Pottery Barn Halloween

I love Pottery Barn's decor for Halloween. Very chic and I totally want a orange door now. Be sure to check out there website for their beautiful but spooky wall murals:

Skull Decal: $19.00

Black Cachepot: $69.00

White Pumpkins: $29.00

Feather Wreath: $49.00

Black Tapers: $10.00

Feather Garland: $29.00-$54.00

Voluminous Camilla Canisters: $54.00 - $69.00

Places to Go, People to See (NC #1):

One of my favorite places to visit is the Biltmore Estate located in Asheville, NC. It has an European, romantic and adventurous feel and there is so much to do there:

Discover the Wonders of Biltmore:

Plan your getaway to America's Largest Home, Biltmore House, surrounded by inspiring gardens, America's most-visited winery, and the interpretive River Bend Farm.

Play in our 8,000-acre backyard with an array of outdoor activities, indulge in one-of-a-kind shopping, and savor our restaurants' exceptional fare. Visit Biltmore in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, NC and let our gracious hospitality inspire you.

Need more details to plan your trip? View our Biltmore Visit Planner online.

Musical Road

As a transportation engineer I thought this was really interesting:


(Click photo to see youtube video)

From Autopia's "Most Annoying Promotion Ever" department comes this dispatch from Lancaster, California, where Honda's marketing team joined forces with the city to turn a stretch of road on the edge of town into a giant LP that plays "The William Tell Overture," which you might more readily recognize as the theme to The Lone Ranger.

The quarter-mile stretch of Avenue K renamed "Civic Musical Road" features grooves cut into the pavement in such a way as to make the tires resonate to the tune of Gioachino Rossini's classic symphony. The road, which Honda claimed sounded best when "played" on a new Civic going exactly 55 miles per hour, was just one of four "melody roads" in the world and the first in America. "I think it's kind of cool," Peggy Llano told the L.A. Daily News. "When you are driving out on Avenue K. you're going out to the middle of nowhere. It's kind of a nice surprise to come across this thing."

A lot of Lancaster residents disagreed, which is why we're writing about this in the past tense. The "musical road" is being paved over today, leaving only the YouTube video after the jump to remember it by.

For all the poorly chosen music we hear blasting from elaborate in-car sound systems these days, it's easy to see how Honda's groovin' pavement seemed like a good idea at the time. Let the road dictate the tunes, and let the car play them. Word has it that the Bee Gees were inspired to adopt the disco sound after enjoying the "beat" of driving over a wooden bridge crossing Biscayne Bay, which eventually became the rhythm guitar in "Jive Talkin'."

We imagine the dusty brown landscape of Lancaster's outermost reaches conjures up images of a certain Wild West hero. Just not in the middle of the night, or quite so loudly. Now the only masked men Lancaster residents want to thank are the fine folks of the paving crews restoring Avenue K to its former tone-deaf status. "When you hear it late at night, it will wake you up from a sound sleep. It's awakened my wife three or four times a night," Lancaster resident Brian Robin told the Daily News.

Honda's ad agency, which plans to include the musical road in an ad that will air later this month, chose Lancaster based on its feeling of openness and community. The city signed on because it wants to bring more film and TV production in the area, and road crews started cutting the grooves Sept. 5. "We thought it was far enough away," Antelope Valley Film Office liaison Pauline East told the Daily News. Who knew that the sort of folks who move to remote areas don't like to be bothered by strange noises, not to mention city-dwellin' tourists crowding their streets with Honda Civics -- some of them reportedly making multiple trips to play the tune over and over again like a skipping record. Honda officials apologized to all who complained, including some who lived as far as a half mile from Civic Musical Road and still heard it. Still, we imagine that Lancaster residents wouldn't complain about Honda's previous So Cal guerrilla marketing campaign, which had Honda employees pumping free gas and carrying groceries.

Maybe the problem was the tune Honda picked. One Lancaster resident suggested that old Beatles chestnut "Yesterday." Perhaps "Drive My Car" would have been a better choice. Let us know what tune you'd like to hear your car play.

News of the Weird:

Weird Science:

In July, microbiologists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the Malaysian pen-tailed tree shrew subsists on a diet of fermented palm nectar that is roughly the equivalent of 100 percent beer. "They seem to have developed some type of mechanism to deal with that high level of alcohol and not get drunk," according to one researcher, who hoped further study could help with human cases of alcohol poisoning (and other rare instances in which people ingest alcohol for purposes other than getting drunk). [MSNBC-LiveScience.com, 7-29-08]

THE CUTEST ALCOHOLICS I'VE EVER SEEN.......

Intelligent Design:

Among the photo exhibits at New York City's Museum of Sex in July was the display of the genitalia of the spotted hyena, which was described by Bloomberg News: "(B)oth the male and female have penises. The female, it turns out, has a scrotal sack, too. For reproductive purposes, the male transfers his sperm through the female's penis, which doubles as her clitoris." Other exhibits included "Gay Dolphin Blow-Hole Sex" and a "Deer Threesome," featuring a "Bambi" with two stags. Said the museum's curator, the exhibit simply compensates for museums' traditional animal exhibits in which depictions of genitalia are suppressed. [Bloomberg News, 7-25-08]

Try not to Laugh but:

Kay Underwood, 20, of Barrow upon Soar, England, risks momentarily collapsing every time she laughs, according to an August report in London's Daily Telegraph. Her cataplexy causes a sudden, dramatic weakening of muscles when she experiences strong emotions, including joy, excitement and anger. She said she has collapsed as many as 40 times in a day, and sometimes her friends will good-naturedly try to make her giggle, but she said she has learned tricks to protect herself, "such as locking my knees together or grabbing on to something." [Daily Telegraph (London), 8-6-08]

Daily Charity:

The 4-H Development Fund is committed to developing current and future leaders by securing and managing resources dedicated to supporting the 4-H Youth Development Program in North Carolina.

Programs We Support

Major Initiatives
North Carolina 4-H has a history you believe in and a future you can trust! This area showcases the major projects and initiatives that are on-going! Learn about the latest county or state endowment that will benefit a targeted program area. Explore current scholarships and awards programs that you can support. Explore innovative curriculum opportunities! The future of 4-H begins here! Learn how you can support our volunteers and staff.
Annual Campaigns
Wonder what your annual gift supports? Wonder how your end-of-year gift is earmarked? Each year the 4-H Development Fund puts out a “call for proposals” and the finance committee makes recommendation to the Board on those projects that are funded. Review those proposals that were accepted for the current year and select one that you’d like to support!
Camps & Conference Centers
Remember that first time you went away to 4-H camp? Where did you go…to Swannanoa in the mountains, Roanoke Island or Mitchell at the beach, Millstone in the sandhills, Betsy Jeff Penn in the piedmont, or Sertoma Challenge Camp? Perhaps you’ve participated in the Eastern 4-H Center (the replacement to Roanoke Island) or done wilderness camping at Anita Alta.Remember canoeing or learning to swim? Sitting around a campfire with new friends you were sure were the best you’d ever find? Remember tying your first lure to fish in Bull’s Bay or learning to rock climb at Pilot Mountain? Maybe you can remember taking your own food to camp! Get reconnected with the Camp you attended and find out more about how to help today’s youth create the same memories you have! Our North Carolina 4-H Camps and Centers provide experiences for young people that will last them a lifetime.
Special Campaigns
The 4-H Development Fund hosts major “friendraising” and “fundraising” events across the state. Look here for these exciting opportunities and join us for one or more! Our signature event, The North Carolina 4-H Lifetime Achievement Awards Gala, provides us the opportunity to recognize our outstanding 4-H Alumni and showcase today’s programs! Check out our plans for the 100th Anniversary of NC 4-H in 2009…or the opening of our 4-H museum! We sponsor several golf tournaments a year. We’d love to have you join us in celebrating North Carolina 4-H!!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

I don't know about you but one of my favorite things about Halloween is pumpkin carving. How can you not love of art that you light up? Plus you get to eat all the toasted seeds you can handle!Too much fun! Here's my favorite carved pumpkin from Martha Stewart:

Then this ebony bird
beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern
decorum of the countenance it wore.

"Though thy crest be shorn
and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven

Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore
Tell me what thy lordly
name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"

Quoth the Raven,
"Nevermore."

History of the Jack-o-Lantern

People have been making jack-o-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.
Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with it ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack O'Lantern."
In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o’lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack o’lanterns.
Source: The History Channel

Fall in Love with Fall!

I love Autumn! It's one of my favorite times of the year with the chaning colors of the leaves, the breeze in the air and most of all the delicious warm pies! So I dug up some classic pies from the Entertaining Goddesses Martha Stewart and Katie Brown (click on the links to get to the recipes):

Mile-High Apple Pie:

Pecan Pie:

Nutty Caramel Pumpkin Pie:

"When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmm, boy."

- Jack Handy

Van Gogh

I haven't been back on here in almost 2 years but I'm excited to start back. Here's another Van gogh painting I did.

Spooky Trees

A Foggy Morning outside our House.