If you ignore the pain, and itching, and occasional gasps for breaths this weekend was alright.
Saturday morning I met Barb and Kevin and we did a walk around Arabia “Mountain”. I resisted the urge to speak German to the family who happened to be there, though I really wanted to do so. Before we met up I did a little OTP shopping by visiting Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight Tools. After the walk we had lunch at Brockett Pub. On my drive home I encountered a handful of old time hasher as they attempted to follow a trail that apparently went down my street.
On Sunday morning rather than going to Publix as I had planned, I worked in WLF. For some reason I got inspired to remove a medium sized tree stump from the ground, and was successful! This will be arable land for WLF 2025. I’ve scaled WLF waaaaaaay back for 2024.
Today finds me getting car maintenance done, after which I will travel up to Whole Foods to pick up an Amazon package, and later I will drive to Barb’s for dinner and Survivor.
It was not my best day of wordplay.
Wordle: six, my starter was ACORN
Connections: complete fail, X > X > X > X
I’m feeling rough today. I’m sure hours in the sun and pollen, later followed by too much wine consumed with dinner aren’t helping matters. Trying my best to rally. I sense a nap coming sometime today.
I had crazy dreams – I’ll blame it on wine as well.
I “need” to get a bike ride in after work, but works been slow, so I think we can head out a little early so we can get back & watch Survivor.
Next up, figure out something for dinner – Allan is here today, he can always figure it out.
it might be brats – we have plenty in the freezer – and I’m going to Iowa again in less than a month.
Wordplay was rough here too. Wordle in 5 starting with SUNNY. 3 mistakes in Connections: yellow, green, blue, purple. I hate when it says one away….then I try to figure that one out and use up chances. At least Strands was an easy one.
On Saturday I took the dog for a 2 hour hike on the trails near the river. I finished a book I was reading. I cleaned the house. I walked over to Barb’s to pick up eggs. I know I accomplished other things, but can’t recall. Getting old sucks. I hashed on Sunday. It was really good with a labyrinth of trails near Braircliff. Then I met friends at Wei Sichuan on the square. That place is so good! Friends took Jasper to Fort Mountain for a trail run. Apparently he rolled in some horse manure! Yay me.
What book did you finish? I’m 2/3rds through “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.
Turning out to be another expensive day in the life of ITP Writer Paulie. I really should prepare myself to become employed again at the end of this year.
I’m waiting to get a call from our car repair shop about the Subaru.
It started acting up Sunday morning on Allan’s drive home.
Ff it something major (as in $$$$) – we may decide to just dump the car & get something new.
But – what to get next?
Allan wants a new truck, but we were thinking next Spring.
Do we spend the big bucks on the truck? or get another CRV? or some other Honda? Or something else?
who knows……
Good luck!
so far -they can’t find anything really wrong.
they are doing an oil change & checking more stuff.
We will see
Wordle fail. 3 strikes trying to get the first letter correct. Connections perfect and I got purple first! That was a first for me. Easy Strands.
We made it to the southside of Nashville at midnight. We had a quick Buc-cee’s stop for cheap diesel and snacks. I drove from home to the party and then to Buc-cee’s so that concluded my driving allotment for the trip. Lol. Actually I don’t mind driving at all except for the commentary from the passenger seat. He was on his best behavior for our anniversary yesterday though.
Most of the weekend was riding, cleaning house and taxes so happy a couple days of adventure. We’re about to hit the road for breakfast and to find out spot for the eclipse. There will be updates on traffic and weather!
Nice to see a couple of you last night. It was a fun gathering and the restaurant was a great pick.
Good to see you both last night. Best of luck with your eclipse chasing.
What frustrated me this morning in Connections was knowing the purple category, but not being able to figure out the fourth item! I had three “One Away” attempts, trying multiple categories, and eventually getting nothing.
Another of the “Miracle Mets” has died; RIP Jerry Grote.
I survived another week in Florida!
Flying down was the right choice, while airports are stressful driving during spring break is just maddening.
Key West express is a great way to get to Key West. It’s an early morning to get down there but we just passed the time playing card games and made it fun. The trip back wasn’t quite as enjoyable as there were 4 to 5 foot swells and the boat was rocking all the way. Lots of sick people, thankfully we don’t get sea sick.
Renting bikes for the week is definitely the way to go down there, thanks for the idea Jenka! We did tons of exploring, went snorkeling and jet skiing.
Friday we headed to Bradenton so Travis and I could watch a bunch of YouTubers race crown vics. In addition to the crown vic race there was a mini van race, monster trucks, fireworks, and helicopters. Good times!
Saturday headed to Orlando for a day of boating with the family. Travis did a bunch of wake surfing but it was a bit too cold for me to jump in.
Sunday was an early birthday for Travis at my sisters house before heading back to the airport.
We jammed a ton of activity in a week, glad to be home and now it’s time to get serious about STU and riding in general.
Hope you all had a great week!
Paulie how are your aches and pains? Are you able to ride again?
Sounds like a fun time. I definitely would have been vomitting…
I’ve not tried riding on the road, though one trainer ride gives me hope. Pain and aches are the new normal, along with other abnormalities which I suffer. I may have given myself a bit of tennis elbow yesterday by stump clearing.
Oh, I’m so glad the bikes worked out! Sounds like you had a super fun week! Woot!
Wordle in 4 and that was due to Debbie’s warning of her fail. Sorta a horse term, so I don’t know how she missed it.
Saturday the reunion was fun though not very well attended.
Sunday, I met up with my hunt friend Jay, and we flew to Athens to have lunch and meet up with his daughter to return her drivers license. It was a good day to fly as far as the weather Cruddy air around, but smooth sailing most of the way.
I agree it was a very nice choice of restaurant last night. My rough count was 80 people. They were certainly not skimpy on pouring wine and I’m glad I didn’t start drinking. Debbie’s driving has gotten better with my help!!!! ( I’m gonna get a beatin’)
-FP
Steve- how did you get 80 people? the tables had 10 chairs – didn’t they? and we had 5 tables?
I thought there were 8 tables. I never counted, i was just remembering.
and you weren’t drunk!
Greetings from seat 23D. My son and I are enroute to Cincinnati, or more specifically Hebron, Kentucky because the Cincinnati airport isn’t actually in Cincinnati, or even Ohio for that matter.
I was pulling into the Home Depot parking lot last night when something jolted me ams caused me confirm my rental car reservation. Which I then could not find. Apparently I looked up prices but didn’t complete the reservation. An initial search showed all cars were sold out. After a momentary freakout I upped my game and reserved a cargo van through U-Haul. Later an Expedia search unearthed purportedly available rental cars through Budget. I prepaid for the rental, I’ll see how much good this has done me in about an hour. I’m not cancelling my U-Haul reservation until I’m in the driver’s seat of a real car.
Once my ground transportation is secured we’re headed to Peoria, Indiana, which is only loosely on the map. Google Maps autocorrects it to Peoria, Illinois, so you have to be super purposeful to find it. I bailed on Metamora (pop 950) after finding out that they’re hosting a festival with 200,000 people. Nope, nope, nope. My brother and I are going to be acting out a scene in a Coen brothers movie by meeting up at a clump of silos in the literal middle of no where, on the Indiana/Ohio border. The state line runs down the middle of the road so we’ll be viewing the eclipse from two states at once. It would be very on brand for our movie scene for me to show up on a U-Haul van. 🙂
I’m kind of glad I screwed up the car reservation. I’ve been fretting a little about cars getting oversold today, so it feels good to have a back-up.
Here’s the GPS coordinate in case any one wants to take a peek by way of the satellite view on Google Maps:
39.433276015217466, -84.81690058212395
Never a dull moment! Hope all turns out for you.
Nope! Thanks! We’re already descending into Cincinnati so I’ll soon know the next stage of my fate today.
I had the last 4 correct Wordle letters in 3 today and the flew ever closer to the sun, but pulled off a save in 6. Clean Connections, I actually solved Purple third and Yellow last. Strands was pretty basic.
A UHaul! That’s genius! And it would be absolutely perfect for your Coen brothers movie scene. Could also fit for Wes Anderson, now that I think about it.
Thank you! I was pretty pleased with that option. 🙂
Inspired thinking on the U-Haul and I’m rooting for that to be vehicle of choice!
Good luck on the viewing! We opted not to reserve a hotel tonight. We’ll just roll with what the day brings and land where it makes sense.
Right now we’re in Nashville rush hour traffic – hopefully not a precursor of the entire day but it will be what it will be.
I’m on the ground, I’ll know my vehicle fate shortly! 🙂
Good luck today!
David- got us an update yet?
Miracle of miracles, Budget had a Chrysler minivan for me. I am channeling John Travolta in Get Shorty. So not a UHaul hut still on brand.
I had a pretty good weekend. Friday we went to Kevin Rathbun Steak for early dinner, then went home and stayed up too late solving all the world’s problems. Saturday we went for mani-pedis and then lunch at the Albert. I was asleep by 10:00 pm. Yesterday we went up to Jos A Bank to buy Kevin some new suits (his other ones seem to be shrinking, can’t figure out why) but the JAB in Vinings is tiny and only had mainstream sizes. Poor Kev needs short and wide, heh. So we’ll have to find a different store, I will need to do some research. Then we rewarded ourselves with a delightful seafood feast at C&S Seafood.
The Red Sox demolished the Angels this weekend, not that I watched very much of it because every game started at 9:40 last week except for Sunday. I am looking forward to actually watching at game at a normal time when they come back to the right coast tomorrow.
Regarding the mysteriously shrinking suits: Damn you, Kevin Rathbun! 😉
always blame Kevin Rathbun.
or Joe Biden – since everything is Joe Biden’s fault. 😉
Kevin Rathbun can take it! 😉
I feel like it can only be Kevin Rathbun’s fault!
Although, I don’t know if you’ve seen him in the last couple of years, but he lost at least 100 pounds and he looks great. Now if only MY Kevin could lose 30.
C & S Seafood – I’ve heard such good things about them.
Someday……
We went to The Woodall Saturday night over Upper Westside (I think that area is what it is called, it’s near the Scofflaw Brewing) – it was very nice.
(& got a whopping 10% discount for Allan being in uniform – it didn’t make much a dent in the bill, but was nice of them to do that)
C&S is really good and worth going to.
Eclipse traffic is legit. Fairly overcast right now, but we’ve got miles and hours to go yet.
We are set up in Peoria, IN. It is absolutely perfect. Clear skies, only wispy clouds. Mission accomplished. I cannot believe that I booked a rental car the night before an event like this.
We’re still an hour out from our intended viewing spot, but we’re in the zone so we can stop and find a spot at any time now.
The sky is clear so we are golden for a good view!
Sweet! We set up shop in the driveway of an abandoned house. After an hour family members showed up to investigate. I explained what we were up to, they said “fine, as long as you don’t steal anything”. I said no worries there! They then offered to let us a field 1/2 mile down the road that is a MUCH better spot. Today could not have worked out better. My research was spot on!
I made 3 mistakes on Connections but pulled it out in the end. Pretty sure this is the first time I have ever gotten purple first! Purple > yellow > blue > green.
Strands was pretty basic, as David said, but I thought the spangram did not fit right. I got it after I got everything else. It should have been periods!
Spat -if only I knew what that was.
I knew it was a piece of clothing. I thought it was a fancy tie. I was wrong; a short cloth gaiter covering the instep and ankle.
“he would stand outside in his bowler hat and spats”
there is a stink bug trapped between the screen & the window by my desk.
it just goes back & forth, back & forth, back & forth.
– its been there for days & days.
I feel like I should let it out, but – how did it get in there?
Anyway -this is my excitement this afternoon.
peak time is passed…….. peak science time is over
OMFG. That is all.
Right!?! It was freaking cool! Glad we made the trip.
Headed home via an overnight in Tupelo, MS. No traffic on this route.