I had a good trip back to the Rochester a couple of weeks ago. Had lots of productive visits with the Beemers (IBM guys) as well as a nice visit with Zach and friends.
Zach and I arm wrestled to see who would get the upstairs bedroom and who would get the living room couch. I had the bed last time, so I was insisting it was my turn for the couch, but he would have none of that, so he proposed we settle it with an arm wrestling match. No problem, I thought, I've been keeping in pretty good shape and I beat him last time. But I neglected to take into effect that flinging thousands of tires would have on his now bulging arms, so he humbled my handily. Or maybe more precisely , arm-ily. So I got the bed.
Here is is cooking me breakfast:
which was so nummy that it distracted me enough that he beat me in a game of breakfast chess. But then I got my feet back on the ground and won the next 2 games, so the worlds was right again.
For the last few months, the shop has had mysterious water on the floor, mildewing and rusting things. I figured it was the sump pump, but after cleaning the shop out and getting the nasty gook off the floor, I found it was actually a slow drip from a humidifier tap in a water pipe. One drop every 4 seconds is enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket in a few days, which is enough to keep an unventilated shop really nasty after a few months.
The mower had broken, so Zach was behind on the yard work. There was a field of 3 foot weeks where the hole of 2 summers ago had been:
And an the end of the deck had been grown over. This picture shows a 4 foot thorn that was putting up a fight with the ivy:
I joined the frey, and the thorn eventually lost. I also trimmed a bunch of trees and arranged for a tree guy to take out 3 or the dead or un-desirable trees.
This is the car Z had driven up from Florida this spring:
He keeps it spotless. I suggested we go for a quick trip to the grocery store to get some milk, so I could get a ride in it. After an elaborate procedure to get me buckled into the 5 point racing harness, we took the long way to the grocery store, so Zach could demonstrate why he likes this car so much. Fortunately for me he did not have his 'sticky' tires on, so he limited the 40 mph curve to 100 mph. Next time I think I'll walk to the grocery store.Zach still has way too many fires cooking. Here he is putting new springs on the neighbors GTO. That is his friend Brie giving him moral support, and making sure someone is on hand in case the car jacks slip:
I also did a bunch of house cleaning (don't worry Zach, I'm not posting pictures). Here is a collection of Nick computer games. I left them on the table for a few days, as they brought back many fun memories for those passing through:
Speaking of the Nick, they recently posted a fun video of he and his 2 partners explaining what there Skritter software is going to do:
http://www.oberlin.edu/
Helen was glad to get me back from Minnesota. Apparently the bear had been getting into the food supplies and gaining so much weight he no longer fits in the rocking chair:
This morning we had a collection of 5 police cars in out our window:
One of the cars was, literally, in our front yard. No, not a drug bust (although I did hide the chocolate covered raisins, as I'm pretty sure they are a drug, as addicting as they are!). One car was in pursuit of a bad guy when he was accelerating around the corner in front of our apartment. His left front tire blew, causing him to careen out of control into our yard, crashing into a tree. He was OK, but his buddies had a good time giving him a hard time. The first guy, as he pulled up, spoke into his car megaphone "Sir, please stay in your vehicle".
One last picture, from a bike ride I took yesterday. Lets see if any of you can figure out what is unusual about this picture (click the picture for a larger version):
Don't see it yet? I'll give you one hint (is backwards so you don't accidentally read it):
doohroobhgien hsirI duorp a ni nekat saw
Bruce
