So... How About Them Knicks?

Again, not enough for a cogent theme.  Here are a few paragraphs of personal, wacky, snoozy, project-y, puzzle-y, and site-update-y things, though.

Personal: I helped out at the church barbecue this weekend.  The rainy weather made cooking 640 birds take much longer than usual so I was really feeling it after hoisting and flipping eighty pound racks while inhaling a dense cloud of chicken-scented buckyballs for six hours.  On the upside, my contact lenses were finger-lickin’ good afterwards...  

Wacky: I figure there is an exact right level of specificity regarding menu items and packaging for foods. If you are overly specific or too vague, the food becomes horribly unappealing. For example, Chicken Nuggets probably sound ok, whereas Bird Nuggets or Animal Nuggets do not and, on the other side of that coin, Disease-Free Domesticated Chicken Nuggets also sound gross.

Snoozy: We took down eight trees out back and planted three new ones in their place.  The old ones, as majestic as they were, were very nearly pushed over on top of the house a few times during this summer’s storm-a-thon so money well spent, there.  Dudes who take down trees for a living are surgeons or magicians... maybe both.  I think two of the new ones will survive (the trees, not the lumberjacks - I am sure they are fine.).  Not so sure about the third.  They were all planted in what was basically 18 inches of pure clay, so we will see.

Project-y: Started building little knick-knacks to put inside Geocache boxes.  The ones you see on the drying rack in the pic are meant to be little wooden GPS units.  They are 2.5 x 1.5 inches and are made mainly from part of an old (1930s-1940s vintage) maybe-maple table top I salvaged from the side of the road.  The buttons were cut from a leftover oak dowel I had sitting around.  The coarse tools I was forced to work with (coupled with a clear lack of planning or skill) resulted in an obviously-hand-crafted look, which is cool. These ten took about two hours total labor.  Once they have been used up I will make a new set of ten items, this time I think home-made yo-yos or little leather and wood books... not sure yet which.

Puzzle-y: Wow!  It has been a super long time since I have posted a hint for the Puzzles on the Secret Puzzle Page.  Here is the fourth hint for the New Desk Puzzle:

Hint #4 (Posted 10/02/12): Nyvpr qvqa'g xabj gur nafjre, rvgure.

It is encoded using ROT-13 to avoid spoiling the fun for those who don’t want a hint just yet.  Need more hints or just want to check out the other puzzles?  Check the sidebar (up near the top, there) and Good Luck!  Send me an email or just leave a comment if you have figured it out.

Site-Update-y: I added a new book to my reading list, cleaned up the sidebar a bit, and completely removed the WolframAlpha stuff I had there.  In the old days (like a year or so ago) you couldn’t shut me up about the benefits of the site and its awesome “computation engine”.  Now, though, every damn time I ask it anything at all it times out or gives some half-baked interpretation of my input or basically says “I can tell you, but I’m gonna need about tree-fiddy.”  I respect that they need to make cash, but good grief, people, rein it in a little.  

See you soon.