mushinnoshin

Via PITW we learn of one man’s quest to make the fairgrounds green.

From some of the discussion I heard during the South Nashville planning process, I fear it’s a quixotic cause for the immediate future, but I applaud and encourage the effort. For some time I’ve envisioned a day when the fairgrounds could become something like Centennial Park South, a beautiful South Nashville centerpiece instead of the underutilized eye and ear sore that drags our community down.

EDIT: From the comments at Pith there appears to be concern over the site’s true motivation, and indeed the site does mention mixed use residential development as part of the plan. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, I would wait to see some more substantial plan to reserve judgment. Meanwhile, I think any move to create public demand to do something better with that space seems to be a step in the right direction.

Well I was totally prepared to wake up yesterday with a raging hangover. I wasn’t prepared for it to be completely eclipsed by a brutal and relentless head cold. Well at least it gives me an excuse to take Nyquil :)

Gah. So yeah I spent most of yesterday wrapped up in a blanket, drinking tea, blowing my nose, and catching up on Netflix. I saw Raging Bull plus the last disc of Curb Your Enthusiasm season two. I wasn’t wowed by the movie — De Niro and Scorsese did a masterful job, but it wasn’t a subject that compelled me. My short summary: jocks can be assholes. Yeah, we knew that already. Larry David made me much happier. I actually wasn’t all that crazy about the show after watching season one, but I liked it enough that I figured I’d give it another shot, and I think he seems to have really found his groove in season two.

Meanwhile today the cold is still with me, but I’m feeling better than I did. Sadly there was no way I could make yoga though. Which makes three weeks in a row that I’ve skipped, and I feel pretty shitty about that. Oh well, next week…

Well anyway Thanksgiving was excellent. My goal had been to have the parlor / living room project that I’d been working on done in time for the holiday, and I basically made it. I ran out of time and budget to finish up a few details — I need a corner bookcase / library thing to replace this stack of milk crates & plastic drawers over here to my left while finally bringing my books out of storage, and then once I get that and see how it looks I’ll know how to decorate the rest of that wall. I also probably need to replace the old mini-blinds at some point. And that bookcase may turn into a project by itself — it’s sort of a weird cramped corner that I need to maximize, and I haven’t found anything even close to what I picture, so I may have to try my hand at building something myself. But I don’t know, that might be biting off more than I can chew. We’ll see I suppose.

But anyway most of the pieces were in place — the painting is done, curtains are hung, the piano has a fresh coat of shine & varnish, the CD collection has a new home in a beautiful hanging wall unit, and most importantly the computer is set up at the new desk, at which I’m typing as we speak, as Dark Side of the Moon drifts in from the good speakers in the living room, which I can now hear as I work. Which is all to say I’ve finally moved into the front half of my house :)

And it looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I would post pictures, but I’m trying to entice you to visit, damnit! And speaking of visitors, there were of course the Thanksgiving festivities themselves. This makes the second year since my sister and I have taken co-ownership of the family ritual — I provide the house, the booze, and the bread, and she brings the rest of the feast. Of course we don’t have a whole lot of immediate family around any more, so it’s usually just the two of us plus my dad & grandmother. But we had an awesome addition this year, as the ever-fabulous Kate O’ and Karsten joined us for drinks and desert. Good times.

The following companies lost any chance at getting my recent business due to having websites that are completely dependent on Flash:

Action Nissan
Volvo of Nashville
Toyota (Yes, the whole damn company)
CarSmart

Don’t do that.

Whichever one of you comes up with a way to search for furniture to fit specific dimensions will have an awesome, possibly patentable edge on your competition. And since most of you seem to have dimensions in your database already, it should be brain dead simple to implement.

No charge for the idea, my reward will be finding the right desk to fit the fucking space I have to fill. Of course I wouldn’t say no to a discount.

After a grueling day spent car shopping — I drove all over town, from Bell Meade to Mt Juliet to Franklin, with my car limping along all the while, not sure if it would even make it to the next dealer — no car felt quite right, and one of the damn things even ran out of gas & left me hoofing it back to the dealership, and I still haven’t even had time for lunch–

I go and find out that Lee Iacocca Endorses Bill Richardson.

Dude, if you’d told me that yesterday, I might have at least put Chrysler into the maybe column.

Sigh.

Anyway I finally settled for this 2002 Honda Accord EX — the paint job is pretty scuffed and the interior has some blemishes, but I’m about 85-90% happy. It will do for now I suppose.

I will say in my defense it had a properly helium-ated balloon when I bought it.