In My "Spare" Time: Year 17, Week 25, Day One (week 911)

Year 17, Week 25, Day One (week 911)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-01-17 Saturday

The official temp was 89. It was 95 under the awing in the late afternoon. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism.

One yard sale was right near my house. They had a bookshelf out there with some stuff on the shelves. I strongly considered asking a price on the shelves, but decided not to. At the end of my run, I decided to stop and ask if it was for sale. She asked what I would give for it. This is always a tough thing. You don’t want to spend too much money, but you don’t want to insult them with a really low price. I gave my price, which was higher than I really wanted to give and she said “It’s yours.” It was not a bad price. They helped me get it in the truck. Hand carts and grunt work got into the house, but not much farther at least for today. I will relocate it later when I am up to it.
In my travels, two people recognized me from previous yard sales they have had that I visited. One, who has had several, asked about Mom as she was not with me.
Some yarn dropped kicked me and tied me up until I agreed to take them home. I don’t need more yarn, but the colors were nice. When I went through it later, I found there were hooks, needles and other items in them. There was a big tangle in the basket. I had some pleasant time drawing different colors out of the tangle while waiting for a place to open. Just a little while and the tangle had disappeared like magic.
There was also a travel alarm and I decided it would be useful. It is nice to have extra alarms for when one, for some reason, decides not to work. As long as they are wound, mechanical alarms have done me well.
At one yard sale, I picked up two laptop cooling fans. This is where you set the laptop on them and they blow air to cool down the laptop. I have a powered USB tower in order to have as many items going into the laptop as I need, and I had the fan plugged into that. The fan was supposed to be powered by the laptop, so that when the laptop was turned off, so was the fan. Well when in the tower, it was on continuously. One of these had an on-off switch in the wire so that I can turn it off when I power down the laptop.
As I search the yard sales, it is fun to see what people have accumulated. I see stuff that would be nice in a museum. Stuff from their travels, pretty dish sets, items made by craftsmen. It is sad I cannot take it all home,

After a short nap after I got home, I went to Taco Bell to get lunch. The young girl behind the counter keeps giving me the senile citizen;’s discount. I mentioned the discount with that description and she cracked up laughing.

A while back, I picked up a rocking chair. It has been sitting outside under the awning for a while. It gets wet by angled winds. I found it was coming apart, so I decided to glue it up. I learned that it came apart at the joints. They must not have used water resistant glue. I glued it up and braced it with clamps. Then set it to the side to dry. I may have to add straps across the bottom to hold it together.

Year 17, Week 25, Day two (week 911)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-02-17 Saturday

We had a small shower in the morning, but the rest of the day was nice. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

Mom mentioned that she wanted a cast-iron stand for a project. I stopped at a yard sale on the way to Mom’s and there was a stand there. It was aluminum, instead of cast iron, but it was the look that mom wanted. She was happy to see it.

Family came over. So not too much was done. I was getting ready for the Bar-B-Q on the Forth. I stopped and got some needed groceries. Mom and I are providing most of the meat. I am also going to have different flavors of coffee. Since I work tomorrow, I will bring home my carafes that I put the flavored coffees I make into. I am leaving a lot of the final work for the day of the event.

Other than a little bit more work on the rocking chair, I did little else. Will see what happens on the Forth.

Year 17, Week 25, Day three (week 911)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-04-17 Tuesday

87 degrees, one passed as we set up the Grill. Humidity hit right after that for a while, then a breeze with blue skies picked up to cool things down. It was mostly blue skies and hot. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of T
Tourism.

There were nine of us, including the two kids, over for our event. We had enough food for 30 people, but that allowed us a lot of leftovers.
My nephew did the cooking and he was in his element. Hotdogs, chicken legs and wings, brats, hamburgers. Mom had fixings inside and she forgot to put a few things out, and no one noticed. Several kinds of cheese, tomato, onions, some deserts. I had 3 kinds of coffee, but most people brought their own drinks.
I had to do a lot of cleaning that was not done when I could have done it easily, and then when my nephew was setting up, I had to go and get stuff he needed. I was on my feet most of the day and by the time things settled down, I was done in.
The kids played on the computer and that helped keep the older one out of trouble. The little one had made sure he got soaked when it had rained and was on the go all day long. He was energy looking for an outlet. When he was little, my brother described him as a high pain tolerance with no memory. He is a little better, but not much......

After everybody was done, then there was cleanup. I was on my feet putting things away. The garage door is powered. I lowered it and it stopped. After I tried it a couple times I had a look. Something was in the way. A couple of the wheels had come off. I got one on but one required a lot of stuff moved to get to it. It was one of those things that happens when you are tired. I could close it manually so that was solved for now. I will call someone to fix it.

Everybody enjoyed themselves. I even had fun. It is a lot of work I want to do just once a year.......

I am wasted and won’t stay up for the fireworks.

I will see what happens next weekend.