Back to the Blog at Last....
I went out of town for the weekend in early June and just now got the laptop set up again. I could have blogged from my desktop machine, but that's not as convenient as sitting in my favorite comfy chair at the end of the day as I relax.
Trip Report:
I had a good trip. I took a day off work so I could have an extra day to visit friends and take my car to it's "home" dealership for some service (the nearest VW dealership to me normally is about a hundred miles away). The dealer fixed a factory recall issue for me, but claimed to be unable to find any leak in the trunk despite running my car through the carwash several times. I found this to be very interesting given that the carpet in the trunk was wet when they gave my car back to me. It appears I'll be fixing the leak myself.
I didn't have lunch with Carol, Cindy and Gary on Friday, but I did hang out at the police department for an hour catching up with them. However, we are going to have lunch when I go through town after the Chicago Marathon in October. So, for lunch I went to Zorba's and said hi to Matt. And ate a whole basket of fries all by myself.
The class I taught went well. There were ten people in the class. We had one guest speaker fail to show up, so we were a bit short on material. Most of the guys in the class worked for paid fire services, so the material didn't necessarily apply directly to them, but most of them participated in the discussion at some point or another. The course evaluations were favorable and I was asked to come back again next year for Fire College 2008. With any luck we'll have a bigger lineup of guest speakers. I've also decided to revamp the course.
I did get to have lunch with Tom, Leslie and Lindsay on Sunday. That was awesome. Tom has recently taken on being a shift supervisor at Pro. This has irritated a number of his former peers. Personally, I think he'll be an excellent supervisor. He's the most fair-minded guy I know and repeatedly puts what is best for the company ahead of what is most convenient for himself or others. This is annoying people. I also got to have dinner with some buddies from Pro. Not nearly enough time spent with friends, but it was all the time I had between my schedule and theirs.
Trip Photos:
Trip Report:
I had a good trip. I took a day off work so I could have an extra day to visit friends and take my car to it's "home" dealership for some service (the nearest VW dealership to me normally is about a hundred miles away). The dealer fixed a factory recall issue for me, but claimed to be unable to find any leak in the trunk despite running my car through the carwash several times. I found this to be very interesting given that the carpet in the trunk was wet when they gave my car back to me. It appears I'll be fixing the leak myself.
I didn't have lunch with Carol, Cindy and Gary on Friday, but I did hang out at the police department for an hour catching up with them. However, we are going to have lunch when I go through town after the Chicago Marathon in October. So, for lunch I went to Zorba's and said hi to Matt. And ate a whole basket of fries all by myself.
The class I taught went well. There were ten people in the class. We had one guest speaker fail to show up, so we were a bit short on material. Most of the guys in the class worked for paid fire services, so the material didn't necessarily apply directly to them, but most of them participated in the discussion at some point or another. The course evaluations were favorable and I was asked to come back again next year for Fire College 2008. With any luck we'll have a bigger lineup of guest speakers. I've also decided to revamp the course.
I did get to have lunch with Tom, Leslie and Lindsay on Sunday. That was awesome. Tom has recently taken on being a shift supervisor at Pro. This has irritated a number of his former peers. Personally, I think he'll be an excellent supervisor. He's the most fair-minded guy I know and repeatedly puts what is best for the company ahead of what is most convenient for himself or others. This is annoying people. I also got to have dinner with some buddies from Pro. Not nearly enough time spent with friends, but it was all the time I had between my schedule and theirs.
Trip Photos:
The levee floodgate in Cairo
The Quad
Weekend excitement
I decided to open my pool this weekend. I got the job about half done. It would be all done if the pump motor hadn't seized. The next pump should arrive by Wednesday. I've already started adding chlorine since there isn't any detectable free chlorine in the water. Once the pump is installed, I'll throw in some shock and finish getting things cleaned up. I'll have to move the bin of pool tools out to the backyard or to the yard shed. I'm not going to dig through the garage every time I need to get the pool vac out.
Surprisingly, getting the cover off the pool wasn't the hardest part, though that did entail scooping up about 150 pounds of rotting leaves off the top before I could pull the cover off completely. That'll be a nice addition to the compost pile. The hardest part of the whole operation was getting the darned pool steps set up. You see, the steps float. That made it impossible for me to attach them to the pool ladder. So I had to drag my regular ladder out, then jump into the pool and attach things from inside. Now I need to get something heavy to weight down the steps. The previous owners used two bags of play sand, which probably worked fine, but at least one of the bags of sand has ruptured, which will make for an "interesting" cleaning task. I don't think the sand will be good for the pool vacuum.
Anyway, I got a nice workout for my shoulders and the beginnings of racer-back tan lines while scrubbing the pool floor and deploying the leaf rake. I will have to scrub the pool cover this week, let it dry, then fold it and store it. Right now it's spread out over the section of the lawn which has poison ivy in it. I figured I might be able to cook the poison ivy to death and kill two birds with one stone. (So far the only thing I have found to kill the poison ivy is undiluted RoundUp concentrate and I'm not entirely certain that completely kills the darned stuff.)
Garden Goodies!
You hate me. The blackberry bush is covered with ripening berries. I picked a quart of them yesterday. I might make a blueberry/blackberry cobbler later this week. Yum!
More philosophizing coming soon:
Despite a dearth of postings, I've got a list of things to ramble on about, including guys, eating, the garden and whatever else I have written down on my list carefully stored in the other room. In the meantime, I need to get to bed.
I decided to open my pool this weekend. I got the job about half done. It would be all done if the pump motor hadn't seized. The next pump should arrive by Wednesday. I've already started adding chlorine since there isn't any detectable free chlorine in the water. Once the pump is installed, I'll throw in some shock and finish getting things cleaned up. I'll have to move the bin of pool tools out to the backyard or to the yard shed. I'm not going to dig through the garage every time I need to get the pool vac out.
Surprisingly, getting the cover off the pool wasn't the hardest part, though that did entail scooping up about 150 pounds of rotting leaves off the top before I could pull the cover off completely. That'll be a nice addition to the compost pile. The hardest part of the whole operation was getting the darned pool steps set up. You see, the steps float. That made it impossible for me to attach them to the pool ladder. So I had to drag my regular ladder out, then jump into the pool and attach things from inside. Now I need to get something heavy to weight down the steps. The previous owners used two bags of play sand, which probably worked fine, but at least one of the bags of sand has ruptured, which will make for an "interesting" cleaning task. I don't think the sand will be good for the pool vacuum.Anyway, I got a nice workout for my shoulders and the beginnings of racer-back tan lines while scrubbing the pool floor and deploying the leaf rake. I will have to scrub the pool cover this week, let it dry, then fold it and store it. Right now it's spread out over the section of the lawn which has poison ivy in it. I figured I might be able to cook the poison ivy to death and kill two birds with one stone. (So far the only thing I have found to kill the poison ivy is undiluted RoundUp concentrate and I'm not entirely certain that completely kills the darned stuff.)
Garden Goodies!
You hate me. The blackberry bush is covered with ripening berries. I picked a quart of them yesterday. I might make a blueberry/blackberry cobbler later this week. Yum!
More philosophizing coming soon:
Despite a dearth of postings, I've got a list of things to ramble on about, including guys, eating, the garden and whatever else I have written down on my list carefully stored in the other room. In the meantime, I need to get to bed.
Comments
Pool sounds - interesting. Can't wait to read what you've been thinking of lately.