Vacation Madness

Our daughter Debbie is visiting this week. We're parents again!

Today we donated three boxes of books to the library. It hurts me to let go of books, but they were books we were unlikely to read again, and we need the space. *sigh*

We had lunch at Kebaba. Love that place. I wonder if the food in Morocco is as good as the Moroccan food we get here in the states. Or is it like Mexican food, or Chinese food, that is prepared differently here for American tastes?

We all went to the gym today. While Connie was doing her regular routine on the exercise equipment, Debbie and I played air hockey and practiced martial arts moves. Oh yeah... and we went up the climbing walls. Great fun. That's her above. Below is a photo of a crazy Japanese climbing wall. Check out the story at SCI FI Tech.



Earlier I wrote about our experience at the Art Hop last Friday. That was Day 2 of our vacation. The day before we were mostly cleaning house and doing chores. One of my chores was to fix the pond. It was losing water. The water pressure was low, so it was dribbling over the waterfall more than pouring over it.

The way the pond works is that the pump is in a filter box at the bottom of the pond. It sucks water in through filter material and pumps it up a hose to the waterfall, where it's supposed to pour back into the pond. I took the filter apart and brought the filter pads into the house to clean. It's been about a year since I put the pond in.

After cleaning the filter, and washing the green smell off my hands (ick), I put it all back together and plugged it back in. No joy.

So I took the filter apart again, took the pump in the house and cleaned the pump, then put it all back together. No joy.

So I stuck the end of the pump tubing into the garden hose and turned the water on full blast, flushing out the tubing. Joy. Why is it that we always find things in the last place we look? That restored the water flow to what you see pictured here, and the water level has been stable. I am pleased. So are the birds that like to drink from the pond.



It snowed here yesterday and today, but not much of it stuck, and tonight I barbecued some chicken in the back yard. I have one of those big, manly barbecue grills that guys like to stand around and tell lies and talk about sports. I didn't use it. I used my little tiny portable BBQ because the chicken always turns out better. I put hickory chips in there and because it's small it smokes the meat better, and heats up faster and is easier to control and cook evenly. Go figure.


Posted by Dave    Blog Tag: Chatter