Hey! that was a lot of fun. I spent about 20 minutes recording the first section of this blog. Then when I pressed "dictate" all things I dictated disappeared off of my computer. There is a bit of a learning curve in the Apple or shall I say Mac environment.
Okay I'll admit it I got lazy again. I haven't posted since Thursday night. Some of you really enjoyed the return appearance of Salvay and Lucrum. (Yes that is a post to the animation if you want to see it again or if you missed.)
I got a lot of comments that mostly from men folk saying that Lucrum was quite provocative when she is uppity and has "fed up" attitude. Guys, let me remind you she is just a digitally animated avatar. Down Boys.
Anyway Friday morning I got up really early and went to Salt Creek down near Dana point. It was my intent to catch my first Corbina. It is that elusive surf fish we told you about a couple of weeks ago. I had taken the time to get my California fishing regulations in order, and all my equipment ready to go, and drove down there and was going to catch my first Corbina.
Well, what I discovered was, it's about 25 minutes to drive there, it took me another five or ten minutes (Yes Dennis 5-10 minutes) to get my gear ready. Then it took me about 22 minutes to walk actually to the spot where I thought I could catch the fish,and finally started casting just about the time it was low tide. After fishing for about what I thought was 10-15 minutes, I checked the time on my iPhone and an hour had gone by. Unfortunately I knew I had another 20 minutes back to the car, and another 25 to 30 minutes for the drive back home. I had a 10 AM meeting with the contractor about an issue on our house.
It was time to pack up my toys and walked back to the parking lot. After meeting with the contractor, I closed the market and calculated my gains and losses for the week. We'll talk more about that later.
We also had a guy come to the house to grind a teeny tiny little crack in our granite kitchen top. He was there for about two hours. After he left, we covered the counters with some blankets to protect them. This morning (Sunday) we discovered we now have a huge area of discoloration in our granite kitchen counter top. Gotta love it.
Of course we did not know that Friday. I marinated some chicken parts and pieces in OJ, Sweet Baby Ray BBQ sauce, Onion, Serrano Pepper, Garlic, Montreal Chicken seasoning, and my secret ingredient. (Ok you are all like family now so, I add Jack Daniel.) After it marinated for 3 hours we had a great meal of BBQ chicken and baked potato.
While cooking the meal, I heard from my sister Kelly who was taking her kids to Disneyland this week. We look forward to seeing her Tuesday at the happiest place on Earth. Our dinner was great and I finished reading Heat, By Richard Castle (The story that was the oedipus for the TV series Castle.) I plugged way at The First Frontier which I have mentioned here a couple of times. What a boring life I lead.
Saturday, I got up and met with the guys at the golf club. It had been a couple of weeks and it was good to see them. Russ, who lives down towards San Diego had some disturbing news. There are avocado thefts in his neighborhood. Yes, groups come in the middle of the night and take hundreds of avocados and sell them at farmers' markets. Very exciting news from down Bonsal way.
I went back home and swam for while. My Lord this is boring. Then I tried a new software program on my Mac called Garage Band. You can make your own kind of music with the software. It is really amazing, but it has a long learning curve. After a couple of hours I created a piece of music that you swear could have been made on a software called Garbage Band.
OK, I have to say weekends like this are almost normal and while this is boring to you, It has been18 months since we have had normal boring weekends. This is really nice for us. It does allow a lot of time for me to drive Devin around to her various appointments and chores which cause undo stress for me. Ya, see I have a parking impediment. Yes I am parking challenged. I cannot park straight to save my life. I know it ,and it does not bother me, but the stress I feel when I realize I am headed into a parking sport WITH DEVIN IN THE CAR, is overwhelming.
I do not know what is worse. Either she tries to coach me into the the space, "Ok, don't turn yet, not yet, keep it straight, not yet, OK now straighten it out. NO you straightened it out way to soon." Or worse yet, she won't say anything, just shaking her head, getting out of the car and walking away from me like I rode the short bus to the mall."
Thank God we were going to the Irvine Spectrum Mall because, Alleluia, they have valet parking. I had no stress. It was good. Upon arriving, Devin wanted some lunch so we went to a Mexican place called Javiers. It is a kind of a high end Mexican place. (No that is not an oxymoron.) Devin had the ceviche pescadoro. Now I love ceviche and was intrigued by one ceviche offering, ceviche pulp. So in my bestest espanol, I said to the waiter, "Como se diche 'Ceviche de pulpo' in Engliese?" He answered Octopus. I had to have the Octopus ceviche. It was very good as it was washed down with one of the best Margaritas I have ever had.
Don't worry, I was not cheating on Hanna's as they were closed for a private party all day. Even I could not get in. Imagine the nerve of those people!
We stimulated the economy and headed home to gather man child and head off to our friends house in Orange, CA. Dan and Linda (Readers) alway put on a nice table and Saturday was no exception. They were entertaining her Mom and Dad and invited us to crash the evening. Dinner was great we had a nice spinach salad and they did shrimp and scallops on the BBQ in a spicy marinade. Delicious. We watched the end of some basketball game and visited. We brought over a couple of bottles of wine and it was good time had by all. Thank you dear for driving. (I got to have a few glasses of wine and did not have to park.)
This morning, I braved the world with breakfast AND a round of golf. Tim, Mike and I played and there was some game involving the exchange of money and and lots of instructions. If you were in Southern California Sunday Midday and the lights flickered, That was Mike Ameel trying to tabulate the final scores on his Cray Computer. Between the the three of us 30 dollars was exchanged 3 ways netting Mike one dollar. I could not keep up with the calculations and preferred to solve the European Debt Crisis as it was easier. Good Segue Brian, left get to the really boring stuff.
Before I do, welcome to new reader, Steve F., and angel of a guy who does incredible things associated with Mission Hospital and their Giving Foundation. If any of you want to see some of the amazing things they do at our little "Hospital on the Hill", drop me a note and I will ask Steve to introduce to the incredible folk and programs at the Hospital.
