The Time Sink

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

...and it's another travel day as we head home from the coast. Pity, as the weather finally gave us a near perfect beach day on Sunday. Up until then, we'd put up with winds that made the shoreline sitting a bit of a pain. It worked well for the boys as long as they were in the ocean or in one of our excavations, but for the adults...

No matter, Sunday made up for it all. ...and I'm real glad we'd built today in as a travel day.

We'll be back again later in the month, or perhaps in early August; but for now we'll settle for the memories from this trip. Like the sand castle contest on the Fourth with sculptures of flags and bears. ...and the parade with fire engines, belly dancers, old Shriners, not so old Shriners, belly dancers, classic cars, newer bikes, unique entries, strange entries, and strange, unique belly dancers. ...and the fireworks in the evening.

The boys had a blast in the ocean, even without the wetsuits (no, I don't know why he took it off). Brad ended up striking water from digging a little too deep in Sunday's hole <G>; and mom and dad had some quiet time to just talk with each other (bonus!).

So we're on the road today, and back to the grind Tuesday... Seems I need to confirm exactly how much vacation time I have left; Shelley has to figure out when we can come back; and the boys have to settle for fresh water for a few weeks.

Well, that was sure and interesting trip back... Thank God (literally) that Shelley decided she wanted to check with the Target store in Paso Robles to see if they still had "water shoes" in stock (the local stores in Fresno/Clovis are already starting to stock winter goods). Route change! I'll take the main road back (Hwy 101) instead of the usual scenic route through the hill country.

Sooo, we're leaving the Target parking lot and all those years of driving fire engines and ambulances still leave me with that reflex to check the gauges every time I put a vehicle in gear... Hot! Real hot... A quick stop: I have water in the overflow; I don't have a fan moving air. Okay; deep breath... A quick two block run says she gets hotter when we're moving: air flow across the radiator does not help. Stop the vehicle and shut down where Shelley can stay cool and we can call AAA. My decision tree has us down to: water pump, thermostat or just maybe the fan relay. Any way you cut it, it's a tow to a shop at 1500 in the afternoon. ...and maybe the motel gig. Sheesh.

Well, AAA sent a tow operator who listened to my story and promptly hauled us to a ASC certified shop. That guy was booked to the max; but said he would look at the van as soon as it cooled down. We got along well: I could answer his questions and he could get enough information from me to feel comfortable that I hadn't blown anything up (all that time I spent running our shop just paid some dividends).

The owner was even nice enough to have his receptionist call the local Best Western to confirm they'd have a room for us if need be... So we waited, and waited, and waited. With a six-year old and a nine-year old...

Then one of the guys freed up and had a look; listened to my story again; and said he was going for the thermostat. Seems the fan relay sensor on that model is located in the radiator. Hmmm... Hot water; no fan... I'll buy that.

Three hours after we started overheating, we were back on the road. ...and very thankful for the chain of events that occurred. If I'd have taken the normal route, we'd have been in some real hilly terrain, far from help and dealing with a much hotter ambient temperature. A sure recipe for frying an engine.

Ah... It's great to be back. Not! ...not when the overnight low temperature is the same as the mid-day high temperature where we've been for the last ten days. ...and the clothes! My body is just flat upset about all this cloth. "I mean, really... What's up with the socks and shoes and those long pants and that shirt?" That's what I seemed to hear all day yesterday. I guess I got a little too used to swim trunks, a tank top, and sandals...

Daniel's body wasn't happy either; we had him in to see the doc last night after he popped a temperature in the early afternoon and had it spike to 104.5F later in the evening. Sheesh. They say he'll be okay; I know Mother Hen will burn a few extra calories making sure he's okay.

...and he'll need to be. With the current schedule in as projected, we'll be going back in another week or so.

So much for trying to teach family values to today's kids... As we were watching Leave it to Beaver last night, Shelley mentioned to Daniel (still febrile but obviously recovering) how the Cleaver children didn't argue with their parents when they were asked to do something. The reply was something along the lines of, "Moommmm, they're just actors! They have a script."

Regular readers of the Daynotes Gang often see references to to the late author Robert Anson Heinlein sprinkled in from time to time. One of his literary heirs, and a serious apologist for Heinlein, is Spider Robinson. A few words from Spider:

"Seriously, though, if folks come away with the notion that shared pain is diminished and shared joy is increased, that'd be good."

That's a theme from his Callahan's stories and a quote from an interview with SciFi.com. If you're a fan of either, it's worth a read. Thanks, Al.

Oh, and: "anger always turns out to be fear in disguise..." You may have to read a few of his books to if you don't grok that one<G>. ...and it turns out my copy of Night of Power may be worth something to a collector. ...like me!

At last, the weekend. I need it just to sleep and detox from the events of the last week...

I'd forgotten this story about a rather obnoxious physics student in Copenhagen many years ago. It gives me some hope when Daniel serves up some of his answers to our requests...

...and I haven't forgotten Brian, even though Grendel (or the other) seems to have locked the world out and hidden the key under the mat. The inside mat... No, wait... He's baaaack! Yeah, now I'll have someone to read in the morning (after his Costco run) since Bob's taking the weekend off.

...and Tom has his happy face in place once again (the 2100 update). Remember everyone, fingers crossed, toes crossed, eyes crossed... and standby for the relighting of the torch. Maybe even the backchannel???

In case you're not on Steve Gibson's mailing list, check out Dan Seto's coverage of the latest on the spyware you may not Realize you have installed on your computer.

Oh, and you don't use Excel, do you? Sheesh. Redmond should really go into the cheese business; they already know how to age a product before making it available for sale and as for the holes: would you like Swiss or Office on your turkey sandwich today?

If you are not a morning person, this is sheer poetry:

"Good morning. We have ascended to the vertical world, however, the coherence plug-in does not seem to be loaded. I'll be back after I water the dog and pour some coffee on my head. The cat is more self-sufficient, he just wants out. Good kitty."

Hal B. Rager over at blivet.

...and I'm definitely not a not a morning person. But that works out well as I get to watch the show in the evening after the family is in bed and things have cooled off some. Last night, the moon and some light clouds provided a very nice show indeed.

The moon didn't so much rise, as the evening blended into night; rather, it described an arc in the southeastern sky behind the redwood trees in the back yard. That made for some nice shadows on the deck and pool as it moved across the sky. I felt as though I was in a Charles Addams cartoon from The New Yorker.

I didn't notice the clouds at first; they were so light that it wasn't until I realized the lower magnitude stars in the Big Dipper were dim that I saw the wisp of cloud trailing northward into that constellation. Looking to the south, it appeared that Someone had teased some threads loose from a fine tapestry of moonlit cloud. It reminded me of angel hair from Christmas time (or, for the Addams fans, perhaps the artificial spider webs sold for Halloween<g>).

As the night continued, the cloud formation changed to almost a light cirrus form. ...and with that peculiar luminosity trick where the clouds appear to be behind the moon. That configuration was later replaced with little cloud cotton balls breaking loose from the quilt in that corner of the sky.

Funny; when I took the trash out front and looked up over the neighbors house, all I saw was a full moon and some clouds. I was very relieved when I returned to the pool area and found the moonlight once again streaming though the trees.