GardenGrrl's WunderBlog

Sears Website has Zombies! Link.

Posted by: GardenGrrl, 7:33 AM GMT en Octubre 25, 2010

Sears is now in the business of marketing clothing and appliances to the Undead. Hopefully they don't take the site down as it was for Halloween, but here is the link. One word of caution; It Is Graphic!

The Zombies are gross and disgusting but because this is Sears, the whole thing is really really FUNNY!!!
.Link

Here it is almost Halloween so how about a tour dedicated to funerals. Admit it, we are all curious about death. Even with hands covering our eyes we peep through our fingers to get a look.

Death has been big business since humans could speculate on an after life. We spend our entire lives figuring out how to avoid death and in the end, most cultures look for ways to keep avoiding it. Preserve the corpse, build monuments, offer sacrifices to "Gods", all ways to cheat death and embrace immortality. Still, death happens to the best of us. That's what makes Halloween fun. We can thumb our collective noses at our primal fears.

So, enter if you dare....The National Funeral Museum tour
Bwaaaa Ha ha!

Even Presidents die. They have a whole exhibit dedicated to all the Preisidents. There is a black silver studded replica of Lincolns Casket. President Reagans casket weighed over 600lbs.

The museum has a great collection of hearses. This one is my favorite, it's a 1920 Rock Falls Sterling hearse. The exterior is made up of six different types of beautifully hand-carved wood. I do have to apologize for the quality of my pictures. The adjustment knob broke off my camera and I forgot to bring the tweezers I use to turn the dial to the settings I want.

Here is a magnificent Old English hearse with coffin inside.

Here is the back of a 1920's standard hearse with common casket.

They also had an area dedicated to funerals of famous people with memorabilia collected at the actual funeral. Here is the service sheet from Anna Nichol Smith, a famous Texas gal.

Here is a wicker basket that you don't want to put your laundry in. This brings us to funerals in the 1800's.

A collection of fine Victorian mourning garb.

Ever wonder what an embalming room looks like? This is one from the turn of the century, although modern tables have not changed much.

Whats an embalming room without embalming fluid?

After preserving a cadaver we of course need a casket. This Glass Casket from the 1930's was designed to be hermetically sealed to keep the body fresh while it is interred underground or in a mausoleum. The Glass Casket, however, was discontinued because one, it was very heavy, and two, it tended to crack...when handled. Oops.

Who says you can't take it with you? This casket has money in both coin and dollars molded into the outside. The denominations range from pennies to hundred dollar bills. Several of these caskets have been sold and buried.

This three person casket has a creepy story. Back in the 1930's a young couple had lost their child and in their grief they planned on joining their child in the afterlife. The local undertaker agreed to have a custom built three person casket made so the husband could kill his wife then commit suicide and the whole family could be buried together with the child between mom and dad. (The child was on ice awaiting the custom casket) Well, the family changed their minds when the casket showed up and fled the area after the undertaker refused to give them a refund.

So this concludes the American part of our tour. How do people take care of their dead around world? Let's go to Japan where the average funeral costs about $37,000 US dollars. Cremation is the body disposal method of choice in Japan which should make funerals economical. The Japanese like very elaborate funerals. Here are some not really great pictures of a Japanese hearse.

Exterior of hearse

In the African country of Ghana they like caskets that represent what a person did in their life. If they farmed or fished they had cows, fish, outboard motor replicas for caskets. Tigers and such indicated power. These caskets tended to cost a family a whole years income, but it is felt that such burials help someone get a leg up in their new life after death in this world.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great today, tomorrow and afterlife.Link

Updated: 8:42 AM GMT en Noviembre 01, 2010

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Beer Can House

Posted by: GardenGrrl, 8:48 AM GMT en Octubre 12, 2010

Just returned from a road trip to the Houston Pinball Convention. The weather was perfect so on the way home we did some sight seeing. In an older neighborhood not far from downtown Houston is a house that has been completely decorated with beer cans. All the cans used were drank on the property over many years by a very happy creative home owner and his guests.

The owners have long since passed away, but the house is being preserved by a Houston arts group.

This is the street view. (top photo) below is the mail box.

Here's a side view of the house.

You can sort of tell when parts of the house were done by the type of can used. Remember the old pop-top cans?

So that was one of the sights we saw on the way home after playing a whole lot of pinball for two days :-)

Updated: 9:03 AM GMT en Octubre 12, 2010

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Hoarding, because nature abhors a vacuum.

Posted by: GardenGrrl, 4:40 AM GMT en Octubre 06, 2010

Back in August someone wrote in one of their blogs, "Nature abhors a vacuum." Suddenly my mind produced a very clear picture of the middle room in my house with the words written across it, "Hoarding, because nature abhors a vacuum."

It once was the craft and project room with a few shelves to store things before we built a shed. Over the years it became the, "Oh just throw it in the middle room we will get to it later place". I really should have taken a before picture. I am almost done with cleaning out and organizing the room. You can see the carpet now.

Yes, a lot of stuff went to the dumpster. Yes the neighborhood scurried off with lots of things set on the curb that could have been sold in a yard sale. Then again, I'm not the haul eveything out in the yard and sit around all day trying to sell it type.

Sorting went like this; Is it worth less than $30 dollars?
Have I used it in the last 3 years?
Do I plan on using it in the next year?
If the answer is yes, no and no...out it go.

Or, if one of us says, "I didn't know we had one of those"...out it goes.

The only exception being tools. Maybe in another 10 or 20 years I'll sell mine cheap to someone getting their Journeyman card.

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