A few random vacation pics

Having a good time, except that Mason is waking up at 6:45 every morning so he doesn't miss out on all the stuff going on. He loves to chase Mom's kitty all over the house:



Yesterday, we put some shutters up on the back of the house. Much "fun" was had, mainly by Wicked Stepfather going UR DOIN IT RONG constantly. Mom held the (plastic) shutters while I screwed them up in:



I keep threatening to do this to Mrs. Fetched, so Daughter Dearest did it to me. Yup, I raised her right!



More to come, probably when I get back home.

As the Sun Slowly Sets on Vacation…

And so it winds down… a week just isn’t enough time to do everything you’d like to do, but in the end it’s enough. It’s enough. I was talking to Mrs. Fetched last night and realized that I was ready to go home.

At the same time, I really needed this break, and so did Daughter Dearest. It wasn’t warm enough to lie on the beach, but she isn’t the lie on the beach type anyway. It was warm enough to get out though, not always the case on Planet Georgia last week. It’s going to be warmer both here and there next week, so I expect I’ll be outside a lot at least until I have to go back to work on Thursday.

We did get a trophy — a walker for Mason — and I got plenty of pictures. DD got some clothes for various things, and a lot of rest. I’m a little bummed about not getting a chance to meet up with Beth; I was looking forward to talking about writing and boring DD to death. ;-) But there will be other chances.

Mrs. Fetched sounded pretty tired… I’m sure Snippet hasn’t been holding up her end of things with Mason, and The Boy never has, so it’s all down to her. I figure on Sunday, it will be Mrs. Fetched Rests Day and I’ll let Mason cruise the manor in his new walker.

Splashing along

Daughter Dearest and I have reached the halfway point. So far so good — as always, plans one makes on Sunday get a little squishy by Wednesday, but we’re still hoping for a meetup with Beth while we’re here… maybe Friday.

It’s interesting how quickly a routine has developed: I tend to get woken up by sunlight leaking through the blinds around 7:30 each morning, so I just go with it and try to get in bed by 11:30. I got out on a walk with the camera on a sunny Sunday, and managed to catch a sailboat going through the drawbridge, a gorgeous sunset, and various birds. This duck was beating the water with its wings, I think in response to a second duck walking along the shore — MY pond!!! Eventually, it climbed out, dried its wings off, then took off low (making it hard to get an in-flight shot, but I think I managed).

The wind has really gotten up, and it has been fairly cool here (low 60s). People here seem to think that’s cold, while for DD and I it’s shirtsleeve weather as long as you’re moving around — a good 20 degrees (F) warmer than at home. Even more important, it’s over 500 miles from the chicken houses, so who cares about the weather?

Otherwise, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and a little writing. I took the original Daughter Dearest to the original Hooters on Gulf-to-Bay (this has been a running joke for us for some years), and bought her a new t-shirt to replace her old one which is wearing out. Her old one was black, with a printed vine running along one side and the logo sneaked in — very subtle, and she wore it to school many times without anyone (in authority) noticing. The new one is a more Gothic design, not as subtle but still not the full-on “delightfully tacky yet unrefined” like the waitresses wear. We saw a baby-sized shirt that said “Hooters Girls Dig Me,” which we’ll get for Mason when he’s big enough to wear a 2T.

Her take after observing the waitresses was interesting: “I’d never work there. They’re all really jealous of each other and they don’t seem to think much.” Being hungry, I wasn’t paying that much attention to the waitresses. I remember the name of our server, mainly because she was named after a camera (Yashica). :-P I couldn’t talk DD into posing outside, but whatever. We had a good lunch and a good bit of fun along with it.

Solar was over here once, and should swing by tomorrow night. Too bad he won’t be here tonight, I’m making pizza starting in an hour or so, after I get back from a photowalk…

Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City

A recent BBC article on “America’s original active retirement community” got me thinking. As many long-time readers know, the FAR in FAR Manor means Forget About Retirement — but I try not to. Hey, I might get lucky after all. Besides, I’m on vacation, the original mini-retirement.

What jumped out at me were two quotes near the middle of the article. In the first, one resident said that retirement previously involved (among other things) “waiting to die.” The developer heard many variants of “I raised my own children, and I don’t want to have to raise my grandchildren.” To me, the first seems myopic, the second outright selfish.

Next week, I’ll be going to Florida, which seems these days to be one humonguous retirement community (active or otherwise) overlaying a normal economy, which in turn overlays a tourist economy. The desire to move somewhere that’s warm all the time, or at least cold very rarely, is certainly understandable… although there’s a long brutal summer to contend with as well. Too cold sometimes or too hot sometimes, pick one.

So why would retiring in the community where you worked, with or without family nearby, be “waiting to die”? After all, you already know where the good restaurants are, which fishing spots are best at any given time, which golf courses offer reduced greens fees on weekday mornings, where the good walking/biking/hiking trails are. Unless your friends have all moved away, you know where they are and when they’re available. Unless you live in some backwater hole in the hills, and even on Planet Georgia there are great hiking and mountain bike trails just a few miles from the manor, there should be plenty of recreational opportunities for an “active retirement.” Why go somewhere that you have to figure all this stuff out all over again, when you can enjoy it right where you are?

Then there’s the other side of the coin. I for one mostly enjoy helping to raise Mason, even when I have to work for a living. He’s off with Snippet for an overnight at her mom’s, and even with him waking up twice a night (teething) I’m going to miss him. I’ll really miss him next week when I’m gone. I can understand long-standing friction with your (nominally) adult children — The Boy really gets on my nerves sometimes — or the resentment at their presumption that they can just dump their own kids on you while they work or have fun, but I can’t understand not wanting to be a part of your grandkids’ formative years. You don’t punish the kids for the sins of the parents, after all. Besides, with multi-generational households becoming a trend once again, you should be able to expect the kids to support you as well: you take the grandkids fishing or bike riding while they’re working, they come in and you pop out to the golf course. Sounds like one way to have the best of both worlds, anyway.

Vacation Pix: Iconic Allegan

When you grow up in a picturesque town, you have to leave for a few years before you can really appreciate it. Allegan might be small enough to photowalk in a day — I’m just hitting the highlights here — but you might want to bring extra memory cards and make a weekend of it.



Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm IS/USM lens
various exposures

Top left: The 2nd Street bridge, one of very few 19th century iron bridges still in use. Built in 1886, it’s one lane plus a walkway. It spans the Kalamazoo River, and connects M-89 to the industrial east side of town. The bridge was renovated after nearly a century of use, and is now the anchor of an annual “BridgeFest” in town. Not too many Historic Register places that are used for their original purpose, but this is one of them.

Top right: The Regent Theatre has been showing movies for… well, I think my mom went there when she was a kid. It looks pretty much the same as it did when I was a kid, standing in line outside to buy a ticket for the latest show. Here’s another Historic Register site that’s still used for its original purpose.

Bottom left: The Griswold Auditorium. I’ve seen plays and travelogues here, and was on stage and backstage a number of times myself. Whoever built the place had a sense of humor: “ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE” is emblazoned above the stage itself. It was years after I first saw it that I learned it was a line from Shakespeare.

Bottom right: The Allegan Public Library was one of the Carnegie libraries. It has been expanded since I moved away, and I have no idea whether the beautiful wooden floors and shelves are still intact upstairs. The kids’ section was downstairs, and I plowed through it pretty thoroughly in my younger years.

I didn’t get nearly as much time as I would have liked to explore, especially to see what has changed — I know the old free parking down by the river has been partially turned into a riverwalk, with a concert gazebo, and it really looks nice. Not to mention the storefronts…

Vacation pix: Argh!

A seagull had perched itself on one of those “swim area” markers featured earlier. I go to take the shot, and…



Someone has to walk right into the field of view. That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm IS/USM lens
135mm, f11, 1/320 sec

(BTW, that’s my nephew with the boogie board, back turned to us.)

Vacation pix: Driftwood

After shooting a bird sitting on one of the “swim area” posts, Dad suggested I get the driftwood in the foreground for scale. Then I got interested in the driftwood itself.



Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm IS/USM zoom lens
135mm, f7.1, 1/500s
Lake Michigan (Hoffmaster State Park), 7/28

Vacation Photos: Slipping into Fall?

What goes up, must come down.



Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm IS/USM zoom lens
135mm f5.6 1/1600
Straightened and cropped

Flowery (and Grassy) Friday (Vacation Edition)

Andi’s grass pic this morning reminded me I wanted to post this…



The flowers were growing in clumps in various places, mostly in neglected yards or garden plots. Seems to be a really good year for them.

Top: Lake Michigan (Hoffmaster State Park) [38mm, f13, 1/400s]
Bottom: from Dad’s deck, Duck Lake [135mm, f5.6, 1/160s]
Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm zoom lens

Vacation pix: Waterfowl

Actually, Dad thinks the geese are rather foul, because that’s what they’ll do to the grass if he doesn’t chase them off. ;-)

Seagulls: Lake Michigan (Hoffmaster State Park)
Geese & Swans: Duck Lake
Canon EOS 40D, 28-135mm zoom lens, various exposures

Home Sweet Money Pit

Back from a lovely week in Michigan, visiting relatives and not thinking much about the chicken houses. I’ll have some posts up later, today if opportunity permits.

Staycation, Winding Down

Now it’s Christmas Past. And the staycation is entering its final weekend (although I only have a two-day week next week, good way to ease back in after two weeks off).

I’m SO glad to have “all Christmas music all the time” in my rear-view mirror. They didn't do that when I was younger; they'd just mix in holiday music with the normal programming & that was fine. But I get burned out real fast on the same stuff constantly, and I about went nuts the year “Christmas Shoes” came out because they played it over and over… and over… and over… seemed like 3–4 times an hour. And I’m not a big fan of depressing songs anyway (I mean, come on, the kid’s mom is going to die at Christmas, and how is that going to affect his outlook in the years to come?). On the other hand, there are a few holiday/Christmas songs that I could listen to throughout the year — the instrumental version of “Sleigh Ride” comes to mind — just as long as it wasn’t a steady diet.

OK… I know I was good this year, but this good?



This (Canon EOS 40D) was the camera I wanted to get before my old PowerShot died… and would have, if the company stock hadn’t tanked in front of the rest of the market. I had pretty much hit the limits of what the PowerShot could do, and I used it to take photos that ended up in my documentation. According to the counter in iPhoto, I took just short of 5000 pictures with it… of course, I deleted a bunch of shots that didn’t turn out or were redundant. When it died, it wasn’t quite like losing a hand — maybe a finger or two. You can mostly get by without the missing pieces, but there are times when it gets annoying and a prosthetic (i.e. cellphone camera) doesn’t quite get the job done. It’s been too rainy for a photowalk, but maybe I’ll have a chance tomorrow. Fog in the morning may make for some interesting shots.

When I got Clickzilla, it came with a Metz flash. The battery pack is all but dead (good for like three shots), but looking around I find I can get it rebuilt for $60. That’s a dang sight cheaper than $300 for a new flash. Interestingly, with the Metz flash attached, I have to hit the shutter button twice: once to flip the mirror back and once to get the shot. I’ll have to go through the camera manual again to see whether that’s normal or if I can change a setting. There will be some learning once I get the battery pack rebuilt, but with that I’ll be set… this flash can reach out and light stuff up.

I think the camera might have seen some service as a floor model… there was a 2GB CF card already in the camera when I got it out of the box and there were a few pictures (that looked like stuff shot in a camera store) on the card — but hey, a free 2GB card is nothing to sneeze at. I also found an old Pelican bag that had a dead camcorder in it (a Sony, Mrs. Fetched’s first DV) and dedicated it to the EOS. Mrs. Fetched has some interesting stuff in her XL-1 bag, including some close-up filters that will fit. The lenses are supposed to be interchangeable between the two cameras, so I might have to borrow the humongo lens off her camcorder and try it out too. I’ve also heard of adapters that will let me use Clickzilla’s lenses with the EOS, and that would be nice.

Mr. Sunshine is up to play some Wii Golf. Hope everyone had a good Christmas. The new year will be quite happy about 20 days in.

Christmas Eve

More rain, and even a thunderstorm a couple hours ago. I don’t remember ever having to yank the DSL on Christmas Eve… but on Planet Georgia, even the weather is a little neurotic. Winter #2, as I expected, is over after two days; Spring #2 is drooling all over us again. But if I bundle up, it looks like I might be able to ride the motorcycle to work Monday & Tuesday mornings (and then we’ll be out the rest of the week… too bad all work-weeks can’t be two days long).

We spent much of yesterday afternoon cutting and splitting wood, then stacking it behind the manor. The pile is fully replenished, and should last us a month if we don’t cut more sooner… we probably will though.

Daughter Dearest’s boyfriend Sasquatch (yup, it’s official… they’ve been “dating” since October but waited to tell us although we expected it anyway) has been spending a lot of time here. When he’s been gone, DD has been with him. I’m OK with it, and Mrs. Fetched seems to be. He’s somewhat transportation-limited, but he got over to the college once or twice somehow. I suspect that she gave him mono, but it didn’t hit him nearly as hard as it did her. But both of them are pretty much over it & (at least to me) are highly entertaining to have around.

Today was much less strenuous… A package from Mom arrived (which I’ll open tomorrow) and I took Jam down to Woodstock so she could pick up her car. She, Brand X, and Evil Lad NOT are headed north, into some much colder weather than we’ve had here at all. So is DoubleRed, although she’s going elsewhere.

Maybe the kitten can wait up for Santa, but I’m pooped regardless. See you in the morning.

The 12 Seasons of Planet Georgia

Friends and relatives back in Michigan sometimes ask me how I deal with the weather here — “at least we get four seasons here," is one common refrain. I reply that on Planet Georgia, we have 12 seasons: summer, fall, winter, spring, winter, spring, winter, spring, winter, spring, winter, spring.

Winter #1 was fairly long, spanning much of November into the first third of December before it reluctantly started warming up a little. This week has been Spring #1, warm, wet, and smelling like spring; we let the firebox go out some time this week and I shoveled out a good-sized bucket of ash this afternoon. The forecasters have had a heck of a time with this system; the rain has stayed on much longer than anyone expected. Lord knows we need the rain, but it’s starting to get to the point where people are complaining about it. But when it’s not raining, I’ve been wandering around outside without a jacket and not missing it and driving with the windows down. As long as the rain hangs on, though, it will not be cold. But…

The meteorologists have been waiting for a cold front to sag south and bring us Winter #2. It looks like that will finally happen late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, just in time for the solstice, and it’s supposed to be 18°F Monday morning — which, of course, is when Mrs. Fetched gets her chickens again. But if the extended forecast has any credence, it will only get below freezing for two nights.

As for today, we spent some of the morning at a video shoot — for a poultry processing company, of all things — and the afternoon Christmas shopping.

Building a Cold Frame

I actually managed to get one of the things done that I wanted to while off work!

Ever since I’d heard about cold frames, I’ve wanted to build one. Getting the tomato plants started a little early is never a bad idea, after all. We have plenty of scrap lumber around the manor, but not much scrap glass, so on Saturday I asked the local FreeCycle chapter for a glass shower door. By Saturday afternoon, I had two pieces: a 5½-x-2 foot door, and a 39x35 inch random piece of glass — both just straight glass. Sweet! So...

So after helping Mrs. Fetched with the chickens today, I started sorting through the scrap lumber we had, then measuring out each piece against what I needed to build the frames. Interestingly enough, using the shower door frame worked out slightly better with the least wasted wood, so that’s the way I went. Naturally, I couldn’t find my circular saw (I think it got used at the chicken houses and “relocated” by one of the workers), so I borrowed one from Mrs. Fetched’s mom. It’s kind of cool; it has a laser pointer… not terribly practical for cutting 2x4s (as seen below) but really nice for plywood.



With the 2x4s cut, I proceeded to put the long sides together. I didn’t have nails long enough, but I had 3" screws and a drill… so I screwed it up, so to speak. I did managed to screw up a Phillips screwdriver bit, but fortunately I had another.

Once I had the long sides done, I fastened them together with a pair of 2x4s on each end:



It turned out to be easier to cut the plywood on the table saw, so I struck my chalk lines and fired the big guy up. After that, it was simply a matter of screwing the cut pieces onto the frame and dropping the shower door on top… well, I had to remove the handle from the side facing the wood and find a couple of shorter screws to keep the handle I wanted, but that was a minor detail. Here’s the completed project, minus painting:



The astute reader may notice a pair of 2x2s screwed to the front of the completed cold frame. There’s also a matching pair in the back; they’re to keep the door from slipping off when propped up. I didn’t put the glass on hinges, which lets me take it off so it’s not in the way when putting seedlings in or taking them out. It also lets me prop the thing up on either side, so the wind doesn’t blow straight in.

Considering I had all the wood laying around waiting for a purpose, and I got the glass for free, I’m pretty happy with the result. I just need to paint it & put it outside.

Staycation, Days 1-3

Busy days… but a good kind of busy. Mostly.

Saturday

I decided I’d like to try building a cold frame while off work, and I've heard of people building them using glass shower doors. I asked for a shower door on Freecycle in the morning, and by afternoon had a shower door and an extra 3' square piece of glass… I figure to build one for me and one for Mrs. Fetched’s mom. I’ll probably get started on it tomorrow; yes, there will be pictures. While out, I hopped over to visit The Boy at his new place. He finally got his power turned on, and hopes to have the phone/internet moved over this week.

Somewhere in all this, Mrs. Fetched found the computer ornament, then picked up the beer ornament off my dresser and hung them both back on the tree! W00T! I guess when the second and third opinions she got didn’t go her way, she decided maybe it wasn’t so horrible after all. 'Course, this means I’m on the hook to help with the decorating, but if I get some ownership I can deal with that. I also helped Daughter Dearest re-derange her room in preparation for her own decorating.

Sunday

Sunday was Cantata Day. Our choir joined forces with a church in town to get a fair-sized group for a Christmas cantata. The only downside was that we had to do it twice — at their church in the morning and ours in the evening. The upside: we threw a potluck after the evening performance, and everyone chowed down. In the afternoon, I made a big batch of rolls and brought home an empty bowl.

Today

Mondays, even on vacation, can be Mondays. Or Monday Lite, anyway. I got to sleep late, but I’d taken the time off forgetting that I had to attend a meeting this afternoon. Since there was a small batch of errands that had to be run near the office anyway, I got the list together and took care of them before popping into work. Unfortunately, there’s this manager (not mine) wanting to stick his nose in my business again… since my boss was also invited to the meeting but didn’t show (the others assume he doesn’t care), I guess I need to write an email. I left about an hour earlier than I would have under normal circumstances, and was surprised to find the traffic heavier than usual… I figured more people would be off work by now.

This hasn’t been too awful, so far…

Staycation, Day 0

The policy at work is that you can’t carry over more than two weeks of vacation each year, and we get three. I’d only used one week this year, so I had to unload some more days. Fortunately(?), my workload hit a lull point — that’s the life of a technical writer; you’re either swamped or bored to death. I’ve been dealing with minor projects I’d had to let slide for a while, with a side of occasional brushfire, but most of those are starting to wind out. So I put in for the time.

Between the screwy chicken house schedule (the next batch comes in on Christmas Eve, for cryin' out loud) and a profound lack of funds, we had neither the means nor the opportunity to go anywhere… so we’re staying here at FAR Manor. At least Daughter Dearest is home from college; there may be some levity on occasion. She got a B+ on one class, and has good hopes for the others. Due to the mono, she has an “incomplete” in algebra, so I’ll be helping her out with that. No biggie.

Arriving at home, the staycation started pretty much the way I expect it to go for the next couple of weeks: Mrs. Fetched gave me a minute to drop my stuff and use the bathroom, then sent me down to her mom’s for pizza. Her mom, in turn, sent me back to town with $100 to buy lotto tickets. Ohhhhhh… kayyyyyyy. If you’ve got that kind of money to waste on lotto, why not shut down the chicken houses?

Eh. I’m hoping to get some writing in during these next two weeks. Somewhere in between Christmas shopping, baking, parties, algebra, and a little wood-chopping. But I need a lot more booze than there is in the house at the moment. Then again, I get paid on Monday…

De-Escaping, and a few more pix

I’ve got to hand it to The Boy: he didn’t flake out on us this year, and we were set to enjoy the last couple days at the hideaway. But I’m sure The Boy got it from his mom’s side of the family, because if it’s not him it’s one of the in-laws.

So this morning, after breakfast, we were sitting around reading — the October/November double issue of Asimov’s for me, Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and a guy whose name escapes me at the moment for her. The Boy had called earlier, and Mrs. Fetched invited him up to eat lunch with us (we were going to grab a pizza from DJ’s Diner). So it was close to 11:30 when the phone rang again.

“Dad’s going to the hospital,” Mrs. Fetched said, “we need to pack up.” Our week cut short, once again. And of course, we’ve been home for several hours and it looks like he’s not going. The only thing more disgusting than having our trip cut short is to have it cut short for no good reason. Now y’all tell me: is it reasonable to expect that the phrase “he’s going to the hospital” means he’s either in the ambulance or being taken by someone? If he’s thinking about going to the hospital, that‘s something that might happen. Precision in language usage has never been a hallmark of either Mrs. Fetched or her family, and after 20-very-odd years I still fall for it.

Next year, we leave the phones at home. If it’s that important, they can come and get us. And probably will.

So… how about a few pix? The clouds were flying a little low this morning and cut off the hilltop across the way. We got sprinkled (or heavily misted) on while I threw things in the car.



The DJ’s Diner had two walls taken up largely by mugs. I was sorely tempted to buy a mug and put my URL on it. This is one of those moments when a wide-angle lens would have been useful. :-P



The picture of the store I posted yesterday had a companion on the other corner, but it was (judging from the sign) closed a long time ago. There must have been a fair number of people in the immediate area to have supported two stores back when. There isn't any other sign of a town, nor does Google Maps show anything. But I’ve learned that there are, or used to be, towns or at least clusters of commerce roughly five miles apart on the highways around here. I suspect that, as motorized travel becomes more expensive, those places will reconstitute themselves.



So now we’re home. At least I don’t have to go anywhere for wifi.

Escape from FAR Manor 2008: Random Vacation Pix

There’s really not much to describe… take us out of the all-too-real-life soap opera and we’re really boring people. :-)

Mrs. Fetched takes long and much-needed naps. We’ve been flitting back to the manor a couple of times but that's over with until we check out on Friday. I do a little surfing on the iPhone, and come over to the office to get wifi. We’re going to grill some chicken (marinated in lime juice) tonight, we’ll probably eat at the German restaurant in Helen tomorrow. It’s been a somewhat rainy week, so I haven’t been walking nearly as much as I’d planned and the motorcycle is back home in the garage.

So… how about a few pictures? These are all taken with my iPhone, since my digital camera bought the farm a month or so back. The iPhone’s camera is a little different from those in my previous phones: it’s portrait mode by default, and has a noticeably longer focal length than any other cellphone cam I’ve tried. Its low-light capabilities are typical smellphone suck, though.

This jukebox is in the DJ’s Diner inside the resort. If the thing is out of order… why not just unplug the silly thing?



Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest playing ping-pong in the clubhouse. Since my motto at the table, borrowed from Other Brother, is “Give me a lob and I’ll give you a treat,” they didn’t want to play with me. Oh well.



A country store in White County along GA115. I don’t think the pumps are operating, but the store itself is open.



I’ve got a few more pictures I’ll post in the next day or so.

Escape from FAR Manor, 2008: Days 1 and 2

I woke up Saturday morning, not as late as I would have liked, but got up and got some coffee going. Breakfast was, of course, on the porch. Since I'd left my tennis shoes at home, I didn't do much walking... although I did barefoot it the 50 yards (or so) to the office to get online and catch up with most of my blog-buddies. An elderly couple came in with a Compaq laptop for the same reason; I was curled up on the sofa next to the wifi box and they were across from me in another seat.

Later in the morning, I called Daughter Dearest. We had, at the request of Mr. Sunshine, ordered a refurb MacBook for Brand X earlier in the week, and it was scheduled for Saturday delivery. Having seen the FedEx trucks in the area around 4p.m. in the past, I was pretty sure that it would be mid- to late afternoon before it came in. I couldn't get Mrs. Fetched on the phone, but Daughter Dearest was answering hers and was at the same place (iHop). They asked me to buzz home just in case nobody else could be there for the delivery. Since I needed my shoes (and a few other things), I acquiesced.

Mrs. Fetched's Civic has been making nasty squeaking noises in the brakes for a while, and both The Boy and I told her to get the brake pads and a C-clamp, and one or the other of us would replace them. The job fell to me, although The Boy did help with verifying I had the right mounting bolts and got the first one loose (he had to take Snippet to work). The FedEx guy showed up while I was doing the brakes; Daughter Dearest signed... which was fortunate because I never heard him come up. He delivered the MacBook and backed down the driveway. Shortly after that, we piled into the Civic with Evil Lad NOT (Brand X's younger brother, whom we will refer to as ELN herefrom) and headed back to the condo. Brand X was spending the night with a friend (and left about 10 minutes before his computer showed up). We got pizza for supper, and ended up with a 2-for-1 deal because they messed up our order, so we took the second one with us for Sunday lunch.

The waterslide was closed (bummer to infinity), so we hit the miniature golf course then went to the clubhouse to play pool and ping-pong. ELN beat me at pool, and I pwned him at ping-pong, so that all worked out. After scarfing the pizza for a late lunch, it was back to FAR Manor to let DD get ready to get back to her dorm and other general running-around. The Boy hadn't been helping with the chickens, so I reluctantly took my Civic back (which meant I had to pick up Snippet from Wendy's this evening). This wasn't completely bad, because I got to hear Snippet's frustration with The Boy and the way things are going. "The thing is," she said, "I have nowhere to go. Well, I do, but I don't." Makes about as much sense as anything else around here.

Back to the hideaway tomorrow morning.