January 11th's Pun of the Week

I went to the butcher’s the other day, and I bet him fifty bucks that he couldn’t reach the meat on the top shelf.  He said, “No, the steaks are too high.”

Starting 2024

I finally did it!  I got all caught up.  I'm hoping now that I'm caught up to stay that way.  As part of that, I'm going to be using the beginnings of my Sunday/Monday posts over on Carstairs Considers over here, too.  I might pop in with other things as well.  We'll see.  But at least I want to keep that much on top of things here.

(And a reminder that if you landed here after I left a comment on your book blog, you probably want Carstairs Considers.)

I had a quiet New Year.  Church Sunday morning, and then a quiet day at home.  Yes, I stayed up until midnight.  Actually, I stayed up until about 1 AM.  There were some fireworks, but none of the pot banging and yelling that we often have.  I was awake in time to watch the Rose Parade live, too, which doesn't usually happen since it is so early here in California.  And you tell I'm not a morning person?

No, I haven't started undecorating from Christmas yet.  That was on my agenda for the weekend, but it just isn't going to happen.  Honestly, I think I'm going to struggle to get the two reviews written I need to write and the others edited.  All I really want to do is curl up and veg.

Let's see, what else?  We got the month closed at work without too much in the way of surprises.  It's nice that it wasn't fiscal year end this month.  As much as I had having to deal with that around Thanksgiving and then into December, it's nice that the December close is fairly quiet.

My cough is getting much better.  It's still there sometimes, but not nearly as bad as it was even a week ago.

My life group at church met Saturday morning to clean the church.  After that, I stopped at a local nursery and picked up some pansies for my planters.  Hopefully the wire I have in them know will keep the squirrels from digging them up, although I did see one sniffing around the box a couple of hours ago.

December 2023 - I Was Home for Christmas

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

Naturally, I went north again for Christmas.  This time, the complication was my health.  I got what I thought was a mild cold, but developed into a low fever and cough.  The fever only lasted three days or so, but the cough is still hanging on, even now (as of when I'm tying this on New Year's Day).

But my family said to come on up, and I wasn't about to argue.  For one thing, I don't think I'm contagious.  And it's more annoying than anything else.  (If I had tested positive for Covid or the flu, it would have been different, but I was negative for both.)

And I had a great time.  I didn't have any repeats of the traffic drama on the way up, although it was sluggish on the drive back on the 26th.  Still nothing like it was going.

I was there for three full days.  And they were pretty chill.  We all went out looking at Christmas lights one night, which was great.  My brother had mapped out a plan of attack, and he did a great job leading up to some fun displays.  Sunday was Christmas Eve, which meant a morning and evening service this year instead of just the Christmas Eve evening service.  And I loved how they rearranged things for the evening service with us around the instruments and improvised stage in the middle.

Christmas Day, we were at my parents' all day.  My uncle and aunt came over for a while.  We opened presents and had a great meal.

As I said, it was chill.  Which was wonderful.

November 2023 - Thanksgiving

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

In November, I went home for Thanksgiving like always, despite the traffic.

Seriously, I wish I had paid attention to a traffic report before I left because I got stuck in some of the worst traffic I've ever been in.  What should have taken me one hour took me give hours.  The traffic heading north the Wednesday before Thanksgiving can be bad/sluggish, but it's never that bad.  Once I got past the slow down, things were fine.

What I've heard is that a track carrying pipes lost it's load on the freeway.  Everything was cleared up by the time I got to it.

What's frustrating is, had I known, I could have easily avoided it.  There were a couple of alternatives I could have taken.  I just assumed things would be fine.

The bad part is that I missed seeing my friend and his family on the way up.  By the time I made it past the traffic, I just had to drive.  As it was, it was after midnight by the time I got home.

But the rest of the weekend was great.  My brother hosted as always, and his in-laws were visiting.  It was fun to see them.  Friday, we went to see my uncle and aunt plus my cousin and his family were down.  Saturday and Sunday were just quiet days.

Fortunately, I took Monday off so I could drive home that way.  I would not have bene happy having to fight traffic on the way back on Sunday.  But the traffic was much better on Monday.  I did drive through Fresno and see my friend and his wife, which was great.  I just missed seeing their kids.

October 2023 - Universal Studios

 My brother and his family were down in Orange County at the beginning of October to visit some family.  They were planning on one day in Universal Studios during that time, and invited me to join them.  At first, I didn't think it would work, but then I thought about it some more and decided to ask for the day off, which I got.

I'm so glad I went.

I hadn't been there sine 2007 or so, and I had been there most recently of everyone.  And we had a blast.  The Harry Potter world was fabulous, and the main attraction there was a ton of fun.  Super Nintendo World looked amazing as well, although we didn't like that ride quite as much.  The other rides were fun.  I feel like the backlot tour used to be better, but it was still fun.

And we had a great time together.  I think that was the most fun, just hanging out together in line.

September 2023 - Computer Issues of Some Kind

In September, I had a computer meltdown of some kind.  My laptop just shut down on my and it had to wait for the battery to drain itself to be able to turn it on again, a process that took several days.  Fortunately, I have my old laptops, so I was still able to have access to some stuff, although my old laptop is really, really slow.  And a friend at least helped me a little diagnosis the problem.

Both times it happened, I had plugged in my external hard drive to run a backup.  I started plugging it in after the computer had been on for a bit so it had time to warm up, and everything has been fine since then.

Until this last Sunday, when it did it again even though I thought I'd given it long enough to warm up.

I bought a new laptop, although I haven't even taken it out of the box yet.  I'm wondering if it is the laptop or the extern hard drive.  And wondering how I can even go about testing that out.  But I should try to figure it out sooner rather than later, I know.

Got to love technology.  That is, when it is working well.

September 2023 - Bouchercon for a Day and a Wedding

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

Bouchercon is a world wide mystery convention - where mystery authors and readers come together to talk books.  Authors talk about their books, trying to connect with readers.  I went once when it was in Long Beach about 10 or so years ago.  This year, it was in San Diego.  I couldn't go for the entire weekend thanks to work.  It was Labor Day weekend, which is also the start of quarter end close at work.  I did ask, but there was no way to make it work.  But I did go down for one day - Saturday.  Okay, I left early on Friday to drive down, and I drove back on Sunday.  But I was only there for one day.

And it was great.  I went to several panels, and I got to see several authors again that I haven't seen in a few years.  I had a stack of Donna Andrews books to get signed, for example.  Plus, I got to meet some authors I had never met before, which was wonderful.

I spent most of my time hanging out with a friend who has started writing again.  She'd recently self-published the first in a new series, and her panel was on Saturday.  It was a fun panel.  I had dinner with her and her husband on Friday night and lunch with her and another author on Saturday.  It was fun spending time with her.

At the end of the month I went to a wedding.  These are some people I've met at the monthly game days.  It was a nice wedding a reception.  Simple, but nice.

In news of things I didn't do, I'd gotten excited when Camp Pendleton announced they were bringing back their mud run.  That's been one of my favorite weekends of the year.  Last year, they had the mud run, but for base personnel only.  This year, it was semi opened to the public.  If you weren't base personnel, you had to be sponsored on to the base.  Well, that leaves me out, unfortunately.  I'm hoping they will fully opened it to the public again soon.

August 2023 - A Hurricane, an Earthquake, and a Parental Visit

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

My parents had been talking about coming for a visit for a while, and it finally worked out for them to come in the middle of August - the same weekend we were supposed to be hit by Hurricane Hilary.  Mind you, the last time this happened was over one hundred years ago.  Mom and Dad decided to go ahead and come.

Saturday was a little cooler than it had been, but the weather was still nice.

Sunday, however, it rained.  And it rained.  And then it rained some more.  Fortunately, it had weakened by the time it hit here, so we got lots of rain but we never got the winds that were being predicted.  Fortunately.  I'm not sure how things would have turned out if we'd gotten wind.

But I mentioned we got rain, right?  I think we got at least a year's worth of rain in one day.  I saw video of flooded roads around town, although I never saw anything when I went out later in the week.

Best of all, my garage didn't flood again either.  I wasn't super worried about it, but I thought it might happen.

Then, in the middle of the afternoon, we also got hit with an earthquake.  It was far enough away that we felt it, but there wasn't any damage here.  Sounds like there wasn't any major damage close to the epicenter anyway.  Needless to say, it was a memorable visit.

But, we always play lots of games when we are together, and that's what we did.  I introduced Mom and Dad to Qwixx, a game I'd learned at my monthly game days, and it was a huge lit.  We played that a lot.  Mom did a great job of winning it, much to Dad's and my dismay.

July 2023 - Visiting Another Friend

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

A couple of weeks after I got back from New York City, I went to visit another friend.  He'd moved back home on the central coast of California, so I could drive.  We played ultimate Frisbee (how we first met) and then toured the area around his house Saturday and Sunday.  We hung around his place in the evening Saturday and some on Sunday, with me having to drive home Sunday night.  It was a nice trip without taking any time off work.  Very nice to get out of the condo for a couple of days.  And wonderful to see him.  He and his parents were great hosts.

June 2023 - New York City!

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

In June, I was able to take a long weekend and go visit a friend of mine who has moved to New York City.  The closest I had come previously was being lost in Yonkers and a layover in JFK.  Obviously, I had a lot to see.

And we actually did see quite a bit.  I took a red eye Thursday night.  While he worked on Friday, I visited Times Square and the New York Public Library, both a modern branch and the old one with some fun displays.

Saturday, we were really touristy.  We went out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, something he hadn't done yet.  I really enjoyed visiting both of them - more than I thought I would, and they were the biggest things on my list.  We were able to go part way up into the statue, but not all the way to the top since we hadn't booked tickets months earlier.  Kind of hard to do when you decide to go a couple of weeks before the trip.

Sunday, we played book tourist.  I wanted to visit a couple of places I've read about in long running historical series I read, Bank Street for the Gaslight Mystery by Victoria Thompson and Patchin Place for the Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen.  I have no idea if we were anywhere near where the characters live in the Gaslight series, but Patchin Place is very small, so it was great to see what it actually looks like.  Not quite how I pictured it.

After that, we went to Central Park and wandered around there for a while.  It was very interesting to visit that since I'd heard so much about it.

Monday, he had to return to work and I had to fly home.  There was more I would have liked to have done, but it was still a wonderful trip, and we crammed a lot into the short visit.

The downside was that I hurt my shoulder more.  Twice while on the subway, I grabbed a bar to steady myself with my left arm, jarring it more.