Sunday night and the livin' is easy

It is indeed Sunday night. After a Friday off and the fact that tomorrow is close for the month, I can imagine the level of stress and just plain business that will surround my desk and my being tomorrow. Throw in the added dimension of a potluck and Halloween and the blog would have fallen victim to over activity. I know my limitations and Darla just left to work out at the gym and I have some downtime, so it all adds up to a blog entry.

Darla and I did sneak out of town on Thursday afternoon. The Atlantis casino in Reno had a cheap room rate of $29 for a luxury tower room and they comped us $50 for dinner, so it was a no brainer to pack up and head to the "Biggest Little City in the World". We got up to Reno about seven o'clock and got checked in before heading down to dinner. The question was where we would eat as the Atlantis has seven restaurants. We both brought just jeans so the Seafood and Steakhouse was out as it has waiters in tuxes and they serve the salad tableside out of a crystal bowl. We opted for the Prime Rib dinner at the Purple Parrot, the casino's coffee shop and dinner house. We actually had a chicken appetizer and shared a Prime Rib, with both of us eating salad and bread. We left stuffed and spent the balance of the night playing nickle slots. We were down quite a bit early on, but I got hot and started hitting four-of-a-kinds and then we stopped about midnight to get some dessert in the coffee shop. We shared a brownie decadence, some carmel and ice cream with chocolate sauce over the thinnest brownie you'll ever see. In fact, it looked like the brownie didn't rise when they baked it. We left to play a bit more (about another hour) and Darla finally warmed up and brought us back to almost even with several four-of-a-kinds.

The next morning we both slept in until nine a.m., which in some ways was more decadent than the brownie the night before. We packed up and headed out of town by ten-thirty. We stopped off at a diner on Virginia Street called Joes that is every bit as nice as the 5 and Diner in Phoenix. Darla had a mushroom burger and I opted for a tuna fish sandwich that was made with pickles and eggs and was as good as I've had in years. The diner had pictures of all of the cars fdrom the Hot August Nights car show and none of them were as nice as Dad's '46. It was a fun getaway and we were home in time for Daniel's football game.

Daniel's team played themselves out of the playoffs with a shoddy 33-22 loss to Woodland. Woodland is now 6-2 overall and 3-1 in league. We are 4-4 and 2-2 in league, about where we stood last year at this time. Woodcreek (our team) has never finished better than 5-5 which David's team managed last year. The coach wants the players to stay focused and concentrate on winning their last two games to finish 6-4 and 4-2 in league.

Darla and I bought some stain for the kitchen cabinets. I will sand them and touch them up and we will live with them for now. Our plan will be to completely refinish them within the next year or so. Darla wants to have them stripped and redone in a winter white look with hardware on the doors and interior hinges. I can live with them as they are for now. We also bought a new light fixture for the kitchen ceiling that I will have the boys help me install next weekend. We will move the kitchen fixture into the laundry room and replace the three foot neon fixture in there. It has a bad ballast and turns comletely on only when it really wants to. Otherwise it simply buzzes and leaves you in a gloom of light.

I spent yesterday doing the baseboards under the cabinets in the kitchen. My next chore will be the baseboards in the bedrooms and the living and family room once the carpet is in. The carpet is on order and we are waiting to hear when they will come out to install. We are having them do the study and the living and family room one day and then the other three bedrooms on the next day. The boys and I will tear out the basebords before they install the carpet and then install the new baseboards once the new carpet is in. The old baseboards are dark brown and the one inch variety. The new baseboards are 3 1/2 inches by 5/8 inch white with a molding on the top edge. I borrowed a mitre saw from our tile man to do the job and it has been a breeze.

Darla and I got the jet ski moved over to Alicia's house today. We have kept the ski here and Darla has parked the Explorer outside all Summer. The plan has always been that Alicia will store it for us in her garage as she has a two car garage and only one car. Now, Darla can park her car in the garage and it won't get so dirty so fast. The Mustang has stayed in the garage during the entire Summer because I'm a bit of a fanatic about my car. We will leave the ski there during the Winter and bring it back to our house late in the Spring. I still have five gallons of gas that I siphoned out of the tank that I've told David to use for his car. The tank that we have it in is used to refill the jet ski, so has a flexible hose and ballcock to make it easy to load. For David, that's about $15 worth of gas. It would only cost about $13.25 to replace it, but I paid $2.99 a gallon at the lake in Summer for that gas.

I talked to Jennifer on Monday when she was running between planes. She had arrived in Atlanta from Paris and was leaving the Customs area and running to catch her plane to Augusta. She will be in Augusta until about mid-week and then will be home in Sacramento. She will start job hunting and following up on some job offers that she has had right away.

For anyone who didn't get the e-mail from Dad, his 46 Mercury has been featured on a hot rod website. The article is in depth and I probably learned more about his car from this article than I had from Dad. The website is:www.hotrodsandclassics.net
You'll find Dad's car as the Featured Ride. Check it out, it's a decent read.

Darla is home and fixing some chicken soup for dinner. It is homemade and I look forward to that and some fresh french bread that she picked up at the bakery this afternoon.

Darla and Alicia had a garage sale on Saturday and I asked Darla if we made any money. She said that it was really Alicia's sale so that she could clear out the garage and make room for our ski. She sold some rugs for $1 and bought a leather recliner for $150. So, how much money did I make on the sale (-149.00)? Oy vey.

Well, I'd best get on to our evening. I'll fill you in on Jennifer's triumphant return next week. Stay well. Ciao. Ken-bediah.