Weekend Update - November 26th
Weekend Update
Mostly, I survived Thanksgiving but not without some exhaustion. I spent about twelve hours in the kitchen either preparing the food to cook, cooking, serving, and then cleaning up after the meal.
I suppose that you could ask why didn’t anyone help me?
I live alone so there was no one here to help me get ready or cook. I am a better cook than most of the women I have known so they wouldn’t necessarily be all that helpful for me. My kitchen is small so there isn’t much room to move around.
Anyway, the meal turned out just fine.
The dinner table.
The turkey that I cooked.
My dinner plate. I had no seconds.
A tired cook.
I ended up sleeping for about ten hours on Thursday night – Friday morning.
That was about what I had hoped would happen.
Friday, I had lunch with my friend Sharon. I almost didn’t have lunch with her.
She called me a little before 10:00AM on Friday and asked me if I was planning to have lunch with her. I said that I had asked someone, who would remain nameless, to provide me with a time and a location so I could show up for lunch.
Ooooh.
Sharon gave me the building address and suggested that I get there around 11:30.
Sharon’s office is 67 miles / 108 kilometers from my house. That is a long drive even on a good traffic day and Friday was a good traffic day. Traffic for the most part was somewhere else so I made very good time.
We ended up walking across the street to go to Islands Restaurant [Hawaiian themed hamburgers and tacos] for lunch. None of the tacos seemed interesting to me since I had just been to El Gringo on Wednesday and would be there on Sunday again.
I had a cheeseburger with bacon and bar-be-que sauce. It was a nice cheeseburger but nothing to get excited about after you’ve been to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers and Fatburger like Doug and I have.
On my drive back to the Beach, I thought about something that Doug had said on Thanksgiving. He said we, he and I, should take the Princess’ boy friend to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers for a Mega Combo meal. It made a lot of sense since the Boy Friend, to our knowledge, has never been to Tommy’s.
I was out on Saturday running some errands. I had some stuff to buy and I didn’t want to go to the stores on Friday. I only had one stop at the local mall; I needed to go to my local Barnes and Noble Bookstore. I had to buy some books including one that I can take with me when I have jury duty next week.
I also bought a new Clive Cussler book, The Skeleton Coast. I started reading it yesterday and it looks pretty good so far. But, then, I have never read a poor Clive Cussler book.
The thing that really surprised me was the parking lot by the bookstore was less crowded on Thanksgiving Weekend Saturday than it is on a regular weekend day. I had no trouble finding a spot and I was able to get close to the store as well.
I had the radio on in the Pathfinder while I was buzzing around the South Bay. I was driving home from Lowe’s when the radio station played Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” as I looked at my khaki shorts. It was an ironic episode for me
Visitors
Last week was another good week for visitors. We had visitors from Japan [12], Turkey, Hong Kong [3], Bolivia, Philippines, United Kingdom [2], Canada [10], Romania, Malaysia, Australia [2], Italy [2], Taiwan [3], China [2], Korea, and India [2].
I think last week was the largest for curious visitors. We had one curious visitor for 12.5 minutes, another for 19.5 minutes, one for 11 minutes, still another for 10.5 minutes, one for 25 minutes, another for 27.5 minutes, one more for 14.5 minutes, and one incredible curious visitor who stayed here for 29 minutes.
We also had some more lookers this past week. One looker managed to view 8 pages in three minutes. Another looker viewed 8 pages in two minutes. We had one visitor view 21 pages in 2.5 minutes; I guess that visitor was looking at the Woman of the Moment photos maybe.
I do appreciate all of the visitors to Balancing Checkbooks.
Woman of the Moment
We are down the end of the Joyce Lex time as our Woman of the Moment. I do have a new Woman of the Moment warming up in the bull pen so we will be ready to go in the next week with a smooth transition.
I think some of these photos came from the Internet and some came from the Speed Options model feature.
Army of One
I was watching the television over the weekend. I watched a lot of programs on a number of different channels so I don’t remember where I saw the Army of One ad.
It was a new ad or one that I hadn’t seen before. It was still working with the Army of One theme. The ad closed out with a montage of soldiers in their utilities. The ad only showed their names and, surprise surprise, one was named Reinhardt.
That got me to thinking if one of my nieces or nephews had joined the Army.
I know that Doug has not signed up for the Army and I don’t think my nephew had signed up either.
I thought that was cool.
Jury Duty
I am scheduled to be on call for jury duty this week.
While I am not a fan of jury duty, I do find it a necessary part of being a citizen in a nation that values personal liberty. At least, I don’t have to spend two weeks, sitting on hard wooden benches waiting to be called to serve on a jury panel. The old days were agony and a test of one’s patience; even Job would be sorely tried under this approach.
All I have to do is call a phone message system every night and see if my section has to report the following morning. If my section isn’t called in, I get to do whatever I want. If my section isn’t called in during the week, I am done with jury duty for a couple of years. If I get called in for the day and don’t end up on a panel, I am done for the week.
I expect to be called in on Monday so the court’s jury staff can tell us what we have to do and when we have to do that. The important thing to do on Monday is to arrive early and therefore snag a good seat for the day.
I think I have a solid book for the week. I picked up Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. The book is about Lincoln’s Cabinet and, at just over 750 pages and carrying a hefty 120 pages of footnotes in a semi-dwarf font, it is not a book that you can finish off in a couple of days.
I’m not sure which University of Utah Utes football team showed up at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday.
Brigham Young won 33-31 on the very last play of the game and scored after time ran out. This ended the Utes season at seven wins and five losses and five wins and two losses in the Mountain West Conference. Our Utes are bowl eligible so the Princess and I will have to wait for a week or so to see where and when they will play next.
The game seemed close with Utah holding BYU scoreless in the second and third quarters. Utah had scored a touchdown with just a minute and nineteen seconds left in the game to go ahead 31-27.
I suppose you could say that half of the Utes played well and half played poorly. The defense allowed BYU to drive 75 yards in the final 79 seconds and score the winning touchdown.
Komyo Ga Tsuji
My samurai show must have had some action last week when I was at Morton’s with Doug and his friend.
Having read the history of the period, I knew how things would play out in the drama. I like the drama because it adds more depth and color to the dry story of the civil war conflict in Japan between the Tokugawa clan and the Toyotomi clan.
I find it interesting to see how the samurai is conflicted over duty and his need to preserve his clan. He seems to be lost in introspection and an inability to be decisive at a crucial point in history. He seems unable to read the flow of the nation.
His wife, on the other hand, is much smarted and insightful. She understands the political dynamics and foresaw the conflict several weeks ago. She has skillfully played the role of the subservient wife in order to avoid becoming a hostage inside of a castle that will be attacked by the Tokugawa forces.
Finally, the samurai made his decision to side with the Tokugawa clan in the civil war. It was inevitable that his wife helped him to make the proper decision. She pointed out how his decision must be for the benefit of his clan that he leads.
Next weekend ought to be interesting.
El Gringo
Today is Sunday and that means having dinner, as it were, with Whitney the Server at El Gringo.
I was lucky today because Whitney said that she barely returned from her Thanksgiving wither family in time for her work shift. It is nice to win once in a while. We didn’t have the usual opportunity to chat the way we have in the recent past. There were more people there today than I can remember being there before when I usually go on Sundays. This is possible since there are some readers of the blog who live in the same area as me and have followed my recommendations about El Gringo.
Today, I had the Number 2 Combination which was two chicken tacos, rice, and beans. I have had this meal before with either beef or grilled, blackened mahi mahi and always enjoyed it. I think I’ve liked it because the tacos are the soft style, are easier to hold, and come wrapped in paper.
The chicken tacos are served in a grilled shell. The hard taco shell splinters easily and is, therefore, messier to eat. I didn’t like the extra mess plus there seemed to be more lettuce than necessary. It was healthy and the next time I decide to have chicken tacos I will request them come as soft tacos so they will be less messy and easier for to eat.
El Gringo doesn’t offer any dessert and that is probably just as well for me. I would really look like Captain Ahab’s nemesis if I did. I will still have some dessert. I will have some left over apple pie tonight; I wonder how that will resolve itself in my stomach.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend gentle readers.
Be well and stay happy.
Mostly, I survived Thanksgiving but not without some exhaustion. I spent about twelve hours in the kitchen either preparing the food to cook, cooking, serving, and then cleaning up after the meal.
I suppose that you could ask why didn’t anyone help me?
I live alone so there was no one here to help me get ready or cook. I am a better cook than most of the women I have known so they wouldn’t necessarily be all that helpful for me. My kitchen is small so there isn’t much room to move around.
Anyway, the meal turned out just fine.
The dinner table.
The turkey that I cooked.
My dinner plate. I had no seconds.
A tired cook.
I ended up sleeping for about ten hours on Thursday night – Friday morning.
That was about what I had hoped would happen.
Friday, I had lunch with my friend Sharon. I almost didn’t have lunch with her.
She called me a little before 10:00AM on Friday and asked me if I was planning to have lunch with her. I said that I had asked someone, who would remain nameless, to provide me with a time and a location so I could show up for lunch.
Ooooh.
Sharon gave me the building address and suggested that I get there around 11:30.
Sharon’s office is 67 miles / 108 kilometers from my house. That is a long drive even on a good traffic day and Friday was a good traffic day. Traffic for the most part was somewhere else so I made very good time.
We ended up walking across the street to go to Islands Restaurant [Hawaiian themed hamburgers and tacos] for lunch. None of the tacos seemed interesting to me since I had just been to El Gringo on Wednesday and would be there on Sunday again.
I had a cheeseburger with bacon and bar-be-que sauce. It was a nice cheeseburger but nothing to get excited about after you’ve been to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers and Fatburger like Doug and I have.
On my drive back to the Beach, I thought about something that Doug had said on Thanksgiving. He said we, he and I, should take the Princess’ boy friend to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers for a Mega Combo meal. It made a lot of sense since the Boy Friend, to our knowledge, has never been to Tommy’s.
I was out on Saturday running some errands. I had some stuff to buy and I didn’t want to go to the stores on Friday. I only had one stop at the local mall; I needed to go to my local Barnes and Noble Bookstore. I had to buy some books including one that I can take with me when I have jury duty next week.
I also bought a new Clive Cussler book, The Skeleton Coast. I started reading it yesterday and it looks pretty good so far. But, then, I have never read a poor Clive Cussler book.
The thing that really surprised me was the parking lot by the bookstore was less crowded on Thanksgiving Weekend Saturday than it is on a regular weekend day. I had no trouble finding a spot and I was able to get close to the store as well.
I had the radio on in the Pathfinder while I was buzzing around the South Bay. I was driving home from Lowe’s when the radio station played Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” as I looked at my khaki shorts. It was an ironic episode for me
Visitors
Last week was another good week for visitors. We had visitors from Japan [12], Turkey, Hong Kong [3], Bolivia, Philippines, United Kingdom [2], Canada [10], Romania, Malaysia, Australia [2], Italy [2], Taiwan [3], China [2], Korea, and India [2].
I think last week was the largest for curious visitors. We had one curious visitor for 12.5 minutes, another for 19.5 minutes, one for 11 minutes, still another for 10.5 minutes, one for 25 minutes, another for 27.5 minutes, one more for 14.5 minutes, and one incredible curious visitor who stayed here for 29 minutes.
We also had some more lookers this past week. One looker managed to view 8 pages in three minutes. Another looker viewed 8 pages in two minutes. We had one visitor view 21 pages in 2.5 minutes; I guess that visitor was looking at the Woman of the Moment photos maybe.
I do appreciate all of the visitors to Balancing Checkbooks.
Woman of the Moment
We are down the end of the Joyce Lex time as our Woman of the Moment. I do have a new Woman of the Moment warming up in the bull pen so we will be ready to go in the next week with a smooth transition.
I think some of these photos came from the Internet and some came from the Speed Options model feature.
Army of One
I was watching the television over the weekend. I watched a lot of programs on a number of different channels so I don’t remember where I saw the Army of One ad.
It was a new ad or one that I hadn’t seen before. It was still working with the Army of One theme. The ad closed out with a montage of soldiers in their utilities. The ad only showed their names and, surprise surprise, one was named Reinhardt.
That got me to thinking if one of my nieces or nephews had joined the Army.
I know that Doug has not signed up for the Army and I don’t think my nephew had signed up either.
I thought that was cool.
Jury Duty
I am scheduled to be on call for jury duty this week.
While I am not a fan of jury duty, I do find it a necessary part of being a citizen in a nation that values personal liberty. At least, I don’t have to spend two weeks, sitting on hard wooden benches waiting to be called to serve on a jury panel. The old days were agony and a test of one’s patience; even Job would be sorely tried under this approach.
All I have to do is call a phone message system every night and see if my section has to report the following morning. If my section isn’t called in, I get to do whatever I want. If my section isn’t called in during the week, I am done with jury duty for a couple of years. If I get called in for the day and don’t end up on a panel, I am done for the week.
I expect to be called in on Monday so the court’s jury staff can tell us what we have to do and when we have to do that. The important thing to do on Monday is to arrive early and therefore snag a good seat for the day.
I think I have a solid book for the week. I picked up Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. The book is about Lincoln’s Cabinet and, at just over 750 pages and carrying a hefty 120 pages of footnotes in a semi-dwarf font, it is not a book that you can finish off in a couple of days.
I’m not sure which University of Utah Utes football team showed up at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday.
Brigham Young won 33-31 on the very last play of the game and scored after time ran out. This ended the Utes season at seven wins and five losses and five wins and two losses in the Mountain West Conference. Our Utes are bowl eligible so the Princess and I will have to wait for a week or so to see where and when they will play next.
The game seemed close with Utah holding BYU scoreless in the second and third quarters. Utah had scored a touchdown with just a minute and nineteen seconds left in the game to go ahead 31-27.
I suppose you could say that half of the Utes played well and half played poorly. The defense allowed BYU to drive 75 yards in the final 79 seconds and score the winning touchdown.
Komyo Ga Tsuji
My samurai show must have had some action last week when I was at Morton’s with Doug and his friend.
Having read the history of the period, I knew how things would play out in the drama. I like the drama because it adds more depth and color to the dry story of the civil war conflict in Japan between the Tokugawa clan and the Toyotomi clan.
I find it interesting to see how the samurai is conflicted over duty and his need to preserve his clan. He seems to be lost in introspection and an inability to be decisive at a crucial point in history. He seems unable to read the flow of the nation.
His wife, on the other hand, is much smarted and insightful. She understands the political dynamics and foresaw the conflict several weeks ago. She has skillfully played the role of the subservient wife in order to avoid becoming a hostage inside of a castle that will be attacked by the Tokugawa forces.
Finally, the samurai made his decision to side with the Tokugawa clan in the civil war. It was inevitable that his wife helped him to make the proper decision. She pointed out how his decision must be for the benefit of his clan that he leads.
Next weekend ought to be interesting.
El Gringo
Today is Sunday and that means having dinner, as it were, with Whitney the Server at El Gringo.
I was lucky today because Whitney said that she barely returned from her Thanksgiving wither family in time for her work shift. It is nice to win once in a while. We didn’t have the usual opportunity to chat the way we have in the recent past. There were more people there today than I can remember being there before when I usually go on Sundays. This is possible since there are some readers of the blog who live in the same area as me and have followed my recommendations about El Gringo.
Today, I had the Number 2 Combination which was two chicken tacos, rice, and beans. I have had this meal before with either beef or grilled, blackened mahi mahi and always enjoyed it. I think I’ve liked it because the tacos are the soft style, are easier to hold, and come wrapped in paper.
The chicken tacos are served in a grilled shell. The hard taco shell splinters easily and is, therefore, messier to eat. I didn’t like the extra mess plus there seemed to be more lettuce than necessary. It was healthy and the next time I decide to have chicken tacos I will request them come as soft tacos so they will be less messy and easier for to eat.
El Gringo doesn’t offer any dessert and that is probably just as well for me. I would really look like Captain Ahab’s nemesis if I did. I will still have some dessert. I will have some left over apple pie tonight; I wonder how that will resolve itself in my stomach.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend gentle readers.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 12:39 PM
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