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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary Week of 21 October 2002 Latest Update: Saturday, 26 April 2003 08:54 |
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Monday, 21 October 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Happy Monday everyone. We awoke to dark and rainy
skies.
I finished reading A Wicked Slice by Charlotte and Aaron Elkins over the weekend. I decided to take a break from mysteries and picked up an autobiography from my to-be-read shelf The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw. Linda's first book The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captains Journey chronicles her 17 years aboard the sister ship of the Andrea Gail featured in the book and movie A Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. Linda has decided to give up her swordboat life at the age of 40 and return home to the small island of Isle au Haut off the coast of Maine to fish for lobster with her father as sternman. For myself, having read countless fiction and non-fiction books set in around the coast of Maine with lobster fishing as the center point of the book, I am truly enjoying her discussion of small island life. In Lobster Chronicles she recounts what it was like her first year back at home, living with her parents after 17 years away, and the struggles she met during her first year of fishing. In addition to battling the daily obstacles of making a living fishing for lobster she recounts some of her own personal struggles. She writes wonderfully. I enjoy reading and learning at the same time. As many times as I have read books about lobster fishing I am learning new things from her book. Even if you don't care about learning how to fish for lobsters I still recommend the book for her insight on life. Regardless of whether you are 40 (her age in this book) or 60 everyone meets crossroads in their life such as she has. Today is the big day. I have my job interview at 2:30. I am off to the gym this morning for Body Pump and then to visit Lenore. [Top] |
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Tuesday, 22 October 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| I felt like the interview itself went very well yesterday.
However, it was my first experience with applicant screening software
tests. This local law firm used Prove
It! Needless to say I was a little intimidated although I work all day
at a computer doing and using the things they tested. I am supposed to
hear back by Friday. If I get the job I will expound more on the details.
It took me about 45 minutes to do the test and another 20 so for the
actual interview. Of course the first part of the test was spelling and
grammar of which I am horrid at. That is why I use a spell/grammar check.
The third test was Office '97which I did pretty well on most of. The last
test was a typing test.
By the time I got home, changed my cloths, and checked my mail it was almost time to fix dinner. I played with the dogs for awhile before fixing homemade pizza. While we ate we watched last nights Angel then while Bob visited his mom I watched The Practice. We spent the remainder of the evening relaxing and reading. Today I am driving my parents to Replacements, LTD located just the other side of Greensboro. Mom likes to shop there for Christmas presents since both mine and my sister's everyday dinner ware patterns are carried there. If you are not familiar with this store be sure to check out their website. They are pretty well known all over the country. Bob Page, who founded the company started with a few dishes in a yard sale setting up shop in his garage. It has grown to what it is today in a building the size of five football fields. Last year while I was on a trip one of my Lenox Birds accidentally was broken by a tennis ball. I called Replacements. I had a replacement bird in my collection the next week. If you have any china or dish patterns you need to add to that are discontinued or have other collectables you are looking for be sure to check out their web site. And, of course, they buy pieces as well if you have items you would like to sell. I get a print out quarterly of any pieces in my pattern they have added to their inventory including birds in my Lenox Bird collection. I am not going down to buy anything. It is always fun to look around the store. And, we will have a nice outing. It only takes about 40 minutes to drive over. After we finish up at Replacements then we will make a lunch stop somewhere along the way home. Makes for a nice day.
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Wednesday, 23 October 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| We had a wonderful time yesterday on our outing. It was
late in the afternoon by the time I got back home. Bob suggested I do
Lenore's visit before dinner to give us an uninterrupted evening. By the
time I visited her and got back home it was going on six. We had a light
dinner then spent the remainder of the evening reading until time for
Buffy. Then it was off to bed to read for awhile.
I started another Chris Norgren art curator mystery by Aaron Elkins, A Glancing Light. In this novel, Chris has gone to Italy to arrange shipment of 25 works of Northern Italian masters for his museum in Seattle. Two years prior, 18 valuable masters had been stolen from a well known museum in Italy and never recovered. Two others were stolen on the same night from a valuable personal collection. Just before Chris leaves for Bologna, Italy a junk art collector finds one of the stolen masterpieces, A Rubens, in his shipment of fake art. He calls on Chris and the art museum's director Tony to verify the authenticity of the painting. On the evening of Chris' arrival in Italy he and an art friend are attacked on the street after an evening of dinning with many of the well known art collectors and museum directors. Chris now knows the recent finding of the masterpiece and his visit to Italy are related. Undoubtedly, Chris will eventually uncover the plot of double crossings and scams in the art world and I am sure will recover the lost masterpieces. I am off to this morning to the gym, Lenore, library, and eventually the grocery store. If the fog lifts and dries the grass by this afternoon I will most likely mow the lawn.
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Thursday, 24 October 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
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I changed the schedule yesterday just slightly. By the time I finished up at the gym, visited Lenore, stopped to get gas and at the bank it was already getting late in the day. I decided to bypass the library and do the grocery shopping instead. Bob and I went to the library later in the afternoon then on to dinner and a quick visit with Lenore. Last night we spent the evening reading. No golf today. The weather forecast calls for showers possibly starting sometime mid-day or later. After I do Lenore's visit this morning I am going over to do some work at the library for awhile. This afternoon I have a couple of projects in my office I want to finish up. Sorry for the short post but there really is not anything new or exciting going on to talk about. [Top] |
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Friday, 25 October 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Yes, they finally caught them. While I know statistically
an individuals chances of being nailed by the sniper are small there is
always that chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I finished reading Aaron Elkins' A Glancing Light last night. For me, it had a very surprising ending. Not sure what I will start next. I have another book in that series to read and I reserved a couple Elkins' Gideon Oliver series at the library yesterday to try next. More than likely I will grab something off of my to-be-read stack for the weekend. Plans for today. After I visit with Lenore I need to stop at Wal-Mart on the way to SciWorks. I want to get back in the library and get that project going again. Now that the staff has moved back down to their newly refurbished offices and vacated the library I can get things organized again. I still have a hundred or so books that need library cards typed and filed, books needing reshelved, etc. Another dark and gloomy day today with wind and rain predicted for this afternoon and tonight. If you have plans for the weekend I hope you have a great time. [Top] |
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Saturday, 26 October 2002 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Happy Saturday to everyone. We are taking a leisurely
approach to the day by sleeping in until 8 o'clock along with an hour of
reading the paper and of course our morning ball playing session with the
dogs. Ho hum!
I started Malcolm on some new medicine yesterday Clomicalm to see if we can calm down his wild and aggressive behavior. After talking with several BC owners who have tried it and reading up on the medication thoroughly I felt it was worth a try. Particularly with the holidays approaching. Malcolm does not do well in situations where there are a lot of people and/or activity in the house at one time. It should also help with the fear problems he has with seeing strangers and barking wildly. I doubt seriously if it will cure the skateboard fear though. After having a busy week and one where I have not been sleeping very well I decided to pick up something light to read for the weekend. Mystery author Tim Myers lives just up the road about two hours in Hickory, NC. I am reading his second book in his lighthouse series Reservations for Murder. Tim, like me and many others, loves lighthouses. He wanted to combine his love for the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains that run through our state with his love for lighthouses. Thus, he wrote a series set in the Hatteras West Inn and Lighthouse in a small North Carolina mountain town. If you read the first book, Innkeeping With Murder, you can learn how the lighthouse replicated and named for the famous Hatteras light on the NC coast came to be built. Bob and I met Tim last year at the Cape Fear Crime Festival. I enjoyed talking with him about his passion for his topic and how he got started writing mysteries. As I said, his mysteries are light reading. In comparison to some of the other authors we both read he does not quite come up to their standards in writing and plot development. But, he is just getting started which those authors had to do as well. If you want to pick up something that can be read in a short time and you like the subject I do recommend giving them a try. As soon as I finish writing this post it will time for a shower and get dressed for my morning Lenore visit. This after Bob and I have some finishing up to do in the downstairs area. I cannot remember if I mentioned it or not. All this preparation of the downstairs comes in anticipation of expected house guests during the Thanksgiving holiday. While it certainly will not be compared to the Ritz, I am hoping we have made the area comfortable and pleasing for the duration of their visit. If you live in the United States, and in areas where Daylight Savings Time is observed be sure to remember to set your clocks back an hour tonight.
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[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] |
| Departure from normal. Today Bob and I will be driving up
to the Blue Ridge Parkway after lunch to meet with other members of our
Winston Salem Astronomy League. We have two members of our group who are
professors at our local Wake Forest University. The University has a lodge
about an hour from here on the Parkway near Fancy Gap, VA. Today's expedition
was planned several months ago as a reconnoiter trip to see if the lodge
will be suitable for observing purposes in terms of horizons, light
pollution, etc for our group to participate in a Messier
Marathon next March.
In addition to checking out the grounds around the lodge, several members are taking a ride up and down the Parkway to locate other possible observing sites. We have the lodge for the entire night for those who wish to sleep over tonight and return home in the morning. Being only an hour away gives everyone plenty of time to get up early and return back to Winston for work. We had planned to get in several hours of observing before the full moon came up around 10 p.m. At this point the weather forecast calls for cloudy conditions. For dinner we are bringing the necessary food and supplies for a cookout at the lodge. Bob and I had originally planned to go up and spend the night piggy backing this trip onto our return from the Cape Fear Crime Festival. The dogs would have already been kenneled for the weekend. Since we cancelled our trip to the Festival we will only be going up for the evening so we can return to take care of the Guys. I have a lot to get done this morning to get ready to go. After our regular Sunday chores, house cleaning and laundry, we need to eat lunch, visit Lenore and get the dogs settled to get out of here by 2:00. It will be fun to spend the day in the mountains. The leaves have just started to turn a little with the recent cold spell and rain.
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