Pics galore, dad departs, sprinkler’s sprinkling, AI idiocy

I added the latest pictures from the sprinkler project, in total a whopping 97 pictures. Check them out here.  I also pulled off the few pictures I took from Key west, there are some good ones.  They can be seen here.

I was off on Friday to spend the Dad’s last full day with him.  On Wednesday and Thursday he split his time between working on the sprinkler’s in the morning with going back to Fort Myer’s beach on his motorcycle in the afternoon.  Originally, before the Key West boat disaster, we had talked about going out on the Big M casino boat where they have real gambling with games like blackjack and roulette.  However Dad had no desire to climb back on a ship so soon after his vomit spraying experience on the Key West express.

So instead we just sort of hung out at home.  I did a decent amount of work tying up loose ends on the sprinkler project.  Dad had everything connected but I had to go around and bury the sprinkler heads and adjust their spray pattern accordingly.  Then we both back filled a little bit.  I told Dad to cool it, that I would finish up the tedious back filling since he already did way more than expected.  The rest of the day he chilled out a bit and was busy on the computer and phone trying to work out snafu’s with both the sale of his house and the purchase of another place.  Of course I got rammy and found myself back outside raking the fill dirt back into the trenches.  Somehow, even though the trencher pulled out the dirt and neatly deposited it to the left of the trench, when I raked the dirt back in in many spots, there wasn’t enough dirt to adequately fill the trench, even with a pipe sitting in it. So much of the filled in trenches were a little low which surely would result in Ali or I tripping or turning an ankle at some point.  When Ali got back later in the day she worked a bit on raking dirt in but couldn’t do it hard enough to get much dirt back in the trench so I came out and helped.  Soon it became apparent that we would need more fill to fix the problem so I hooked up the big yard cart to the tractor and filled it with fill from the pit area at the back of our property.  We worked maybe an hour until it was time to clean up and go out for dinner.

I told Dad that he had to agree to us paying for dinner since he has footed nearly every bill since he arrived.  We planned to go to Watermark Grille, a nice place that is a staple in our guest restaurant rotation.  However when we pulled up to the place there was a huge crowd of people waiting outside.  Dad had no desire to wait an hour or hour and a half to simply eat.  So we decided to swing around and try out a Mexican place in the shopping center that someone had told me was good.  I think it was called Tijuana Flats. 

It was pretty full but there were a few tables available.  The format of the place is different.  You walk in and there are a pile of menus to the left stacked on top of a mound of beer cases.   You look at the menu as you stand there and then walk up to the counter and tell one of the clerks what you want to eat.  You pay, find a table yourself and then they bring the food out to you.  Certainly not a formal eating establishment like Watermark but my Dad could care less.  The woman that took our order was extremely pleasant as was all of the staff we came in contact with.  We all easily found something on the menu that sounded good and I paid for it.  I got off extremely easy, the bill for the three of us was only 35 bucks.

We sat down and within a few minutes the food was out.   Wow the food was great!  It was probably on par with, if not slightly better than our favorite Mexican restaurant down here, Iguana Mia.  We had a great meal, hung out for a bit and then headed out.  If we decided to go to Watermark, we more than likely would have been still waiting to be seated, seriously.

Friday night, Dad and I watched yet another movie, this time it was Ghost Rider.  I am a big fan of comic book movies.  I knew of the Ghost Rider character but never read any of the comic books.  The movie was nothing great.  Yea it was sort of cool for awhile to see a guy with a flaming skull head and a bad ass flaming motorcycle going around beating stuff up.  It grew stale quickly and I found myself drifting off through large chunks of it.  I am surprised it has made a few bucks in the theater, it just isn’t all that good.  C –

Dad was shoving off for New Mexico early Saturday morning.  I pulled Ali out of bed so she could see him off, he hit the road right around 7.  We both thanked him for all he did while he was here.  He said he had a really good visit, even with the Key West boat ride from hell.  We didn’t get to take in a spring training game or gamble but it didn’t detract anything from the visit.  We all stood outside and watched him drive away on his BMW motorcycle that was loaded to the max.  All things considered, I don’t think the visit could have went much better.  We hope to drive out to New Mexico later in the year.

On Saturday Ali was out for a good chunk of the day.  I did some cleaning, the house really needed it after having guests for a week and a half.  I also played a good chunk of WoW.  I basically did not play while Dad was here, besides a few short early morning sessions.  I survived just fine.

Saturday night Ali volunteered us for babysitting duty of our friends 7 month old little boy Parker.  I was a bit apprehensive of watching a baby but knew Ali would be handling the lions share of the care.  It went very well.  We got through the night with no major hiccups.  Parker was quite entertaining and is a good natured baby.  For me the funniest part was when Ali put him in a bouncy thing that clips to the doorway.  Once strapped in he can bounce up and down to his heart’s content.  I sat on the floor with him and cheered him on as he bounced up and down, non-stop for at least 20 minutes.  It was amazing how high he was bouncing and he was so excited doing it.  I wish they had cool stuff like that when I was a kid.  Ali managed to get him down into bed and sleeping which was a big accomplishment.  Michelle and Taylor got home around 11 and were thrilled to hear that things went well.  Michelle could hardly believe that Parker was sound asleep.  It was a big relief to them.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it could possibly be and Ali really did a good job with Parker.

  We had Nicki with.  A couple years ago, we had Nicki over at their house and she had a run in with their cat, Crash.  Nicki was harassing Crash and Crash spun around and batted her in the nose with her declawed paw.  Nicki instantly was terrified and ran to us for protection.  So now, even though we go to Michelle and Taylors very rarely with the dog, Nicki still remembers this traumatic incident and is scared of Crash.  It is crazy.  For a good portion of the night, Nicki was pressed up against me for protection from the big scary cat that was sleeping in the chair.  Nicki also did a lot of moping as Ali’s attention was on Parker all night long.  She definitely didn’t like sharing the 100% attention she normally receives.

On Sunday, Ali and I tackled back filling the trenches aggressively.  We worked out a system where I would go out to the pit and come back with a full cart of dirt and then I would rake in the piles next to the trench and she would follow behind with a shovel, dropping and packing in dirt in the low spots.  My back was killing me from all the raking and my hands have a couple ripped open blisters but I pushed through it.  After about 5 hours of tough labor we pretty much had all the trenches filled.  I wanted to take pictures but then didn’t.  The only stuff that really needs to be done is for me to finish back filling the big dug out area around the distribution manifold, rebuilding the patio stone covered area in front of the valves and then eventually buying and installing a rain sensor that will prevent the system from running if we receive adequate rain.  I rain through a full cycle on Saturday and Sunday morning and the system ran perfectly.  I looked upon the many streams of water spraying the yard with great pride.  This project was one of, if not the biggest that I ever tackled and it came out extremely well.  It’s true that the things that you look back on with the most pride are normally associated with the things you worked most hard on.

On Sunday evening, Ali and I worked on getting caught up on all the TV that was back burnered on the Tivo while Dad was here.  We plowed through all of the American Idols.   They got down to the final 12.  I am good with all but two of them.  For a few years there have been web sites around that are dedicated to pushing through the worst American Idol contestants through the contest.   They use automatic dialer programs to have their computer make hundreds, if not thousands of calls for whomever is targeted as the worst contestant.  Well obviously, these people are working overtime this season.  The amazingly feminine Indian kid, that has sucked from the beginning of the live shows is through to the finals.  A girl that has been as exciting as Nilla wafers made it as well.  The people that got left out in the cold as a result were much better and would have made for a better finals.  It sort of sucks.  The girl that got bumped was extremely good, I was bummed to see her be the victim of these shenanigans.