Excuse Me, That’s My Book

I brought a partially finished paperback with me from home, The Arraignment by Steve Martini. I never read at home any more, the only time I do read is when we are away (and away from a computer.) When I do read, I read mostly crime fiction stuff, tough talking P.I.s, lawyers put in positions they should never be in or get out of, but do, underdog homicide cops, etc. Before this 5 days of relaxing is up I will finish nearly one book a day. Here is the rest of the list:
The Jury by Steve Martini
The Crush by Sandra Brown
Dust To Dust by Tami Hoag

Went grocery shopping and because it was going to be a rainy day today I bought a paperback book to read. As we were checking out a nice young man was bagging our groceries for us. The book was The Crush by Sandra Brown and when he picked it up instead of plopping into the bag he started reading the back cover. Maybe it was the picture of the author on the back that caught his eye or something, but I found it very unsettling that this kid was “reading” my book.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1727.12
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 240

Pizza

We had breakfast on the balcony overlooking the ocean. Followed it up by a walk along the beach. Lunch was a trip to a place we read about, but it was so crowded we walked across the shopping center lot and ate somewhere else. Dinner consisted of pork chops and baked potato that we had brought with us and was followed by another walk on the beach.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1727.12
Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 234

Bone Collectors

On our morning walk on the beach we encountered an awful lot of folks bent at the waist digging in and/or poking around the sand. They were picking up shells, gathering the exoskeletons of deceased mollusks. Bone collecting.

Another random beach walking thought: Is it just me or after seeing Jurassic Park III do all pelicans in flight look like pterodactyls or what?

Busy Day

We got up about the same time as our usual workday. Started off by having a quick breakfast snack and then finished loading the trunk. We didn’t have room for the plastic trash bags or work gloves so they were piled on behind the seats. We had about a half dozen or more pictures to finish taking for the Drive By Photo Contest.

After the last shot was taken, we had just enough time to get to Best Bagels to meet the Bicycle Club for real breakfast and then pick-up trash for our Adopt-A-Highway duties.

Four blocks and four bags of trash later we zipped home to change and then make a bee-line to the SC Welcome Center to meet the Miata Club to lead them to a Mennonite restaurant, Miller’s Breadbasket, in Blackville, SC. Six cars followed Donna and I on mostly back roads to get to our destination. Another car was waiting on us there, as well as about 2 dozen Harleys. Fortunately they we about finishing up, so our wait wasn’t too long and the big table in the back was free for the 16 of us.

Donna and I continued east to Hilton Head and everyone else headed west to go back home. When we arrived we unpacked the car and headed right back out to find a place for dinner. The choices on the island are staggering, but we just went to a Wendys to get a salad as we will still somewhat full from our big lunch. We had just enough time after eating to get in a short beach walk before the sunset. We were in bed not too long after.

Purchased Today: $14.25 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1727.12
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Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 232

That Sucka Is Full

The car is packed and nearly ready to go. Tomorrow we head to Hilton Head Island for 6 six days of fun at the beach. Would have been 8, but a slight miscalculation of our vacation time requires us to go back to work next Friday, oops. We have taken 2 week vacations and taken less. I think the addition to our travel baggage this time is the DVD player. It is a full size unit so it eats up pretty much all of the small well in the center of the trunk and it has to come as the condo only has a VCR and all our movies are on DVD.

Called my buddies at Rspeed this morning and ordered up 1 quart of Redline 75w90 synthetic oil for the differential and 2 quarts of Redline MTL synthetic for the transmission. I’ll swap out these fluids next weekend with a little help from a friend. That should complete the 120k mileage maintenance.

Purchased Today: $38.95
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1712.87
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 229

Oowww! Part II

Tonight we took a little evening drive get some ice cream and then refuel the car as well. While driving along on Powderhouse Road minding our own business, Donna suddenly goes, “Ooww!” She got bopped on the top of her head by something small and solid. Best we can figure out is a squirrel in one of trees we were passing under must have dropped his or her acorn. Now there is speculation as to whether it was on purpose or not, after all we did manage to run a squirrel over in North Carolina this past weekend….

Purchased Today: $14.75 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1674.92
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 229

Oowww!

While eating my breakfast cereal this morning I noticed some pain when chewing on the back left. There was also sensitivity to the cold milk.

At 8:30 when the dentist’s office opened for business I gave them a call to see if they could squeeze me in. No problem the receptionist said, come on down. When I got there, I was called right back to the drill and fill office and settled into the chair by Jane the dentist’s assistant. Seems Dr. Boykin is on vacation this week so it was easy to get in, because there were no patients around. Jane took an x-ray and while we waited for it to develop, she took some pictures with this fancy gizmo from Sony. She held my mouth open with one hand and guided the camera into position by watching the monitor. This left no hands free to click on the take picture button on the remote. She handed it to me and told me to click the button when she said so.

When the doctor gets back next week he’ll check it out and make some recommendations. The least of which Jane says will be a crown. Yikes, there goes several hundred dollars. To add insult to financial injury, Jane tells me, “Not to worry, cracked teeth like that are common in men my age and easily fixable.” *my age, sigh*