Month: October 2002

Bonsai

Started the day with a stop at the North Carolina Arboretum. Donna wanted to go to see the gardens. Diane and Allen wanted to go back because the last time they visited in April nothing was in bloom. I wanted to go because it meant a top down drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The original plan was to all ride in D & A’s Integra, but Donna wasn’t feeling to well so she wanted to ride in the Miata. As a surprise bonus the Arboretum was hosting the 2002 Carolina Bonsai Expo. Very beautiful stuff. Amazing that in today’s fast paced society that this slow moving art form survives. Of course there are tons of web sites devoted to it. After that it was too early to go right to lunch so I devised a little loop that included a stop at Looking Glass Falls and Sliding Rock before ending up at the Pisgah Inn for lunch. The food is really good and the view is super making it well worth the 30 minute wait. After eating, we stayed on the Parkway and went over to the Folk Art Center. From there we went our serparate ways, Diane & Allen went into downtown Asheville and we headed back to the hotel. Later, after supper, a trip for ice cream was agreed upon. Allen looked in his Underground Asheville book and picked a place called Sweet Heaven because of the ice cream but it also has live music. When we got there “Inna Gadda Da Vida” as coming from a kid on a really nice Roland piano whose father was a baby when that song came out. Turns out this 14 year old keyboard prodigy, Nick Stubblefield, also plays for the Sunday brunch at the hoity-toity Grove Park Inn. A while later his 12 year old sister accompanied him by singing a few old jazz standards. She was as amazingly as good as he was.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 277

Thank God Its Thursday

Kind of feel like I’m living in the northwest, raining off and on all the time. So the top is down for the ride to work and up during, then down or up for the ride home depending on conditions. Well the 9 hours days are done, tomorrow is why we did it, off at 11:30. We are headed up to Asheville, NC for the weekend. My sister and her husband are going to meet us there and we are perhaps going leaf peeping or if it is raining there, a movie or something.

Started up, went down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 268

West Wing

Man I love this show, but you can’t just watch it and try and do something else too, you miss stuff. I was watching tonight’s episode and trying to rearrange my computer desk to make room for a scanner someone is letting me try out and something happened that judging by the character’s expression and the background music was significant, but I didn’t have a clue. Oh well, there is always reruns because I’m sure there will be no catching up next week.

Orthodontic Shyness

Do you think it says anything about my feeling towards having Wabbit Teeth on the front of the car that I haven’t taken a single picture of them in the 15 days they have been there? It is too sunny, it is too cloudy, I’ve been too busy, I can’t find just the right background and on and on and on.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 268

Flying Off The Face Of A Cliff

Rainy day for a change. We made it to work with the top down, barely, so I put it up on arrival. Still spritzing when we went out to Wally World looking for a light coat for Donna. She lost her last one of the face of the cliff at the Devils’ Courthouse when an unexpected gust of wind sailed it of the ledge she had rested on.

Well Blogging has finally come to the notice of the folks at the newspaper in Augusta. There was a little column in today’s paper quoting one person and citing a couple of vague statistics. I’d link you to it, but they haven’t even added it to their web page yet.

I guess they wait until the next day so the paper’s subscribers don’t feel cheated out of their 50 cents. Here is the article: The blog-o-sphere filled with news, nonsense.

Started down went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/02: 266

Cheap Windsheild Wipers

Bought a set of wipers at KMart a while back and I had a chance to use them on a misty morning drive to work today. They left streaks! Looking through the windsheild after a pass made it look like the side of a vinyl LP (you remember those things, where music came from before CDs) only with lots of glare. Of course the packing and receipt are long gone, so I guess I’ll just go somewhere else and spend another $12 on another pair.

Lockout/Tagout

Because I work in a manufacturing plant, every year I have to attend an annual training session on Lockout/Tagout. Every year, even though I work in the front office and will never have cause to lockout/tagout my keyboard. I have worked here for going on 16 years and I have seen the same film 16 times. Pretty much got it memorized through osmosis, after like the 3rd time I started closing my eyes and listening and after about 8 times I started daydreaming I was on on the beach somewhere being fanned by topless nubile madiens while someone read me the proper procedure to control all hazardous energy….