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This weekend actually seemed longer than it was; and I’m not tired out or anything.

Sarah’s test went better than she expected - of course she won’t know the results until November! Oh the wait.

To celebrate we went out for dinner and a movie. Dinner: Texas Roadhouse; t-bone steak just OK. Movie: The Hulk; just OK.

I have to differ with Jack and Kristen on The Hulk. I’ll try not to give anything away for those who haven’t seen it (and are actually reading this), but it was slow. Beautifully filmed, neat comic-book inspired transitions (sometimes), and really slow. Even the big desert fight scence was amazing slow for an action sequence. The upside, the CGI was better than I expected. I think cutting the first 40 minutes would greatly improve the pacing of the movie. But even then there would need to be changes to the pacing of some of the other sequences.

So, unlike Kristen, this does not make my “must see” list. Caveat: It really does look good on the big screen, so if you’re going to see it, hit a matinee or bargin theatre.

As for the rest of the weekend, Saturday afternoon/evening was the end-of-year staff party for Sarah’s school. This year is was up in Richmond. One of the teacher’s lives on 20 acres in the middle of almost-nowhere. It was nice walking around the property and sitting around the campfire. Too bad more people didn’t show up.

Sunday we did a little work around the house - I finally organized my racing boxes - and then headed to Adriane’s (Sarah’s cousin) graduation party. Then watched Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Even Sarah started laughing at it this time around. It’s just that ridiculous.

That’s it for now.

Work is all but deserted today. It’s great because I’m actually getting things done. Not that I’m getting very far in my pile of stuff that needs doing - a shortage of work I have not. At least nothing is being added to the pile today.

Sarah shoud be nearly done with her test about now. She is taking the essay test portion for her National Board Certification. She’s a little nervous, but I know she will do just fine.

Meanwhile, she also a bit nervous because the union president is picking a fight with the school board. At this point it looks like there are going to enter the school year without a contract. One of the things the school board wants to do is change our health care from Blue Cross to an HMO. I don’t think so. HMOs suck. I see it almost daily here at work with people fighting to get basic things taken care of; like my coworker Tony who ripped up his ACL. The HMO just wanted him to go to physical therapy. Nice.

OK, back to getting that work done.

“You have the right to choose to smoke or not. But you don’t have any right to complain about it when it kills you.”
(Paraphrased from Carroll Smith)

We start with a few days ago: Sarah received an official letter that she can go to John and Kristen’s wedding! The letter is a little pissy, but nonetheless they approved her time off.

On to yesterday: We received an application from HUD. Apprarently, because we paid off our FHA loan (when we refinanced to a ‘regular’ mortgage) we are due a refund of nearly $900! Don’t know why. Don’t know what it’s from. Don’t care.

That was a great weekend. Perfect weather and nothing “important” to do (i.e. no family, etc. commitments).

Saturday Sarah ran in the Race for the Cure (her 3rd year) and I spent the entire day cleaining out the garage. Now, it wasn’t so messy that it took all day, I just wasn’t in a hurry. Mostly there has been a lot of accumulation of stuff as I preped the race car. Not to mention all of the debris that collects over the fall and winter. So everything came out, floor got swept and vacuumed, air compressor got drained and cleaned, etc. etc.

Now we can actually open the service door and walk around with out stepping over mounds of stuff. All that’s left is to re-organize my racing boxes. (Sarah bought me a new storage unit to take to the track, so I need to repack all of the spare parts I take.) I might re-organize the shelving back there as well.

On Sunday I stayed outside more. Got the downspout on the rear of the house rerouted so it drains off to the side instead of adding the roof’s water to the backyard. Hopefully this will help with the water accumulation (as in, less of).

Then it was time to sand down one of my pairs of jackstands and repaint them. Why? Because I could.

The day ended with a short New Bloods Old Wounds game. We didn’t do much, but that’s OK, I enjoyed being there. Actually it was a rare session were I was actually doing nothing more than talking with two or three other players. Go figure.