Karyn and Stephanie had a great plan, after I took off for NYC, to take the kids down to the pool. Mother Nature had other ideas and started a thunderstorm as the family got packed into the car. They decided to go on down, as we had good success last time it rained - after the rain cleared we had the pool to ourselves! This time, Stephanie, Karyn and the kids had the pool to themselves and decided to experiment on the diving board. Justin, our lifeguard, took some video on his cell phone!
On Saturday I took the kids out for a bike ride on Saturday while Stephanie did her weekend ritual of deep-cleaning the week's detritus.We rode a combination of Columns Drive bike path and Cochran Shoals hard pack trails for about 11 miles over the course of an hour or so. We stopped in the middle for a bit of nature observation on the Chattahoochee River. Maya and Devin enjoyed talking to the ducks, but they just quacked back. We also watched plenty of kayaks and river rafts going by, and the occasional canoe.
The late, great Douglas Adams said, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” So it often is with intentions: I set a personal goal of trying to blog something daily, but I have been remiss, or at least miscalculated my available time to devote to blogging. Perhaps daily updates are a bit ambitious. I am, after all, a busy guy.
At any rate, several interesting things happened this weekend:
- Grandma went back home to Florida, so the kids were a bit sad when they awoke from their afternoon slumbers to discover that the Airplanes has absconded with Grandmaw (emphasis on the maw with a distinct Southern accent applied by Maya).
- I mowed the lawn on Sunday afternoon, after a nice church service. I managed to get stung by a yellow jacket before completing the back yard. I am not amused.
- I hung out a new Hummingbird feeder provided by Mimi and Papa, and the kids are eager to see “birds eating nectar like bees!”.
- Had a nice get-together with friends at the pool for a grill-out. I didn’t experiment very much, but I have perfected grilled/roasted asparagus and potatoes. I did learn, however, that Heather prefers absolutely nothing ethnic. What’s wrong with you people??
- Had a nice “block party” out in our front yard with adjoining neighbors. We hauled out the folding chairs and downed some beverages while brushing the dogs.
- Bathed one dog. Had enough fur leftover, literally, to knit another dog. This is just some of what I had.
- Spent some quality time with an air compressor and the vacuum filter. I emerged mostly unscathed.
- Finally finished rebuilding a friend’s aging HP laptop with a Pentium III processor. He has now upgraded from WinXP to Ubuntu Jaunty Jackelope.
- Found the bag of goodies (receipts, tickets, maps, notes) from our Paris/Amsterdam trip. Now I can finish the travelogue for that trip, and reconnect with our Egyptian friend from Kentucky.
That’s about it. Not enough? Too mundane? Perhaps. But to quote our sermon from Sunday: we’re trying to pack into one day what would previously take three. Personally, I’d rather spread it out over three days. What’s the rush?
I was playing with Google Maps earlier today, basically to plot some points on a map, when I saw my list of saved maps. That got me thinking – I like geospatial references in my writing, because it helps me remember. So I fired up Google Earth – remembering that I had blogged about my trips to Trinidad and using Google Earth to send the locations to my family. Then I went from there to trying to tag all the places I went – and I failed miserably to recall all the places and things I’ve seen.
So, that being said, I’m going to try to blog daily, not necessarily to have something to say, but at least to be able to remember. Basically, a public diary of sorts. As I’m writing this now, I see that I have a draft version of my October 2008 Travelogue Part IV that I never posted. “Oops.” I need to get better about this.
To celebrate the 4th of July, we trekked down to Midtown and picked up Uncle Alan and Aunt Valerie. After the usual shrieks of joy, we walked down to Taco Mac and picked up some vittles to-go, and then headed up to Buckhead to stake out a place to enjoy the fireworks. We staked out what we thought would be a nice parking space in the Target/Publix parking garage.
It worked in our favor that the Peachtree Road Race ended a few hours prior (congrats to Alan and Valerie!) there were plenty of barricades still up to route people, and consequently there were plenty of open spots on the grass just across the street from Lenox Mall. We secured some soft grass, spread ourselves out and consumed some good comestibles. Across the street in the mall parking lot there was a huge soundstage and live music, which made for a nice dinner. A helicopter buzzed about at a low altitude overhead, and that catapulted the kids into a frenzied state of "oh-my-it's-a-bit-warm-but-I'm-full-and-there-are-flying-machines" euphoria. They ran around on the grass like...well, like kids do.
Shortly thereafter the police blocked the streets, and we were able to watch the awesome show! The show was complete with music and ended with... well, a bang, and the usual Lee Greenwood music. We said goodbye to Alan and Valerie and headed back to our van... and the ensuing traffic snarl. Our choice of parking, previously regarded as inspired, was not so much so at the conclusion of the show. But, to our advantage, there was a convenient Publix, and it was open. We ducked in, got some beverages and snacks, and waited out the traffic and got ourselves back home before the end of July 4th. Good times! Note: I've geotagged the photos so you can see where we were for the show.
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| July 4th |
