CurlyShavings

I rarely get any "real" comments from anyone other than my two faithful readers. That doesn't stop me from periodically sifting through the Spam for mis-labeled "real" comments.

Recently I noticed a pattern. Someone was posting some witty one-liners (unrelated to the entry). It was pretty clear that it was some sort of spam bot, but they were so witty, I had to find the source.

Well, I can't say with certainty that I found it, but I did find a collection of quotes in a "fortune" list that contained all the quotes I was looking for.

Here are my favorites from the list on the subject of taxes:

Intaxication: Misguided euphoria about a tax refund (of your own money).

Taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!

Taxes are going up so fast, the government might price itself out of the market.

There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax.

Any new tax law must exempt enough voters to win the next election.

Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they should not be simultaneous. -- Mack

The ability to tax is the ability to control.

The power to tax involves the power to destroy. -- John Marshall

There is only one way to kill capitalism: By taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.

Death and taxes are inevitable; at least death doesn't get worse every year.

I've just about always hated taxes. Becoming a small-business owner has only galvanized my dislike.

Before moving into the neighborhood in 1998, I'd never seen a flat top haircut before, except maybe Buzz Aldrin on TV. George had one, though, and even in the winter when he'd cover it with his orange knit stocking cap, you knew it was there. George was about as old as you could be without thinking of how old he might be. Nowadays he's even older of course.

George held court three houses down from us in a house with a garage as full of junk and miscellaneous as I'd ever seen. I never saw the inside of the house but I figured it was as full as the garage. Had to be. In thinking about it now, it's quite surprising that the house and garage didn't overflow into the yard, but it didn't. And despite the fullness of the garage, the place never looked like Appalachia. Wish I knew how he pulled that off.

He was amazing in how he kept up with things. Actually, the whole neighborhood was fairly up-to-date on happenings, but George out-snooped everyone else. It didn't take much to bring him strolling past. I'd get out my circular saw or think about pounding a nail or two and he'd just show up. Always stayed on the sidewalk unless you engaged him and got him talking--he just seemed to know where the line was on being a distraction.

Well, most times.

Early on I decided to upgrade the electrical panel and rather than sit down and calculate all the outlets, lights and various loads, I just picked a panel with a good-sized main: 200. Yep, from 60 amps to 200 and I'd need to roll out new wires all the way to the peak of the house. Those wires were thick and pretty ornery so I chose to put them in nice, big 2" conduit.

Well it didn't take George long before he was standing there asking what I had that was so big that I needed 200 amps for my little-bitty starter bungalow. I think he was convinced I had a pot farm in the basement and needed all those amps for the grow lights. I still have the occasional nightmare where I'm working inside a hot meter base with him asking me questions from the sidewalk. I'm sure he was just there to pull me off the live wires if I happened to make accidental contact. Yeah.

I'm not sure George ever got rid of anything. I imagine in his house a drawer with a small box in it labeled "string too short to save". Well, maybe not, but he seemed to keep just about everything.

When a squirrel would deposit an acorn, a walnut or a buckeye in his hedge and forget about it for a year or two, those saplings would get pretty high before he'd think about cutting them down or digging them out. George taught me the meaning behind the old proverb about the best time to plant a tree being twenty years ago and the second-best time being today.

One Fall he showed up in our front yard with a couple of his lost-acorn oaks and a couple of volunteer red maples. Thought we might want a couple of trees in our front yard. Well, I didn't. Trees are trouble, I thought. You have to mow around them and rake their leaves and all kinds of maintenance I didn't have time for.

And I planted them anyway. My wife probably had something to do with that. The oak had been cut once and there was a twisted little part about five feet up on this seven foot tree. I figured I'd be digging it out the next Spring.

Well, that year we planted those two and a year later we moved a green gauge plum to the front yard and a year or so later a peach went into the back yard. My wife probably had something to do with that.

And twelve years later my children are thirty feet off the ground in the most perfectly-shaped pin oak tree that ever was. Even the maple has a lovely figure. And even though you can only get twenty-some feet off the ground in the maple, they climb that one, too.

I will always be proud of George's trees.

I still don't like raking, though.

We went fishing this past week in Lake Klein (map) at Greater Cleveland Council's Camp Beaumont. It's a neat little lake, one that I often hear doesn't have any fish in it.

I must argue though, that I've never walked away from Lake Klein without having hooked at least one fish, usually several and this time was no different.

First, though, we had to capture this very patient frog. He/she/it was hanging out near the Adirondack in the Sycamore Campsite that will eventually bear my grandfather's name. We painted it a few weeks ago and decided to check out how good a job we did. And while we were there, this little guy was checking us out, too. (We did put the frog back.)

We were there for Family Night, visiting our oldest Scout who is a Counselor in Training this summer for four weeks. He's learned quite a bit, worked really hard and has gathered quite a few stories to tell.

He's currently working his last week before coming home for a week and then packing up for two weeks of the 2010 Jamboree. Should be a fun July! One of the biggest things we've noticed with him gone this summer is the grocery bill has gotten smaller. The other is there's no one left who is excited about mowing the grass.

But seriously, we have missed him. And I cherish the Sunday drive out to camp with him and the time spent Saturday when I pick him up for his 22 hours at home each week.

Well, it seems that other wildlife was also curious this night. We had four or five damselflies that would land on a hat, someone's hair, the tip of a rod or the tackle box and just sit there.

If one got "shooed" away, another would take its place.

Have you ever wondered what the difference was between a dragonfly and a damselfly? Well, it's really quite simple:

the wings of most damselflies are held along, and parallel to, the body when at rest.

Well, the bluegill/sunfish were biting flies tipped with artificial maggots trailed about 18 inches behind a float.

Even my wife hooked a nice bluegill. So did the little one.

My oldest daughter (10, pictured) was having some trouble. We try to let our children be pretty independent in many things. In this case, that meant more fishing for Daddy.

It also meant some frustration a little further down the shore. I could sense some tears coming as she was having some difficulties, so I went over, helped her untangle her line and get the fly and the float in the right position. We've been practicing some fishing knots and this was a good opportunity to implement an Improved Clinch Knot. If I'd felt a little stronger on the blood knot, I doubt I would have had to snip, clip and re-tie everything else.

With a "fresh" maggot-like thing on the sharp little hook, she cast it out, began to reel it in and bam!!! she hooked a nice-sized one.

I think it's pretty easy to see just how proud she is.

And she should be, too.

The moon as seen from near Rock Creek Ohio on July 3rd, 2010.

Inspired by Jeanne's Toddler Skirt Tutorial over at Life in Cleveland, I decided to get some sky-blue and pink fabric for my daughters and give this a try.

A quick trip to Jo-Ann Fabric saw me in a weaker moment. The daughter (age 3) wanted a couple of different pinks and a couple of different blues.

Four yards later, we came home and I began measuring and cutting and sewing.

First, her waist is about 24" in circumference. (Oddly enough, so is the older daughter's!) Second, there's about 18" between where she wears her pants & skirts and her ankles. Third, I don't follow directions very well.

I cut about 16.5" off the 45" section of pink. And a 45" long strip of 5.5" wide blue. Then I followed the directions a bit, lined up the pink and the blue, rolled up the pink, made a tube of it all with the blue, pinned it and sewed it up. (See her blog post for better instructions.)

Turn all that right side out, iron the sleeve for the elastic, sew that sleeve, sew the skirt's sides, insert the elastic, fasten it into the sleeve and hand it to the girl to try on.

Then, it's outside to twirl around in the sunlight. We picked a daisy for an accessory (hope Mom doesn't mind)!

Of course the older one (age 10) wants one, too and Dad is quick to churn out another one. We still have plenty from these two yards for pockets and maybe a belt/sash, too.

The date/time stamps on the photos says it took 40 minutes to make the second one, however, I think it was a lot less—either that or fun makes time flies!

That was quite fun and I really like how they turned out. I'll cut out a couple pairs of pockets in a contrasting color (pink on blue and blue on pink), iron over the edges and sew those on tomorrow. And I still have two yards left for another two or three.

Eldest daughter brought me a skirt book with some excellent ideas for patterns which we might try. One is a double-layered skirt that would look excellent with the remaining sky-blue pink pair that we have.

Look, dad! It's as big as I am!

Well, not really, but it is a big fish.

At one time or another, each of my children have expressed wild fanaticism about fishing. With some of the children, it's happened multiple times.

A couple of Fridays ago we were out at Greater Cleveland Council's Beaumont Scout Reservation in Broadbent Camp's Sycamore campsite, (That's a mouthful.) painting my grandfather's Adirondack.

After the painting and before heading over to Orwell's A&W for some root beer, we stopped at Lake Klein and did some fishing.

I like to say that when you fish with children, you're lucky to get your line wet and this is largely the case. You're constantly untangling lines, clearing snags, baiting hooks or changing tackle.

I did manage to get a few mealworms onto a fly I would present to the fishes and I caught a couple of bream/sunfish that were worth eating. Some of the others caught some too, and with my favorite Repala ("borrowed" from and never returned to my dad's tackle box) I caught a small-mouth bass.

But Ben caught the big one.

The tackle box shown is right at 12", so that would put this fish at 13 inches or a little more.

Why didn't we take it home to eat? It's been a while since we tried, but back in the day, the children would insist that we bring the fish home and eat them. After doing this a few times and having the children refuse to eat them, we stopped. Haven't eaten a personally-caught Ohio fish in ten years.

Oh, and what did Ben use to catch this Behemoth? His new blue Storm Original Hot 'N Tot® #133.

Nice fishing, Ben!

We saw flowers and plants and frogs and birds and butterflies, oh, my!

Last night we enjoyed a fabulous dinner over at Cleveland's La Dolce Vita in Little Italy.

We sat outside on this cool evening and just took the time to catch up the other on the goings on. And since there has been quite a bit going on and even more going on to come, we took our time.

We shared a salad appetizer and both ordered the fettuccine. I had a glass of some delicious pino grigio*. We shared the chocolate cake.

You might think that because I can't tell you the details, that it wasn't fabulous. And you'd be wrong.

It was just that we were more intent on each other than the food.

(Photo from Flickr user KAHOONICA)

*Pino grigio says "summer". This was apparently a blend of pino grigio and chardonnay. It said "summer" all the way to the bottom.

I'll start by telling you that I don't know the answer to this question—I'm still struggling with how to answer it (although I've come to a current conclusion).

Background

You may not know this: I was recently (April) laid off from my company of 12 years. I'd known this was coming (was welcoming it, actually) and had been interviewing with a fair amount of success. But there was something nagging me in the back of my brain that said it was time to do something different. Reinvent myself, strike out on my own, take all that I've done and think about the problem from a different angle.

So I put things in motion so that when the day came (April 19th), I was ready to go the very next day. On April 20th, North Shore Nomads, LLC became legal, I started snapping up domain names, drafted a dozen different versions of a business plan, interviewed banks, realtors and brokers, joined the local chamber of commerce, got a cool logo, continued networking, talked with building owners and got things going.

And ordered business cards.

The Problem

What to put on those business cards? Is this a small business or maybe a startup? Am I an owner, a founder or an entrepreneur?

I'm taking an idea, finding that others have done similar things in other cities and bringing my vision of this idea to light in my own area. Sounds very similar to the example offered up on wikipedia for entrepreneur:

Entrepreneurs tend to identify a market opportunity and exploit it by organizing their resources effectively to accomplish an outcome that changes existing interactions within a given sector.

Since what I'm doing is a new twist on an old thing, I think that makes me an entrepreneur.

And for the moment (or until the cards need to be reordered), I'm the Owner.