Feldsalat

Feldsalat is something I grew up with in Germany and in our region we often call it Ackersalat. It actually has quite a few different names such as Valerianella, Corn Salad, Lamb's Lettuce and Mache, and it is neither well known nor easily available in the USA. I recently discovered it at Whole Foods, where they sell it as Mache. We had some last night and oh boy, it is so good.

Precision speed skills

Wow, now that is drifting (and unique marketing for DC shoes.)

Liquid gold

I always liked European Fanta and it is stunning to me how much better it is than US Fanta. US Fanta actually tastes very artificial and strange and I barely ever drink it. But European Fanta (notice the yellow versus orange color) is liquid gold to me and we were able to a few bottles from the European Market while in Chattanooga.

Pete

I wish we were all as happy and content as Pete.

New site

My Guerrilla Communication website is a bit more than 2 years old now and I thought it should be time to give the site a new look and feel. The sketch below of the splash page shows what the site is going to look luke, except, it will remain a completely sketched website. All hand drawn and written. Yeah

The Art of Michael Lachowski

Michael Lachowski is an artist from Athens, GA who is involved in a huge variety of art projects. One of my favorite art pieces of his is hanging in the Grit coffee shop in Athens, GA and that coffee artwork inspired me to commission Michael to do a couple artworks for me. Since I don't drink coffee much though, we had to go down a different road.

The original coffee piece on a post card in my office


The Milk artwork currently is in our dining room


The Hot Chocolate artwork graces our living room

36 North Triathlon

Amy and I were racing in the 36 North Triathlon in Clemmons, NC today and we had an absolute blast. The race itself was held in Tanglewood Park and they capped out at 400 starters despite it being a first time event. But it was absolutely done first class and we were both impressed with the organization of the event. A big thumbs up to the crew that organized it and all the folks who volunteered.

Big smiles after the race is behind us


Awaiting the awards and representing slowtwitch


Amy finished third in F30-34 and this is her second podium finish


I finished second in M40-44 and top 15 overall and was very happy with the result.

The hole is "gone"

We kind of had a hole in our kitchen where the winecooler was suposed to go and we finally got it today. So no more "hole" in the kitchen.



On another note, we can now enjoy hanging out in the back. IE lunch today.

Ready for the race

Well, the tri bike is ready for the 36 North Sprint Triathlon in Clemmons, NC tomorrow. We'll find out in the morning around 7:30am how ready I am. I don't think I will do very bad, but I also think that this won't be my best sprint event. But the bike does look fast for sure.

A kitchen in time

When we first saw our new home we pretty much knew that it was it. We especially fell in love with the kitchen but decided to do a few small changes. We wanted more storage and also wanted the kitchen to be open to the dining room. The pics below were pretty much shot from the same point of view at 3 different times.

This is how the kitchen was when we bought the home. No flowers or any other decoration of course.


We took a good section of the wall out and opened it to the dining room. We also painted the walls a very light green color and removed the bench.


The new cabinets and countertop in place, plus the new dishwasher. :-)

Bratwurst

Tonight's dinner was a little homage to Germany and I enjoyed a couple Bratwursts. But just as the Bratwursts were ready to be eaten I discovered that we had no mustard in the house. None whatsoever. Good thing was that we had 2 brands of Curry Ketchup in the fridge and that hit the spot too.

Those were the days

The picture below was taken some time around 1991 and just recently popped up on facebook. It is very old school with the Giro Hammerhead helmet, IRD suspension fork, Campagnolo Record OR components and the trick light Litespeed Titanium frame from the era when there were no Litespeed model names but funky lime green decals. I even had hair at that time. :-)

Chattanooga has stupid ads dot com

Every time when I am in Chattanooga and hear ads for Chattanooga has cars dot com, Chattanooga has health dot com or Chattanooga has jobs dot com etc I think that those are some of the dumbest sounding ads in town. Maybe I should feature all of them on Chattanooga has stupid ads dot com. :-)

We are almost there

last night just before 9pm our dining room table was finally delivered. The chairs in the dining room had been sitting quite lonely for about a month now, but the table is fantastic and was worth waiting for. This morning the honed granite was delivered for the additional cabinets in the kitchen and the new vanity in the master bathroom. That means we are now almost there as we only have to deal with details.

The crew from Bloomsday granite and marble arrived at 8am sharp. (Yes, on memorial day)



With the honed granite in place we can now fill those extra cabinets. The "open" space will be filled with a wine cooler.



The new table has been in place for 14 hours only.



The table was made from an old elm wood door and has some interesting markings.



The vanity granite is in place too, and the faucets will be installed tomorrow. The lower cabinet gets a wooden top and a pillow and will serve as a seat.

Coffee table update

Legs are stained, glass top is in place and the table is now sitting in the den. It still needs a bit of work but it is very close to finished.

New coffee table

I have been working on a coffee table and it is slowly coming together. The metal ring will keep the rust look but the legs still need to be stained. Once the legs are stained they will be knocked all the way "through," leaving about 1/8" exposed on the top. The glass top will rest on these exposed wooden stumps. The whole table is very heavy and we'll have to test the floors to make sure it won't "crash through." :-)

New Gravitas brakes for my bike

My new Ciamillo Gravitas brakes arrived today and they are crazy light. They might be the lightest stoppers out there.

My new office desk

Today my new office desk arrived and it is very nice indeed. It is the crafty work of Roger Dinger of reinbarnation.com and he creates very cool tables from reclaimed barn wood. The pine wood for this desk came from the Barefoot Farm in Lake Waccamaw, NC.

The Aeron office chair is still not here and I'll clean up the cables under the desk, but this is basically what it looks like. The file cabinet is from CB2.


A hole in the back allows the cables to be out of the way.

A day in the park

Here are a few impressions of Pete's day in the dog park in Winston-Salem.

So many rules, so little time



Wow, so many dogs to play with



As long as you just sniff me...



Finally someone to dominate, yeah

Wedding anniversary

Today we celebrated our first wedding anniversary and we had several friends and family members send us warm wishes. We had a very nice weekend and the weather pretty much was great too. Friday night we went out for dinner to Fabian's and that was very good. Saturday morning we ran the 5k in the Race for the Cure and that was very fulfilling both from a physical as well as an emotional point. Saturday afternoon we went to a Kentucky Derby party at the house of someone Amy works with, and Saturday night we chilled and watched Slumdog Millionaire. Today we slept in, had a great brunch at the Village Tavern and then got the house ready for the furniture deliveries this week. Late this afternoon we took Pete to the dog park and that was great fun, but next time we'll give him the bath after the park and not before like we did today. :-)

Hopefully I'll never need one of those: