Oct 5 - possible change of plan

Sandy's back is really bothering her and we may end up leaving later this week if she needs to go in for an MRI or something. She's got an appointment for Tuesday in Orlando to see her doctor. She's still thinking that she might cancel, but it would make more sense to go through with it given the distance that we're traveling. It might not be her back, could be something like a kidney stone, by its behavior.

She's off today taking Sheryl & Jimmy to the airport as planned. I talked to her just a little while ago and they were looking for somewhere to eat before being dropped off at the airport. Their flight is at 2-something and you can be sure that they would not get lunch on the plane.

After dropping off our visitors, Sandy is going to go to Stone Crazy again and look at granite. She's still hoping that a great remnant will come in that she'll love rather than the one that she has on hold that "she can live with". Me, I don't live in the bathroom :).

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It's later now. Sandy's back; hers and my errands done for the day; SG1 episodes watched; dinner prep underway.

I pulled down the bathroom walls around the tub. It took about two hours, cutting around the tiles and then pulling down the tiles and drywall behind. Yes, there was drywall behind, not cement board. There were a couple of places that the fiberglass insulation behind was a little black, indicating that moisture had gotten through at one point, but everything was dry and solid. That's a good thing. I got about 2/3 of it into the garbage today -- a smaller garbage can, a heavy duty cardboard box and three sections of wall, leaving a larger garbage can full of drywall and tile that is too heavy to lift. I don't want to strain some city worker's back. I'll either repackage for next garbage day or leave it for Jeff to take away.

Of course I found that I didn't have a mask, so I used one of my terry towel rags, tying it to my face with a large elastic band just below my eyes and then another around my neck. It did the job but I now have a proper mask that I'll use for the same project in the master bath. That was one of the objects of a trip to HD later in the day, along with some new four foot light bulbs for the garage, a sprayer for up north and a couple of other small items.

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Hog Snapper -- is this like twitter where I'm making notes while I'm doing things ? No, since I don't publish for quite a while it's not the same. I just put the snapper and sweet potatoes on the barbie. I have about 10 minutes until dinner -- 5 minutes a side.

While I was pounding at the bathroom walls, Joe showed up and tested things on the furnace. Everything is ok -- he figures that it was some power fluctuation that caused it and that it would have reset itself eventually. I don't have a lot of faith in that. It's too waffly for me. I don't have much choice though. He is going to check with the company and see if there have been reports of problems with the electronics.

While I was out at HD I also stopped at Publix and replenished my liquid supply -- diet coke with lime, iced tea, V8 -- and picked up some sliced ham for sandwiches for the trip -- whenever it happens. I noticed that they are now selling diet coke with two formulations -- Splenda and Aspartame -- Aspartame being a bit on the edge these days from an FDA perspective. I think those are the two products. It's interesting to see that they have both on the shelf.

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The hog snapper was excellent. With a Chilean Syrah and once that was finished, a Cotes du Rhone ... anything works with red wine for me. HGTV is on, one of the few channels that seems to be coming in with the heavy cloud cover. Even it is a bit dicey. We got a real downpour earlier -- the gutter replacement stuff did its job, but did not produce a "soft shower" of rain below -- but then again, with the amount of water pouring off the roof, no surprise.

Sandy has an appointment in Orlando tomorrow at 11:30. I'm undecided at this point whether I'll go for a bike ride then come back and perhaps take the boat out or go the next day. It all depends on what's happening with her. There's one thing for sure -- we either travel on Wednesday or Friday/Saturday or later. We don't want to travel into Ontario on Friday -- Thanksgiving weekend. So Thursday as a departure date is out.

We'll make our travel decision tomorrow ... I'll make my bike decision ... later.

That's all I can think of now. I'll pend this one.

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It's morning again. I'm not going to try and squeeze in both a bike and boat ride. I'll get organized for travel so that if Sandy decides that she's ready, then off we go. I don't have much to do on that score. I'll take Abby out in the boat late morning. I suspect that we'll stay another couple of days but that will partly depend on how she's feeling when she gets up. If we do stay, then we'll be here at least two more days and I and we can go for our rides.

I managed to arrange boat insurance. I found that BoatUS, an organization that provides boat towing services like AAA, has an insurance brokerage arm, like AAA has, and provides a policy through CNA. Of course I could have gone through Arlene directly, had I thought of it (Arlene works at CNA) but not really. After I got a quote from them, two quotes actually, one for agreed-upon value and the other for blue book value, I hooked up with my HUB agent who was still trying to find someone who insures boats in the Florida coastal area vs the secondary market. I learned all sorts of insurance terms that I didn't really know before in the process.

When I did talk to her later in the day she told me what liability coverage I'd need so that there was no insurance gap between the boat's coverage and my liability umbrella -- the US is so litigious that you need to be concerned with these things -- and for $20 per year the BoatUS policy was upgraded from a liability standpoint. The largest coverage that it provides, interestingly enough, is spillage. I guess that if I dumped my 105 gallons of gasoline and 1 gallon of oil it would be like the Exxon Valdeez ?

Anyway ... as I said, I'll do some organizing and then likely go for a boat ride.

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Sandy's up and still undecided.

Onward ... don't know about forward !