We arrived in Chattanooga, TN around 5 PM to join Patrick, Jessi, and Fat Baby for dinner. Yeni and I shared the “pasta lovers” plate which was loaded with great meat and mushrooms. After enjoying a cannoli for dessert, Yeni took over driving and we’re now in Georgia. With luck we will be in South Florida within 15 hours.
Ricardo was a great friend.
Normally, I look forward to celebrating 2 days every year — my birthday and Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a religious event for me. The combination of family and friends gathered to celebrate thanks brings me more satisfaction than any other time of the year. Normally I reflect on the past year and use those thoughts to write a special “Thanksgiving Message.” It truly is my favorite day of the year.
Followed closely to Thanksgiving, but for completely selfish reasons, is my birthday. I just love to selfishly enjoy 1 day a year where I can eat what I want, go where I want, and truly put the priority on me. Sometimes, the celebrations provide amazing memories. Others are filled with different emotions. Typically, I would head down to South Florida and enjoy Paglia e Fieno with my parents — my favorite meal cooked by my favorite chef (aka Dad). With Ricardo’s passing, this year would be one of those “different” days.
After feeling (for obvious reasons) very, very down for a few days, I rented a big ol’ 6×12 trailer from U-Haul and had my good buddy Joe help me load the King Size mattress into the rather tight accommodations (let’s just be thankful there were no cameras). I headed north Saturday morning and was a little nervous about pulling the trailer through the mountains. Surprisingly, I averaged more than 13 mpg the entire trip and the truck handled very well. I do like my truck. The speed was slow, and other than spending a few minutes catching up with Patrick (at a gas station in Tennessee), the trip was uneventful.
Sunday morning, Mikey came over and helped Yeni and me unload the truck. It went very quickly, but OMFG it is beyond cold here for October. The sleeveless shirt I was wearing in Florida became entirely inappropriate in Michigan. We celebrated my birthday at a Chinese buffet and enjoyed a great cookie-cake that Yeni had gotten for me (complete with a frosted spider-man riding a frosted Harley).
Monday witnessed me getting an oil change where the mechanic had to do a double-take on my engine coolant (apparently he had never seen non-winter engine coolant). A quick coolant flush later, and I was on my way.
It feels great to be here. I’m hoping to have about another week or so left on the Harley before I have to winterize her… and that’s all I have to say about that.
Truck and trailer in Tenn
GAINESVILLE, FL — So for the last few weeks, I’ve been working hard to get the house “ready to sell.” With the help of Orlando, Linda, and Richard (aka J4 Cruisers), the kitchen, master bedroom, and living room have been painted. When no wood flooring was available to repair the living room I had two options — (a) replace the entire wood floor (over 1000 sq ft) or (b) carpet the living room.
I chose option B; and then replaced the carpet in all bedrooms as well. Now all carpeting in the home match; which is nice. There’s a bunch of clean-up left, as well as touching up any wall that needs it. Actually, the touch-ups require a repaint since the color of the paint is slightly darker.
I’ve pressure washed most of the house and need to finish that up and maybe even give it another quick clean.
The goal is to rent a trailer on Thursday, load it up on Friday, and then head to Ann Arbor on Saturday.
I’m flying from Detroit to Phoenix to attend Astrocon– a conference of Asterisk users. It’s the first time I’ve gotten to attend a conference on a product I both like and am interested in; so I’m pretty excited.
We woke up real early this morning and picked up Yeni’s mother who will be visiting us for a few weeks. I was hoping to sleep on the plane but my neighbor is a seat hog who moves in a violent jerking motion; it’s lovely.
Have I mentioned how much I love flying?
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