Summertime, and…

The cicadas came out in force this year. I made several recordings of them at various locations around town. They weren’t too bad at our house, but there were some neighborhoods where I’d have gone nuts having that racket in the evenings. A second wave came out in the latter part of summer, not as obnoxious but still pretty loud.

Becky’s Saturn died a couple days before our CA trip in August. It was supposedly the Electronic Control Module and the shop wanted $1200 to fix it. When we got back from CA, however, it started right up and seemed fine. Nevertheless, it got traded in for Becky’s new Mazda 6. That was quite a brouhaha that involved me walking out at the closing yelling and waving my arms and making a scene, getting calmed down and then they set me off again and I walked out again. But, the deal finally got done and Becky likes her new car. So do I.

And, suddenly, summer is over and it’s time to start planning for Christmas. Amazing.

Mt. Vesuvius Downstairs

Last night as I was about to crawl into bed I heard a loud whooshing noise that sounded like the flame on either the furnace or water heater was mighty excessive. Went downstairs to investigate and, after stepping into water about three inches deep, discovered the water heater had gone Vesuvius and was blowing water out the top where it’s only supposed to be venting carbon monoxide from burning gas. Shut off the water and woke Becky up to tell her the news. We then spent until 4:00 a.m. or so “sweeping” water with push brooms all the way out through the garage to the driveway. The floor drain, which is right next to the water heater, was clogged up, of course. Then I had to go to Walmart and buy towels and mops to soak up more water. The worst part was moving all the boxes and junk out of the water. Today, besides really sore backs, we have a spankin’ new water heater next to the spankin’ new furnace we had to buy in September. After the guy installed the new heater I ran out and stopped him as he was pulling out of the driveway to tell him I thought I smelled gas. He wasn’t thrilled about coming back in but, indeed, he found a leak. So I was glad I stayed home with Becky to “supervise” the repairs instead of going to the office.

 Was sunny and 70 degrees today. “Normal” people who didn’t go to the office today went to the golf course. Hard to believe this was less than two weeks ago.

Another Fall

Wow, a year and a half since last post. I suppose if nobody visits the blog there’s good reason — not likely to find anything new. It’s not as if nothing has been happening with the family. There’s been lots. Things that come to mind are Kim’s adventures in sailing, and other adventures, and David’s move from Menlo. Jeffrey has expanded from musician to author to app provocateur (do I mean entrepreneur?). Jessica has had milestones career-wise. Steve and Kathie continue to nurture a couple of incredible kids. Miles continues to excel doing Miles stuff. John and Becky, however, remain boring. We fired up the furnace yesterday for the first time this fall. Maybe I’ll come back soon and put some pictures here, although everybody is mostly putting their pictures on either FaceBook or Google+. Admittedly, there are more exciting places to gather than here. So it goes. :shrug: