Nov 30 - another month gone

When I think back on this month, all the stuff that we packed into it, I'm amazed. I suppose that when I was working I did a lot in a month too -- well, I attended a lot of conference calls, didn't really DO anything :). From the beginning of the month, fishing and hunting, mid month traveling to Philly, time with Mariadella, Leonas, Sandy's friends, Jeffrey, Sara and Emma, finishing the trip to Florida, back on the bike down here, Bill and Collette here for the week ... wow.

We had a great time with Bill and Collette. They are easy company -- prepared to do just about anything -- sit and chat, take a walk, go out in the boat, go to Epcot, tour the area, drink wine, eat -- and this in spite of Collette's challenges. I don't know if I could be as cheerful, enjoying life to the fullest, trying everything, doing everything ... they are a very special pair -- Bill says that they're symbiotic.

But, we're alone again. Abby is probably bored with us. She was in the car the entire time that Sandy was trying to get it going. Apparently she just backed herself into the corner of the car, in effect saying -- "you have to be kidding, get out of the car ? you promised that we'd go to the beach!". She got a walk through the neighborhood out of the deal but I got home much too late for Sandy to go to the beach with her. Perhaps today will work out.

It looks like we're in for some wild weather today. It's very windy and there are thunderstorms headed our way. From the forecast it's supposed to be warm -- 79F -- but very windy -- 25mph -- and of course gusts are higher than that. With thunderstorms, who knows -- as long as we don't have tornadoes !

I got back from Mass a little while ago and I'm about to head over to Home Depot. I'm determined to do some of the work on the in-ground sprinkler, bypassing the filter and softener. With a little luck I'll do the plumbing to put in the PVC "T" connector, a Union and the Ball Valve. I also want to drill the holes in the brick wall, getting ready for the real work of burying pipe and installing in-ground valves etc. I assessed what I had from the last trip and in my plumbing drawer and I need some fresh PVC cement, a couple more PVC screw-on & cement-on fittings and a threaded elbow. One of the elbows that I picked up last time had male and female threads, not male threads and female cement-on. Oh well, I have not been visiting Home Depot enough anyway. I have to keep the economy going -- but spending less than $10 at HD probably won't do it !

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It's mid-day and I'm working at the plumbing -- the first step is putting in the T and the ball valve. I've taken a break for lunch. Sandy is out at the dog beach.

I shouldn't have joked about tornadoes earlier -- we're now under a tornado watch. There is a big, big set of thunderstorms moving our way. Unfortunately we don't even get local TV so I cannot check, other than looking at the doppler on the computer and of course the trees blowing wildly out the window !

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Stage 1 is now complete in my sprinkler plumbing project. The bypass T is in place and ball valve, holes drilled in the wall for pipe and wire, pipe sticking out the wall. two unions are in place in case anything needs to be disconnected. All is watertight so far. The sky has gone black and we got a little sprinkle. It's far from over but I'm finished for the day ... I'm not about to start digging outside while I get dumped upon, stormed upon, with lightning to light my way.

I've been watching with interest the happenings in Canadian politics. Unless Harper is successful in avoiding a vote of non-confidence his government will topple just weeks after they got a minority government ... fascinating ... it's like Israel or Italy with so many political parties that a mandate is not always what it seems. His government is already back-pedaling on their fiscal submission to parliament. Meanwhile, south of the border, there are huge hopes for Obama. It was interesting to read articles in the Toronto Star online this morning about both situations. Ultimately Canada's economy will depend on the U.S. I don't think that a stimulus package could do much in Canada without a U.S. economy on the road to recovery.

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I forgot to mention that we watched another of my Dad's videos last night, from December 91 to March 92. It was fascinating -- quite a collection of characters -- family characters that is.

This was the video that is best described as ballooning and Everglades Tours. Arlene and her boyfriend at the time -- Mike -- were there for Christmas and the Everglades tour. Later in the video Bobbie & Paul Filion (Bobbie is nee Tomenson) were also there on on tour. Dad went for a balloon ride, presumably over Fort Lauderdale, and there is a lot shot from the balloon looking down.

My cousin Sue appeared -- along with her father (my uncle) and my aunt. I'm assuming that Bill and Chris (husband and son) were with Sue, but I'm not good at recognizing faces after so many years.

Next is a large section of tape where Mom & Dad went to Epcot / Disney World with Willie and Flory. There were some very good shots in The Living Seas -- the big aquarium had much more then than it does now -- there has been deterioration. There was a school of 9 eagle rays, parrot fish which can only live if there is coral (there was no live coral a couple of days ago), multiple sharks, a large black grouper, etc. etc.

This video is a must-see ! Sue take note !

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It's morning again. That seems to happen every day. That's a good thing !

We heard from Bill and Collette that they arrived safely in Accomac, no issues along the way. That's good -- I was worried about those sticky brakes.

We also heard from Carol and Allister who arrived in Panama City for their winter sojourn, driving down from Hemmingford Quebec.

Norm and Patti Himes will be one their way shortly, I expect -- driving here from Connecticut. We'll hook up with them later in the week and arrange to get together for dinner.

The sky got pretty black and the wind blew and the rain poured ... but we had no tornadoes, thank goodness. I turned on the TV and found that reception went away during the worst of the storm so I hooked up my multi-cable-and-adapter setup to take my mini-dvi connector on the Mac laptop to the HDMI input on the TV and we watched the balance of Lawrence of Arabia that I'd started watching the day before on hulu.com.

It's not a complicated setup ... much ... mini-dvi to dvi adapter, dvi to dvi cable, dvi to hdmi adapter -- that gets the video into the TV. If I could output composite video or s-video I could plug the output into the Harmon Kardon unit or if the HK unit had dvi input I could switch it, along with the sound, to the TV. To listen to the sound I have a mini-phono plug to rca cable that goes into one of the Harmon Kardon inputs.

The last time that I sent video from the laptop to the TV was 2 years ago as we watched the shuttle countdown one evening and then quickly went to the beach and saw the night liftoff. I didn't bother with the sound that time, just turning up the volume on the PC in the den but that doesn't work for a movie. We'll probably watch other movies this way since the hulu.com movies have minimal commercial interruptions and those are only short, i.e. 30 seconds, not like the 2-4 minute enough-time-to-make-dinner commercials on broadcast TV.

Today ... probably a bike ride. I don't have anything else planned.

That's it ...