Silflay Hraka

A Scotsman without his beer belly is a weak Scotsman indeed.

The best places for the family to fish in North Carolina.

Chasing Summer Walleyes.

Beer Can Chicken

Beer Butt Chicken*

Barbecued Beer Chicken

Which beers are best for grilling.

*(reg req Use guest23/guest23)

I’ve been working from home most of the week. Sainted Wife’s minivan is the body shop recovering from its run-in with the father-in-law, and the various comings and goings required are made much easier if I stay home with the kids while she schleps back and from the house to the body shop to the rental car place. Plus, we’d been informed that no, we couldn’t have the rental equivalent of the minivan, would we like a Taurus?

The Taurus might be a fine vehicle when it comes down to it, but it’s obviously not nearly as easy to install one’s kids, their car seats, and all their associated gear into one as it is with a minivan–so I stayed home to help reduce the pain the ass factor in the wife’s life. Given my penchant for cursing at the monitor when things go wrong, I suspect my office mates are enjoying their vacation from my company. Plus, Ngnat is learning lots of new words–some of which may have come from her mother when the insurance company told us they weren’t required to give us a minivan just because that’s what was in the shop. We were getting a Taurus whether we liked it or not.

Except, we didn’t, as the rental place was fresh out of Tauruses…Taurusi…Fords. Oh, frabjous day! Sainted Wife returned in, of all things, a 2004 Suburban–which she loved, and the woman is not a fan of American cars, believe me. It could have eaten the minivan whole and had room to spare for a Volkswagen or two. It could run down the entire Earth Liberation Front without waking the baby in the back seat. It’s a squirrel squishin’ deer smackin’ drivin’ machine.

Zod: Canyonero!

Big. Damn big. So big that if one isn’t looking, the right side passenger door will close right over the automatic lock/unlock handle for the garage door opener chain drive, causing the truck to pull the garage door down on top of itself when it backs up, not to mention ripping the garage door motor mount brackets right out of the ceiling when your husband tries to take your four-year-old daughter to the pool, expanding her vocabulary considerably.

Fortunately, our garage door opener installer had the presence of mind to affix a bright sticker with his number on it to the back of the door on the day he installed the opener. “24 hour Emergency response!!!” it read, making me wonder exactly how many garage door emergencies there are at, say, three in the morning.

I got his voice mail. 20 minutes later our entire neighborhood lost power–we still don’t know why. We tied the garage door down with weed eater mono, then sat in the hot dark for five hours before going to bed. It was a hell of a night.

He called back this morning–the power had come back on in the night, obviously. One ten-minute appointment and $75 later we had a functioning garage door–one with a brand new sticker, as the old one was showing worrying signs of age.

“Those are my retirement,” he said.

Aside from a crease or two, the garage door is fine, as is the Suburban. Not a scratch on it.

We’ve retied the automatic lock/unlock handle so that it doesn’t hang down quite as far.

The 88th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is hosted by Spot On this week.

Those who don’t get the pop culture reference in the title are advised to read this and listen here, lest you be forever embarrassed by a lack of knowledge when it comes to obscure dirty songs of the early 80s.

And yes, The Nails are still around.

If you’d like to host the Carnival, drop us a line. Information on how to join the Carnival can be found here. If you would like to be added to the Carnival announcement list, send an email to cotvanities-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Upcoming Carnival stops include

June 2nd Read My Lips
June 9th Ambient Irony
June 16th Jessica’s Well
June 23rd A Single Guy In The South
June 30th quasi in rem
July 7th democrats give conservatives indigestion
July 14th d-42.com
July 21st Soundfury
July 28th – Jeff Doolittle
August 4th – Seldom Sober
August 11th – The Smallest Minority
August 18th – Fringe
August 25th – Ego
September 1st – Blogo Slovo
September 8th – Food Basics
September 15th Silflay Hraka – The One Year Anniversary
September 22nd – The Eleven Day Empire

Be sure to check out the Carnival’s offspring:

The Bharteeya Blog Mela
Bonfire of the Vanities
Carnival of the Capitalists
The Kissing Booth
Carnival of the Canucks
The BestOfMe Symphony
The Carnival of the Cats
Carnival of The Consumers
The Tangled Bank
The Carnival of The Liberated

Update: Links to sound files are only temporary. If it’s gone, you were too late.

The best commencement address ever.

Link via Andy

The best commencement address ever.

Link via Andy

The best commencement address ever.

Link via Andy

Two more deaths on the Outer Banks due to drunk kids speeding down the beach.

No idea what the long-term repercussions will be, but this won’t make driving around come October any easier.