Catching up on Monday morning

It’s a sunny 65 degrees and I should be mowing the lawn, but I’m having my morning coffee and internet cafe fix at Hastings instead.

I can’t remember when I’ve gone through a whole weekend without posting to the blog, but this is my first post since last Friday. I guess it’s a consequence of being kinda busy and being kinda uninspired.

We spread about 400 pounds of red mulch amongst the shrubs in front of our house on Saturday and determined we need another 400 pounds to finish the job. Naturally, they were out of the stuff when we went to Home Depot yesterday morning to buy more. So we bought a flowering dogwood tree and planted it next to the garage, just to keep the home improvement momentum going.

We had a beautiful white dogwood in our back yard, but the ice storm of January, 2009, killed it. Maria still grouses about me letting it die because I didn’t run out and knock the ice off of it at a time when killer 100 pound-plus tree limbs were raining down all over our property. Sorry, but I’m not going to die or become a paraplegic for a tree.

I was pleased to be able to help son Steve sell a piece of electronic equipment on Ebay on Saturday and was interested to see the buyer is back in our home state of Indiana – Valparaiso to be precise.

I was going to ride Maria’s ‘94 BMW K75S over to Mr. T’s for some adult beverages yesterday afternoon, but discovered the battery is kaput. I’d had it on a trickle charger for more than a week, but it didn’t have enough juice to bump the starter when I thumbed the starter button. As far as I know, that’s the original battery, so I guess I can’t complain that it only lasted 16 years. That meant my ‘03 BMW K1200GT got to make the trip. I bought a six-pack of Weihenstephaner, a hefeweiss beer made by the oldest brewery in the world - Brauerei Weihenstephan in Freising, Germany, established in 1040, which also makes it one of the oldest companies in the world. I’m not a big fan of hefeweiss, so I’d like to try some of their other varieties.

My advanced digital photography students have asked for a session on macro photography this evening, so I’ll have to round up some tiny subjects for my macro lens and extension tubes this afternoon so as to have some examples to show them.

We’re transitioning nicely back to Empty Nest Mode now that Austin is back in Indiana. It almost feels natural to walk around the house in my boxer shorts.