Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Weekend report
Great weekend. Friday night we decided to use the $50 gift card we had for Ruth's Chris Steak House. This location is on the top floor of an office building. The windows face National Airport (I can't make myself call it Ronald Reagan National Airport, since no one does), which doesn't sound romantic, but watching planes take off and land and sailboats floating down the Potomac as the sun sets and all the lights start twinkling... it was very pretty. The food was excellent too. I had lunch Sunday with the leftovers.
Saturday we drove up to Maryland to help L's sister and brother-in-law set up their wireless network. They'd been still using dial-up, and the sad thing was they didn't need to be, since they had already purchased the router and such. They're like that. They owned a Tivo for three years before they removed it from the box and figured out how to hook it up! Since it took most of the day to get everything working (router, setting up two laptops, hooking two game systems to their big TV) they treated us to lunch (Mexican) and dinner (Italian).
Sunday I decided to dust off the treadmill and move it upstairs from the basement into the guest bedroom, where we're more likely to use it. If you've ever seen a treadmill, you know they're not heavy, so much as unwieldy. And the steps to our unfinished basement are narrow. Working alone (when I get it in my head to do something, a little thing like no help isn't going to deter me!) I maneuvered the thing upstairs, one step at a time, and with it tilted forward due to the slanted ceiling in the stairwell. Oh, and the stairs turn 90 degrees at the back door, so I had to work through that too. The move was a success, and the only annoying past was when I scraped my right elbow against the stairwell wall, which for some reason is made of rough plaster like stucco. So it was like running my elbow against sandpaper. Ouch.
Monday we relaxed. We went to the grocery store and got ingredients for dinner (turkey chili). I saw a news item online that Orpheus Records is closing April 1. I've spent a good number of hours (and dollars) there. It's sad, especially in light of the fact that it's not lack of customers that did it, but a building owner who probably wants to turn it into overpriced yuppie condos (The record shop's lease expired and the building owner refuses to renew). I mentioned it to the wife and she looked at me and said "Have fun," knowing I was about to say I thought I'd stop by and see what's up. She smartly declined to some along. The online story I had read mentioned a 30% off sale, but when I got there, the price signs posted around the store were actually 50% off. I picked up quite a few records at $2 each. Quite a few. Seriously, I got a lot of records. I figured it was my last visit there (people have already cleared a lot of items out of the store) since it would be too sad to return and see the place completely picked over.
Last night we had a good dinner and I watched the Terminator show (Laura opted to watch something else).
+ = + = + = + = +
For the last several months, Laura and I have been enjoying watching the season DVDs of Bob Newhart (the 1970s series in which he's a psychologist, not the 1980s series in which he runs an inn). We watch one or two episodes now and then before bed. The show has a humor that is really smart and subtle. We were sad to hear that Suzanne Pleshette died over the weekend. 
She played his wife on the show for the entire six season run. She was also in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
Oh, and just because I stumbled on it, here's a pic of her looking sultry:
Saturday we drove up to Maryland to help L's sister and brother-in-law set up their wireless network. They'd been still using dial-up, and the sad thing was they didn't need to be, since they had already purchased the router and such. They're like that. They owned a Tivo for three years before they removed it from the box and figured out how to hook it up! Since it took most of the day to get everything working (router, setting up two laptops, hooking two game systems to their big TV) they treated us to lunch (Mexican) and dinner (Italian).
Sunday I decided to dust off the treadmill and move it upstairs from the basement into the guest bedroom, where we're more likely to use it. If you've ever seen a treadmill, you know they're not heavy, so much as unwieldy. And the steps to our unfinished basement are narrow. Working alone (when I get it in my head to do something, a little thing like no help isn't going to deter me!) I maneuvered the thing upstairs, one step at a time, and with it tilted forward due to the slanted ceiling in the stairwell. Oh, and the stairs turn 90 degrees at the back door, so I had to work through that too. The move was a success, and the only annoying past was when I scraped my right elbow against the stairwell wall, which for some reason is made of rough plaster like stucco. So it was like running my elbow against sandpaper. Ouch.
Monday we relaxed. We went to the grocery store and got ingredients for dinner (turkey chili). I saw a news item online that Orpheus Records is closing April 1. I've spent a good number of hours (and dollars) there. It's sad, especially in light of the fact that it's not lack of customers that did it, but a building owner who probably wants to turn it into overpriced yuppie condos (The record shop's lease expired and the building owner refuses to renew). I mentioned it to the wife and she looked at me and said "Have fun," knowing I was about to say I thought I'd stop by and see what's up. She smartly declined to some along. The online story I had read mentioned a 30% off sale, but when I got there, the price signs posted around the store were actually 50% off. I picked up quite a few records at $2 each. Quite a few. Seriously, I got a lot of records. I figured it was my last visit there (people have already cleared a lot of items out of the store) since it would be too sad to return and see the place completely picked over.
Last night we had a good dinner and I watched the Terminator show (Laura opted to watch something else).
+ = + = + = + = +
For the last several months, Laura and I have been enjoying watching the season DVDs of Bob Newhart (the 1970s series in which he's a psychologist, not the 1980s series in which he runs an inn). We watch one or two episodes now and then before bed. The show has a humor that is really smart and subtle. We were sad to hear that Suzanne Pleshette died over the weekend. 
She played his wife on the show for the entire six season run. She was also in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.Oh, and just because I stumbled on it, here's a pic of her looking sultry:
# posted by smacky @ 7:55 AM 
