Nice Weekend

Nice weekend. Temps in the 70's and 80's, no humidity.

Friday evening was beautiful. Sat out with the neighbors on their deck and talked and had a couple of rounds of beer in the warm evening sunset. Ryan's dad had come in to town. They went to dinner after a spell. We left.

They got a new super-duper gas grill, and offered their old one to me. I'm not a gas grill man, really, but my Big Green Egg isn't very big (I have the 14") and if you have a lot of people over that makes a difference. So I thought I'd replace the wood side-tables (they were rotted) and handle (also rotted and half-attached) and re-paint it with high temperature paint.

And Vicki suggested we give it to Kevin -- who misses his gas grill. So I fixed it for him over the weekend to give to him. Looks much better.

Saturday I went for a bike ride -- need to hep up my cardio system if I'm going to go mountain hiking this summer. We also did quite a bit of cleaning in the house Saturday. My ticker is not in the shape it was in a few years ago. I've been weight training, but no cardio).

We're watching Kathy's DVD's of The Gilmore Girls -- (so how long have I been gay, Bob asks?) No, not at all. The writing is snappy and clever -- and that's saying a lot for me -- I'm not a huge fan of sitting in front of the tube a lot. Plus, the mother and daughter are both very pretty -- not hard to watch at all. Lauren Graham is -- wow. Pretty lady. Whoooo-ah.

Got a few plants at Strawberry Hill -- some moss rose and another citronella plant in hanging baskets, and a few tomatoes, peppers, and yellow melanpodium. Let's see, what else ... replaced the tips for my Rio Riot chargers to fit the new Creative Zen Xtra MP3 player, replaced the plastic belt clip with a METAL one, and made a little aluminum mounting strap for my dashboard to hang the MP3 player on while driving.

The flowering pears bloomed last week, and this weekend we got our annual "snowstorm" of white flower petals. Very cool. Plus the redbuds have popped out, and after our thunderstorms last night, I was treated to one of my favorite sights this morning on my drive in to work... blooming redbuds against a backdrop of tiny, light green leaves and the darkened bark of the wet trees -- beautiful.

Thinking about replacing the heat pump. It's about 20 years old, and it looks like the compressor and condensor were replaced about 10 years ago. The defrost cycle isn't working quite right in the wintertime -- probably not worth fixing. Might as well get a new one and get in on (hopefully) some energy savings. I'd love to get a ground source, but probably couldln't afford to dig the wells and the at least $6,200 price tag.

And I'd rather not wait until it's 105 degrees out with 6,000,000% humidity for it to go out.

Brian came over with Kristen last night and hung out and talked for a while. We sure like her. They seem to be getting along very well. Not all the snipping and physical play fighting we're used to seeing. Lots of laughing and pretty laid back.

I sat and played the guitar quietly while we talked. I had cracked the side of my Martin, but I patched it on the inside with some 1/32 plywood and hide glue. The barred "F" is up one more little tiny notch. Getting there.