The Time Sink

Well, well, well... Another calendar year is half gone. Gee, is that glass half empty or half full <g>? No matter, onward we will thrust, In God we Trust, and dig we must...

How did the weekend project go? Well, it's started. ...a little. The dependencies need to be defined a little better. ...and another idea cropped up in the midst of it all. ...but measurements are down and some things were boxed up, so I think we can say it's moved. Of course, they say the same thing about the San Andreas fault here: there's movement every day; you just need very sophisticated instruments to measure it!

...and it's for real: for the first time in memory (age can be a blessing), we are not headed for the coast for the 4th! It's looking like it will be my sister's place and a low key event for a change. Gee, what will I do not having 10,000 of my closest friends over for fireworks?

Heh, I missed the temperature guess on the blog by a few: it was 106F outside when I got home yesterday. I held off on blading for a day... Yeah, there are several more days of this, but I'll just have to blade later in the evening.

...and the weather won't be my friend today too much; after I finish at the DMV, I'll have a Costco run to do. Case lots in the valley heat... Ah well.

...and for those keeping score, that site changeout I've been sputtering on for the last month or so has reached the point where I can show the owner the first draft. ...and that's one thing I am glad to have to that stage. I'm learning a new template system and a new style sheet approach. That's stuff I like, but man, this one had way too many false starts. Yeah, when it's approved and up, I'll let you know. Hopefully, it will shake out this weekend.

Yeah, last night was nice. Very nice...

Work has been a bit of a bear lately and doesn't show any signs of slacking off for another month or so. ...and our usual vacation routine has been disrupted, so that detox system is not available. ...and the various permutations and suggestions for revamping the household were begining to take a toll.

So a little push of the <reset> button appeared to be in order.

Home for the holidays... Yes, for the first time in recent memory, our family is not at the coast for the Fourth!

Yeah, I'll really miss getting up at 0530 to put out chairs for the parade; and I know I'll miss the fireworks off the pier... But getting together with 10,000 of our closest friends, some of whom do not know the difference between a PortaJohn and a carport on their way out of town? Well, let's just say I'll be glad to be sucking down a beer or two at my sister's house while the kidlet's oooh and ahhh at the pretty sparkly things.

Hotdogs and drive-bys... Well, last night turned out to be darned nice. One thing I like about going over to my sister's place is the total lack of pretense and the ability to relax I find when we're there. I mean, the kids can just be kids and the adults can just kick back.

...and our guys got to be kids and not have to toe any particular line. ...and they got to cook their own hotdogs! Aunt Ann's youngest is in charge of setting the fire in their patio warmer and letting it go to coals. ...and their warmer has a grill on it. So he showed our guys how to skewer franks and cook them. Such a deal! ...and yeah, marshmallows too.

But man, they could hardly wait until dusk. They started in with those little 'popper' things (small tissue-wrapped dealies that pop when you throw them against a solid object) as soon as the sun started to set. ...and then kept going with them between fireworks displays. Heck, we even invited anyone driving by to join in. ...by spreading those things across the road so the tires would set them off. By my count, we went through about 2000 of them!

...and that's when the drive by occurred! This car full of teens watched one round of fireworks go off; and after they pulled through the hazard zone (setting off a bunch of the poppers), they pulled over and we could see a fuse being lit and sparking down. Well, at that point, the kids were clueless, but the adults were expecting an M-80 blast or some such and we were covering our ears. Nope, they sped off just as a 'Piccolo Pete' sent up its shrill screech into the night air...

...and what did we learn at Camp Bowman today? Well, we learned that to box and store things you need a place to put them. ...and to have a place to put them, you need to have a space cleared. ..and to have a space cleared, you need a place to put the stuff that was there in the first place (and is likely there due to another cleanup). Do the words "vicious cycle" make sense? I thought they would...

All is not lost though; I've cleared bookshelf space in the bedroom for the "gotta' haves". ...and the computer stuff will have a home in the garage as soon as I clear some space there. ...but as Shelley noted today when she started to ask, "Why don't you just move the bookshelves to the garage?" and came up with an "Oh!" as she realized that I needed to not only clear the bookshelves, but also the garage space...

...and she's in charge of freeing up storage space, only we don't know about the one dresser until we have a measurement on the new bed for Daniel and have the room planned out.

The game plan for today is to continue to sort and pack and throw away. It's a slow process given that I am a packrat by nature ("Hey, I can maybe use that somehow, somewhere, someday!") and that some of what I am going through is Really Good Stuff.

<sigh>

Sadly, that system just won't cut it here; there's simply not enough room. ...and I am also realizing as I go through things how little I really ever get to. Life has changed in the last several years and my father's words while we were arranging things in the garage keep echoing back to me: "Forget doing anything with these tools for about twenty years; once that first one is born, you just won't have the time" So true. ...and I don't see the homework situation improving any for quite some time. ...and when your quality time runs from 2200-->2359 most nights, big projects tend not to happen.