps back into my temples barely two weeks after I have my hair done.

For the most part, I have no regrets about not being young anymore, except that there are things I would do if I were young now and the same person I am now that I would never have had the guts to do then. I first had the inkling of this in the summer of 2009, when I spent two weeks at the Hilton in Cologne on the company nickel, taking the train to work every day and muddling through a city where I didn't know the language at night. The hotel isn't far from a youth hostel, and the city was full of backpackers enjoying a European Adventure before jobs and marriages and families tied them down. I sometimes found myself envying their youth and freedom; their ability to drink beer and go dancing till the wee hours and make temporary European friends, some of whom might even become permanent. But in my own little way, with a full weekend on my own, taking photos of goofy things like cigarette machines and pastry cases and sidewalk artists and shop windows decorated with hookahs and photos of Aishwarya Rai...and tourists clutching cups of Starbuck's while standing in front of a charming German café; I had my own mini-European Adventure.

Like so many other bloggers, I was intrigued by writer/photographer Todd Bieber's request to spread the word about the roll of film he'd found in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, and his quest to find the owners. I wrote about it, and reposted his videos, here and here.

I actually got word a while ago that he'd found the owners of the film, but haven't had a chance to repost the video until now:

Thanks to Todd for giving this particular oldster the chance to vicariously enjoy his European Adventure. And if you read this blog and you've found Todd's film, e-mail him at brooklynfoundfilm-at-gmail-dot-com. Then hide your own roll of film (if you can still find film!). Because infinite projects like this don't have to always involve cats.

Nina: More knowledgeable than most of the talking heads on Fox News

Meet Nina:

And she's what, maybe four years old, tops?

Are these your photos, part deux

Last month I posted about an e-mail I'd received from one Todd Bieber, the mastermind of UCB Comedy, who had found a roll of film in Prospect Park in Brooklyn and was looking for the owners. You can see the original post and video about his quest here.

Bieber hasn't yet found the owner of the film, but the video has gone viral with over a million viewers, and he's made a new video as an update:

Imagine a world united by a simple quest to return a lost item to its owner.

Are these your photos?

Today I, along with probably thousands of other bloggers, received an e-mail from a guy named Todd Bieber (presumably no relation to Justin). After the December blizzard, Bieber went cross-country skiing in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. I'll let him tell his story:

Not sure if this is for real or not, because Todd Bieber isn't just some schmoe:

Todd writes and directs videos - mostly comedy and documentary, or some combination of the two. He is currently the guy in charge of UCB Comedy, the video arm of Upright Citizens Brigade. Previous to this he worked at the Onion News Networks as Footage Coordinator, Director of Photography, and Contributing Writer during their Peabody Award Winning year. His comedy work has been featured in a bunch of film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and AFI. His various viral videos have been watched over 23 million times and have been featured on New York Times' website, Entertainment Weekly's website, Huffington Post, and his Mom's Facebook Wall.

But who cares? The video is beautifully done (as are the photos), and for its 3:05 running length, I was transported -- able to forget my workload, Sarah Palin, and Congressional Republicans.

I did, however, make him promise to keep me posted on whether he finds the owner of the roll of film.