Help is at hand

After dark I got some help from the Mrs. and the trenches were dug deeper.

Proping each other up

I got the sides out and round to where the trenches are. This is roughly how it will look. I just need to dig the trenches deeper.

Side by side

After a lot of measuring, drilling and screwing I got each of the sides assembled. This pretty much took all day.

Timber!

Today, I bought the wood for the raised flower beds. This was no mean feat. The planks at Home Depot were 16ft long which made them somewhat unwieldy. Throughout the exercise of getting the planks off the shelves and onto my cart literally a dozen Home Depot employees wandered past me without any offer of help. Finally a couple of Mexican guys who happened to be passing with their lumber kindly offered to help, but by then I was on the last plank.

After an hour of loading lumber and having paid for it I was ready to get my money's worth from the free sawing service. I sidled up to an unsuspecting employee and asked if he could cut some of my wood. I started out easy with 4x16 ft planks cut into 4. No problem. Then I hit him with the 24 2' 4" posts. Then back to the 8 tops. After another hour I had all my lumber cut for me for free and here it is in back of Dena's car.

Mothers Day

Dena's Mothers Day did not start off well, but it did start of with her being a mother. Fiona woke up with a cold and congestion about 2:00am and proceeded to cough, sneeze and scream her way through the night.
By the time she got up, Dena wasn't in the mood to go hiking or any other form of strenuous activity so we settled for a trip to Mr. Toots Coffee Shop followed by lunch at Vasili's Greek Restaurant and then home for some down time with a good book in Dena's case (Fiona being down for a nap) and then out for a Mothers Day dinner at the Viva "Family" Restaurant which is at the front our neighborhood.
All in all a good day which I then followed by driving up to Oakland Airport to pick up Bob and Marty who had flown back from the UK via Dallas. Unfortunately in my experience all flights out of Dallas after about 5:00pm run late and this was no exception. I picked them up around midnight, took them home, getting back to Los Gatos around 2:00am. Not the best way to spend an evening, but I did have Tangerine Dream loud on the car stereo which helped a lot.

Last night Alexander tried his hand at break dancing...

...and broke one of his little fingers.

We splinted it with the one beside it and he will probably need it x-rayed on Monday.

Red rag to a train

Despite my somewhat unpleasant ride on America's rail network before Christmas, today I decided to throw caution to the wind and get a train to San Francisco to visit the Java One trade show and have lunch with a friend.

Just after Millbrae the train ground to halt. The conductor announced that they had to stop because of a red flag. I looked out of the front of the train. The red flag was in fact a red square of cloth that had wrapped itself around a bush growing at the side of the track. However to the train driver this was enough to stop the train and wonder what to do next. Eventually the trains conductor managed to request that a maintenance crew come out and remove the piece of red cloth. A team of two people with hard hats and orange vests arrived in a truck and proceeded to remove the red handkerchief from the side of the track. They then refused to say that is was ok for the train to proceed. When pushed by the conductor to get approval from their management that the train could proceed the maintenance crew ran back to their truck and drove off, leaving the conductor and the train driver to argue as to whose job is was to say it was ok to proceed. After another 15 minutes one of them decided it was their job and the train continued to San Francisco.

Alexander by Alexander

Alexanders class were asked to draw self portraits. The set of portraits of for the entire class were to be auctioned. Here is Alexander's. He even got the T-shirt right.

The Breakfast Crew

It is quite nice on the weekend not to get up at the crack of dawn and to have some time with The Breakfast Crew. Although Fiona in my lap I think is trying to help me loose weight by preventing me from eating anything

Game Ball to Alexander

Today Alexander got the Game Ball at his baseball game. I must admit I was quite proud, since I could see how hard he was concentrating and how well (as a consequence of practicing with me) he played. He got all the way to the fence with one hit and his fielding was excellent.

Fiona at the keys...

"How to play piano like my brother" by Fiona aged 15 months:
Turn the page
Bang the keys
Move the right foot
Repeat!

Fiona at the keys

It's quite amazing to me to watch Fiona's view of the world. It is well observed. I doubt and alien would understand playing the piano any better.

Light reading lighter

Today the job looks better and I have put the book in my bag to take home to my cube, to compare with my colleagues. Who knows, they may find some great career opportunities in there.

Farewell to Mr. Floff over a brief lunch and back to Los Gatos.

Light Reading

I bought a book today at the Bally Casino in Vegas called "50 Worse Jobs Than Yours."

Right now it's a close run thing with the rat catcher.