More About Brian Naess

Photos

I'll be moving my favorite photos to Picassa albums shortly.

Shout Outs

My mom has a great townhouse at Inlet Beach, Florida that is now available to rent throughout the year. It's located in between Panama City and Destin in a quiet part of the Florida panhandle. It's a beautiful spot, with uncrowded beaches, good fishing, and many attractions and restaurants nearby.

If you love Ireland and especially, Donegal, you should check out my tribute to The Hilltown, our home away from home.

If you love volleyball as much as I do, then you should check out the home page of Villages Volleyball, the greatest thing to happen to Wednesday since it was named "Hump Day".

Check out kayakfishingstuff.com for everything you need to know about kayak fishing.

If you are looking for affordable, professional house painters, you should contact Juan Moreno at morenospainting.com.

If you love seafood and you are near Chapel Hill, you should definitely try Squid's. Their hush puppies are awesome.

If you love disc golf and you love UNC, then you definitely need to check out the Carolina Disc Golf Club!

News/Announcements

Memorial Day croquet extravaganza! (06/01/2010)

The 2010 Memorial Day croquet tournament was a huge success! Probably the best turnout of all time, despite not having Pizza Boy in attendance, because he was, of course, too busy making pizzas. We had players from all over the country show up, from North Carolina all the way to Colorado. The weather was almost ideal, though play had to be suspended for about 30 minutes due to a thunderstorm. Conditions were ideal, with lush, wet grass in most places, though there certainly was a fair amount of bare earth exposed, especially in Sissy's yard (insert Puerto Rican joke here).

Notables: The "front nine" was re-designed to allow for reverse passing through the electrical boxes. It seemed that all players were happy with the set-up, except for Sissy, who insisted that the course was too easy. Dirty Harry played the most consistently, though he almost lost some respect by not showing up on the final day of the tournament so that he could "relax". After a battery of harrassing phone calls, he relented, missing only 2 games. The highlight of the tournament, though, was the exceptional enforcing. The Professor seemed to take it upon himself to enforce almost every game, earning him respect from all players except for Dirty Harry, who never loses the opportunity to play on while the person in front of him enforces! But, the king of enforcers this year was Beerhands. He may not be able to play through all the wickets and tap the stake, but that man sure can knock people's balls down the hill! T-Mo suffered the most from Beerhands' wrath, when Beerhands struck his ball so mightily that T-Mo's ball exploded upon the bricks at the bottom of the yard. He had to play the rest of the game with a black ball, which thoroughly confused Dirty Harry. But T-Mo was not Beerhands' only victim. After being sent down the hill in a particularly vicious attack, Nasty literally lost the will to finish the game, and in the process, finished the game in 6th place for the first time ever.

All in all, much fun was had, and it was great to see everyone out there on the course. Looking forward to more croquet!

Surprise Start to Extreme Croquet Season (04/06/2010)

This brief report was submitted by Dirty Harry:

We had a great Easter weekend and found time to kick the croquet season off with a few hot games. We managed to get three players together to test the new fraction scoring for this year. It started out very consistent until the heat had us tired towards the end. This gave Tyson a chance to win too. As you can see John was on fire, but HH was the most consistent player, solid with no big swings.

Thanksgiving Croquet Tournament - PS (11/29/2009)

Well, I spoke too soon! Tyson and Austin came home from their Sunday activities and demanded more croquet, and who are we to deny?! We had to re-set up the course, but it was well worth it for Nasty, who earned another couple of firsts. Also, Sissy managed to win a round convincingly. But, most notably, Sissy had second place wrapped up in the third game by a LONG shot. Actually, many long shots. Instead of tapping out and taking second, he decided to dodge and weave the repeated attempts by Pizza Boy to knock him off the hill, toying with him. But, Pizza Boy had the last laugh, as Sissy waited too long, and Pizza Boy managed to tap the post before Sissy. Then, out of the blue, Beerhands hit a couple of fantastic shots that culminated with a 100 mile per hour pole strike to take third, leaving Sissy standing there next to the pole with his mouth open!

Thanksgiving Croquet Tournament Update (11/28/2009)

It was another exciting tournament of croquet this past Thanksgiving, and we should all be thankful for the amazing weather that we had. This year's tournament was exceptionally tight, though the games were, by and large, not that competitive. It was tight, because so many different people won at least one game. It wasn't competitive, because it seemed that there were only a few games where everyone played at the same level.

Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues, there were only two days of play this year.

Notables: Dirty Harry was absolutely awful in most matches. Pizza Boy played exceptionally well. T-Mo was hot when he was hot, and NOT the rest of the time. T-Mo did delight the crowd with his spiffy croquet outfit on Thanksgiving, though many in the crowd wondered if his nice duds had more to do with the fact that his potential future in-laws were in the house! Some even whispered aloud whether he still dresses himself... Sissy had his moments of brilliance, including a long distance enforcement, but he also made some bad decisions that cost him dearly in the rankings.

Read ALL news

RSS Feeds

Indoor experiment over - We decided that we didn't like having the system inside. Two main reasons: 1) it was partially blocking access to our sliding glass door, and 2) we we...

Downspout Silencer - It's crazy, but I had a dream last night about how to make my downspout on my indoor unit quieter. So, I got up this morning and tried it out, and aft...

Small System Upgraded - Well, I moved my portable system inside to see how we'd like it indoors, given that my plan was to raise tilapia fry/fingerlings over the winter. All ...

New Portable System Built! - I've had some serious discussions with a new group called AquaPlanet about going into business together. My role would be a "partner", and I would bas...

July Update - Just a quick update with photos. Things are going pretty well, except that every now and then, my tomato structure will fall down. The plants with lar...

Trouble with German Johnson's - From the beginning, they seemed a bit weak in the system. I bought them as organic seedlings from Whole Foods. They just never seemed to take well to ...

Update and a Reminder - First, the reminder:- Once your plants are well established and large, you should check your drains periodically (maybe every 2 weeks) for root invasi...

Problem Solved! - I went with the cheap and easy option - elbows! Found a neat little piece of conduit in the electrical department for the overflow ($3). Kinda looks l...