DC trip, ‘Cross Country’, ‘The Neighbor’, ‘The Upside of Anger’, ‘The Associate’, ‘Little Children’, Rokon
(posted from home)
(This post covers 24-31 March, 2009)
-----------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 31 March -
This morning I buzzed up to the doctor’s office for the creatinine blood test for my upcoming CT scan and hit the newly-refurbished Red Land library. In the afternoon I put the top down on the Miata (finally!) and went into York. I wanted to check out a used Honda ‘Big Ruckus’ motor scooter at Action Motorsports. Orat and I had stayed at a Florida campground where the site manager had the smaller version—the ‘Ruckus’—and it looked like fun and might even be usable on the sand roads in the Ocala. But the Ruckus is too under-powered and the Big Ruckus is too big to haul on a rack on Mocha Joe. What I need for the Ocala is something like a ‘Tote Gote’ or a Rokon ‘Ranger’ or ‘Trail-Breaker’ (Wow factor: the Trail-Breaker is a two-wheel-drive motorcycle which has hollow wheels you can fill with water or extra gas and they allow you to FLOAT the machine across a river or lake !?!?!). But I’d prefer to have something which could be licensed for the road so I could ride it on the forest roads back here in PA.
This is a Rokon:
Afterward, I walked five miles at Rocky Ridge Park.
-------------------------------------------
Monday, 30 March –
I spent most of the day editing and uploading video clips from the Florida trip. In late afternoon I took my four-mile walk while listening to CBC’s ‘The North This Week’ podcast. I enjoyed the downwind leg but coming back the wind picked up too much for a casual walk. I had to lean into it to stay upright. (Isn’t March supposed to go out like a lamb?)
On the podcast I heard a song I liked. It’s ‘Under the Covers’ by Scotch. Give it a try; it’s different. Have a listen on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/scotchisgood . The listing shows the band is from Montreal but they came from Whitehorse (thus the connection to “The North This Week”.) “St. Cosmo” is worth a listen too.
That evening we watched ‘Little Children’ with Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. Todd Field (the director) knows how to tell a story. Excellent movie. As RT says, the movie “follows several in habitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood”. Roger that.
------------------------------------------
Sunday, 29 March –
Today was a rainy day and we both spent it in our offices. I worked on uploading some video clips from the Florida trip then spent the entire afternoon reading the rest of ‘The Associate’ by John Grisham. I don’t normally read so much at a time but the book is due Tuesday and I can’t renew it (according to the online renewal system) because someone else has it on hold.
Actually, I was a bit disappointed in it. Perhaps I was expecting everything to be tied up with a nice little justice-wins-in-the-end bow. I did enjoy the fact that the protagonist’s home town is York and I enjoyed the references to local landmarks and restaurants. The plot is a bit of a stretch, though.
That evening we watched “The Upside of Anger” with Joan Allen and Kevin Costner. All the way at the end we realized we had already seen it! That sounds like something I’d do but Labashi normally has a really, really good ‘visual memory’ and can name a movie from just a tiny little clip. Good movie, though.
------------------------------------------
Saturday, 28 March –
I spent the morning on the web catching up on email, web news and gunny sites, then updated the blog.
I spent much of the afternoon working on video clips. Nero9 seems clunky and not very user-friendly.
-------------------------------------------
Friday, 27 March –
We drove home from Virginia today, taking our time. We first took a break at the Starbucks just south of Frederick then drove into town for some antiques shopping. We were mostly just looking around and found the antiques-row area of Frederick perfect for it. We had parked at the visitor’s center garage and had been directed to the East Patrick Street area.
Labashi was looking for a small table, preferably a triangular one, so I figured chances were good we weren’t taking anything home. But after a few hours of browsing through traditional-style antiques shops, we hit upon a small shop with many imported French, German, and Chinese everyday-use items. And Labashi found just what she wanted— a Chinese drum stand. It’s triangular in shape and she’ll only have to add a small piece of glass, about 9” in diameter, to it to make a nice little table to fit nicely between our two angled chairs.
That evening we watched ‘The Neighbor’ with Matthew Modine and Michele Laroque. Yikes. It was terrible. And I see RT doesn’t even rate it. Run away!! Run away!!!
-------------------------------------------
Thursday, 26 March –
Today I drove Labashi and the New Mexico relatives in to the Natural History Museum for the day. I blundered onto a DC ‘gotcha’ when I tried to go around the block at the museum and ended up across the river and headed up the George Washington expressway before I could turn back to the museum.
But we had a great time at the museum and it was interesting to watch the boys as they went from display to display. I expected them to gravitate to the ‘wow’ stuff (like the blue whale, the T-Rex skeleton, and the mammals, but they seemed more fascinated by the fossils and, oh yeah, the five-year old liked the bats.
That evening their dad treated us all to a meal at Chili’s. Back home the kids went downstairs to watch an animated feature while the adults watched the first two ‘I, Claudius’ episodes (our hosts are history buffs and have an interesting collection of historical movies).
Later than night I finished James Patterson’s “Cross Country”. I think I’m done with Patterson’s work. I like the character he developed but just can’t stand the story lines and the overuse of exclamation points intended to generate tension.
-------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 25 March –
Today we drove to visit Labashi’s brother and his wife in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. The trip was an easy one down US15.
Another brother and family are in town from Albequerque so we had a full house and, with two young boys, plenty of entertainment.
We spent the afternoon and evening catching up with each other.
------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 24 March –
This morning I updated the blog and then made a grocery-store run. That afternoon Labashi joined me in my walk and we did a little over 3 miles while chatting and listening to music on the iPod.
We started packing for our trip tomorrow and I watched a couple of ’30 Rock’ episodes on Netflix Instant.
********* END OF POST ********
(posted from home)
(This post covers 24-31 March, 2009)
-----------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 31 March -
This morning I buzzed up to the doctor’s office for the creatinine blood test for my upcoming CT scan and hit the newly-refurbished Red Land library. In the afternoon I put the top down on the Miata (finally!) and went into York. I wanted to check out a used Honda ‘Big Ruckus’ motor scooter at Action Motorsports. Orat and I had stayed at a Florida campground where the site manager had the smaller version—the ‘Ruckus’—and it looked like fun and might even be usable on the sand roads in the Ocala. But the Ruckus is too under-powered and the Big Ruckus is too big to haul on a rack on Mocha Joe. What I need for the Ocala is something like a ‘Tote Gote’ or a Rokon ‘Ranger’ or ‘Trail-Breaker’ (Wow factor: the Trail-Breaker is a two-wheel-drive motorcycle which has hollow wheels you can fill with water or extra gas and they allow you to FLOAT the machine across a river or lake !?!?!). But I’d prefer to have something which could be licensed for the road so I could ride it on the forest roads back here in PA.
This is a Rokon:
Afterward, I walked five miles at Rocky Ridge Park.
-------------------------------------------
Monday, 30 March –
I spent most of the day editing and uploading video clips from the Florida trip. In late afternoon I took my four-mile walk while listening to CBC’s ‘The North This Week’ podcast. I enjoyed the downwind leg but coming back the wind picked up too much for a casual walk. I had to lean into it to stay upright. (Isn’t March supposed to go out like a lamb?)
On the podcast I heard a song I liked. It’s ‘Under the Covers’ by Scotch. Give it a try; it’s different. Have a listen on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/scotchisgood . The listing shows the band is from Montreal but they came from Whitehorse (thus the connection to “The North This Week”.) “St. Cosmo” is worth a listen too.
That evening we watched ‘Little Children’ with Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. Todd Field (the director) knows how to tell a story. Excellent movie. As RT says, the movie “follows several in habitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood”. Roger that.
------------------------------------------
Sunday, 29 March –
Today was a rainy day and we both spent it in our offices. I worked on uploading some video clips from the Florida trip then spent the entire afternoon reading the rest of ‘The Associate’ by John Grisham. I don’t normally read so much at a time but the book is due Tuesday and I can’t renew it (according to the online renewal system) because someone else has it on hold.
Actually, I was a bit disappointed in it. Perhaps I was expecting everything to be tied up with a nice little justice-wins-in-the-end bow. I did enjoy the fact that the protagonist’s home town is York and I enjoyed the references to local landmarks and restaurants. The plot is a bit of a stretch, though.
That evening we watched “The Upside of Anger” with Joan Allen and Kevin Costner. All the way at the end we realized we had already seen it! That sounds like something I’d do but Labashi normally has a really, really good ‘visual memory’ and can name a movie from just a tiny little clip. Good movie, though.
------------------------------------------
Saturday, 28 March –
I spent the morning on the web catching up on email, web news and gunny sites, then updated the blog.
I spent much of the afternoon working on video clips. Nero9 seems clunky and not very user-friendly.
-------------------------------------------
Friday, 27 March –
We drove home from Virginia today, taking our time. We first took a break at the Starbucks just south of Frederick then drove into town for some antiques shopping. We were mostly just looking around and found the antiques-row area of Frederick perfect for it. We had parked at the visitor’s center garage and had been directed to the East Patrick Street area.
Labashi was looking for a small table, preferably a triangular one, so I figured chances were good we weren’t taking anything home. But after a few hours of browsing through traditional-style antiques shops, we hit upon a small shop with many imported French, German, and Chinese everyday-use items. And Labashi found just what she wanted— a Chinese drum stand. It’s triangular in shape and she’ll only have to add a small piece of glass, about 9” in diameter, to it to make a nice little table to fit nicely between our two angled chairs.
That evening we watched ‘The Neighbor’ with Matthew Modine and Michele Laroque. Yikes. It was terrible. And I see RT doesn’t even rate it. Run away!! Run away!!!
-------------------------------------------
Thursday, 26 March –
Today I drove Labashi and the New Mexico relatives in to the Natural History Museum for the day. I blundered onto a DC ‘gotcha’ when I tried to go around the block at the museum and ended up across the river and headed up the George Washington expressway before I could turn back to the museum.
But we had a great time at the museum and it was interesting to watch the boys as they went from display to display. I expected them to gravitate to the ‘wow’ stuff (like the blue whale, the T-Rex skeleton, and the mammals, but they seemed more fascinated by the fossils and, oh yeah, the five-year old liked the bats.
That evening their dad treated us all to a meal at Chili’s. Back home the kids went downstairs to watch an animated feature while the adults watched the first two ‘I, Claudius’ episodes (our hosts are history buffs and have an interesting collection of historical movies).
Later than night I finished James Patterson’s “Cross Country”. I think I’m done with Patterson’s work. I like the character he developed but just can’t stand the story lines and the overuse of exclamation points intended to generate tension.
-------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 25 March –
Today we drove to visit Labashi’s brother and his wife in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. The trip was an easy one down US15.
Another brother and family are in town from Albequerque so we had a full house and, with two young boys, plenty of entertainment.
We spent the afternoon and evening catching up with each other.
------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 24 March –
This morning I updated the blog and then made a grocery-store run. That afternoon Labashi joined me in my walk and we did a little over 3 miles while chatting and listening to music on the iPod.
We started packing for our trip tomorrow and I watched a couple of ’30 Rock’ episodes on Netflix Instant.
********* END OF POST ********
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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