Broad Brook, CT
Well, I've fallen behind again! Things have been pretty busy this week, so I haven't had a chance to update the blog as much as I'd like. So, this'll be a catch-up entry.
Last Sunday, Geri and I went with Pat and Al to visit with Melisa and Paul (Melisa's significant other) and Jesse. Paul's family has a cottage on a lake right at the Massachusetts -- Connecticut border. It's been in the family for years, and Paul really enjoys going there to fish and hang out by the lake. We played a few games of cribbage, and spent some time trolling around the lake on their pontoon boat. Al and Paul spent the majority of the afternoon fishing. Paul came up empty, but Al hooked a small mouth bass and a perch. Both fish went back in to live for another day, but Al was happy that he had an entry in the annual "Paul Say Fishing Tournament".
Here are a couple of pictures. Sorry for the quality, but the cell phone was all I had on me…
Hard at work coaxing the fish nearer
The winner, with Jesse working the net!
Later in the day, Melisa whipped up a nice dinner for us and we had a good meal in spite of the box wine. The fresh air must've done us good, because by dark we were all pretty tired so we drove home and made it an early night.
On Monday, we started on Al's annual home improvement project. Each year if we visit in the summer, Pat makes sure that we have a project to work on to keep us out of trouble. Last year, it was a new gate for the deck. This year, it was replacing the tile in the bathroom. They had already purchased the stick on vinyl tile, and there was some discussion about laying it over the existing vinyl. Unfortunately, the old floor was in pretty bad shape. Al removed the old tile and we put down a new sub-floor on Monday, then spent Tuesday on the new tile, and finished it off with new baseboard molding. Almost everything was cut to fit, and there was no opportunity to use the square wall as a guide. This is what you'd expect from a house built in the 1960s. We trimmed the cabinet and entry door to account for the thicker floor, and laid a nice bead of silicone sealant around the tub and commode.
The molding a little tricky, since the old baseboard was actually ceramic tile, glued to the wall. We cleaned it up pretty well and glued the new, pre-finished molding in place. We put cross braces in place overnight and everything seems to be holding, but I will admit to being a little worried about the longevity of the glue job.
On Monday, Geri and Pat went to the new Stew Leonard's store in Newington. They picked up some nice steaks, and we grilled them in the evening. Melisa, Paul, and Jesse came over, so we had a chance to see them twice in one week. We had a nice Spanish wine with dinner, Tres Picos Garnacha, that we used to get from Canal’s in New Jersey.
Tuesday evening’s dinner was a little bit stressful, since Al and I were working well into the evening to finish up the bathroom. Pat and Geri stepped in though, and dished up a wonderful pork tenderloin with roasted potatoes and asparagus. It was pretty late by the time we ate, so I actually don't recall what wine we had. It was good though!
Wednesday was Independence Day, but we really didn't have anything major planned. Melisa came over for help with her college math homework. She thought her class started on July 9, but it actually started on the first, so she was already two days behind. We spent most of the afternoon going over ordered pairs, functions, domains, ranges, and word problems. The course requires her to use some newfangled Texas Instruments calculator, which didn't have instructions for entering formulas, but we figured it out somehow. Pat put out burgers and dogs for dinner, and we ate buffet style. We finished up the evening with a couple of games of cutthroat cribbage (I won two out of three for change), and called an early night.
In my last post, I forgot to mention that I had put all of the old blinds from the coach on eBay last Saturday morning. I set it up as a five-day auction, so it would be completed before we leave here (Saturday) and I can toss anything that doesn't sell. I've been monitoring progress in answering questions all week (I learned in the spring that selling stuff on eBay is like a full-time job because people ask all sorts of questions throughout the auction period), and the auctions ended today. I thought that the only thing that would sell would be the motorized vizors from the windshield, but much to my surprise, almost everything sold within five days. The only things left over are the small Venetian blinds from the bathroom and kitchen sink area. If Al doesn't want them, into the dumpster they go. I sent out all my invoices and will probably spend most of tomorrow morning doing packaging. Hopefully, we'll be able to get everything shipped before we leave here. That assumes that people pay, of course. One person has paid already, and I'll be sending his sun shades to Mississauga in Canada. I wonder if he lives near Brian Mills.
The other thing I didn't mention is that I started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software to compose the bulk of the blog entries. This is the "you talk it types" software, and it really speeds things up. The only issue I have is a personal one, since I still feel uncomfortable talking to the computer when other people around. I suppose I'll get over that some point.
I spent most of today hanging around the house, waiting for the cable guy. Al has been having problems with his cable Internet service for about a month now. The cable modem itself was replaced, but service has been very intermittent. He called the other day to make a service appointment while I was here, and the technician was scheduled for this morning. As usual, the cable company always assumes that it's your hardware, not theirs, that's causing a problem. It turns out that the technician is very adept at tracing cable issues, but not so much at Windows XP. I showed him what's been happening (fortunately, we were able to re-create the problem), he changed the modem, but connectivity is still a problem. He says that the cable ratings show OK on the meter, but even when directly connected to the modem, we are unable to get an Internet connection. He laughed, saying he was going to send a second-level tech later this afternoon, but I haven't heard anything yet.
Since I was tied up here, Geri went to the store to pick up dinner. Tonight we have rack of lamb, with mushroom risotto and peas. Tomorrow we have veal chops. This will make things easier fall the way around, since Pat and Al had to go back to work today. I'll have to get started frenching the racks pretty soon, so I'll wrap this up for today.
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