Met the Parents (Again)
2007-09-25, 8:50 a.m.

Day 1128

Well, we�ve met Jill�s parents before, but always up here, nearer the city, kind of on our own turf. Saturday we made the trek down to their place and had dinner with them and some of their extended family. Had a great time and got to see parts of the state we�d never been before.

Did you know there�s a huge (HUGE) wind farm being built here in upstate NY? I did, but I actually saw it for the first time Saturday. It seems to cover a couple square miles and so far has 36 or so of the intended 64 turbines installed. These things are massive. The rotors are 300 feet in diameter and the main mast seems to be 200+ feet tall. They�re installed on the ridges & hilltops just north and east of Arcade, NY. I guess they�re not on line yet, the developers are waiting to get all the turbines in before they go live. I can�t wait. At the rate they�re working, they can�t be too far off. Maybe next spring?

Here�s a relatively recent update, compliments of the Buffalo News. This is exciting stuff. I�m planning a bike ride to Delevan in the near future (75 very, very hilly miles) and will definitely stop and gawk and the project. There will definitely be pictures.

Another update, this time on the woodchuck situation. Seems that another woody moved in under our shed last week. He got industrious and tunneled under the garden fence, no doubt spying my crop of squash. The squash weren�t quite ripe, so I really had to leave them. Well, last weekend, while I was off in Syracuse, woody decided the squash were ripe enough. He made this decision only after sampling each and every squash in the garden. In the week since, he�s eaten every squash AND every squash plant. He even had the unmitigated gall to drag a buttercup squash over to the shed and eat it in front of the opening to his den. Brazen little shit. I caught him in the garden yesterday. If I�d had a weapon of some sort (spear would have been nice) I might have been able to get off a shot at him. He is so larded up from eating MY squash, he can barely waddle his fat ass back to his den. No matter. Got him in the den, made sure the rear entry was plugged up, set the conibear trap and waited. Mr. Woody is now returning all of his stolen nutrients to the good earth. He (she/it � I didn�t look) was easily one of the larger woodchucks to meet their demise under my shed. He might have been 8 lbs of squash munching fury, but he�s now cooling his heels in the woods, fertilizing the cherry, oak, hickory & sugar maples. Next year the oaks will be sporting squash-flavored acorns. Hope the little bugger squirrels appreciate it. If they don�t, they may be next.

For the record, that makes it Brian: 22, Woodchucks: 2 bean crops & 1 squash crop. At least they left my hot peppers alone. Next year? No veggies. If we�re still here, the garden will be turned in, a berm built and a splendiferous perennial garden will be going in. I�ll include hot peppers as ornamentals.

One thing finally occurred to me last night (Sunday). I thought perhaps Cindy was hopped up on nerves Saturday. On the way down to Jill�s parents (G & J) she could not shut up. She�d talk about the most inane stuff. At first I thought maybe she was starting to melt her icy exterior, than I thought it was nerves. As we got farther into the trip, certain physical traits started to manifest themselves. Things like certain hand motions, how she held her hands when idle (rare), particular turns of phrase, and there was the all telling sniff. I finally put it all together last night and realized that she�d taken a few gulps of liquid courage before we left. Another clincher was the nearly completely empty bottle of ginger ale in the fridge. Friday night it was half full. Sunday morning? Not so much. So the disappearing ginger ale plus the physical manifestations = a minor slip. She may have done it because she was up tight about going down to G&J�s and wanted to calm her nerves. I wish she had picked a different relaxation method. I�m not going to hold this over her head (much), or even asker if she had anything to drink Saturday (she�d just lie � why make her lie?) Like I said, this was a minor transgression. I won�t dwell on it, but neither will I forget.

Testing some geekyshit for work. Need to dosubscripts (aha!! That�s it!) in an item spec and I forgot how to type them. If you care, I needed to come up with < TEM00 > to describe a laser operation mode. If you�re interested, + toggles subscript, + toggles superscript. Of course, if you already knew all that crap, just ignore me. Wonder how the Dland thing will interpret the scripts?

Guess I oughta post this and run.

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