Sigh....Again

So, we are well into the Labor Day weekend. Not to diminish the work that I do for Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, but Labor day just doesn't seem to hold the same cache that it did when I was toiling away as a wage slave, humping packages for FedEx. That was labor, let me tell you. Oh well.

We are trying to make the most of this 3 day weekend. TOYH did not schedule anyone at the Massage Parlour for today, so we had the day to try and get some stuff around the house. After biking with KyKy to her dryland swimming practice (weightlifting), I came back to Casa de Stocking to do some work that has been put off for too long. This weekend, I am borrowing the 2500psi power washer from my father-in-law to peel the paint from some of the crappy looking trim on the house, and also to wash some of the dirt off the siding . So I washed off the siding, and peeled the paint off the offending trim in no time flat. While I was working on that, KyKy called to say practice was over and she wanted me to come back and ride home with her. But this was to be a family affair, so I aired up the tires on the bikes of everyone in the family and we set out to go pick up KyKy. KyKy was feeling adventurous, so she called just before we left and told us to meet her at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. Fair enough. We made it there in one piece, met her, drank down our water bottles and headed back home. On the way home, KyKy was captivated by the buena vista of Lake Harriet, and thus wasn't paying attention to where she was going. She drifted off the bike path and wiped out pretty good. She ended up with some road rash on her elbow and her knee. She was a little weepy about the incident, but I think that was more a matter of injured pride than the actual scrapes and bruises.

After we got home, we regrouped and prepared ourselves for ..... SHOPPING! I had to stop by the hardware store to pick up the paint and supplies for the trim on the house I had just denuded, and we also needed to make a pilgrimage to Costco to get ready for the start of school. Mission Accomplished. We came back and unloaded the booty, and I fired up the grill in the back yard so as to cook up some of the meat we had been storing in our freezer. (Speaking of freezers, TOYH and hauled up our little 3 (?) cubic foot freezer freezer from the basement to defrost it. Took out all the crap (meat) that was in it, brought it outside, set it in the sun, and waited until the ice chunks had melted. Good times.) We ate some grilled salmon and tuna we found in the far reaches of our upstairs freezer and pretty much called it a night.

The sigh in the title of this post comes from me listening to the Gophers football game on the radio. Halftime - Bowling Green 21 Gophers 0. Not encouraging. I'm not a huge football fan, but I want the team from my beloved alma mater to be successful. This year the Gophs have a new coach who apparently is chock full of enthusiasm. I really, really want him to be successful, just like I wanted the U's former coach, Jim "Geezo Beezo" Wacker to be successful. I really like coaches who are barely able to contain their excitemtent about their team. The coach between the current coach and Wacker was Glen Mason, who was a very, very good coach, but he always struck me as bloodless compared to "Wacky" Wacker. I always loved Wacky, he may have not had the chops to coach in the Big 10 but by golly you couldn't help rooting for him. Tim Brewster, the new coach, seems to have an untainted, golly-shucks enthusiasm for the game and for the U of M. More power to him. I really want him to succeed. I hope the Gophs pull it out. All this being said, I must ask if my sister Jen and her husband Francis if they are rooting for Bowling Green, being that they are graduates of that fine institution. American Studies. Storybook romance. Just ask them.

Just as an aside - I miss more than words can express Ray Christiansen broadcasting Gopher football. He has been off the air for a couple of seasons now, but he was the voice of Gopher football and basketball for as long as I can remember. Oh, for the days growing up listening him call a game, and then the post game show with Bill Diehl. Oma always had the radio tuned to WCCO when the Gophs were playing (She had the radio tuned to 'CCO all the time, I mean every waking hour). Ray was such a homer, a graduate of the U who lived and died with the fortunes of the team. He wasn't just a part of my youth, but my adulthood too. I knew nothing other than Ray when it came to Gopher radio broadcasts, and I miss him. Add to that the loss of Herb Carneal, THE ONLY VOICE OF THE MINNESOTA TWINS, who died just before the start of this year's baseball season, and the radio sports mooring of my life has been undone. I guess I'm getting old.

Upcoming: More exciting home improvement updates!