Our One Day Week

Today is the only day I will have to be in the office today.  As a result of working 2.5 hours yesterday, I will only have to actually be in the office for 3.5 hours.  Hum...let's see, if I run another errand today, then I can cut that time down to 2.5 hours.  Hum...if I go to the office at 7:30 am, that means I can leave at 10 am.  Gee, that's a pretty good deal, methinks.

Actually, I had a great time yesterday meeting on the Greenbelt to tramp around in the deep snow and discuss where to site about 20 such benches.  The promoter of this idea was very agreeable to my ideas and concepts about where to locate the benches.  I came away from the meeting feeling very good about the idea and about where the benches will go.  What could have turned into a train wreck now looks like a decent proposal.  The main reason for going to the office real early today will be to attempt to meet with the Parks Director to go over our ideas prior to next week's subcommittee get together that precedes the regular Commission meeting March 1.  I think we might have better than 50-50 odds of getting the idea to fly before the Commission March 1.  If so, it's a done deal as the majority of the City Council members plus the Mayor have already given the project their informal "nod" of approval.  Getting Commission approval is a polite formality to smooth some ruffled feathers.  Municipal politics are always entertaining.  I enjoy being at this level of the local political system.  It's far enough below the radar to be comfortable yet sufficiently engaged to make a difference in my favorite areas--parks and recreation.

We started out the day by realizing that our microwave oven had fried.  It wasn't anything specific that fried it--just old age.  Electronic devices are designed to fry out sooner rather than later because the industry depends on you, the consumer, being forced to buy another one.  How else could the manufacturers stay in business?  We probably ought to measure the life span of a microwave oven the way people measure Dog Years versus People Years.  You know how that goes.  A ten year old dog is supposedly about 65 years old in People Years.  OK, a 2.5 year old microwave oven died a tad young at 55 years of age in People years.

(Editor's Note: After I wrote the above, I followed a hunch and googled "dog years vs people years" and, poof, I found a "Dog Year Calculator."  I kid you not--try it yourself.  The corrected human age for the microwave would be 23 years old--a mere pup.)

We bought two microwaves yesterday--took the first one back because it was too small and underpowered.  The second one appears to work fine and cost $80 out the door.  Its styling is quite nice and its feng-seng-nality is excellent.  Susun loves that it has a "melt" button on it.  Now she can soften cream cheese and chocolate and other sinfully rich stuff.

We have to run a long errand today--probably having to drive to Blackfoot to meet with Zions Bank CSR Patsy H.  Patsy has won CSR of The Year twice at Zions--she's really awesome.  Ironically, she turned out to be the sister-in-law of Jeff, The Jon-E Handwarmer King.  Small world.

Once we are back here in River City, we will then put our noses back to the yurt packing grindstone.  We'll be leaving tomorrow for another two nights up there in Harriman Heaven.  This time we will bring along all the other items we wish we had the first time.  Ah, the "stuff" of life!

We won't be going up o the yurt quite as early this time.  We won't have to face a two-hour meeting with park officials this time around.  Magically, park mgmt. heeded all the advice we tendered on January 27.  They are so far along on forming a friends group it's amazing.  We are really, really proud of them.  Check-in time is 3 pm so we will probably leave here about one-ish tomorrow.  That takes the pressure off of today in terms of packing our stuff.  Heck, we have all morning tomorrow so why not procrastinate, eh?

That's about it for this morning.  C-YA SOON, jp