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Barbara
Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week
of 25 September 2006
Latest Update: Sunday, 1 October 2006 3:30
p.m.
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Monday, 25
September
2006
I took a picture of Bob painting the shutters on Saturday. He did a
great job getting all eight painted by noon so I could work in the yard
in the afternoon.
I had a haircut appointment after work and from there ran several
errands finally getting home about 8pm.
The rain finally got here last night giving us a good half inch in
about an hour.
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Tuesday, 26
September 2006
Can you believe that last night after I
posted, around 8:00 the night became even busier? I had just sat down
on the couch around 8:20 when Stephani called to see if I wanted to
walk. Since the dogs needed their last time anyway, I said sure, we
will do both. Instead of the short loop, we took a little longer loop
since it was cool enough for both dogs. We avoided steep hills to keep
Duncan from getting too tired out.
We walked them about 20 minutes and had circled back to bring them home
and then we were going to continue on for another a couple of blocks.
Bob met us coming up street to tell my our friend Paul had called. He
wanted to scope a possible new observing site that is a little closer
than Bullington and somewhat better in terms of local lights. Bob
wanted to know if I wanted to go along. We would follow in astro-truck.
So, with Stephanie's graces I abandoned the end of our walk, ran in the
house, grabbed my observing bag with notebook, etc. my purse, some
water, and we headed out behind Paul.
I was in shorts and a T-shirt from my walk. Even with high 60's I was
sweating by the time we had finished that first loop back to the house.
However, I keep long sleeves and sweat pants in the truck all the time.
Once we found the site, we decided to set up and try doing some
observing. While Bob set up the scope I added some warmer clothing,
being a little cool out in the country.
We stayed about an hour bagging three objects. The conditions were not
all that great in terms of the atmosphere but the site itself looks
fairly promising. By the time we packed up, drove back home, gave the
dogs a quick out, and prepared for bed it was just after midnight when
I got to bed. Once it starts getting dark at 5:00 we can go out in the
winter during the week and still get home at a reasonable hour.
It really did not bother me all that much at work today. I worked
steady all day on entering files in the database taking a day off from
the destruction process.
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Wednesday,
27 September 2006
Stephanie and I walked again last night about 8:20. This time we took
the dogs on the short loop, brought them back home, and then continued
on with our usual long loop.
My friend Bonnie came into town to eat lunch with me today. We walked
up to one of the restaurants with outdoor seating since the weather
continues to be quit pleasant temperature wise.
Tonight I went to the gym from work then picked up Subway sandwiches
for dinner. Bob and I are watching the History of Britain. Very good
documentary. I am still reading the the last Dana Stabenow. Kate is in
Anchorage trying to proof the innocence of a woman convicted of burning
down her house and killing her son for the life insurance. Problem
there is it happen 30 years ago. Now, her daughter is paying the big
bucks to Kate to prove she did not do it. Odder still, the mother
claims she did it and does not want to be released from prison. The
usual amount of subplots with Kate and Chopper Jim continue as well as
Kate trying to help a fellow Park Rat get a decent job instead of
poaching. She has him working for her in Anchorage doing undercover
work for her which much to his displeasure requires him to get a decent
set of clothing and a hair cut.
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Thursday,
28 September 2006
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Stormy weather. When I left work the rain had
just left the downtown area. As I drove further north toward home the
streets were wetter and skies a lot darker.
I made a quick stop at the library before heading across the street to
the grocery store. It was cloudy when I went in. I was in there maybe
twenty minutes at most. With the Costco stock up runs and the
occasional Wal-Mart stop my weekly shopping is very small. I looked out
as I came up to the check out line. The skies were dark and angry
looking with rain pelting down. I made a mad dash to the car getting
fairly soaked by the time I unloaded the groceries, parked the cart,
and climbed in the car.
Bob said we had marble sized hail coving the deck during the storm I
missed on the way home. This second one was more hard rain, thunder and
lightning.
Dad called while we were eating. They had lost power a little after six
and were still in the dark at 6:30.
We have new local TV station on our lower tier, TV News 14 that runs
weather on the ones and local news in between. Now we can get local
weather 24/7 again since we no longer have the upper tier channels of
which one is the Weather Channel. They were running continues weather
until the storms passed through not breaking for any news. Our local
channel 11 will do that if there is severe weather in the area.
The radar looked like we had a little break between storms. I quickly
fed the dogs but by the time we got out the door and started down the
street it had started raining and thundering again. I think we have
this on and off all evening. The temperature dropped from the 70's this
afternoon to 59 degrees right now.
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Friday,
29 September 2006
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Friday and the end of another month. My job
had most definitely gone from being equal parts physical and mental to
90% mental and 10% physical. There are a few exceptions when files
rooms need packed up or we have to retrieve boxes from across the
street but by and large my work is DETAILED! I simply cannot make a
mistake on the lists I am compiling listing the boxes and files to be
destroyed. If so, a file or box will be destroyed by mistake. That is
why I work on the lists for awhile and then switch to putting files in
our software program. While equally mentally as challenging it is not
as detailed oriented which at least gives my brain a rest.
I finished up the Dana Stabenow last night then started the newest
Melanie Travis mystery by Laurien Berenson. She is the poodle owner,
breeder, and handler in Connecticut. I love her books, her characters,
and her dogs. Now married to her long time boy friend Sam, she and her
8 year old son have the summer off from school. Unknown to Melanie, her
son entered their retired champion poodle Faith in a dog food contest
to see who would represent a new dog food called Chow Down. This is
also the title of the book. Faith of course becomes one of five
finalist along with a boxer, a Scottie, a Yorkie, and a one other breed
my tired mind cannot remember.
As usual the competition will turn fierce for fame and the $100,000
prize which will result in one of the five contestants dog owner being
murdered and Melanie having to solve the crime.
I mowed the lawn when I got home from work this evening. Tomorrow is to
be great weather for painting. I want to finished up that project
tomorrow and not have to worry about getting the lawn mowed.
Saturday, 30
September 2006
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We did not get finished but we made a good
dent in the painting project. I started about 9:30 this morning on the
lower basement window by the driveway. I was almost finished when Bob
came out to paint the first of the three windows he did the shutters on
last weekend. After he finished the first window I did the same for
mine.
It was noon or after by the time he had the other two windows painted.
After lunch I started on the finished basement side window. That window
was in horrible condition even with the crappy storm window which is
the original one from when we bought the house. The top half of the
storm window came out fine but the bottom half would not. We tried
moving the top window itself but between the humidity and paint it
would not budge. Finally I managed to use a screw driver to remove the
lower storm which now gave me full access to the outside of the
windows. Boy, they were a mess of dirt, rot, and hardly any paint. I
ended up painting the window as well as the metal frame holding the
storm. It looks much better. Bob came out to paint around the kitchen
window.
He also finished painting around the storms on the three back
windows. In the meantime I painted the trim around the front door
and the stoop. At some point, we will need to replace all the windows
in the house but by painting around the storms we have at least made
the house look better until we get to that project.
I did not get the front columns or the frame around the back deck
window done. It was going on 4pm by the time Bob got the of back
windows painted.
And, it was perfect weather. It was about 56 when I started this
morning. T-shirt weather for me but I did have on long pants. Right
now, at 4:40 it is a pleasant 70 degrees. The sun has been in and out
from a few clouds along with a fairly decent breeze blowing off and on
all day.
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Sunday,
1 October 2006
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As promised by the weather folks we did get a
fairly decent thunderstorm this morning around 4am. The bright
lightening flash woke me followed by a couple of pretty good thunder
boomers.
Also, as promised it has passed on through by the time I was up at
6:30. I came in my office to check the radar since it was still too
dark to see outside. By the time dad and I teed off at 7:30 the sun was
trying to come out from behind the clouds. It quickly warmed up from
about 56 to the mid 60's. We have had clear blue skies with a slight
breeze since about 9am. We finished up 18 holes by 11.
Of course this afternoon I had to perform the weekly house cleaning
chores for the week since yesterday was spent painting. I've read the
paper, had the dogs outside to play and cleared my desk of the weekly
pile of papers. Next, I need to browse some web sites, catch up on mail
and pay some bills. Perhaps I will even tackle the large pile of
ironing residing in my basket. Who knows?
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Copyright
© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by
Barbara
Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.
