West Shore tour, wind-storm aftermath

(posted from home)
(This post covers 23 – 26 January, 2009)

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Tuesday, 26 January-

We spent a few hours this morning cleaning up after yesterday's storm. The roof gutter was clogged with debris and we had small branches all over the patios and yard. But we really have nothing to complain about. I'll have to pay a tree guy to take down the hanging branch (it's about 25 feet up) but that should be routine (for him!)
I spent the rest of the day working on the web and working with Labashi on issues for The Move.
That evening we watched the first episode of Ken Burns' 'National Parks: America's Best Idea'.

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Monday, 25 January-

I spent the morning paying bills. My good friends at Blue Ridge Cable missed the fact that they had talked me into a faster internet connection deal (at a reduced price) and just billed me for the higher connection speed. What a deal! At first the customer service rep just offered to slow down the speed (yeah, that'll fix it!) but eventually figured out how to give me the deal and credit my account for the past overcharges. But couldn't it just have been done right the first time?
We had a very windy night last night and lost two trees down in the 'lower 40' as well as a branch broken off and hanging down near the house. The wind was very strong this morning but died down by 1100 or so. But then the power failed.
Labashi and I wanted to get out of the house with the power down so we drove in to Smokey Bones for lunch. Years ago I first tried Smokey Bones in Montgomery, Alabama and loved their ribs. They were without a doubt the best I've ever had (I went back twice that week to be sure!). But our experience today wasn't a great one so I think we're done trying to get Alabama ribs in PA.
We then drove over to the AAA office to pick up some Mexico Tourbooks and then on to Borders to look for some history books on Mexico. We have a relative who is moving to central Mexico for work and we're hoping to visit and tour central Mexico.
That evening we watched three episodes of 'Big Love, Season 3'. We love 'Big Love', though we do fear they're going to have problems keeping up the quality of the writing.


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Sunday, 24 January-

Today was a 100-per-cent-chance-of-rain day. I wanted to take the Concours down to the Tollgate Starbucks for my Sunday paper and at first thought I'd have to revert to what motorcyclists call 'the cage' (the car). But after staring at the Wunderground radar screen for a bit I decided the rain wouldn't hit our area for a while. And according to the radar images south and southwest of here (where the rain was coming from) the rain was very light-- at least at first.
Going down, the road was dry but south of York I began seeing water drops on the windshield. By the time I reached Fourbucks, the road was wet. But it didn't really get worse. I spent two hours reading and sipping and then headed home without even donning my rain gear; it was still just a drizzle. The rain started in earnest an hour or so later.
That evening we watched Quentin Tarantino's “Inglorious Basterds” with Brad Pitt. I can't say I see why it's an award winner. If you take it as a joke or perhaps witty for it's paying homage to various movies that went before it, well, OK, but I was thought it was all sizzle and no steak.

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Saturday, 23 January-

Today Labashi and I took a drive around the West Shore in preparation for Labashi's parents' move to the Bethany Village retirement community in early February. We visited both the Frederickson Library in Camp Hill and the Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg for brief walk-throughs and conversations with staff about services and programs. When we're traveling we spend a lot of time in libraries so we were wondering what our reactions would be to these. Both seemed very friendly and I see the Simpson was chosen as a Reader's Choice 2009 favorite. The Simpson seemed a bit claustrophobic to me but I did like their comfortable upstairs reading and wi-fi loft. I liked the Frederickson's soaring architecture and Mission-style furniture and their good selection of newspapers. Dad's art library far surpasses their collection but I'm sure he'll find some interesting books. Both libraries use the Cumberland County online library system which seems to be pretty good. Between inter-library loan and their program to deliver books to elderly members who have difficulty making the trip to the library, I think this will work out well to supplement the small library in the retirement community.
Labashi and I then ran across town to the Wal-mart to buy some inflatable mattresses for the next phase of The Move. This time we'll be renting a car for the trip to Detroit so we won't have Mocha Joe and will sleep in the house. Having the air mattresses will allow us to load everything into the U-Haul and still have a place to sleep (Mom and Dad will be in a hotel that night).
As we drove around on our errands we kept an eye out for restaurants to try with Mom and Dad. It's going to be tough, I think, to find a replacement for El Nibble Nook (their favorite).
We were surprised to find so many ethnic restaurants and look forward to trying them. At each restaurant Labashi picked up a menu and is making a file of them for the future. But for today we were hungry for bar-be-que so we tried 'Uncle Mike's Backyard BBQ', with mixed results. I wish the family running this new restaurant well but I don't think they're going to make our favorites list.
We then drove to Bethany Village for two quick little items. We measured the freight elevator and checked out Mom and Dad's assigned parking spot.
Back home we finished up 'True Blood- Season 1'. We liked the first few episodes but then the writing seemed to go downhill and the actors seemed to be working in a soap opera.

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