I was hankering for a salad for dinner. Monte was too. After a brief tactical evaluation, we decided on BB Rover’s.
This is a pic of the suds. The salads disappeared pretty quickly.
Nite nite!
Salad and suds.
One more time.
Tonight was my third foray into painting at Painting with a Twist, this time with Jen. The shot above is the palette we used.
And…. VOILA!! I give you…. Wildflowers at the Park:
Please hold your applause.
The one the teacher guided us through didn’t have any bluebonnets (!). Well, i simply couldn’t paint a hill country scene without bluebonnets, so we improvised.
I’m just realizing that the clouds look a bit like hats. Oh well. I’m sure Picasso had to work at it a bit before he got the hang of it, too. 🙂
Happy National Marina Day!
Today is National Marina Day. Coincidentally, we were headed to the lake anyway because our good friends Teri and Jim were in town for the weekend. What a great day. We had lunch at Shades, then went for a sail on Cupholder. Then floated for the rest of the afternoon with friends off of B-Dock. Dinner at Flore’s. Then home before we turned into pumpkins.
It was great to see Teri & Jim. We miss them and Island Time. But….once a b-docker, always a b-docker! We’re looking forward to seeing them again, whether by land or by sea.
Bye-bye Audi.
This was one of the hardest weeks for me in a long time. Very little sleep due to work. Long days, very difficult projects and meetings. And yet another critsit.
It was 7:00 tonight when I was finally able to get off the phone. Then I drove down to pick up Julie to take her out to eat. We had a lovely dinner at Zax. Everything they have there is delicious!
Some of Julie’s friends from school were eating dinner at another restaurant, and she was supposed to meet up with them there. So I drove her down to that restaurant, and just about as we got there…. Crash!
No one was hurt, neither us or the other guy.
I was a bit shaken from the accident. Ever so thankful that my guardian angel is still on duty. And sad to have to say good bye to my dear Audi companion of 15 years.
The perfect omni-tool.
One of Monte’s vast array of swiss army knives is missing. Probably in a bilge, or perhaps at the bottom of a cove. So we ordered another, which arrived today. Did you know that there are about 100 different models of swiss army knives, with different combos and numbers of gadgets attached? This one is called The Tourist. Upon opening the box, Monte declared it the “perfect” swiss army knife. So, go get you one!
You have to check out this one though: http://www.amazon.com/Wenger-16999-Giant-Swiss-Knife/dp/B001DZTJRQ Monte doesn’t have *it* yet. 🙂
Plyboo?
Our friend John has been working in the shop all week on a desk for a client. Monte’s been out there making tables. It is a magnificent shop, if i must say so myself. 🙂
The material that John is using to make the desk sides and top is a plywood made out of bamboo, called plyboo. Pretty cool looking.
The last transit of Venus of the 21st century.
While it was possible for us to see the transit by looking through our welder’s glass. It really wasn’t useful for taking a picture – it was too small. Monte mounted a pair of binoculars on a tripod and used that to focus an image of the sun and the transit of venus on a piece of paper. That’s what these are images of.
The transit started right on time. If you look just to the right of the top of this image, you can see Venus just starting to show up. You can also see 4 or 5 sunspots in each image.
A little while later, Venus is clearly visible on the face of the sun.
This was one of the last images, taken shortly before sunset.
Partial lunar eclipse.
The moon is full today – the Strawberry Full Moon. This morning there was also a partial lunar eclipse. The sky was covered with clouds, so I didn’t think I would be able to see it. But when I walked out a little after 5 AM I was pleased to see that there were several brief breaks in the clouds through which I could get a glimpse. This is one of the few shots I was able to take. Not great, but you can see the little bite taken out of the moon.
In honor of the occasion, I’ll leave you with Grover Washington, Jr’s Strawberry Moon.
Green & black denier.
I drove down to Julie’s apartment this morning to pick her up so that we could spend the day together. We came back home and watched a bit of the boat parade for the Queen’s Jubilee celebration on BBC America. Before too long we were at the marina. Lots of the usual B-dock suspects showed up at some point. We saw Marty, Sue, Joe, Kurt, Wally, Kevin, Robert, Tasha, Jay, Mike, and Dave. Summer is here! But the day was pretty overcast. We put up the shade and floated for most of the afternoon.
Afterwards we opted for dinner at Jardin Corona and then we deposited Julie back home.
Twas a nice day.
The shot above is a swatch of my official “bound-for-the-lake” backpack.
Happy birthday!
Today flew by. We took some time this evening to celebrate a friend’s birthday ( happy birthday Dave!).
These flowers caught my eye.
I encourage you all to enjoy what is left of the weekend. It’s hard to believe, but June is here!
A simple fix.
We’ve owned a Harmony One programmable universal remote control for almost 4 years. A few months ago it went on the fritz. It would reboot itself randomly, making it impossible to use, because it would forget the state of the devices it was supposed to control between reboots.
So, it has been sitting in the closet gathering dust. In the mean time, we’ve had to dig out and relearn how to use the multiple remote controls that it was intended to replace.
I was just about ready to buy a new one on Amazon today, when I thought to google for any known issues and recommended fixes.
Turns out that a common problem with the Harmony One is that the battery, after a year or two, can become a tad loose inside the remote, and if that happens, the battery’s contacts with the remote can be disrupted as it is moved around. When that happens, the remote reboots itself. The “fix” is to put a small piece of thick paper, like from an index card, under the battery to take up any slack. Voila!
We are back in business!! I ♥ my Harmony One 🙂
Nature’s palette du jour.
A block or two away from our house is an empty field belonging to one of the neighboring lots. From early spring to summer the field is lit up in different colors, depending on the wildflower in bloom at the time. In late March to early April it is a brilliant blue, brimming with bluebonnets. As I drove by on my way home from work today, this last day of May, it pops with bright red and yellow. It is full of gallardia…a nice treat at the end of a long day.
A day to remember.
On this Memorial Day, we spent several hours with friends at the marina. We are actually just starting to look at boats for sale. We looked at 2 sloops on E-dock today. Time will tell how long it will take us to find a successor to our beloved Cupholder 🙂
Speaking of Cupholder, we sailed the slip with Marty, Sue, Joe and Wally, and then headed home.
We had just enough energy left in us to buzz downtown for dinner at Taverna, and stopped by to see Willie along the way.
Little critter.
One of the shy turtles in the cove today.
Sheila365 