The Time Sink

...and so it came to pass that the third week of summer school had started and grades would be coming out Tuesday (since this is really the end of the 'first semester' of the academic block. ...and the great chasms in the front yard grew daily, but in reality, not by much, as the hardpan out here defeats the efforts of the smallest member of the tribe. ...and the patriarch sometimes just doesn't have any shovel jumping left in him some days after work.

Heat is the name of the game this week: it's like 98F today, but they're expecting 108 for the holiday. ...and they quit calling Thursday and Friday: something about a 'record' and '113' kept coming up.

The Fourth! ...and for the first time in perhaps recorded memory (as recorded by cameras and baby books) we're not over at the central coast: Daniel's summer school class assigned homework, and Shelley's not up to a three hour ride just yet.

...and pop we did. ...but mostly from eating and fireworking. ...and a knee joint or two from volleyball. We ended up at another of the 'soccer crowd' houses with about five families and a pool and spare time and a blender and a grill. That all worked out pretty well.

The debate will be whether the high point of the night was the fireworks out on the street or the three-hour volleyball game (score: 4322 to 4321 as best we could tell) with mixed adult/kid teams. There are a couple of dads who found out that their kids learned a thing or two this year playing in the school teams <g>... Even Daniel got in on things and really showed some strong stuff; I haven't seen him play sports much since soccer days, but he more than held his own no matter how the teams matched up. ...and Brad, well, I'll have to post the photo of him grinning after about his fifth service ace at the feet of the pair of parents working the back line.

Just a night spent kicking back from the heat of the day. A little time outside goes a long way when it's 110 for a couple of days in a row. ...time to knock out another book review and just chill.

Oh, that after a driving training ride out into the rural to check out a canal bank for the sunset. ...and to find out the dragonflies there were all sorts of numerous and not photophobic at all. Cool!

Hey, it was cooler today! It didn't start out that way, but it never really topped out much over 100. We were only supposed to be a few degrees below the century mark, but it just didn't get there.

That was good because it gave me a good opportunity to go over the current state of the drainage trenches we're working on and take a look at whether it will be worth the time to relocate the sprinker control valves in the front. It'll be work; but by the time we have everything opened up, I'm thinking it will be one weekend of 'Tinker Toys' and I'll be done for another fifteen years or so.

...and the plans for today will not include as much physical work as was originally on the list: I took a fall while blading yesterday and I'm going to have to not push things until I figure out where all the aches and pains are. Some are easy: my left ribcage took a hit when I fell with my left arm under it; deep breaths are a bit of a stretch, and the costalchondral muscles are all sorts of unhappy about extension. ...but I don't think I took out a rib like the last time, so I'll concentrate on the skin on my left arm and leg.

Yeah, my heavy-hands took a hit; they saved my hands again (for the most part) and are going to need replacement at some point because the foam is cut clear down to the steel. Darn...

At least I seem to put on a good show: the family around the corner and down the street where I wiped out offered to help put Humpty back together again, but I didn't seem to need it. The line of the day goes to their teenager though; he came out and said, "Dude, I know that one was rough, but it looked really, really good. I mean, that was an X-Games quality fall!"

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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