Time passes....

My ex-fiance was just in the store with her sister. I was engaged to her a long time ago - 24 years ago - and time has not been kind to her. Oh sure, I'm no spring chicken - my hair is turning gray at my temples, getting a little thin on top, the mustache is mostly white, and the gut is mostly large - but most people guess my age younger than I am. This woman looks at least 50, and she's only 42! She makes a good argument for staying out of the sun and not smoking.

I guess I should thank father time for being kinder to me.

Back to school

So the kids are back to school now. Alex seems to be adjusting well to an all day routine. I take him to his bus stop, where he gets together with Miles (the little boy across the street, they had a kindergarten class together last year) and a couple of other boys to goof off until the bus arrives. Then he comes home, and regardless of what has happened during the day, he's still in a good mood. Laura has already gotten homework - her geometry class. They're doing conjectures - something I know how to do, just not how to explain anymore. I guess that's part of getting old. Her showchoir routine starts full steam next week, with the after school practice every Monday afternoon. This year they'll have a costume change, and the girls are wearing shoes with higher heels. It will be interesting to see if the $300 showchoir price tag jumps up because of the new additions. Even more annoying is the note about the 8th grade trip to Disney World - only $840 paid in 3 easy installments of $280 -- starting NOW! We just paid $25000 for a new car - the only money that came in this month was $115 payment from the late mother-in-laws IRA, and my piddly one day paycheck from work. And they want $150 deposit now. Yeah right.

The adventures with the new hybrid car continue as well. We've been doing consistently better than the EPA sticker, until last night, where it had dropped to 25 mpg. I asked Sharon what happened, and she sheepishly answered that she'd left the car on all day while she was at school. She said she knew something was wrong when she got in and the AC was running. I'm going to have to get her into the habit of leaving the radio on, just so she knows the car is still on.

And that's been the week for the most part, waiting to get Alex on the bus, waiting for the kids to come home, playing puzzlepirates every so often, and an odd couple of hours at work.

Pretty quiet really...

It's actually pretty easy being green...

The hybrid has arrived! The neatest part, of course, is that it's a new car. It's also got some neat bells and whistles on it (there is no ignition key, just a radio box that handles unlocking the door, starting the car - even turning on the interior lights when you get close). The weirdness is the electric motor part. I drove around the WalMart parking lot while my wife was picking something up. It was like driving around in the worlds most expensive golf cart - only quieter. Coming home last night, we got stuck behind an old guy driving so slowly, the car shut off the engine and we rolled along behind him on the motor alone. I find myself leaving stop signs and stop lights slowly now, just to see how long I can go before the engine kicks in (unless there's traffic coming up).

We're going to St. Louis next week for a last vacation - that should prove a nice test of the system on the road.

Waiting

We've been waiting to hear from the dealership about our new car. My wife's old car was inherited from her parents - and it's a stereotypical AARP members car, a bronze Buick LeSabre. It's not a bad car mind you - about 25MPG, plenty of room for the family, quiet, etc. But it had 70000 miles on it, the driver's seat was completely sprung out (making it a back breaker on a long trip), and every time we see one the occupants are twice our age. Sharon was looking at Pontiac's, but in this age of $4 a gallon gasoline (and frequent low ratings in consumer reports) I managed to interest her in a Toyota Camry hybrid. The Prius is a very fuel efficient car, but it's (imho) ugly, and not big enough to do what we want to do with it. The Camry is the size we need, the hybrid gets almost as good mileage as a Prius, and the consumer reports ratings are good for most Camrys.

Unfortunately, Camry hybrids are almost as hard to find as a Prius - we scoured the websites of local Toyota dealers, and decided to try KC Summers in Mattoon. They showed that they had 2 - and they did, until we got there. We drove in as the last one drove out! We lucked out though, because they were scheduled to get 2 more, and one of them was available - it was also too expensive. So the salesman got most of the expensive stuff taken off the order (leather and a moon roof), got the color changed to red, and we put a deposit on it.

And now we wait - the car was scheduled for construction on 8/01/08, so it actually should be assembled by now. All we have to do is wait for it to be transported up here, and the dealer to get it ready.

We just have to wait...

Moderation

I seem to have a problem with moderation lately. First, it was spending hours at a time writing the story for the RedShirtSquad twitter feed -- I mean, I've got a lot written -- right up to his final demise. What I don't have written are the events leading up to "The Menagerie" and what happend during it, followed by the events afterward that lead up to "Catspaw". Then that epsiode and events that tlead up to "Shore Leave" (which actually is written up). But then there are 11 episodes and Stardates ranging from 3033 to 3372 ("Amok Time") with nothing written, then a bunch after that as well. I do have stuff written for "The Doomsday Machine", before and after "Journey to Babel", after "A Private Little War", "The Immunity Syndrome", "Specter of the Gun", "Return to Tomorrow", "Enterprise Incident", "And the Children Shall Lead", and the entire episode "The Way to Eden".

There's a lot left to write. Which means I have to stop going back and re-reading stuff.

I also need to stop playing pirate...