Eggs and Other Updates

Hello friends!

In my last post I noted that it would be a few months before our chickens started laying eggs. Well today we got our first egg. It was from Rose.  It is hopefully the first of many. The chickens have gotten quite big!

Rose up front. They think I'm their rooster.

So I'll lead with the good news, but here's a brief life synopsis since my last post. I'll hit the highlight of each month.

The firefighters had to put it out with my garden hose.

In June my beloved 1984 CJ7 Jeep caught fire. It was a total loss. But insurance did pay me more for my claim than I paid for the jeep. But it did not cover all the hours of labor and parts that I put into that wonderful vehicle. It's probably for the best though because Carly didn't like it and now we have more room in the garage. 

The Alamo

I also brought Carly along to a work trip in San Antonio.  That's a city that you can do everything there is to do in about 18 hours.

Tubing in Virginia near the West Virginia border

In July all of my cousins on my dad's side met up at my cousins house near Blacksburg, VA for a cousins weekend. We went to a hippie/folk festival called Floydfest. We also went tubing on the rivers of Appalacia. Early in July I went to Denver for a work conference, and really had a good time in Denver.

Friends from Seattle visiting San Diego

In August I took a work trip to Guam. In terms of minor US possessions, Guam has to be one of my favorites. It's like a more relaxed Hawaii. So many beaches and unmolested nature. I would have no problem living there even if it meant the main store I shop at is K-Mart.

At Andersen AFB on Guam

September also took me to a far-off locale. This time it was a week in Peru, again for work. I spent most of the time in Lima, but also went to Puerto Maldonado along with Iquitos.

On the Amazon

On the way back I stopped in Ann Arbor to hang out with the collegiate crew. It's too bad I was deathly ill the whole time.

It's always good to be back in the big house

Starting in October I scaled back the travel. The best think we did in October was take a little weekend trip to Palm Springs. Carly's boss warned us it is a gay Mecca, and he wasn't wrong. We had a delightfully relaxing time and at some food that a couple on the street recommended as being "super yummy!". It was.

Drinking a poolside beer in Palm Springs

The other excitement from October was finally getting rid of the Barbie collection (and other dolls) that Carly inherited. We decided to donate them to Toy-For-Tots. Hopefully the kids who get them won't be too confused as to why they are getting a 90210 Brenda and Dylan doll.

The Barbie Collection

We'll that's all the big news. Although in a week or so, I might have another small post announcing something. We'll see...

Brian Builds A Chicken Coop

As my followers are aware, back in 2008 I attempted to raise chickens in the backyard of my college house. I ultimately was stifled by the unfair chicken laws of Ann Arbor which favored the landed gentry.

But alas, I vowed to one day fulfill the promise I made to myself to build my own chicken coop. Friends, that day has come. I proudly present the greatest and most challenging project I have ever undertaken, and one for which I am exceedingly proud.

The Completed Coop

When we bought our house two years ago, one of the immediate plans I made was to construct a chicken coop. A few other projects took priority, but eventually this spring I just decided to go for it. I spend a few weeks researching coops, and then made a few sketches and started building. I didn't have a real design to go off of, so I just kind of designed it as I went. I think it worked out okay, but there were some things I would do differently if I could build it again.

Here are some pictures from the project.

The base - with clean out opening.

The walls framed and ready to be assembled.

The cupola in progress.

At this point the chicks arrived in the mail. They lived in the shower so the cat wouldn't eat them. I still had plenty of work to do, and their smell really added to the urgency of getting the rest of the coop finished.

The day old chicks.

The walls up and assembled. Probably more solid than needed for a chicken coop.

The roof and sheathing were done the next weekend.

Me roofing the coop.

At this point I had the roofing done, the access door on and the chicken wire around the base.

The chicks are a few weeks old and watching me build them a home.

The run structure is built and ready to be installed.

The run structure in, and ready for the chicken wire.

The inside of the coop, pre-chickens.

The nesting boxes inside the coop.

The hens exploring their new home. Their roost is behind them.

The hens looking outside the coop.

Finished Product! The extension cord is temporarily there for the heat lamp.

In case you're wondering, the hens are named Dorothy (Easter Egger), Blanche (Easter Egger), Sophia (Welsummer), Rose (Barred Plymouth Rock) and BONESAW MCGRAW (Australorp). It will be another few months before we start getting our eggs, but the hens seem happy in the back yard. When they start laying we'll be getting 20-25 eggs a week.

I really enjoyed the challenge of building the coop myself, but it took a lot longer, and a lot more trips to the home center than I anticipated. I really couldn't have built this without having a pretty big collection of tools. Carly doesn't understand why I need 5 types of saws, but I swear I used them all on this project.

I feel like after building this coop, I can pretty much build anything. I'm not sure if that's true, but I was able to imagine something and then build it in real life, and the sense of accomplishment is without compare.

Happy 5th Birthday to my most reliable content!

THE INTRODUCTION!
For a five years now I have annually blogged about how many Happy Birthday Facebook posts I receive. I now have 11 years of data going back to 2006. I think I can safely say that I am the only person in the world who blogs about about their yearly Facebook Birthday posts going back to 2006.

This year didn't see anything earth shattering. I clocked in at 42 Facebook posts. The exact same number as I pulled down in 2015. But for the first time I have also included other birthday messages in the chart using data I have going back to 2013. The non-facebook breakdown came in at 5 text messages, 2 snapchats, 3 emails, 2 calls and 2 cards. I got nothing on my newest social media platform Instagram even though I posted a picture of me having a birthday beer. 

THE CHART!

As Brick pointed out - I was a real asshole in 2011.

THE DETAILS!

I'm down a Rachel Morgan. This year I received a facebook post from only one of the two Rachel Morgans in my life. This is disappointing.

Total Friend Count. I'm officially at 600 Facebook friends, which is up from 590 last year. There were several messages from my newer facebook friends. So maybe I need to make at least 10 Facebook friends each year just to maintain my status. This seems like a lot of pressure. Eventually once I have a little more data the bar graph will feature total friend count as a line on the chart. I gotta save some new features for next year.

The Ray-Man. For the 7th time in 8 years Ray has dutifully left a "Happy Birthday" post on my wall. It's always exactly the same message "Happy birthday". I'm starting to wonder if Ray has a Happy Birthday facebook bot, which apparently do exist! Which would be cheating. But then why didn't I get a message in 2011, and how come in both 2009 and 2010 he left "Happy Birthday" with a capital B? What's the story here? I implore each and every one of you to become friends with Ray Smith and track his birthday postings.

*Also, what if you have a FB Happy Birthday bot, and then the person dies and you wish them happy birthday after they are dead. That would be bad.

More Investigation. In my quest to determine more about Ray I went to another Michigan Alumnus's FB page that has a birthday on March 4th and saw that he too had a "Happy birthday" post from Ray. I suspect he is equally as acquaintanced with Ray as I am. But the real shocker was that with only 690 facebook friends this guy is getting 79 facebook posts on his birthday. You guys need to step your game up.

Lastly. I have now been called a fartface on my birthday for four years in a row by my friend Beth. 

Asia Adventure 2016

I just returned from a 3 week trip to Asia, and have decided to memorialize it via the blog. It was a work trip, so most of my time was spent doing work stuff, but the trip did take me to 4 cities in Japan along with visits to South Korea and the British Indian Ocean Territory. 

The Ramen Game in Japan is strong!

A street in Yokohama

The team I traveled with left on a Friday and after a short 12 hours of flying we landed in Japan on Saturday night. Sunday was a rest day due to the time change so we made the most of it by walking around Yokohama where we were staying. It's Japan's second largest city and had some cool attractions, most notably a HUGE museum to the Japan's favorite invention of the 20th century - instant ramen. 

Me at work. Working.

The work week was long, but during the nights we were able to get some authentic Japanese food and Chinese food, as we were staying in Yokohama's Chinatown.

Yokohama's Chinatown

On Thursday we went to the base of Mt. Fuji. Luckily it was a clear day so I was able to snap a pic with the mountain.

A clear day at Mt. Fuji. The locals taught me how to pose.

On Saturday we spent more time in Yokohama and relaxed a little bit before moving down near Nagasaki on Sunday. Saturday night had a beer festival, which was a great time. I had a coconut stout that blew my mind.

Relaxing by having fish eat the dead skin off my feet. Kinda gross, but it felt terrific.

Yokohama at Night

The team enjoying the Yokohama beer festival

Riding the bullet train

On Monday we traveled to outside Hiroshima, but between the work and travel didn't have much time to enjoy the local culture.

On Wednesday we took a ferry boat over to South Korea. It was a high-speed hydrofoil ferry that put the Seattle ferries to shame. A smooth ride was further made enjoyable by a couple of Japanese beers.

Getting off the Ferry in Busan, South Korea

We were only in South Korea for two nights, but it was a fun little adventure. I found the part of South Korea we stayed in to be very interesting, but the people didn't seem as friendly as they did in Japan. Due to the language barrier we ended up accidentally ordering Chicken Feet for dinner the first night. The second night we played it safe with a seafood barbeque hot pot type meal.

Enjoying some Soju before the accidental Chicken Feet order.

The accidental order of Chicken feet. I tried to eat one but gagged.

The better meal the second night. It was real spicy!

The second weekend we spent in Tokyo at a very nice hotel that is run by the DoD. It is in a great location.

We were close to nightlife in Roppongi, so of course we had to leave our mark on Tokyo by becoming the shot champions. And then going back the next night to re-take the record away from our challenger.

Becoming shot champions of Tokyo the first time.

Becoming shot champions the second time.

We also did a tour, since we felt we should do at least some tourist things and see the sights.

The view from the Tokyo Tower

We hit up the Tsukiji fish market, the worlds biggest and enjoyed our last sushi of the trip.

The fish market had lots of fish and other odd foods.

Sunday was a hangover day.

Monday we flew out to Diego Garcia which is in the British Indian Ocean Territory. We flew 8 hours to Malaysia and then another 5 to Diego Garcia. We flew in a plane than had been converted to mostly haul cargo. It took a long time to get there.

Diego Garcia from the plane

We were only in Diego Garcia for 30 hours, and then started our trip back to San Diego. That trip was even longer, and took about 36 hours, including 22 hours in the air. I was exhausted by the time I got back to San Diego.

I got to spend a total of about 10 minutes on the beach at Diego Garcia

Everything is a long way from Diego Garcia

We went to a Mardi Gras party in Diego Garcia. The cover band's guitarist did this during the solo of Freebird. Epic.

It was a good trip, but very tiring. Lots of moving around, and long work days. But it was cool to experience the different cultures and while I would go back, I wouldn't ever travel to or from Diego Garcia without a stop in between! 

Happy 9th Blogiversary!

My loyal readers,

I don't know how many of you still exist, but to those of you who do - kudos on your commitment to this blog. It's been rarer and rarer that I post here, now that I have the twitters, the facebookers, the snapchatters, the instagrammers and the grinders. While many moons have come and gone since my last post, this here blog has never been far from my heart. So with that, I wish myself a happy and successful 9th year of blogging, which is about a third of my overall life thus far.

Getting married - it didn't happen in a field though.

Seeing as my blogiversary post has either been forgotten or delayed the past several years, I'm proud to write a few lines for the 2016 blogging season. My last on-time blogiversary post was on my 3rd Blorthday in 2010. And if you haven't picked up on it yet, I intend to continue to mostly blog about how much blogging I do. I should blog more!

Golfing in Puerto Rico whilst very hungover

My last post was in May. Since then, just a few minor things have happened. I got married in June which was nice. I went on some trips to Puerto Rico, Seattle, DC, Detroit, Costa Rica and the Caribbean. I didn't blog about any of them, but looking back I probably should have. I've continued to work on my house and still like my job. So there is the Christmas Card for you.

I have several things I should blog about, and perhaps one of my goals for 2016 will be to blog more, but it seems like I'm sticking with a kind of outdated system. But whatever, I do what I want, and it's my blog so if I don't want to post for 9 months then deal with it! So there.

Skiing in Tahoe

Blogging is easy. Convincing myself to blog is hard. But either way, here's to a great 2016 and an even better 9th year behind the keyboard of whatever this blog is called now.