Sirin’s Cookietown

Boodler Sirin sent these pictures along of her Christmas masterpiece...

Sirin (red hair) and Francesca (right) begin plans for Cookietown.


Controversial Graham Cracker townhouses


Cookietown Pond


Cookietown trees


Sirin and son collaborate to build Cookietown
(which he prefers to call "Christmasville")

Dancing Boodler

Charlotte BPH

We had a fun dinner at the Penguin Drive-In last night in Charlotte. Here are Jumper, Slyness and TBG...

TV Land

My son and I found a great deal on an old Magnavox TV from the '50s and had fun cleaning it up, taking out the old (nonworking) tube and screen and replacing it with a new digital 19" TV. Here is what it looked like when we bought it...


After cleaning it up, replacing the fabric covering the speaker area and adding a DVD player, here's what it looks like now...

Fall Splendor

Mr. G and I took an impromptu trip to Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia last weekend, not even realizing until we had embarked that it was 25 years ago that we visited there on our very first weekend trip together.


The colors were spectacular. Mr. G decided it looked like we were driving through a cartoon...

Vote Error in ’08

I'm very sad today because someone I never met in person has died. This isn't someone I just read about in the news or online.. but read online. He was one of my "imaginary friends" on the Achenblog: Error Flynn, or Bob Lewis, as his "real" friends and family knew him.

Error came to the Achenblog I think from early on. He was honored as a Guest Kitter last summer and explained how his clever handle was born from an error itself:

My handle was the result of typing 'Error Flynn' instead of 'Errol Flynn,' one of my childhood heroes, and the intrepid Bayou Self pointed out that not only was it an error but it had a sort of rolled off the tongue. That I typed "error" shouldn't be a surprise because as a software developer I type it quite often. In this case it worked out. There are many cases in art and music where a 'mistake' might turn out better than what's planned.

I will miss Error Flynn. I'll miss his posts and I will be sad knowing that he's not in my world anymore.

I'm glad I can go back and read his witty, kind, gruff and insightful posts and in that way I won't really lose him for good.

We've Been South Parked!

dbG's been South Parked...


I'd already been South Parked...

I've been Simpsonized!

Someone's in the kitchen with TBG...

When you wish....

May 7, 2007: dmd and TBG at the second Canadian-American Boodlefest. Here we are in front of the White House on the day the Queen was also visiting. Apparently I thought if I closed my eyes and wished hard enough, the person currently living in the White House would disappear. Sigh.

Great Test Answers

JA at the Corcoran

On Wednesday, Feb. 7, some of the BPHers and I trudged down to the Corcoran Museum/College of Art to hear the great Joel Achenbach address the issue of Surviving the Age of Bad Information. The talk was great; Joel was interesting, funny, relaxed... and seemed to enjoy meeting the DC Boodlers. Here's a picture of us with The Man himself...

(L to R: bc, Scottynuke, Joel Achenbach, TBG, mo (in front),

*Tim, Annie and Curmudgeon.
Not pictured: LostInThought, pixel and Friend of pixel.)

Our buddy Curmudgeon tells the tale...

. . . “Did I tell you about the time I met El Niño in a Mexican bar on a back street in Cancun City?”

Boodle Pinups

Thanks to a bea c for pointing us to this cool PikiPimp page.

A Model Cat

Who says cats aren't photogenic?

Achengirls Gone Wild at the Miami Book Fair

The Miami Book Fair started out like any other: with a huge dog. Kbertocci and I had our day planned out and it worked out even better than we thought it would.

We started out in a session with Kurt Anderson (Spy Magazine, New York Magazine, NPR, etc) and kbertocci was impressed when she mentioned something to him at the book signing and he said, "You've blogged about that, haven't you?"

While she went off in search of Jonathan Franzen's words of wisdom, I stuck around for Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's shenanigans. I was not disappointed.

We were a little sorry we didn't get in Dave's book-signing line so we could meet him (it would have been a little awkward since neither of us had any of his books) but as we were walking around the book fair we saw him approach, so we called him over ("Hey! DAVE!") and explained that we were Achenbloggers and told him about our Achengirls Gone Wild weekend. He had us at, "You mean the Boodle?" We asked him if he read the comments and he said, "Well... there's a lot of them." Ridley Pearson grabbed my camera and posed us for a picture--proof if you will of our wild weekend.

We went off to look for Cuban food and then returned to the Book Fair for a fabulous concert by the Rock Bottom Remainders (we couldn't get tickets for Barack Obama).

What a rockin’ show. Special guest appearances by Andy Borowitz, Daniel Handler and some other cool, baby-booming writer-musicians. One highlight of the concert: Dave Barry's I'm in Love with a Proofreading Woman ("She's got a great big dictionary and she never says, 'between you and I.'") Of course, Andy Borowitz's social-commentary song (The Monkees' I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone) was worth the price of admission (free).

With the Book Fair closed for the night (we could hear Obama's speech, but not see it), we left Miami and headed for Miami Beach and dinner with the Miami Achenfish, ready to get up the next day to return to the Fair for one more speaker: Carl Hiaasen.

After listening to Hiaasen convince us to buy his books, we stood in line for an hour to get them signed. He was more impressed with TBG's daughter's Greek name (his wife is Greek) than the fact that we are Achengirls. Oh well.

Time for the beach and pool....

My Dad at 21

My father served on the USS Stentor in the Pacific in 1945 and 1946. The ship, originally an LST, was reconfigured in 1945 as a floating machine shop. By the time they arrived in Hawaii the war was nearly over, but the ship toured the Pacific and he said there was still lots of fighting going on.

He had the best job on the ship: Captain's Yeoman, or secretary. It's amazing to think that a 21-year-old immigrant's son from DC could travel through Asia like he did. He also tells great stories of traveling back to DC by train from San Francisco when he returned from overseas.

My kids love to hear their grandfather's stories. Recently he was over for dinner and out on the back porch with my husband and kids while I was making dinner. My son came in to get the dishes to set the table outside and said, "I've got to hurry; I'm missing one of his stories! I just heard him say, '... so he grabbed the guy by the neck!' so I know I'm missing something good!"



My dad is the handsome guy on the right.

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The writing on the back of this picture says: "Shanghai Jan. '46. Krouse, Christie, [Dad], Judge and Moore."

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Dad's the one in the hat.