Weekend!
I built a fence!
Though this was not recently. This was… what? Two years ago? Yeah. Two years ago. We built it in the back yard to replace the rotting fence that was falling over back there. We did it ourselves with the stuff we bought from Lowe’s and/or Home Depot.
We were quite pleased with it.
That is until we had windstorms. Now it’s falling over again.
So I’m saying “heck with it” and paying a professional to rebuild the fence. He said that the fence actually looks pretty good, apart from the falling over, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem at the end of the day.
But it’s no longer “my” fence. It’s now “the” fence.
That said, this one will be erected by a professional and it should be able to withstand the next windstorm.
And the best part? Maribou needs the car tomorrow for Free Comic Book Day and so I will be stuck at home doing laundry while some other person repairs my fence and there isn’t anything I can do but stay home.
My goodness, I can’t wait.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
It’s graduation. So I get to go and wear a hot gabardine robe and pretend to smile and hope that the speaker doesn’t drone on to long and clap for the 2-3 graduates of my department I actually had in classes.
Yesterday was supposed to be a day off but a student with Major Issues was available to make up the work they missed, so I gave up my day off to deal with that. No, I don’t feel resentful about that AT ALL,, why do you ask….
Being a grownup sucks some of the time.
(And this summer I have to have the chain link fence at the back of my property replaced, it’s just, I can’t find a fence company that anyone will say, “Oh yeah, they do good work and are reliable.” My biggest issue with workers in this town is that they all seemed to have signed a private agreement saying “We won’t show up when we tell the homeowner we will.”)Report
I am supposed to help someone move, but I am not sure what I will be doing, as I really can’t lift much (back surgery a while back) and I am impatiently waiting for new glasses (driving like Mr. Magoo). And I have a few old Access files (like Access ’97) that I need to either mine or recreate (fortunately only about 20-25, with another 150 or so coming up later).
So…beer?Report
I’m off to a funeral today, unfortunately, and that will be basically my entire day. It will afford the opportunity to catch up with some old friends.
Sunday will be a club meeting, showcasing my latest batch of homebrew, and housework. Not the most exciting weekend, alas. Perhaps next weekend will be better.Report
We put my wife’s dog down on Thursday. She was very old — almost 18 — and over the last few years we built ramps to odd places on the first floor so that she could still get to the high places that she always regarded as her watch towers. I’ll be dismantling those and putting the furniture back into sane human arrangements.Report
I am sorry to hear this @michael-cain We have had to put down some beloved pets over the last few years and it is never easy. Coupling that with dismantling the devices you have built to make life easier makes is even harder.Report
The whole “going back to what used to be normal” thing really sucks. We set up a number of extra litter boxes and little things like “pet stairs” to help our sickly cats get from the floor to the bed.
Now we have a lot fewer cats and none of them are arthritic.
We’ve put away one of the cat boxes. Haven’t touched the stairs yet.
Back to normal feels weird.Report
Saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2… thought it was better than the first.
Marchmaine’s Iron Law of Pop Comedy series:
1. Introduce wacky characters and their quirks (if mildly successful, go to 2)
2. Turn quirks to 11, totally exploit character archetypes. (Peak Franchise)
3. Continue to focus on Quirks and Archetypes – HiLarity ensues (Print Money hats) *OR*
4. Think that we care about the Characters behind the Quirks and Archetypes – shave off quirks, round the sharp edges, and help characters grow out of their Archetypes… (Destroy Franchise).
Seems to me they learned what worked in the first movie, did more of that while dropping much of the stuff that made the pacing of the first very uneven.
Bold Prediction: This is probably as good as the franchise will get… according to the Iron Law above, I saw many more hints that they were going to go to #4 much sooner than later.Report
In this case, with a side trip into another movie where the characters are more-or-less bit players: Avengers: Infinity War. Unless Infinity War is going to have an approximately infinite running time, every part in it is a bit part.Report
Weird, another Avenger’s movie? Is this the one with Spiderman and Ironman, or is that just another Spiderman movie with a touch of Ironman? Aren’t we due for a Spiderman reboot? Its been, what, 3-years now?Report
Infinity War is going to have two parts. So that’s at least four hours and probably four and a half and maybe even five.Report
Oh, I’d forgotten that. So, quick check at Wikipedia, Vol. 2 this May, Infinity War in May, 2018, the unnamed second Infinity War movie in May, 2019, and then Vol. 3 in, say, May 2020. If we assume that the Avengers movies tie off the Thanos and infinity stones story line, and that Gunn and the Guardians are tired of the seriousness and truly large scale CGI the Avengers movies are likely to carry, I guess I’d bet on Vol. 3 trying hard to recover the lighthearted aspects of the first movie.Report
Interesting; I saw several reviewers almost-pan it. It’s possible though there was some virtue-signalling in the sense of “superhero movies people will enjoy, ew” going on in those reviews.
I might go to see it, if I can find someone who wants to go with me; I don’t like going to movies alone.Report
Oh yes, there is no virtue in seeing this movie…
On the plus side, you should have a wide range of age options to select from; at the theater we went to a full 50% of the audience were “Adults of a Certain Age.” That Age being: matured in the 80’s. Astonishingly, my children inform me that 80s music is really cool – but I don’t have the heart to tell them that most of the GG soundtrack is 70s music (and that their taste in 80s music is terrible… but that’s another issue).
Because there’s such a strong 80s grounding, a solid 25% +/- of the jokes are only really “gettable” if you know the source material. Oh sure, the kids *laughed* at the Hassellhoff jokes, but they didn’t *appreciate* the Hassellhoff jokes properly. So not only is the movie cute and funny, it makes you feel superior to all those poor souls misfortunate enough to be born 1990 or later.
There’s virtue in that, right?Report
Astonishingly, my children inform me that 80s music is really cool – but I don’t have the heart to tell them that most of the GG soundtrack is 70s music…
I’ve mentioned before that a particular embedded system project has resulted in me listening to a lot of 60s, 70s, and 80s pop music lately. That got me in the habit of noticing what was playing at groceries and fast food places, and at least around here it’s very heavily 70s with a dash of late 60s and early 80s. Ate fast food today while I was out running errands, and watched Hispanic teenage girls head-bobbing to the long version of Meat Loaf’s Paradise By the Dashboard Light (1977). One of them lip-syncing on “Stop right there!”Report
My weekend was going to be dominated by surrogacy obligations, but my doula canceled today so I ran off to the beach. I was pleasantly surprised to find there was hardly anyone there! Tomorrow, hospital tour and chores, but at least I’ll have salt water taffy now!Report