Orlando, FL

It was not easy to get up at 5:00 AM this morning and take the dog for his walk. We got very used to sleeping in during these last few days off!

As we stepped out into the hall, I noticed pine tree needles from the live Christmas trees the Waverly residents are bringing in. There were needles in the elevator car, and needles in the first floor lobby. After Christmas is over, every year, the garbage chute gets backed up because some idiot tries to drop their tree down the chute.

The phones were quiet for the first hour and twenty-five minutes. At 9:25 it began to ring and it became very busy. I think everyone was getting their email and stuff caught up from a long weekend off. We were very busy all day today.

I ate my lunch at my desk today. I packed a tuna fish sandwich, some chips, and a cheese stick for my lunch.

Bob has his weekly class on Monday evenings. So he is attending his Organizational Behavior class right now.

After walking Buddy this evening I closed the house back up and started the AC again because it has gotten warm in the house.

Anothing that I did was get the Kanthal electric resistance heating elements out that I ordered for my shop furnace project. I used a volt-ohm meter to measure the resistance of each coil (there are two coils). I measured each one six times and took the average.

Coil One averages 8.8 Ω (9.6 Ω max), and Coil Two averages 8.2 Ω (9.2 Ω max). Since Current = Voltage / Resistance, we can calculate how much current the furnace element will require.

Current (I) = 240 Volts / (8.8 Ω + 8.2 Ω)
Current (I) = 240 Volts / 17 Ω
Current (I) = 14 Amps

Safe enough. This will probably be used on a 15 or 20 Amp circuit. The Robertshaw range controller I am using is rated for 15 Amps.

Since Power (W) = Voltage x Current, we can figure out how much power the furnace will require.

Power (W) = 240 Volts x 14 Amps
Power (W) = 3360 Watts

One Watt = 3.412 BTU, so this furnace will create 3360 Watts x 3.412 BTU/Watt or 11464 BTU. That's pretty impressive for a small shop furnace!

The Kanthal element is rated for temps up to 2300°F. I am only building this furnace to melt Aluminum (melting point is about 1200°F), but this furnace could possibly be used to melt brass!

Dad phoned this evening to thank me for the Costa Rican coffee we sent to him. He also said that he got his Christmas card today. He liked the fact that there were pictures of me on the card!

Last night I began reading Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw - a collection of his columns from the New Yorker magazine. I have read some of these columns before - they are freely available on the Internet, but it is fun to read them again in the book.

Payroll gets deposited tonight. Craig and Debbie got their checks today, but there were no paystubs in the envelope for Vince and Fay in the package from Hollywood today. I will have to check my balance in the morning to see whether it's going to be a Green Christmas or not.

Weekend

Friday morning we had leftovers for breakfast. After a morning of surfing the Internet, we unpacked the Christmas tree and began putting it together and then decorating it. We put the tree up in the corner of the dining room. I unpacked my ceramic Christmas trees and put them out too.

We left the spare bedroom window open and the balcony door tilted in all weekend and have not needed to run the AC at all!

Bob burned a movie to DVD and we watched it in bed. He copied King Solomon's Mines to DVD, but as soon as it started to play we discovered that the Italian version was downloaded! We watched it anyway.

On Saturday we went out. First we stopped at the Pita Pit on Orange Avenue to get something healthy for lunch. Then we went to Skycraft to browse. I picked up $27.00 worth of doodads and surplus electronic parts. I really enjoy going to Skycraft!

In the afternoon I added the DS1302 real-time clock to my temperature-humidity project on the Basic Stamp Board Of Education. Now the LCD shows temperature and relative humidity for 2.5 seconds, then the screen switches to date and time for 15 seconds.

Bob wants me to make a Basic Stamp controller that senses when the plants outside need to be watered, then starts a pump and pumps water to the appropriate plant from a bucket, and turns off when the soil is saturated. It's doable, but it will take some time - we need to do some research like soil conductivity measurements when wet and dry, etc.

Mom called and talked for about an hour. She had her annual neighborhood barbecue and they were all exhausted. She said that she expects Dawndee and George to move on to Tennessee this week.

In the evening we watched a downloaded copy of The Echelon Conspiracy.

Today we went to Daytona Beach. We took Buddy with us because temperatures were cool and he loves to run in the backyard.

When we got there we found that the grass did not need to be mowed. Bob left to take his mother to get her hair done, and I worked on beveling and cutting grooves into some firebrick that I am going to use to line my small shop furnace.

Buddy attacked three lizards while we were there and he hunted the backyard for more of them!


Now we are back home, we have the kitchen floor Swiffered and I have the carpeting vacuumed and the glass tables all cleaned off. We have to return to work tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

Wednesday was a very short day at FER. Craig said we would be closing up shop at noon.

I stayed very busy getting last-minute quotes done and then getting the PO's scanned to send to Hollywood and making the weekly order report. FER-Orlando brought in $325k on this very short week.

When I left it was raining. It took about twenty minutes to drive home.

Bob had the day off and he had Thanksgiving pies baked when I walked in.

For dinner we had a Food Network magazine recipe - Spanish-Style Noodles With Chicken And Sausage. The recipe turned out edible, but we decided that since there are so many steps in the process, it was not worth it in the end and we would not be making it again.

On Thursday morning I got up and took the dog for his walk. When I got back I fed him and then started our Thanksgiving Dinner. Most of the meal would be prepared in the oven, and this made the preparation much easier.

First in the oven was the Jenny-O Turkey Roll. This required two hours of baking at 350°F, so it went in first.

Meanwhile I started to open the cans of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions to make the French Green Bean Casserole. Since we did not have any French cut green beans, we used wax beans, but it still turned out about the same.

I opened two cans of cream-style corn and crushed a stack of saltine crackers. I mixed the crackers and corn together in a casserole dish, and then crumbled up more crackers by hand and scattered them on the top adding ground black pepper.

Two tall cans of yams were opened and juice from one can was saved. I mixed brown sugar into the juice and poured it over all yams in a casserole dish. Once this had baked almost an hour, mini marshmallows were added to the top.

A can of Grands biscuits was opened up and set out on a baking sheet to be baked golden.

I opened a chilled can of cranberry jelly, slid it out onto a plate, and cut it into slices.

Last, but not least, a box of StoveTop Stuffing was prepared in a sauce pan on the range.

We had a real Thanksgiving Feast! We had leftovers for dinner and even breakfast the next morning!

In the afternoon we drove to my storage unit to retrieve Bob's Christmas decorations. While we were there we took the screws out of the rooftop rack and pulled the plastic air dam and bag rack out. Using the Dust Buster, we vacuumed up all of the sticks, leaves, and acorns off of the roof. No more sounds of acorns rolling around the roof as we drive!

We stopped at Advance Auto Parts on the way home and got new windshield wiper blades for Bob's X-Terra.

Thanksgiving evening saw temperatures plunging down to the 40's. We opened the spare bedroom window, tilted the balcony door inside, and turned the AC off. We watched a copy of Operation Valkyrie on the bedroom TV and DVD player.

Orlando, FL

During our morning walk Buddy and I saw a big raccoon on the sidewalk. This coon was so big I thought it was another dog at first! When he heard us coming he ran to the curb and dropped down into the storm drain to hide.

It was another good day in the office for me. The morning was a little hectic, but that's only because over $60k in new orders were waiting for me first thing!

Craig was in the office for about half the day, and he is a big help with the phones and giving directions.

He said that they aren't going to fire Debbie, but they are going to give her a lot more "focus" in her job. He said her attitude has really improved lately and he thinks that's because she's seen that there are no (zero) jobs out there. I made a few suggestions on things she could "focus" on.

He also said that they offered Chef Ryan a job, and he turned them down! I am willing to bet that part of his problem with the job was that the partners were going to require him to move to Orlando.

There was more traffic disruption today during the evening rush hour - an office downtown received an unusual package, and then a bomb threat was called in. Police blocked off streets in an eight block area while the Bomb Squad was sent to investigate the suspicious package.

Because it started to rain after I got home, Buddy only got a very short walk this evening. We ate cheese, pepperoni slices, and crackers for dinner.

Orlando, FL

This morning I took Buddy down to the street for his walk at 5:30 AM. As we walked east on Pine Street I looked over into the devil strip and noticed a small TV or radio laying in the grass. I said to myself, "I'll take that!"

I carried the combination small black-white TV, AM-FM radio back home not sure if it worked or not, but figured it would be good for parts if it didn't work.

Work today was not as bad as I feared. The morning seemed to breeze right by. I got a sandwich at Subway for lunch. Then the afternoon went by fairly quickly. I'd say Craig was in the office about half of the day.

Rain was forecast for us today, but it never rained.

This evening I took Buddy for his walk, and then I fiddled around with the TV-radio that I found. The picture tube works, and the radio works, but the TV would not pick up any stations. I hooked up a length of coaxial cable to the back of the TV and stretched it across the room. Soon I was able to pick up one station broadcasting a vampire movie! Serrendipity!

Now I am printing address labels for my Christmas cards. I guess I should go to the post office tomorrow and buy some stamps for the cards too.

Weekend

On Friday night we ordered a pizza from Papa Johns for dinner and stayed up late surfing the Internet.

Saturday morning, after walking Buddy, we had a breakfast of leftover cold pizza. Then we began to move the TV out of the master bedroom and we drilled a series of exploratory holes in the column in the corner so that we could mount the flat panel TV Bob got for his birthday.

We found that the electric stud finder was almost useless for this task - it indicated studs where, when we drilled, we found none. The drywall is 1/2 inch thick, and two inches below the surface the drill bit tapped into the concrete column.

About a foot back from the inside corner of the column we found a metal stud. I went to my parts box to get some drill point screws left over from mounting the Moddi bed to the wall, but those screws were over 2 inches long -- too long, they would run into the concrete column. We decided that we would have to go out and buy shorter drill points at Ace Hardware.

We moved the old TV into the guest bedroom and set it on the lowboy facing into the room.

We went down to my truck and drove Bob to Great Clips to get his haircut. While he was getting his haircut, I took the truck to the car wash and get the truck vacuumed, washed, and wiped down. It looks much better now.

Then I drove back, picked Bob up at the barber, and we went to Ace Hardware to get the screws we needed. We picked up a tube of spackling to fill in the test holes in the wall too.

Back home we screwed the drill point screws into the wall, into the metal wall stud, and then screwed the wall-mounting wall bracket to the wall. We spackled the holes and then touched the wall up with left over brown paint. After we got the bracket tightened down we screwed the folding arm portion of the wall mount to the flat panel TV, slid it onto the wall bracket, and clipped it in place.

It works! Yeah! It looks very good too. We are going to have to get a wall mounted set of shelves for the rest of the AV equipment too. Then the floor space underneathe will be opened up.

In the evening I sat down and copied and pasted URLs from items that I would like for Christmas into a text document. Then I mailed it to Bob. He did the same thing today. Now we each have a guide for Christmas shopping.

Today we had a breakfast of eggs and turkey bacon. We each had a cup of yogurt with Grape Nuts cereal sprinkled onto (to imitate granola), and we had coffee.

Using a service partnered with Flickr, called SnapFish, I uploaded some of my pictures and designed a Christmas card to mail out for 2009. 35 minutes after I clicked the Submit button, I got an email telling me my cards were finished printing and that I could pick them up at a local Walgreens drug store!

We drove down to Michigan street and found the Walgreens and paid for the cards. We ordered 40 cards with envelopes and it came to $27.50. They turned out really nice! Now I need Christmas stamps.

Later I sat down and made a 2010 Calendar, but I have not ordered it yet - they cost $14.99 each, and I am over-drawn at the bank already!

On the way home from Walgreens we stopped at a place called Wing Shack for our lunch. That lunch, for me anyway, was so heavy that I was not hungry for dinner.

After walking Buddy we started to clean the house, and we are ready for another (hopefully short) week of work. Bob has to work two days this week. I have to work three days, and Fay is taking vacation, so my days will be busy.

Orlando, FL

Today we went out during lunch to pay a sales call on Matthew Tang at Fairway Restaurant Equipment. He gave us a big tour of his showroom and warehouse. This was my first time meeting Matthew. He calls me "Little Brother" and a calls Fay "The Working Mother".

After our stop at Fairway we stepped down two doors to the Golden Krust store where Fay used FER petty cash to buy an authentic Jamaican lunch for us. I tried the ox tail with peas and rice. It was very tasty. When the clerk heard that I had never tried Jamaican food before (except for that weird-ass soup Fay made once), she was surprised that I was trying ox tail - she said that's the last thing most people try. There wasn't a whole lot of meat on it -- mostly big bones.

FER-Orlando finished the week with $385k in sales. Hollywood brought in $145k. Together it was a good week for us.

This evening we took Buddy for his walk. Then I started laundry, took a good hot shower and some decongestant (my face hurts - sinuses), and we ordered Papa Johns pizza for dinner.

Tomorrow I am going to try to hang the flat screen TV Bob got for his birthday up in the bedroom. Then I am going to shower the dog and brush his teeth.

DIY Mechanical Chicken Plucker

Not for the squeamish or faint-of-heart. After slaughter and bleed-out labor-saving device will remove all of the feathers (except for a few pin feathers) from a bird in 90 seconds or less.

Orlando, FL

Today was a good day at work. It was not too busy for me. Our sales will likely pass $300k tomorrow morning.

This evening Bob had baked hamburgers, Spanish rice, and salad ready for dinner when I got home.

I have one more pair of Bob's pants to hem, but he said that I could wait until tomorrow to do it.

Tomorrow will likely be quiet for me as Fay and Craig will leave in the morning to visit Planning and Construction people at 10:30, and then go to lunch with Darden Development at 11:00. That will likely leave me alone in the office for most of the day.

Orlando, FL

Well, this week our sales are running right out of the starting gate. Today is only Tuesday and we already have $205k and counting! Hopefully we will be facing a "Green Christmas"!!

The latest "scoop" or gossip is that Martha Lozano, one of our workers in the Hollywood office is pregnant. By itself this would not be remarkable, but Martha is 52 years old and has an older daughter in college! I hope Debbie doesn't get knocked up too!

Bob's class is on Monday nights now. Last night I came home and walked Buddy, then I sat down and hemmed a new pairs of pants for him to wear to work.

Fay is taking next Mon, Tues, and Wed off for her vacation. She's taking days off piecemeal to get some vacation in before the end of the year.

Tonight we baked quiche pies for Bob to take to Toastmasters tomorrow. Those old ladies love his quiches and they've told him that he will have to give a demonstration speech describing how to make them.

Weekend

This was another too short weekend.

Because Bob had to meet the inspector from Middleton Pest Control at Tom and Louise's house on Saturday morning to renew the termite bond, we went ahead and mowed the grass, and then went on to visit the parents in the nursing home.

We stopped at Wal*Mart on the way to get candy bars for Tom and pink ankle socks for Louise (the home somehow lost all of hers).

During the long Thanksgiving weekend we are going to go back to Tom's house and replace his falling-apart backyard gate. Buddy will enjoy being able to run around the backyard as free as a bird.

I will also bring the stuff for my shop furnace and work on that too. I want to get the firebricks that will be used as the furnace cavity cut so that the electric resistance heating element can be placed into the groove and the bricks can be clamped (with a big hose clamp) into a hexagon.

I called Dawndee lastnight and she told us all about her new house in Tennessee and how excited they are to be moving. She also said she got the coffee we mailed her, but that she doesn't drink it.

Today I made a breakfast lasagna of sausage, scrambled eggs, garlic, peppers, tomato paste, and cheese. I did this while Bob walked Buddy.

Later we hung the picture ledge in the office above (or behind) the Moddi Murphybed. Then we went to Wal*Mart to get some work pants for Bob and some food to make a quiche for Bob's Toastmasters meeting on Wednesday.

This afternoon I watched videos about the 1977 Tenerife air disaster while Bob took a nap.

Now that Buddy has had his evening walk, it is time to eat something for dinner, and then run the vacuum, dust, and clean kitchen floor. Time for another week of work.

Orlando, FL

The sky was much clearer this morning when I got up, but the temperature was in the 50's. I pulled on a sweatshirt to walk Buddy.

The picture I have posted today was made on Underground Signs. On this site you can make custom signs that are colored like, and use the same font as, the New York City subway system. Problem is, this sign posted here, would cost $400 for an 8-foot-long aluminum sign. I thought this would look awesome above our bed on the brown walls, but it's a little above my price range for home decor.

Craig cooked a turkey breast in the combi oven today and Fay and I had that with Uncle Ben's rice and a can of corn for our lunch.

FER-Orlando brought in $413k this week and Hollywood brought in $211k. So, overall, it was a good week for sales.

This evening we ate a microwaved bag of veggies, walked Buddy around the lake, and then brushed his teeth.

Tomorrow we have to go to Daytona Beach to meet the termite inspector at Tom & Louise's house. We will probably just go ahead and visit them in the home at the same time.

Veterans Day

With Proof-Of-Military Service I could have gotten a free six-inch sub at Subway or a free dinner at Golden Corral today due to my veteran status. I don't think I could find my old ID card or the DD214 right now if I had to.

I stayed fairly busy all day today. Our sales are creeping up on an average week that meets expenses.

Craig and Nick Baranet rented a truck today and moved several pieces of equipment from customers to our Public Storage warehouse.

Ate the two entree plate at Panda Express for lunch. I think I got food poisoning. I've been dizzy and nauseous since lunch.

I finished The Invention of Air - the biography of Joseph Priestley last night. I am reading some travel guides now.

Orlando, FL

I am almost over my cold now and I am starting to feel better.

Its been overcast these past few days. That has kept temperatures down, but it looks gloomy.

We had baked hamburgers with peas and Spanish rice last night for dinner. Then we took Buddy for his evening walk. We saw three cats and a big fat raccoon climbing a tree!

We went to bed early last night, like 7:30 PM early. I read more of my biography of Joseph Priestley and I am almost 2/3 finished with it! Will have to get more books to read! Ha!

I left a pound of hamburger to thaw in the sink this morning. Bob will make chili for dinner with it.

A Single Man

Looks like another one worthy of going to the cinema to see.

Weekend

I felt like this truck all weekend - overloaded! My cold still has me "under the weather".

The Lake Eola Fall Arts Festival happened this weekend and we went downstairs and walked around the lake to look at it all. It was mostly a bunch of junk for sale. I asked Bob, "Why do all of these women with strollers show up for these?" He said it was because this was a free event.

I ordered two Kanthal heating elements, a controller, and knob for my shop furnace project. Those will ship from California sometime this week via ground service.

We napped in the afternoon. I needed it. Dinner was Papa Johns pizza delivered to our door. Then we watched a movie that Bob downloaded. Bob downloaded the 2009 film, Push, and burned it to DVD.

Today I finished the small paperback copy of Howl that I bought a couple of weeks ago, and then I started The Invention of Air - a biography of Joseph Priestley. We napped in the afternoon.

In the evening we walked to the bank so Bob could make a deposit. Then we came home, made canned Chinese dinner, and cleaned the house. Bob put a new coat of Mop-N-Glo down on the kitchen floor.

I am still sick with my cold, but I am better. I did not take the NyQuil last night before bed. I know tomorrow will be a big drag going to work.

Orlando, FL

I've had a debilitating cold these past three days, but I still went to work. Day-Quil and NyQuil have helped me through the day and night, but I feel terrible.

Fay took two days of vacation yesterday and today, but she still sent email missives from at home instructing me to do this and that. I wish that fat old bitch would just take a vacation and go away. Damn. No, no hostility here.

No hostility at FER like other workplaces in Central Florida today. Just one day after a gunman at Fort Hood shoots twelve people hearing that he was going to be deployed to Iraq, a lone gunman walked into a high-rise office building in downtown Orlando and started shooting workers in the office he used to work in.

I was blissfully oblivious to this until Bob phoned to report that downtown was on "lock down" because of the shooting and he did not know how to get home. Before long they had I-4 closed from JYP to Longwood and the eastbound traffic began to back up past our office.

Craig returned to the office and we followed the story on the TV news. The suspect left the office and went across town to his mothers apartment. She was unaware of what he did and she went out. Later she heard what happened and called police. She told them he was in her apartment alone. The SWAT team surrounded the apartment, called him out, and arrested him.

He shot six and managed to kill one of them. I sounds like he's had some very bad luck since he was fired by that engineering firm and really resents them for firing him two years ago.

This evening we had cajun pork chops on rice for dinner. Then we walked Buddy. We saw lots of little tents being set up for the Lake Eola Fall Arts Festival this weekend. They have three streets blocked off for this event too!

We are supposed to brush Buddy's teeth on Friday evenings, but he just ate dogfood, and if we brush right now, we will end up with a brush full of Iams.

It's time for me to get some more NyQuil and try to get over this cold.

Orlando, FL

Today was a long day for me. I stopped on the way to work and bought a box of Day-Quil capsules and I think they helped with the congestion, but I was tired and sore all day with running nose and sneezing.

I shipped another Delfield item today filling a Darden order. When the truck driver from Estes arrived, he said, "Oh, you need to get that crate up higher, my pallet jack won't fit under it." I replied, "Well, it was delivered this way."

As we were stepping outside toward the ramp and loading dock, he said, "You got a couple more guys to come help us push this up on to the truck?" I told him, "No, you and me are going to do it."

"Jeez"... I muttered to myself as he went to back the truck up to the dock, "I'm going to call the Estes terminal and tell them to quit sending pussies out here to load trucks! Shit, I'm sick today, but I know we can get this loaded up."

Fay starts her vacation tomorrow, so I know the next couple of days are going to be challenging.

Today's picture is a sneak preview of the cover of our latest book.

For dinner we had a Publix rotisserie chicken with some potato salad. Next I am going to go guzzle half a bottle of Nyquil, try to get some of the last 20 pages of Celia's book read, and get some (hopefully) good restful sleep.

Orlando, FL

On Nov. 3, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 carrying a dog named Laika. The American press referred to this satellite as "Muttnik". Laika died a few hours into the experiment from stress and overheating.

Today was another hectic day for me. I got an order for one of the Delfield items we used during the Darden Lunch-N-Learn sessions. I filled out the Bill-Of-Lading, and had Estes come and get it. I am glad we are getting these units moved out of the kitchen.

I think I am coming down with a cold. I've had sinus congestion all day and I feel very tired.

During lunch I went to the cheap Chinese tools store to get a very inexpensive (cheap) tile saw to use on my small shop furnace project. I got a flimsy plastic unit with diamond blade for $17. I got two extra cutting wheels with it, and I found a variety pack of cotter pins on clearance.

FedEx delivered the draft copy of our Costa Rica vacation book titled "Pura Vida Loca". Just like before, Blurb.com did a great job on it. We will spend some time editing the book, re-upload it, and then order copies for family and friends.

This evening we had a little "accident" while walking the dog. There was a man running around calling his dog, but he was also talking to his neighbors at the same time. The long-haired dog came up to Buddy and I told Bob to grab the dog's collar and hold on to him.

The man almost got into his truck leaving the dog, but I said, "Hey Mister! Is this yours?" He came over and started to drag the dog away, but Buddy's leash was tangled in her legs and I was following them into the street. I had to drop the leash and the doggie bag I was carrying to get them untangled.

We remarked about what an ass that man was as we walked home. In the elevator to the second floor to check our mail I discovered that I had dropped our house keys. I knew exactly where I had dropped them too - where that asshole was dragging his dog across the street.

We went back there and searched, and sure enough, I found the key ring in the gutter right there. Doing all of this gave Buddy an extra long walk.

During the evening walk we stopped because we spotted a cat crouching near the front porch of a house, and then I saw what the cat was staring at - a racoon standing on his hind legs, about two feet tall. He was standing so still I thought he was a painted statue at first!

Because I was coming down with a cold, I was not particularly hungry and just had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then we spotted errors and misspellings in the book project.

Around 9:00 PM we went to bed and I read another chapter of Celia Rivenbark's book before nodding off to sleep. I was tired.

Orlando, FL

I guess it was kinda nice to get to sleep in an extra hour before getting up to go to work. I think I felt more rested this morning. It was especially nice to have potable water and air conditioning back again!

Today was a steadily busy day today. This morning the president of Garland/US Range, Jacques Seguin, announced that the Freeland, PA factory will be closing June 2010. This is just the beginning of the troubles we will see with Garland in the coming year.

Debbie stayed at home today because she had a cold and she felt terrible. Poor little lamb.

During lunch I went to the post office and sent souvenir packages to Dawndee and George and another package to Dad.

After the post office I went to Hiawassee Veterinary Clinic to buy six months of heartworm medicine for Buddy.

Then I stopped at my storage unit to put some stuff inside.

On the way back to the office I pulled through the Panda Express drive-thru to get lunch. Incredibly, I was able to get all of my errands run and get back to the office in under an hour!

It sure got dark early this evening! We ate our Asian-style braised beef short ribs this evening for dinner. They had cooked for so long that they tasted a little "burned". They were "okay" and "different".

Weekend

On Saturday morning we went out to get our groceries. We went to BJ's Warehouse first and picked up over $300 worth of bulk supplies, then we went to SuperTarget to get another $140. The shelves are sagging with all of the foods right now!

As we went out I noticed our domestic potable water piping leaking again behind my truck. Bob phoned the front desk to let them know, but it had already been reported.

When we came back with groceries you could see that the plumber had been there working -- his ladder was tilted again the wall near the suspect pipe and all of the lagging had been cut off and was laying on the floor.

The water was turned off for a couple of hours.

When the day began I wanted to go to The Parliament House for Halloween Night so that we could see all of the creative costumes, but it turns out we went to bed early - like around 8:00 PM.

I read for about an hour and then fell asleep.

Around midnight I heard the Halloween party revelers down in the street screaming and making noises. It was a full moon.

This morning I got up around 7:00 (we changed the clocks back an hour this morning), and the water was turned off again. I started to make Asian Beef Short Ribs in the crock pot. Then we got our stuff together to go to Daytona Beach to visit Tom and Louise.

At the house we found the that the grass had not grown much and decided that we could get by without mowing this week. We put Buddy into the backyard and let him run his little heart out for a while. Then we went to Lowe's.

We got a new 2-stroke weed eater at Lowe's, and we priced solid exterior entry doors (we need to replace the side door on Tom's garage). After eating lunch at Crispers we took the grass whip back to the house, put it together, and did all of the trim.

It was afternoon when we got to the home to visit Tom and Louise. Louise wanted her cigarette. Then we visited with Tom for a little while. He didn't say very much, but he asked for ice cream, and we were able to get it for him. Buddy waited in the car while we visited.

When we got home this evening we found the water still turned off! Building management says it will be permanently fixed and turned on again between 9 PM and 11 PM.

For some reason the short ribs did not cook. I unplugged the pot, tested the GFI receptacle, plugged it back in, and then it started to get hot. I guess those are going to be tomorrow's dinner now. We fried up some French bread in butter and then spread red pepper parmesian sauce on it.

After that I ran the vacuum and dusted. Bob is checking out HVAC companies to come look at our AC (it's hot in here), and then he's going to run the Swiffer in the kitchen.