They're all just a bunch of Seabiscuits

So, Ado and I were slumming through the Netflix on demands for some mind-numbing time heroin, and she noted to me that some of the sci-fi titles on the screen sounded vaguely like race horse names.  With this in mind, we excitedly scrolled through a less than scientific sampling of the other titles on demand and realized that this phenomenon was not just a sci-fi thing, it was an EPIDEMIC.  Think of a couple of the highest-grossing films of 2011-- for instance, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, or maybe Warhorse or Haywire (that last one being a dull pun, of course.)

But, the more we thought about this, we became convinced that, without the aid of Google and with no prior knowledge of the movie or horse, the names of the two would be completely indistinguishable... On to the challenge, then!  Of course, we can't control for what you know, or whether you use such chicanery as search engines, but here's the list, which is derived from a sampling of Rotten Tomatoes' Top 100 Art House & International Movies of All Time list (so you hopefully don't know them!) and the names of past winners of either the Belmont Stakes, the Kentucky Derby or Preakness:


1.  Bandit Queen (1994)
2.  Timber Country (1995)
3.  Local Hero (1983)
4.  Caveat (1983)
5.  Unbridled (1990)
6.  Animal Kingdom (2010)
7.   Canonero II (1971)
8.  Afghan Star (2008)
9.  Danzig Connection (1986)
10.  Last Train Home (2009)

Give it a shot, horse or movie?

Answer Sheet!

1.  Bandit Queen (1994)- Movie
2.  Timber Country (1995)- Preakness winner
3.  Local Hero (1983)- Movie
4.  Caveat (1983)- Belmont Stakes winner
5.  Unbridled (1990)- Kentucky Derby winner-- thought this was going to be a movie, didn't you?
6.  Animal Kingdom (2010)-  Movie!  You did see the 2010, right?  Animal Kingdom, the horse, didn't win the Kentucky Derby until 2011, so you probably got that one wrong... Right? http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/animal_kingdom/
7.   Canonero II (1971)- Preakness winner
8.  Afghan Star (2008)- Movie
9.  Danzig Connection (1986)- Belmont Stakes winner
10.  Last Train Home (2009)- Movie

Welcome to Atlanta, Where the Players Play--or--Most White People in Zone 3 Since 1953

Upon learning of  my exact arrival date, Rooster set out to throw an epic "Welcome to Atlanta" party at the soon-to-be-Christened "Woodster" residence in beautiful Zone 3. 

It was to be the party of the century (or at least the week of October 1st), complete with friends, music, ribs, and all the booze one can safely consume.  He called every friend dear to his heart and begged them to let go of their misgivings about driving south of I-20.  For one night, venture out of the warm, safe confines of Lindbergh and Sandy Springs, and do it up ghetto stylie.  To his delight, everyone agreed to brave the Desoto Avenue antics, and the party plans were set.

Atlanta residents would be represented, but how could I bring Tacoma to dirty?  Ask friends to fly across these great states for one night of partying?  Duh.  Well, to be fair, of the three friends who showed up from the Northwest, one is a flight attendant (Jenny), one is the flight attendant's resident boy-toy (Anthony-or "Anfernee"), and one moved to Enterprise, AL for training and was only a three hour drive away (one Tom Tupa).  But still, how popular would I look, having three friends from back home come to my Zone 3 party? Prom queen popular. 

The morning of the party, Tom Tupa arrived and Rooster, Tupa, and I set out to run standard pre-party errands: Kroger (for bbq fixin's, beer, chips, ice, etc.), Target (for a blow-up mattress for Jenny and Anfernee), and Marshall's (for an ice bucket, and sheets for the new blow-up mattress).  When we returned mid-day, it was time to get the party started by cracking first beer.  After Rooster made the short trip to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to pick up the rest of my Tacoma crew, my contribution to the shindig was complete.  Slowly, everyone arrived and the soiree was fully underway.  Here are a few pieces of photographic gold for you to feast your eyes upon. 

Val, giving fashionistas everywhere the finger by wearing white after Labor Day.

Mr. Charles, our DJ for the evening.

Scott and Joanna arriving in style.

The Overfields

 We all looked pretty lucid while the sun was awake.  And we just kept going... 

  

Rooster gives me a lift so my head can actually get in the shot.

Jenny telling dirty jokes.

End of the night hookah sesh (just flavored tobacco.  Don't worry, Army).

 The inaugural Woodster party went off without a hitch.  Even the dogs (specifically, Ryan) behaved themselves and made us proud parents.  I felt welcomed and embraced by my new Atlanta family, and hopefully it was the first of many social events to be held at Websterwood.

-Ado

Fartin' around with the Fireplace

Before.

Sometime in September, 2011, Ado and the Rooster became completely unsatisfied with the state of their fireplace.  The status quo, being a gloss white paint job on the brick and hearth (pictured at right), was simply insufficient to give the living room any sort of character.  The fireplace is, to the best of our ability to determine, nonfunctional.  There is a firestop inside the chimney just above the fireplace itself, indicating that some previous owner decided that the fire risk presented by the circa 1924 chimney was too great to justify continued use.  Given the Rooster's risk aversion respecting fire, we elected not to try to put the fireplace back in service as such, but instead to make it a decorative installation that would give the living room an aesthetic focal point.

The gloss white on the bricks operated to conceal ("gloss over"-- if you'll let us get away with a shameful pun) the cracks in and porosity of the bricks, giving the whole fireplace a bland, faux-fireplace appearance. A+R decided that if the fireplace was nonfunctional, it should at least be beautiful.

Rooster decided that the best way to draw the eye to the fireplace was to apply an unabashedly bright color.  Rooster thought orange would do quite nicely, especially in a flat paint which would create contrast along the mortar lines and give the brick a more natural, weathered appearance that would emphasize their texture. Despite Ado's misgivings about the color selection, she begrudgingly put her full faith in Rooster on this count, citing the fact that he would be made to paint over the orange if it didn't suit the boss's (Ado's) taste when complete.

Our trip to home depot revealed a plethora of orange colors that made the decision as to which color to use fairly difficult.  To make matters worse, when we had settled on a color from the Martha Stewart line, or some other high-falutin' proprietary pallet, the fine folks at Home Depot refused to mix the color in any base except for the one produced by Martha Stewart (or whatever manufacturer the color chip came from.)  Rooster, having worked in a hardware store paint department during high school, knew to a moral certainty that the paint pimps at the Depot had the technological capability to simply apply the same colorant formula to ANY base (including the much cheaper store brand paint) and achieve the same color.  However, in a low-down move that very well could violate federal antitrust law, the paint department refused to do this.

As a result of the Depot's stubborn refusal to get right, Ado and the Rooster were forced into selecting an almost-identical color from the ghetto swatches, where the colors are not tagged with the creative names* that make you really want to buy them.  So, we ended up with "LA606 Pumpkin 6," after eliminating from contention Pumpkins 1 through 5.  Obviously, the asshats at the generic paint factory have little incentive to exercise artistic license, and follow the same naming conventions as do owners of budget Chinese restaurants like the omnipresent "Happy Mandarin Garden III" or "Chin Chin 2."

A deliciously sexy paint prep laborer is very hard to find, but luckily enough Rooster found
Ado in the  Home Depot parking lot, looking for some trabajo.

After the Depot run was done, and the team hatefest directed at Home Depot was duly completed, the real work began.  The first step we took was to rough up the existing gloss finish on the brick with a 300-400 grit sanding sponge.  The dust was there, but not unbearable.  After sanding, we wiped down the bricks and hearth with a chemical solution to further break down the gloss paint, making it sufficiently porous to accept the new, flat coating.  After the surface prep was done, we began the most dreaded part of any painting project: taping.

Having finished the taping (Rooster's lines were-- obviously-- far superior to those established by Ado, but her sweet ass made up for her shoddy workmanship), Websterwood Painting, LP** set to work.  The first few brush strokes thoroughly tested Ado's "full faith" in Rooster's color decision, as the difference in appearance of the fireplace was, initially, quite shocking, as was the disturbingly low level of Rooster's pants.

They say crack kills, but Rooster is still kickin'.

 After a couple hours of painting, having established the esprit de corps that comes along with team efforts in potentially PTSD-inducing situations, we put the final coat on the fireplace, and it was starting to look like it was intended by the heavens to spend the rest of its days wearing Pumpkin #6.  So, to properly set off the orange, and to incorporate another, more natural color element, Websterwood elected to tile the hearth using glass mosaic tiles.  These tiles are exceedingly easy to work with, because they're set on a mesh backing that helps to maintain their spacing while setting the tile.  A light coat of mastic on the hearth, a short waiting period for it to tackify, and then the tiles were set!

Next came the grouting, which provided its own set of headaches.  Primary among these was the repugnant campaign of propaganda from Lowe's and Home Depot which tries to convince consumers that they need a "grout float" to properly grout in tiles.  When we went to the grout/ mastic/ trowel aisle, we discovered that grout floats, like the one pictured at right were going for approximately one year's tuition at an elite private university (actually, about $30... but who's counting?)  Websterwood Painting is no friend of cost overruns, so we came to the mutual, executive decision to pass on the surgical-grade grout float.  Instead, Rooster searched his extensive knowledge archive of rubber products for a solution and arrived at the following conclusion:  let's try a squeegee.  As you can see from the pictured grout float, the operative parts are simply rubber edges set at an angle.  So, after telling the Depot vultures to pound sand, Websterwood took a quick trip to Target, and found the following:
  If you click on the squeegee, you will be redirected to Target's website showing that this GEM of a construction tool (any port in a storm!) has prices that vary by store.  This means that, in Detroit, the little bastard is probably free.  We paid about $3.50, if memory serves.  This amount may have just exceeded the sales tax on the aforementioned grout float.  And, wonder of wonders, it did the same damn thing.  The Home Depot "professionals" can take their vile, lying asses straight to Mississippi (I would say Hell, but I don't want to let those bastards off easy!)

After grouting the tiles in and squeegeeing the excess, we sponged off the excess grout the next day (in fairness, Rooster was VERY concerned that the excess grout on top of the tiles would harden and defy removal efforts if left overnight, but Ado's devil-may-care attitude prevailed when she assured Rooster that the excess would "come right off" the glass tiles even the next day or thereafter.  At 1:30am, it was very easy for Rooster to trust Ado on that count and that trust was vindicated when, approximately one week after the initial grouting, Rooster got back after it with the sponge.  With a little warm water, and having the benefit of the smooth surface of the glass, the dried excess grout slid off faster than greased owl shit on a hockey rink.

The final product, after approximately $200.00 in expense and countless, yet enjoyable man hours (person hours?) looks like this:

With the addition of a decorative burnt bronze-finish fireplace screen, our living room has not only a focal point, but something of a showpiece.  Visitors, even if they were so inclined, cannot fail to notice the orange color, and are very complimentary of the tile (although Rooster suspects those visitors attribute a lot more effort and heartache to the tile job than it actually took).  To finalize this project, Websterwood Painting plans to subcontract with even a marginally-competent finish carpenter to trim out the edges of the hearth, but that, like many other loose ends on home improvement projects, is currently on the back burner.

The thrust of this post is not simply to highlight the fireplace, but, rather, is to point up the work that went into the project.  While Rooster had expressed desire to change the fireplace finish for some time, it would likely never have been accomplished without the loving but firm application of Ado's spurs.  And, once the project was underway, Ado's contributions on both the labor and moral support fronts were invaluable to its completion.  For Rooster, this project was something of a revelation, which is easily translatable into advice to similarly situated gentlemen: if you have a Honey-Do (not honeydew, which I refuse to trust until this cantaloupe clusterfuck is cleared up) List, make every effort to involve its maker, your own honey, in its completion.  Not only do you get some cheap/free labor out of the deal, but the memories made while sharing the sweat, frustration and unwarranted, union-style break times of a project like this will keep you looking at whatever your finished product is and smiling.

-ROOSTER

*As a side note regarding creative color names,  Rooster invites all readers to listen to the Ricky Smiley Morning Show (syndicated throughout Black America) and pay close attention to their resident sweet boy, Gary with the Tea, who craps out a segment called the "Colour [kuh-lure] of the Day."  Gary describes a color with an ultra-premium-sounding name, and then identifies the commonplace name for the color, in the following pattern:  "Here's your kuh-luuuure of the day y'all:  On the high end, you call it Mysterious Blueberry Chaos.  And down there on the low end, honey, it's called indigo."  More Colours of the Day may be found at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35458402975&v=wall

**Limited Partnership ;)

City of Atlanta- 2/ Woodster- 1

In an all's-well-that-ends-well type story... Oh, wait, it didn't end well, but please keep reading.  This is really more a story of a battle- nay, a skirmish- in an ongoing war between the male Woodster and the City of Atlanta.

By way of background:  the municipal and county governments in metro Atlanta, GA are simply shameful.  Those in King Co., WA think they have it bad when they are forced to pull three permits and conduct an environmental impact study to build a shed, but they should try things out down here.  To stay in the construction vein: down here we have an informal system by which contractors are allowed to commence work with a hand-painted, plywood sign posted proudly in the yard of the site reading "Permit Applied For."   Not only are these asshats ending sentences in prepositions, but they're starting work without an actual permit in place!  The King Co. folks are at least guaranteed that no daycare is built without proper, full cavity search-style inspection.

Whatever else is wrong with Atlanta and its ornery big sister, Fulton County, the police are definitely a low point in the menu of municipal services.  The APD has been responsible for, among other debacles, the ludicrous shooting of elderly Atlanta resident Kathryn Johnston, pictured below:

    

The bunglers at APD were also responsible for a GEM of a raid on the Atlanta Eagle, a rough-trade gay bar in Midtown Atlanta, approximately 500 feet from which the Rooster had the misfortune of living.  I will say that when this raid went down, I was cheerful, even giddy that the leather-clad bears who had long terrorized my neighborhood were going to be (tamed?-- is that too homoerotic sounding?), well, you get the point.  Anyway, I was with the APD in spirit on this one, but, again, Atlanta's finest found a way to shit in their own nest... The total paid out by the city in settlement dollars to patrons of Underwear Night because the clown police couldn't stop from using derogatory language in front of a BAR FULL of outraged gay men: ~$1.15m.

I say all that to say this:  I am no fan of the APD.  I was issued a ticket in August for expired tags.  Yes, I get it, you have to purchase a renewal tag yearly, but failure to do so seems like it should result in a stern (but fair) warning from a chagrined cop who has given you the same warning for at least three weeks.  I know this sounds unreasonable, but I don't want an embittered, mustachioed black man with motorcycle boots and (apparently) latex pants looking at me like I had just shot up a bus stop, when I have, in fact, committed an offense that endangered no-one and really didn't hurt the state- the $20 in additional charges they levied against me were, I'm sure, just compensation for the month of delay in payment.  But I digress.  

So, the right thing to do, of course, would be to just let me go with a wag of the finger and an admonishment to "Keep it between the ditches," but Shaft wrote me the ticket anyway.  ATL- 1; Woodster- 0.*  Fast forward to today, which was Oct. 20, my day in court for the alleged offense of driving with an expired tag.  Before going to court, I was on an unrelated mission to Advance Auto Parts (if you're ever at the store on Metropolitan, ask for Ira, he runs a tight ship and is about as helpful as they come) to buy a new air filter for my sweet ride.  I turned  right at a stop light, off of a street called Dill Ave. and onto a major thoroughfare known as Metropolitan Parkway (for geography buffs).  I had to make an immediate left into the parking lot of Advance, and a friendly member (or so I thought) of the APD flashed his headlights from the oncoming lane to indicate that I could turn left in front of him, and so I did.  After I turned left, Ofcr. Friendly turned right into the parking lot, directly behind me.  On my court date.  

I got out of the car, determined to carry on with my errand and refusing to believe that this PO-lice had so casually pulled me over, with no lights or sirens. Moreover, I had committed no offense, save for the small matter of my seat belt, which the officer didn't seem to know/care about.  The officer asked me for my license and registration as soon as I was out of the vehicle, but, rather than providing them, I asked the officer if I was really being pulled over.  You see, I still couldn't believe that the flashing of the headlights constituted a traffic stop.  Clearing that up for me, the cop explained that the reason he "stopped" me was my prior right turn onto Metropolitan from Dill.  Those of you who are handy with Google's Street View already know the spoiler: there is not a single sign prohibiting a right turn on red at that intersection.  I know this because I live there.  There never has been any such sign, although one is probably necessary because turns from the eastbound lane of Dill are relatively blind, but, again, I digress.  

I lead the officer back to the intersection, never having produced my identification and wearing my black slippers (known locally as "house shoes") and purple athletic shorts. I almost had him across Metropolitan before he gave up and admitted there was no sign.  He then had the extraordinarily poor grace necessary to tell me that he "was not going to give me a ticket because there was no sign."   I informed him he was actually unable to give me a ticket, for that very reason, and thanked him for his time, retreating into the auto parts store with my victory clenched between bloody teeth.  

The officer's wounded pride wouldn't let him leave without at least running my plates, which he made a show of doing while all the locals inside the store congratulated me on sticking it to the man.  So, I figured, they may have stuck me on my expired tag, but here I was making an absolute MOCKERY of this officer, so we were even, in my mind.  Woodster- 1; ATL- 1.*

And then, continuing in the Dickensian theme, the city exacted its vengeance... Upon leaving traffic court this afternoon, still somewhat excited about my earlier victory, I found Ado sitting on the bumper of the car (she left to feed the meter) holding this:

  

Yes, it's a parking ticket- though you wouldn't know it because I tore off the title section in a rebel-without-a-cause-moment when Ado needed a place for her spent gum.  So, we're left, unhappily, at ATL- 2; Woodster- 1.*  But, my friends, as they say in war-themed pornographic films, the battle may be lost but the war is ongoing.    

ROOSTER

*Although Ado did not directly participate in any of these scores, she has assumed co-responsibility in my struggles.