3 day valentines/presidents day weekend, underwear protocol, more tivo tweaks

A long three day weekend with lots of things jammed into it. Saturday was Valentine’s day. I started it out by going to the local quarry and picking up stone. Project month continues, with this weekend’s project being a 3 foot stone border around the house. So on Saturday, I got a load of stone, dug the trench, laid the border and weedblock. Then I shoveled the egg rock out of the truck and spread it. (Ali helped with this as well) One load of stone was only enough to do one side of the house and the quarry closed at 11am so that was all I could do for the day. It looked great and wet my appetite to get the other side done. I had to relent for the day.

We cleaned up and got ready for our Valentine’s day gig. I got tickets to the Naples Dinner theatre to see Pirates of Penzance. Musicals are not my cup of tea but Ali likes them and since V day is all about the woman, I bit the bullet and set it up. The place was much bigger in size than I thought. When I bought the tickets, the person on the phone said we had side view seats. It was all they had available. Well they weren’t kidding. We were as far to the side as you can get. Basically, a perfect right angle to the stage. We also found ourselves seated at a table for four with 2 old gentleman. Of course when I saw this, I initially cringed inside. The one guy was a snowbird from Boston, the other guy was a brit from London with a heavy british accent. Surprisingly we were able to keep the conversation going and by the end we actually enjoyed their company. The snowbird made me laugh when he said matter of factly, “When you get old like me, you get grumpy” Hahaha. We related some of our traffic nightmare stories to the brit. He chuckled and said “So that commute causes you distress? In London, my daughter has an eight mile commute that takes an hour and a half, everyday”

He had many interesting stories about life in London. He told us the horrors of the “free” healthcare system in England. He had to wait 7 months to get an angiogram after a heart attack. Then they wanted him to wait an additional year to get a bypass operation. He could either wait the year, hope he doesn’t die or have the surgery done privately (by the exact same doctor) and have it done the following week. He opted for the latter and spent upwards of 30k of his own money to have it done. Free healthcare doesn’t sound quite so appealing to me now.

The buffet before the show was great. Every single thing we tried was outstanding. Just before the show started the stage expanded out into the dining area which meant that at least we would be able to see most of the show, a relief. Once the show started it took me less than a minute to realize that this was going to be a loooong performance. I just didn’t enjoy it. I was constantly referring to the program to see how much longer I had to endure. Sort of like what I would do when I sit through a church service. The performers were good, I guess, but it just didn’t interest me in the least. Some 2 hours later it thankfully ended to a large round of applause from the audience of mostly over 65 seniors. I tried to hide my malcontent from Ali the best I could. She liked it, so that is what mattered.

On Sunday I did a run to Lowe’s to get the materials I would need to finish side two of the rock border project. I got it all dug, bordered and weed blocked that afternoon. All I needed was the rock, which had to wait till the quarry opened Monday.

Monday I was up with Ali at 5:45 am so I could hit the quarry early. In total I had to make 3 trips till I got all the stone I needed. On Monday alone I shoveled about 2 tons of rock. It was cool yesterday (60’s) so it made it bearable. The finished result was great. It will save us lots of weeding time, as well as giving the area around the house a more finished look and being termite unfriendly (as opposed to mulch). The rest of the day was pretty busy as well. I did household chores till around 5:30 pm. Even though the day was chock full of work and it was supposed to be a day off, I didn’t really mind. I need something to keep me busy or else I feel like a bum.

A new Tivo tweak was implemented this weekend. Now I can go to my Tivo via a web page, display all the current shows that are on it, click a link and poof, it fires up the show in media player on my pc so that I can watch it on my computer. Now that is COOL!

I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I know the gnome will attack me for even mentioning this but who cares. Recently, I have switched from briefs to boxers. I find that I walk around in boxers like they were just a pair of shorts. I will walk the dog in them, answer the door in them, and even talk to the neighbors in them, where as I would never do the same in briefs. I am not sure if this is improper behavior or not. I guess I am assuming the people can not discern if I am wearing boxers or just shorts. I need to research this further.