The beach


Here’s yet another picture from the Big Sur campout. That was sure a pretty place. And so photogenic.

Happy start of another week! It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day today – in the mid to upper nineties here in Lardville, as a matter of fact. It’s supposed to stay warm and sunny for at least the next week or so. Loyal Reader Number Four told me she measured the pool’s temperature and it’s somewhere between 78 and 80 degrees. That’s swimmin’ weather! I’m seriously thinking of taking a little dip when I get home.

Implying, of course, that I’m writing this on the train again. The rail commute is still not getting to me and, since the drive was starting to get to me, I’m on the train again. And getting a lot done, including keeping my unread emails down to zero, watching a bunch of video podcasts, listening to a bunch of audio podcasts, writing the blog, reading a bunch of books (both electronic and old-school), and sleeping. Wow! I’m just a paragon of productivity.

Although I’m still mourning the loss of the rolling briefcase. I really like the temporary replacement I’m using, but it’s pretty hard on the back to haul it back and forth across campus. Fortunately, there was a shuttle bus pulling up just as I got off the railroad bus this morning, and a kind colleague offered me a ride to the stop this afternoon. So no exercise today, but no sore shoulder/back combination either. I hope I can hold out until next month.

We got just a few things done over the weekend. I got the barbecue repaired on Saturday – it turns out the old burner was completely rusted away – and even got the self-lighter working again. It was pretty full of grease and grime, so it was simply a matter of cleaning it up. I also went to the library and checked out a little pile of train-based reading material, including a couple of Dave Barry books and a couple that should help me improve my chess game. There are also a few other random selections in there, along with a few classical CDs for my listening pleasure.

Perhaps the most interesting thing from Saturday was when LRN4 and I went to the pond store in Escalon. They have lots of sample ponds, numerous kitschy pond accessories, and very high prices. I got some ideas there and will look online for better prices. Sorry about that, Escalon store.

While we were in Escalon, we stopped at a new neighborhood to walk through their models. The floorplans were pretty unexciting, the workmanship on the models was pretty bad (boding extremely poorly for how they build the non-show houses), the yards were pathetically small, it’s another half-hour away from work, there’s not much shopping, the neighborhood is right by the railroad tracks, and the prices were high. Other than that, we loved the place. Not moving there anytime soon.

Sunday was another busy Sabbath. Our church meetings were nice (my Sunday School class was a little short on participation, since there were only two people there, but was otherwise fine) and other meetings went well too. Loyal Reader Number One performed at his Honors Recital, as discussed previously, and did quite well. I mentioned to LRN4 that the quality of the recitals we’re attending these days has gone WAY up – it’s more like going to a concert than a piano recital. Every performed was hand-selected and excellent. The recital was at the college down in Turlock; what a pretty campus! Loyal Reader Number Two has organ lessons there every week, so I’m the only one who wasn’t familiar with the place. Turlock might be a nice retirement location.

That’s about it for today. See you tomorrow.

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