FRS

Damn Yankees

Watching Baseball 2Gnorm 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.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 169

There Is Never A Dull Moment…

Watching Baseball…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.

Meal Cost: $11.72
Tip: None
Spent Today: $11.72
Year to Date: $1147.30
Meals out 62 of a possible 420.

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.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 168

Word of the Day: Avulsion

Hilda Town HallAvulsion – a forcible tearing or surgical separation of one body part from another.

Or in this case a tearing of the time – space continuum, as 125 Broughton Ave in Hilda, SC, or at least the Post Office there, has vanished. Our second attempt to locate a postal facility in this micro town failed just as it did the first time. Maybe it is like Brigadoon and appears only one day every hundred years. I did take a picture of the next best thing though, the Town Hall. I won’t put it in the postal gallery with the other 10 we grabbed today though, just not kosher. Fittingly, there is a sign on the door saying the Town Hall is open the 2nd Saturday of the month from 8 AM to 12 noon.

Three quarters of the way through our Postal Safari today we stopped in St. George for lunch, Taco Bell. Two hard tacos for Donna and two soft tacos for Brian and we split a medium fruit punch.

Meal Cost: $5.15
Tip: None
Spent Today: $5.15
Year to Date: $1,052.24

Josh Becket of the FRS was pitching today. So far this year he has had 7 starts and has 7 wins, but something happened on the way to a record 8 straight. An avulsion on the right middle finger, leading to “irritation of the skin” lead to him being pulled from today’s game after the fourth inning. This is the team being cagey, Mr. Beckett missed several games last year because of a blister on his throwing hand. To me, no matter how you spin “avulsion on the right middle finger, leading to irritation of the skin”, it is a blister. Supposedly the early exit was a precaution to prevent an actual blister, we’ll see.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 159

Mmmm Mmmuffins

Miataless Post OfficeWe bought this morning’s breakfast from the New Moon Cafe after yesterday’s hike, a low fat Blueberry muffin for her and a Raspberry Coconut muffin for him (which we ended up splitting 50-50.)

Meal Cost: $2.65
Tip: 35¢
Spent This Meal: $3.00

After breakfast we tried to make up for the last 3 weeks on non-activity in the Post Office quest by heading to the capital city of the Great State of South Carolina and getting a photo of all 13 POs. Mission accomplished. The only Post Office not accounted for that lists Columbia as the city is the one on the Army base, Fort Jackson. (They have an Open House on the 18 & 19 of May for Armed Forces Day so we might try and sneak in then.)

A few years back a favored Sunday lunch spot was an Italian fast food chain called Fazoli’s, but they closed up shop here in Aiken and we have missed eating their food quite often since then. Well, Columbia has two Fazoli’s and both are close to some of our destination Post Offices, so we thought it might be a treat to eat there for lunch. I guess our memories have been colored by time (or maybe it was this particular restaurant) because it didn’t seem worth the trip. The Twice Baked Ziti with Hearty Meat Sauce was good and the bread sticks were practically dripping in butter, but the salad and the dressing left a lot to be desired. I had a fountain Coke and Donna had water.

Meal Cost: $10.76
Tip: None
Spent This Meal: $10.76
Spent Today: $13.38
Year to Date: $923.03

Five out of six isn’t half bad. As a matter of fact it is 83% good. After looking lackluster on Fox yesterday the FRS came out swinging against the dreaded Yankees today and came out on top of a 7 to 4 score. Big Papi contributed a homer, as did the coming out of his funk Manny Rameriz, but those guys are expected to smack the long ball. A nice bonus was a homer from our utility infielder Alex Cora. Now we have 19 warm up games until we come back to the “House That Ruth Built” on the 21st of May.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 133

Imagine

What Would Yoko Say?“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.”

Right now I’m working at my ripping CDs project and listening to the FRS come from behind to whoop up on the Baltimore Orioles. I’ve almost got one shelf of the ten total done and I’m up to Bogguss, Suzy.

I’m still leaking copious amounts of Brain Lubricant, but I made it all the way through the work day without the overwhelming desire to take a nap. I made it all the past dinner before having to catch 20 winks.

When I woke up Fox News was in the middle of wall to wall coverage of a low speed chase in LA, some knucklehead in a stolen car was leading cops and news helicopters around town. At one point, riding on nothing but the rims, the “suspect” did several doughnuts in the middle of an intersection leaving nicely marked up asphalt in his wake. When they finally stopped him, he immediately hit the ground flat and about 20 LEOs pounced on him. I’m sure it would have caused a big uproar in the media, but I was actually hoping they would beat the crap out of him for being so stupid.

Uploaded the other 24 photos from the northeast trip, but I’ve still only got captions on about eight. I’d better get busy because 4 weeks from tomorrow we are off to the other side of the country for 10 days.

The screened porch is still covered in a layer of pine pollen and my hope is to get out there after work tomorrow and wash it off.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126

Love Me Do

Paul's in the NationLeft over story from our northeast visit: After the service for Donna’s aunt the family gathered at a nice Italian restaurant in Summit, NJ, where we were served a five course meal. Donna and I sat at kind of the “kids” table with the youngest cousin, her husband and their young daughter, a couple of family friends and the daughters of the middle two cousins, Susan’s two girls Meghan 14, Jessica 12 and Mary’s 14 year-old Kristen. When they came around taking drink orders those three girls to my right ordered Shirley Temples, I had a glass of red wine and for fun Donna ordered a Shirley Temple too. I’m not to sure who started it, might have been Jessica, but the girls decided to see if they could take their cherry stems and tie them into a knot in their mouths using just their tongues.

Meghan was the only one of the three to actually accomplish the feat, we of course applauded her success. If I was her father I’m not so sure that I’d have been that proud and I would have definitely instructed her not to demonstrate that talent on a date with a hormonally charged teenager.

Arri’s Grill for supper. Two 1/3 lb hand formed patties of ground chuck served with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, mayo and mustard. We split an order of fries.

Meal Cost: $10.37
Tip: None
Spent Today: $10.37
Year to Date: $891.27

I’ve got a 485 CD collection that is rarely used anymore. Matter of fact, if it wasn’t for the rental car the other week and the one we’ll be driving out west in another month they wouldn’t ever leave the shelves they sit on. So I have decided to rip them all into MP3s and store ’em on my hard drive. I’ve done about 30 so far, but I haven’t really been applying myself to the project. I mean if I do get them done, what do I do with all that plastic? Maybe I can find somebody to wholesale ’em to about 50¢ a piece…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126

Feeling Nearly Human

Took the day off from work and laid out to help get over the yuck I got somewhere. Snagged a couple of major naps and now I starting to feel better. The body aches are now mostly gone and the fever appears to be history, but I now have a icky little cough. I took some Vicks 44 this morning and it helped, but this afternoon I took a tablespoon of some of Donna’s leftover prescription stuff that is laced with codeine. Big mistake, that stuff made me stupid.I set out to finish up tweaking and posting our vacation photos from the other week. I had 48 selected and only managed to 34 done. I uploaded them and managed to get captions on 8 or 9 before I couldn’t maintain the intense concentration required post pictures on the internet…

Couple of random thoughts after watching the FRS on TV three straight days;
a) the new style hats the big leaguers are wearing this year look like a truckers hat, you know the kind with a foam front and a mesh back.
b) The green shirts they wore on Saturday looked very elfish with the red long sleeve undershirts.
   1) but I do like the green hats and may get one…
c) when you put a batting helmet on Willie Moe Pena it looks like he has to squeeze his head to get it in there.

While we are talking baseball and blogs: Curt Schilling‘s got one.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 125