About Me - My Last Name

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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I found this online regarding my last name (Lehane) and thought it was pretty cool.


Among the interesting tidbits I ran across is the meaning of the origin of the name, which I got from the Ancestry.com website. "Lehane" is a reduced Anglicized form of the Gaelic 'Ó Liáithan', meaning 'a descendant of Liáithan', a personal name from a diminutive of 'liáth' which translates as 'gray'. Therefore 'Ó Liáithan' translates to English as 'a descendant of Gray'. This opens the remote possibility, that the Gray and Lehane family lines share a distant but common ancestry.

Home Remodel - Building a Bar

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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Building a Bar

I have been steadily working on the new house for some time and I wanted to publish some photos of my current project - the bar. Now the bar I built in my old house was far larger but I spent much less time on it. My hope is that this one will not only be functional, but it would also blend in well with the woodwork.



This first image is of the space that we are putting the bar into. It is next to stairs going up into the rest of the house. The only problem is that the bottom half is a false wall covering the entrance to the crawlspace. This meant that I had to make the bar completely removable if someone needs to get under there.



This is what the bar looks like that I added. I has some problem with the finish on the doors so that will need to be redone but I think it looks good so far. I tried to match the pattern of the walls with the doors but we wanted it darker so it would stand out a bit.



On the inside we wanted to use as a storage space for bar stuff (like cups and shot glasses) so I put in shelves. Not bad looking figuring the entire thing can be removed in under 5 minutes.

The 306 Greatest Books #79 - The BFG

Note - This review was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The BFG by Roald Dahl. This book can be found on the Observer and BBC Book Lists.

The BFG is a children's book about a little girl who discovers a Big Friendly Giant (AKA the BFG). Along with the BFG, there are other giants who are not so friendly, well, because they eat people. The plot of the story is that the little girl convinces the BFG to take the bad giants down. I found this to be a rather gruesome story for a child but ended up being a perfect children's book. My main gripe, and this is a general gripe with Dahl, was that the made-up words got to be a bit tiresome after a while. The story has clear cut morality issues and includes a heroine who is just your everyday kid. It is a good story for kids that parents do not need to be too worried about, despite the gruesomeness. Overall, the book was enjoyable, but it was just not my cup of tea.

The 306 Greatest Books #78 - Robinson Crusoe

Note - This review was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. This book can be found on the Sybervision and Observer book lists.

While I was reading Robinson Crusoe, I definitely got a Cast Away feeling about the book. I know many people thought that Cast Away was a boring movie, and the book came across the same way. It just seemed to drag on forever. At the beginning of the novel I kept waiting, and waiting, for him to become ship wrecked, and then when he finally was, nothing exciting happened. For a book that seemed to be billed as an action-adventure novel, I got none of that through the narrative. It's not a totally bad book and I rather enjoyed the plot, I just felt it was really slow at times. I found it amusing how, no matter what Robinson did, he seemed to end up with the short end of the stick. One major problem I had with the book though, was that Defoe constantly referred to the Native Americans/Native Islanders as savages and cannibals. I can see how Crusoe might have thought of them that way at the beginning of the story but even after meeting them Defoe continued to show them eating other humans. Sorry, but cannibalism was not that widespread. This is a definite pass for me.

Presenting Our New Dog - Jackson

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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We had went to buy dog food the other day and they happened to be having what they called a "Super pet adoption". I thought they could fly or something. I was apparently wrong. But anyway, by the time I locked the car the wife was already in the middle of a swarm of puppies.

I saw this one puppy that looked so sad in his cage and he was the same puppy they had up for adoption over a month before. We ended up taking the dog for a walk and I still felt really bad for him because he was 7 and it was likely he was not going to get adopted. So we decided to take him home. Well afterwards I found out he was in a foster home at the time so I felt less bad than before.

Well now that we have him home. He seems to be slowly adjusting. He is much higher energy than either Twix or Aikman, so it is a big adjustment for us all. Twix still is not sure what to do with him. She is the alpha of the family but Jackson is trying to take over so Twix is very unhappy. But hopefully she comes around soon.