Some Blog Site

My wife did not like our closet doors (they were large, heavy, and obtrusive), so we went to IKEA to procure an alternative method of hiding the contents of our closet.

Behold, the Kvartal:

I’m not going to go into details explaining IKEA’s closet curtain system and how it works, and I’m not going to give step-by-step instructions on how to install them. It was obvious enough from the instructions they provided.

What I am going to do is offer up my collection of Allen wrenches to the highest bidder.

For the Kvartal, you buy all the pieces individually. That lets you customize it to what you want. So we bought some rails, a few hanger thingies, and a few panels of fabric to go in the hangers. Oh, and the brackets for mounting the rails.

The downside with the modular approach is that, since they don’t know if you’re buying one piece or ten, they provide a little Allen wrench with each piece. It’s the same wrench, but I didn’t need 14 of them to install one closet system.

For those who are keeping track: yes, there are only 13 in this photo. I lost one somewhere.

Sometimes, when I am assembling something, or fixing something, there will be a pile of spare parts left. In this case, I had a pile of spare tools.

We took a week to circle Lake Erie. We never visited Lake Erie itself, just a few interesting points.

Day 5

After breakfast at the hotel, we left Perry. It was a few hours – starting on some backs roads because Perry (or Castile, I couldn’t figure out which was where) is not near anything. The plan was get up, eat breakfast, and leave, Then, 4 hours later, we would arrive in Harrisburg and eat lunch and then pop over to Hershey since it is right next to Harrisburg.

Due to the lack of breakfast options, it seems that everyone ate lighter than usual, because people were hungry about halfway to Harrisburg. Or maybe it took us longer to pack up so we didn’t leave right after breakfast. I forget which.

Anyway, thanks to the magic or smartphones, my wife was able to find a restaurant that we could get to before the kids melted down. There were a variety of chains, but we chose a place we had never heard of before – Country Cupboard.

It’s in Lewisburg, and it is well worth a stop. It has a large restaurant, but it also has a candy store and gift shop and stuff. You may be picturing a Cracker Barrel. That would be inadequate. This place is more like a complex, filling an area comparable to a few Cracker barrels put together.

The kids liked it. A lot. In fact, Beta still asks if we can go to Pennsylvania, just so he can eat at the Country Cupboard again. The food was good. And it was a buffet, so the kids could get what they liked and in what portions. There was a lot of variety, and it was a decent price. Nothing bad to say.

We eventually made it to Hershey and went to the Hershey Lodge.

Read the rest of this entry »

Soap operas have been replaced by Facebook.

That is all.

Here’s something Gamma brought home that he did in school:

Here’s a close-up, in case you want to try to read his bugs:

In case you still can’t read them, they are:

• fli
• beedl
• grasshopr
• spidr
• cricit
• bee

My favorite part: the happy expression on the grasshopper’s face. The other insects seems resigned to their fate, but that grasshopper is enjoying the moment.

We took a week to circle Lake Erie. We never visited Lake Erie itself, just a few interesting points.

Day 4

After breakfast at the hotel, we left Rochester and headed for Letchworth State Park, voted the #1 state park in America. It was scenic.

Here is the view just after the entrance, at what I think was the first overlook spot.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was looking on the internet for a pump. Found a recommended pump and went to the website to check the specs. Here is a screenshot of the website:

Of course there is something wrong with the website, otherwise I wouldn’t have written this post.

I’ll give you a minute to see if you can find it. Try a right-click to view the image full size. And no, it’s not a technical issue.

Here’s what you should be looking for:

It’s a good thing I didn’t have a question, otherwise I might have clicked on that box for what I would have expected to be a chat with customer service.

To be fair, that is a Chinese company, so English is not their strong suit. I’m not lowering my view of their pumps because of their gaffe – I’m just pointing out that I was amused by it.

We took a week to circle Lake Erie. We never visited Lake Erie itself, just a few interesting points.

Day 2

Upon leaving Old Fort Niagara, we drove a while to Rochester, NY. We went straight to the children’s museum – the Strong Museum. We allowed for 2 or 3 hours there, but the kids could have spent longer there. Part of the problem was that we weren’t able to fit a good meal in there so people were running out of energy.

But they had a bunch of displays.
Read the rest of this entry »