Lone Locust Productions

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  • Ingenious Hanger

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    I’ve watched more than my fair share of “This Old House” and, having once been a construction worker, I’ve seen more than my fair share of kitchen cabinets.

    I’ve never seen a more ingenious wall hanging system than the one featured on IKEA’s cabinets.

    A metal rail is securely fastened about a quarter inch from the ceiling. Into the rail bolts are placed, which are positioned so that they protrude through the back of the cabinet.

    You just fasten the rails, place the bolt and lift the cabinet over the bolts, then secure them.

    In this picture, Mr. Soong, our handyman, is placing the first cabinet.

    You can also see in this picture that the offending soffit has been removed..


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  • Some People Call It “Fun”

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    Somewhere on a sign at IKEA, there’s one of those question and answer style signs that says something like, “How come I have to build everything myself?”

    and the asnwer says, among other things, “…some people find building their furniture fun.”

    Talk about trying to put a positive spin on a tedious and often frustrating experience!

    Here I am in this picture assembling one of my “fun” wall cabinets.


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  • Macbook – No Show

    Macbook back

    So the new MacBooks came out yesterday (coincidentally on the exact same day that my iBook suddenly started running terribly, terribly slow – coincidence or conspiracy?) and we went down at lunch to the Apple store to take a look.

    They didn’t have any and so my credit card was safe.

    I had to use this picture from someone else’s flickr account, because I still haven’t seen one.


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  • Stage One Demolition

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    In anticipation of Thursday’s removal of the soffit, I’ve begun to remove the cabinets.

    First the base cabinets were removed. I was not happy to discover that the flooring does not continue under the originals. This might make it more difficult when we come back later to install a new floor.

    You can see the lovely original kitchen color on the walls. It almost matches the almond-colored stove.

    I’ve also removed the doors from the upper cabinets. Unlike the new ones, which are in 3 sections, these old cabinets are one unit and so I was not able to bring them down safely by myself. They’ll come down with the soffit tomorrow.


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  • Crazy Jim’s Pizza

    Crazy Jim’s has been just around the corner from my house for years, and I must admit, I don’t go there very often. Not because I don’t enjoy it, but just because it’s small, crowded and a little on the expensive side.

    The picture here was taken in August when we made our first “review” visit, but I was not feeling well that evening and came down sick the next day. I felt it probably had impacted my enjoyment of my pizza and so decided not to review at that time.

    Last week we tried again with more success.

    Crazy Jim’s is always busy and they should be, they make a good pizza.

    One thing I really like about Crazy Jim’s is that, for dine-in customers, they’ll only make a 9″ pizza. I don’t know why they do that, but I’d like to think they’re standing on principal: “Smaller pizzas are always better and if you’re dining in we’re going to serve you the best pizza we can. If you’re traking a pizza to go, you probably don’t care about quality anyway, so let them eat big pies.”

    I’d like to think that’s it, anyway. In the absence of testimony to the contrary, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

    There’s nothing I’d classify as outstanding about their pizza, except that it’s consistently well-prepared and cooked. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, but it is a little on the expensive side.

    They also serve greek food which is pretty good, too.

    9″ Pepperoni, $8.75 or $0.14in2 (0.138)

    Conclusion: recommended

    Crazy Jim’s Restaurant
    4041 N 15th Ave
    Phoenix, AZ



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  • …and so it begins

    We’ve begun the kitchen remodel.

    These are a couple of photos stitched together of the west side, which is the smallest side. The lower right-hand corner is really a distortion created when i uploaded the file to flickr.

    We’ll be replacing these 1970’s reject cabinets with something a little more modern. We’ll also be eliminating the soffit so that we can put ceiling-height (39″) cabinets in.

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  • Z Tejas, Semi-Review

    Z Tejas

    Went to Z Tejas for Mother’s day. I’ve always assumed it was a pretentious, fru-fru place, and it turns out I was right!

    One thing about pretentious restaurants, no matter how good something sounds, they always manage to find something to ruin it, some incongruous ingredient that indelibly stamps the chef’s unique perspective on the whole affair.

    I settled on the Stuffed Pork Tenderloin
    Medallions which is described as

    pork tenderloin medallions stuffed with chorizo sausage, cheese, onion and poblanos in a roasted garlic cream sauce. Served with mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans and carrots.

    It turns out that it was extremely good.

    Pity there wasn’t enough there to feed an anorexic ant! The three medallions were about 2.5-3″ across and only had a .25″ thick ring of pork medallion left after the center had been hollowed out. Nonetheless, the pork was good, the stuffing inside was very good, the sauce complimented it nicely.

    Good thing there was an ice cream shop nearby so I could fill up after dinner.


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  • The Floppy Inn

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    My dad always tells me about a place in Florida called the Bottlecap Inn. It was covered floor to ceiling in bottlecaps done up in intricate designs.

    It sounds like a bit of Americana that’s bound to be long gone, but, perhaps a modern day version, like this desk with every surface covered with floppies might catch on…


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  • Volcanoes Are Just Cool

    National Geographic => Volcano Spews Lava in Indonesia:

    I wouldn’t want to live under this volcano, but it sure makes a cool photograph.

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  • Ruins From Space

    Space Imaging => Ancient Observatories

    Google Earth can be a lot of fun. I’ve tried tracking down Easter Island, the Great Pyramids, Machu Picchu and others just to see what they look like from space, but, Google Earth doesn’t always have high resolution pictures of the interesting places (mostly because they’re in the middle of nowhere – Easter Island barely looks like a land mass.)

    Spaceimaging.com has posted this series of photos of some of the more interesting ruins around the world.

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