Rain Delay
Both the FRS/Braves game and this blog are in a rain delay….
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 209
Both the FRS/Braves game and this blog are in a rain delay….
Alternate Title: Down on the Farm.
The Single-A farm in Greenville, South Carolina. The Drive are affiliated with the FRS and to show the love, last year they opened a new stadium with the same dimensions as Fenway Park in Beantown (including a 30′ high Green Monster with manual scoreboard.
Because we are traveling we are eating out. Breakfast with the MMC at the Sunrise Grill in North Augusta. The joint we were supposed to meet at at 7:00 AM had changed their opening hour from seven to eight recently leaving us locked out in an empty parking lot. No worries mate, we just moved the show a 1/4 mile up the street. Half a waffle and two eggs for her, western omelette with home fries for me. I had a cup of joe and she had a hot chocolate.
Lunch at a Cracker Barrel in Greenville. I had the spicy grilled catfish sandwich on sourdough and Donna had a bowl of tortilla soup. One iced tea, one water to drink and guess who had what.
Dinner at the ballpark. $5 a piece tip to the Maitre De got us in the door (AKA General Admission tickets.) Nachos for her, Italian sausage for him. Diet DP for him, bottled water for her. We split an 8-pack of chicken nuggets a little later.
The game was supposed to start at 7:00 PM, but it was probably still pouring down rain at that time. The rain did stop and the game started at 7:30. We entered the stadium at 6:00 when they opened the gates and after eating and taking shelter, by the time the game started we had had enough. From the way the skies looked we were sure it was going to rain some more any minute, so we left. Seeing as the rain showers were scattered we opted to drive around Greenville and take some of the PO pictures we were going to do tomorrow. Ended up doing all of them (that we could find.) There is one on the Furman campus according to USPS.com, but we didn’t see it.
At the last one of the night, a CPU in an ACE Hardware store, the odometer read exactly 59,000 miles.
Pizza was on the menu for Friday, but it got pushed up to today. We got the usual order from Ferrando’s, a 14″ 5-topping pie (sausage, pepperoni, green peppers, onions and banana pepper rings) and brought it home to eat. Finished half, saving the second half for dinner on the previous planned Friday evening.
This evening’s entertainment was The Holiday. Double your warm fuzzy feelings, double your tears, its two, two chick flicks in one.
The Red Sox are having trouble scoring runs. They are losing big time at home tonight against the Rockies 12-2 and are on their way to losing six of their last ten ballgames. The Yankees are about to win their ninth game in a row and will be 8-1/2 games back. Is it just me or has something like what happens to an RX-7 in this video happening to the FRS?
Had some comments on one of my Post Office photos on Flickr today. White Rock, SC 29117. Then if you want, go check out grussell903’s photos before answering this question: Troll or Reality Challenged?
We ran out to Kroger tonight to get a couple items. As we were checking out I noticed that the cashier had keyed us in for a senior citizens discount. I think you have to be like 60 to qualify and we are about 8 years from that milestone. If asked if I qualify I say no, when that screen pops up on the self-service checkout I say no. I usually say something, but tonight I didn’t. Maybe it was because we saved so much – 47¢
Today was Donna and my annual eye exams. Good news is that neither of us have any issues nor have our eyes changed enough to warrant getting new glasses.
We went mid afternoon and some six hours later the drops they put in your eyes to dilate them has not not entirely worn off. I think I could take a book into a closet and read it with the light off. You know your pupils are open wide when the little WinXP screensaver (bouncing logo on black background) has a bright rainbow hued halo around it.
I remember a couple of years ago we went late afternoon and by the time we left the Eye Guy’s place it was dusk. The sun was down but the sky was still light. Most cars were driving with their lights on and both headlights and taillights were giving off these awesome starburst patterns. Even the traffic signals looked like they were being viewed through a starburst filter. Very cool effect, but it was difficult to concentrate on actually driving and not running into anything while looking at all the pretty lights.
We rode the tandem into work again today. I think we are going to try and make it a once a week event from now on. Because we are working our nine hour days this week, this morning’s ride start was way early and it was still dark out. We have a nice powerful light so that was not a real problem. As a matter of fact it was actually nice that time of day, there was almost zero traffic on the road and it was nice and cool (I wore a light jacket and Donna was in long sleeves.)
Right now I’m not sure what is worse, the FRS losing 6-0 to the Yanks in the sixth or having to listen to Chris Berman call the game and Bonnie Bernstein with the sideline commentary.
Our Fabrication Manager has been gone for a week on vacation and now he is absent for fortnight visiting vendors in Asia. Gnorm moved into his office today in a bloodless coup. Don’t worry, because he is the boss, he’ll be taking next week so he can go to Seattle with us.
I’m still burning my CD collection and I’m almost done with row #5. I just came across a CD I have no recollection buying and I can not even think of what anything on it sounds like: Pourquoi Quebec? by Tony McManus. I may have to give it a listen.
I used to read quite a bit of science fiction as youngster and as I entered my twenties, horror became my choice of escapist “literature.” Used to read a lot of fellow FRS fan, Stephen King’s books, but quit about the time he started writing them thick enough to be used as nightstands. Now I’m into pulp stuff about private eyes and disgraced cops that save the world from criminals ans serial killers. I’m also a sucker for lawyer slash courtroom drama books. My latest read has been a real pleasant surprise, I picked it up thinking I was getting a typical lawyer saves a wrongly accused book, and it is that (at least I think he saves him, I’m not finished yet) but it also mixes in a very convincing horror plot. For the icing on this cake it is also told with some biting humor in places. The following is a snippet from Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper:
The next day is passed by explanations of DNA identification technology delivered by the google-eyed lab rat the Crown has brought up from Toronto. I feel for the poor bastard, though, trying to teach a remedial science lesson to the jury, who look back at him as though auditioning for the chorus in Deliverance: The Musical. It gives me a chance to doze off for five-second hits of sleep. A tricky business that involves holding your head up with one hand and positioning it so that your closed eyes will be hidden from the bench. This part is essential. Judges are universally intolerant of sleeping lawyers, mostly because their own seating arrangement prevents them from indulging in the same pleasure themselves.
Each time my eyelids spring back open it’s with the terrible image of Bert Gederov and Graham Lyle having kittens all over the boardroom floor two hundred miles to the south because I haven’t yet returned their calls. The reason is simple: despite my best efforts I haven’t come up with a resonable explanantion for my remarks to the press of the other day. By the time the court is adjourned in the afternoon (the DNA dweeb having just finished his “introductory remarks”), I know that it can no longer be avoided.
Donna was out at a business dinner with a couple bishops from the Vatican (ASCO HQ in NJ) and some vendors, so I was left to my own devices. A 6″ Italian Sub (Ham, Salami, Pepperoni & Provalone) from Sub Station II that I brought home and ate over the sink pretending I was a bachelor. All that was missing was a bottle of beer to wash it down. I substituted a Sprite Zero.
Gnorm and I settled in to watch some more baseball this evening. Yesterday I could handle him rooting for the Braves against my beloved FRS, but tonight I knocked him on his butt when he started to cheer for the dreaded Yankees. (Gno Gnomes were harmed in this stunt.) If Gnorm is still routing for the Bronx Bombers he is now keeping quiet about it.
When Patti gave me Gnorm the other day she also passed along his special gnome bed (the molded styrofoam packing he came in.) It has seen better days and is all right for local trips, but he is going all the way across the country with us. Today at work I modified an existing box to be a little smaller and had a friend on the assembly line make a custom bed using some expandable foam. Gnorm is now ready for the big trip.
But are we ready to fly with Gnorm? We’d like to put him in our carry-on bag, but how are the TSA screeners going to react to a polyresin statue cradled in a custom padded box? Does it look like we are trying to bring a molded and painted chunk of C-4 on board? Could Gnorm’s pointy hat be considered a weapon? I really want to get a shot of him in the terminal for the flight out, but we may just have to put him in the checked bag.
…when the FRS are playing baseball. The Sox had a 6 run lead through almost the entire game, somehow the Braves managed to get the tying run to the plate in the top of the 9th (must not have got the memo about Jonathan Papelbon being the most feared closer in the American League.) But he got Andruw Jones to strike out swinging (for the fifth time in the game) to end it. Season series so far: Boston 2 – Atlanta 1. There are three more games to be played in Atlanta in June to settle it for this season.
We started the morning with a nice tandem ride. I had finally measured the wheel circumference and set both cyclecomputers to the same figure, so Donna wouldn’t be riding further than me on these trips. Worked out pretty good, as mine read 14.0 miles at the end of the ride and hers said 13.98.
Lunch out with friends at Zaxby’s where we split a large Wings ‘n’ Things and an order of Carrots & Celery Sticks. One large Coke and one water to drink.
I uploaded five new photos to the Enchanted Ceiling site, something I hadn’t done in a while. It started yesterday when I thought I might sort out my sky photos. I had 14 posted EC and I had 34 posted in a gallery here. I have 37 in the directory on my hard drive and about more 40 in a staging directory. I uploaded the 14 to my other Flickr! account and then to make matters somewhat worse I picked the 5 from the staging directory and added them to the Enchanted Ceiling site ( 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ), then the Flickr account, but not the gallery here. So did I help the organization or hurt it? Who knows.