Monday, March 09, 2009

Terrific weekend

We had a terrific weekend! We just had a few things planned so much of the weekend was spontaneous.

First, the weather: Sat it was 75 degrees and sunny, and Sun it was 80 degrees and sunny; quite a change from the 26 degrees and several inches of snow we had on Mon! Needless to say, all the snow is gone now.

A month ago I'd taken Big Ella to a restoration shop to get an idea on the cost of a paint job, and was rather shocked at the $18,000. estimate. But our friend Rick told us that he had gotten very good results from Maaco, so Sat morning I drove Big Ella to the Maaco in Salisbury, about an hour away. Spouse followed me in his car. Long story short, the guy at Maaco quoted me under $5,000. for the exact same work. To be sure, I asked him to describe the process to me so I could know for sure that I was comparing the same work. Spouse & I agreed it was the place to have the work done, so I paid a deposit and left Big Ella there. In about 2 weeks she should be STUNNING!

Afterward we went over to our friends Randy & Dean's house. We met their new puppy, then went to lunch at a great little bistro where Spouse had a filet mignon tips pinini and soup and I had ahi tuna sliders and a goat cheese salad. Tres magnifique!

When we returned home we immediately changed into our workout gear and went to the gym. Since it was so pretty outside, we decided to go for a nice long walk (to the beach) when we got back from the gym. It was amazing to have such warm weather in early March, and this just added to our enjoyment of the walk.

We both showered and then headed over to our friend Ray's house for movie night. Once a month a group of guys gets together to watch a movie (the host picks the film), discuss/comment on it afterward, and enjoy some snacks. Ray picked "Flawless", starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robert DiNiro, which we saw many years ago when it came out, but enjoyed it again.

Sun morning we took Jordan for a nice long walk, which she enjoyed immensely. It was only 9am but we could already tell it was going to be warmer than the day before. After talking for a while and enjoying a nice leisurely cup of coffee, we went shopping. Since it was already in the 70s we put the roof down on the convertible. We saw lots of people wearing shorts, including me, despite my wintry-white legs.

Nick solved the great mystery of why our camera keeps indicating "batteries exhausted". He said we needed to change the battery setting on one of the menus because it was set for a battery that has stronger voltage. Since we were using batteries with lesser voltage we needed to change the setting. I had no idea the camera even had a battery setting! Nick suggested buying a rechargeable battery station, which made a lot of sense, so our first stop on Sunday's shopping spree was to buy the rechargeable battery station. We got one that recharges AA and AAA batteries, since we use AA in the camera and AAA in the mp3 players.

Then we had burritos at Moe's.


At our next shop-stop we saw that the parsons chairs we'd been looking at for months were finally on sale. They only had 2 left, but lucky for us, we only wanted 2, so we bought them. They are dark brown (faux leather) and can be used in our dining room or living room when we need extra seating. As we walked out of the store Spouse suddenly remembered we were NOT driving the CRV, into which the chairs could have easily slid. I laughed and told him not to worry, that I'd already thought of that and knew the chairs would fit upside down in the back seat of the convertible. And they did. I also got an mp3 player for $19.99 so Spouse & I would each have our own mp3 player at the gym.

Our last shop-stop was the grocery store. Nothing exciting to report about that, unless you think getting those 'Steam Fresh' veggies that steam themselves in the microwave for $1. each is exciting.

When we returned home Spouse took a nap and I tried to load a 'workout' playlist onto my new mp3 player. Instead, I accidentally loaded our entire music library onto it, so now I have to figure out what I did wrong.

Since we had a filling lunch we weren't hungry for dinner, so we just had a light snack before going to Rick & Nick's to watch a movie. We had introduced them to the Donald Strachey gay detective film series a while back and they enjoyed "Third Man Out" and "Shock to the System". So the 4 of us watched the 3rd film in the series "On the Other Hand, Death" last night, which we liked, and look forward to the release of the 4th film in the series "Ice Blues".

It was a terrific weekend, which ended too soon. But isn't that always the case?

Crush du Jour: Nick Adams

6 comments:

Bob said...

I really love those weekends like that, where nothing is really planned, but it all turns out so nicely.

Anonymous said...

Thanx for the heads-up re the new Strachey movie. I had no idea! Obviously, I need to update a few key pieces of my gaydar. Also, thanks for your nice blog!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a very nice weekend. I just dug the warmer than average weather up here where it got into the low 60's.

That said, when it comes to cameras I like the ones that come with Li-Ion batteries that can just be charged in the camera when one plugs it in. My Sanyo Xacti C40 does that.

Glad you got a deal on getting Big Ella taken care of.

Don't remind me on gym gear. What is de riguer these days? I do need something to hold the iPod Touch though. And a decent set of headphones. The SR-80's are nice but bulky. Not very good for the gym.

Joy said...

That sounds like a great weekend - relaxing and just right! Can't wait to see the pix of Big Ella!

Dwayne said...

When I first got my camera I thought there was something wrong with it because the batteries died in a few hours. I thought there was something wrong with the camera because surely the batteries couldn't be dead already.

I started buying the energizer e2 lithium and although they cost a little more, they last in my camera for several months. I tried rechargeable and they go dead suddenly without much warning. I wasn't impressed. I went back to the e2 batteries.

Jeff said...

Sounds very nice! I'm in total weather envy mode! :)