Yardwork

This fall's best rationalization: By letting the yard/field/pasture grow wild, I'm developing a natural habitat for rabbits and growing dandelion greens for the turtles.

The middle of nowhere

I'm ready to mow and the annual mower reclamation project was going along fine. This year's replacement part is a pulley on the mower deck. No big deal. The John Deere dealer two miles away closed. The john Deer Dealer 10 miles away closed (I learned this morning looking into the forlorn empty office). So I get to drive to Athens, or Huntsville, or Cullman. Culman is almost all interstate, and I'm white, so I'm off. It's never simple around here.


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Back to the Salt Mine (by choice this time)

- A little elliptical and strength training this morning.
- A few chores around the house.
- Returned to my room at school after a week away from it.
- Lunch with Tobermory in the Starbucks/Target Cafe.
- Worked in my room til 6pm.
- Target household shopping
- Computer digital cleanup
- A little SimCity Classic.
- A few chores & then bed.

Update: I took Ada and Thisbe (our dogs) for a mile walk 'round midnight. I love summer vacation.

New Day Rising

Had a great week with Clyde Frog visiting - and Bromide visited Sat. & Sun. Got the turtle table done, got the front room interior walls covered in canvas, got all the grass mowed at least once. Made a dent in the clothes washing. There was an awful lot of Law & Order Criminal Intent and Special Victims Unit. Worked out Thursday, but missed the weekend walk - back to the gym 7:30am Monday.

I'd offer you some: Jefferson Bible, and a great Abtruse Goose comic.

Vacation

- Summer School ended Friday. I think the last time I was that happy to end a job was the day in the summer of 1985 when I walked out of the Columbus Foundry for the last time.
- Clyde Frog is visiting and we've been working to get things done.
-- Turtle table constructed.
-- The pasture is finally mowed.
- Coach S. & I have been working out consistently. My muscles seem to be recovering from being long dormant and, most importantly, I hit 34 minutes on the evil elliptical machine today.

- The Sam Adams quote below kicks ass.

Done.

- This school year is officially done.
- I have a week off and then I'll work summer school thru June.
- Put my new in an story online workshop and got good feedback. I'll finish it up this week.
- I've cleaned up some of the 'den' and I've done a little to restablish the guest bedroom, after it spent some time as a reptile room.
- The girls (our dogs) have been behaving better and the reptile/amphibian contingent are doing quite well.
- Watched a couple of episodes of Top Chef, trying to catch up.
- I've had done about 7 workouts now. Used the elliptical for the first time, it's tougher than I expected. I did 12 cardio before & after & 2 sets of 8 exercises in between. Benched 165 - 2x12. A long way to go. Got Coach S. to go with me the last two times.
- Went to Allsteak in Cullman last night. Outstanding. Tobermory said it was one of the best meals she's ever had.

Monday 5/5

Teaching: Notes from Vicksburg to The Wilderness Campaign, with a great reading of the Gettysburg Address by Sam Waterston from Ken Burns Civil War
Home Improvement: Fixed the mower by removing the deck housings and repositioning the belt. Mowed the side & front up until dark.
Writing: I've started typing my short urban fantasy story, and will try to finish that in a bit.
Reading: finished up “In the House of the Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages from The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Volume 1 (Spring 2007).
TV & Movies: Over the weekend I re-watched the first 13 episodes of Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica with Clyde Squid. The show is relentless. It rips you apart every episode, makes you cringe and makes you want to save the human race from the Cylons, all at the same time.
Internet: Mostly Civil War stuff for my notes - some cool stuff on the Unionist unit - 1st Alabama Cavalry, U.S. Volunteers
Animal Kingdom: Turtles, frogs, chameleons, snakes, dogs, cats all living the high life.
Exercising: Completed my fourth workout, did two 7-minute rides on the exercise bike and one set of eight exercises for 10 reps, but I'm nearing limit on weight and will move to two sets and then up weight and go for periodization. 175x10 on bench - easily done. Getting very close to actually working out.

Monday Night Home Improvement

Teaching: No teaching (Grad Exams) but I did make a list of the most frequently used subs, which should be quite popular with the faculty.
Home Improvement: The hall bedroom is cleaned out and setup for visitors (and more storage).
Internet: Looked at the scifi trade journal Locus this evening. It led me to SFSite, which is largely book/story reviews. Also to FantasyBookSpot and the bookslut scifi column.
Exercising: Worked my butt off around the house.
Tobermory worked late - now off to bed.

Early Monday

- Watched 30 Days of Night and it was surprisingly good. There is actually a heroic story within the Vampire madness. It surprised me like Sunshine, in that it was much better than I expected, and I'm surprised there wasn't more positive press. Plus Ben Foster plays crazy very well in a supporting part, as he did in 3:10 to Yuma.
- Almost done with the hall bedroom. All carpet gone & 1/2 the furniture (and books) are back where they should be.
- Tried, but couldn't find anything particularly good on the internet yesterday.
- A mile Monday morning with Thisbe.

Sunday

- Rode back from Birmingham with Paul.
Writing: grinding through 38 Fiction Mistakes by Jack Bickham.
Home Improvement: Closer in the Hall bedroom - pulled up more carpet, stored toys, and moved some shelves around. Also made the pink bathroom sink workable.
Exercising: 3/4 mile walk in the evening
- We added a new puppy dog, Ada, she's a lab/Australian sheepdog mix. Sweet as can be.

Friday, again already

Tikka Masala: Tobermory, Paul & I went to the Sitar Indian Restaurant in Huntsville (inspired by last night's show with Gordon Ramsay fixing a curry shop). Food was great!
Teaching: More work on the Era of Good Feelings
Home Improvement: Ripped up carpet in the hall bedroom!
Exercising: 1 mile this morning

Any excuse for a little Firefly

Teaching: Students using multiple books to cover from the Hartford Convention to the Monroe Doctrine
Home Improvement: More cleaning of the hallway bedroom
Movies: At "school" I had to sit with freshmen during the Sophomore Writing Assessment - so I showed then the pilot of Firefly and, to my surprise, it went over very well.
Internet: When Wikipedia Won't Cut It: 25 Online Sources for Reliable, Researched Facts
TV: This evening it was this week's Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare
Exercising: 1/2 mile in the morning

Tuesday

In between coughs, I roared this one today:
"There is no democracy in Art!"
Teaching: Students working on their own. I graded & put in grades (in the computer), but am still putting off the AP essays. Must grade them soon, I have no choice. (Of course, there is the down-the-steps method).
Home Improvement: A pretty successful pre-dawn Garbage Day operation. I took down the spider habitat/storm windows on the kitchen windows and now you can see out of them. (I also "accidentally" shattered a big piece of trash glass - woo hoo!)
Internet: I like reading SciFi.com Weekly News, essentially a sci-fi tv & movie info overdose.
TV: a little Gordon and tried to watch Last Restaurant Standing on BBCA, but got snoozy.
Exercising: Stretched my back + a 1/2 mile this morning

Week in Review pt. VI - Home Improvement

Home Improvement:
- Replaced the showerhead in the black bathroom with a steampunk concoction of an on/off lever (to stop a drip) and a cool silver articulated arm with can head like an old watering pail. Picture soon.
- Unstopped the slow-draining sink in the pink bathroom.
- Replaced the water line to the tank of the toilet in the pink bathroom (no more leak) & replaced the float contraption in teh tank - it doesn't run anymore!
- A decent week for plumbing - however, the floor beckons.