Hoth

I'm sure the majority of the continental United States will despise me for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway:

Tom Terry. Just in case you were curious.

 Florida sure has been cold these last few days.

Seriously.  I'm no Chief Meteorologist Tom Terry or anything, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be this cold in the sub-tropics.  Call me crazy.  It has been consistently dipping below freezing these last few nights, and, to me, that's just plain balderdash.

Apparently there's this Polar Vortex thing to blame.  Again, having no background in weatherology, I'm not about to start describing this bizarre phenomenon for you - I highly suggest you research yourself on a credible website somewhere if you're that interested in it.  Here's a picture, though, for you lazy people out there:

The land-wiener poking out from underneath Blizzard Rape 2014?  That's where I live.

Looks like pure crap, right?  Sure it does.  I can't imagine it's very fun to live in North Dakota right now.

Don't care.

With all this snow and crappy weather across the country, I've been trying to avoid social media lately.  Whenever I log into Facebook my feed (or wall, or whatever the hell it's called now - I'm a little behind on the times) is nothing but people posting screenshots of their AccuWeather apps from their smartphones, gripes about how many inches of snow is in their driveway, and school cancellations that don't affect me in the slightest.

My school?  Yeah, we didn't get a snow day.  So screw you, Midwest.

I didn't move down here for this. . .

When it's this cold out, all a Floridian can do is stay indoors.  Walking the dog requires socks and shoes, and I'm not cool with that (I'm a flip-flop sorta gentleman, myself) - I don't like putting on layers unless I'm venturing out into snow.  Palm trees and winter jackets don't equate in my book, so anytime I'm forced to bundle up while mowing the lawn, I get sort of - well - pissed.

That means that, outside of work and school, the Houghs are more or less shut-ins.  Family time consists of huddling together for warmth, sleeping inside the guts of taun-tauns, and otherwise complaining about the 50-degree weather.  The upside to this cold snap is that takes place during the greatest time of the year:  Imperial Stout Season.

This is what God probably drinks.

One of my favorites. . .

Granted, one can find imperial stouts anytime throughout the year, but the seasonal imperial stouts come out in the winter months, when the cold weather requires one's beer to warm their insides with black-tar booze.

Chocolate stouts, coffee stouts, spiced stouts - all thick as sludge and strong as Zeus' man-parts.  Imperial stouts are my favorite style of beer, and I try to take advantage of these crappy winter months and stock up on the Nectar of the Gods while I can. . . 'cause eventually winter fades into over-rated Spring and all the run-of-the-mill IPAs start rolling out.  Which, to me, all tastes the same after awhile.

Do to the routine schedule and crappy weather lately, not much has happened around here. . . but here's a couple pics for you anyway ('cause I'm nice):

While the men of the house seize some siestas, the girls roast real marshmallows over a fake campfire (in reality, this doesn't work - don't waste your time, folks.) 

Our kids are easily entertained.

After years of storing it in its case in the closet, I finally hung up my Michael Kelly F-Style Mandolin over my turntable.  I positioned it off-center as I want to eventually pick up a requinto guitar to hang alongside it. . .

Introducing the girls to Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind - one of my favorite movies and definitely one of the best animated movies ever made.  I just picked it up on Blu Ray and the kids were into it (at least for the first half of the movie. . . they have short attention spans.)

Reading Frozen books in bed.  Alayna can easily read the Step-Into-Reading Level 2 books, so we'll have to push her up to the Level 3 books soon.  Abby enjoys flipping along to the book-on-CD  books (we used to use cassettes back in the day, but hey. . . whatever.)  Frozen, by the way, is to little girls what crack is to the mayor of Toronto.

Watson, in his natural state.

Anyway, while the cold wind bloweth, and the black stouts floweth, we Houghs will continue to soldier on through the perilous mid-30s lows/high-50s highs days with the resilience and determination that one has come to expect from our family name.

The holidays are over, the adventures overseas have come to a close, and everyone's going back to work and school and subsequently freezing their pants off.

Let's do this, winter.

- Brian

Cowabunga.

The Great Cordoba Heist

As some of you may or may not already know, I used to play the drums.  Awesomely.


Alas, the last time I touched a set was the infamous Virgil Q's Dixieland Kazoo Revue show, the night before I graduated from Western Michigan (at 8am... that was rough).  Anyway, two months after flying out to Africa and beginning my stint of service with the Peace Corps, my set was stolen out of a storage unit and I haven't played the drums since.

I still cry a little whenever I see a drum set.

Ovation Balladeer LX

Anyway, I tried picking up guitar for awhile, and played the hell out of it while in Africa.  And while it was easier than the drums, I never really got all that excited about it.  Nowadays we have three acoustics lying around the house collecting dust (if my instruments were kids, my guitars would be those emotionally-scarred, forgotten children from a previous marriage).

Michael Kelly F-Style Mandolin

Well, when I got back from the Peace Corps I decided it'd be a good idea to try out a new instrument, and made the genius move of dropping $600 on a fancy mandolin (not my wisest purchase by any means)... only to realize later that learning the mandolin was about as hard as translating the Rosetta Stone (i.e. nearly impossible).

The Uke-ular Arsenal

Finally, in 2008, I picked up the ukulele, and took to it like a hobo to crack (or bottom shelf gin, depending on the hobo).  Since inheriting my grandpa's old Harmony concert uke, I've slowly been adding to my 'Uke-ular Arsenal' (much to the wife's dismay).  I've acquired a few sopranos and another concert, but have really been wanting a tenor-sized ukulele (they have a longer fretboard and a deeper, richer sound).

Cordoba 25TK Koa Tenor

So, over the course of the last few months, I've conducted some intense research - both online and in music stores.  Eventually, I settled on the Cordoba Tenor 25TK - their top-of-the-line, solid koa wood ukulele.  Check it out.  It's gorgeous, but, at $400, not something I could get away with spending on myself with Christmas coming up.

Then, one day, as I sat in my office at work during my planning period, I decided to check something out on Amazon.  When I opened up my account page - BAM!! - I noticed that the Cordoba 25TK had dropped down to $176... and there were only three left.

Immediately, I crapped my pants...

 

Then, after driving home from work, I checked online again.  One of the three had already sold.  So, throwing caution to the wind, I signed up for one of those Amazon credit cards and pounced on the uke.

Minutes later, the price sky-rocketed back up to $302.


So, as I'm an Amazon Prime member, I received the instrument with free two-day shipping.  Upon tuning the instrument, I realized there was some rattling going on when playing the C and E strings.  At first I thought it was the nut, but there was something metal rattling about in the headstock whenever I shook the instrument.  I had no idea what the hell this was.

In the past, I've had great customer service from the local Guitar Center luthier - he's fixed a couple of my ukes in the past - so I took it in to him to have a look over it.  He, too, at first had no idea where the rattling was coming from, but eventually figured it out:  turns out that two of the tuning peg plates was loose, causing the vibration whenever the strings were played.  At $15, not a huge deal at all.

Nevertheless, I wasn't pleased I had to drop $15 on an instrument right out of the box - even if it was already 70% off the list price.  I wrote Amazon a pointed letter, citing poor product oversight on their part in their shipping the product to me in such a state.  Within hours, they notified me that they no longer had the instrument, and that it was sold through a third-party seller.  To satisfy me, the disgruntled consumer, they offered to refund me 30% - $65!! -  for my trouble.

Taking all this into consideration, this meant that I was able to score a beautiful, new ukulele that normally costs $400 for a mere $115.

The lesson to take away from this whole ordeal?  Use Amazon for everything. Everything possible.  Definitely doing so for Christmas this year.

Holy Jebus do I love that site...

- Brian