After Girls Rock Camp we went to Tybee for a week. Well, Holly and the girl went for a week, I had to work and met them down there Wednesday night after class. It was nice break from working and a good time to do very little.

After that school for the girl started and I passed the 40 year mark. Then last week the girl passed the big 11 mark and for her birthday we got her a 14′ trampoline (pix to be posted soon). We had a great cookout with friends of hers and ours. It was a great evening of food and jumping up and down.

As for things staying the same, well, I’m still having to go to work every day.

Also, from the Urban Velo site comes the link to bad ideas for bikes. These are worth looking thru to see how people want to improve what’s already been refined for the better part of a century. Page 1 / Page 2

So the girl spent this week at Girl Rock Camp Atlanta and had the best time. She came home every night with a big smile and went to her room to rest then practice for the next day. Last night was the performance by each of the bands. A lot of the girls hadn’t picked up and instrument before this week and they composed a song they wrote then practised it all week and performed. It was quite the good time.

Been a minute since I’ve sat down and wrote a post. This weeks highlight is the delivery of Holly’s new car, a new 2008 Smart Car. She’s been on the list since May 2007 and it came in last week. Since she was in the desert, she didn’t take delivery until Monday.

Don’t let the appearance fool you, it’s quite roomy inside. As a matter of fact, it’s more roomy than her mom’s Miata and has more storage than the Miata trunk. The cargo area of the Smart car boasts 7.8 (up to beltline)/12 (to roof) cu. ft. and the Miata trunk holds 5.3 cu. ft. As for safety, got the highest rating because you’re essentially driving a roll cage with air bags.

I got to drive it part way home last night and it’s quite fun. The steering wheel is smaller than what I’m used to and the response is quick. You would think it’s like driving a go kart but I don’t think so. You’re sitting up right with loads of head room, making it feel like a regular car. The only thing that lets you know you’re not in a full sized car is when you look out the window, there’s not a hood. No matter how high you sit in your seat, there’s no hood to be seen. Then when you climb out and turn around, you’re at the back.

Every where Holly’s gone this week has brought people over to ask questions about it. She was in the parking lot for 45 minutes answering questions at the Publix on Cascade the other day when she was out getting lunch. She also had to put gas in it yesterday, 7 gallons got her about 240 miles for the week. Pretty good since she traded in an 8 cyclinder Mustang.

School also started this week so I’m back to teaching two Type 3 classes and one collateral class.What’s great about this quarter as to last quarter is my Wednesday has both and afternoon and evening class. I also have a Monday evening class. Last quarter it was Monday evening, Wedesday afternoon and Thursday evening. So it’s nice to have it on two days a week instead of three days.

To start, this is some crazy fly that was sitting on the wall of the porch. It was there long enough for me to go in an get the camera, put on a lens and come out and shoot a number of pictures of it. I kind of thought, one picture would suffice.

Holly got back from her trip to the desert with her sister about 5:30 am. She drove them staight through, about 1100 miles only stopping for a nap in the middle of the night for about an hour and a half. She went to bed when she got home and got up about 10:30. So after futzing around the yard and telling us all about her trip, we set up the hammocks to enjoy the warm but breezy afternoon. She passed right out and slept for about 2 hours.

Then about 830 we loaded up the bikes and rode to downtown for the fireworks at Centennial Park. We ended up walking around and getting a spot to sit on the lawn between the Georgia Aquarium and Coke World. It was a pretty good show and where we were wasn’t too crowded. After show though was a pretty good sized mess of people rushing to their cars to wait in traffic for who knows how long. We got on our bikes but ended up walking them most of way across downtown before hopping on them and riding the rest of the way home.

We got home about 1045 and called Chin Chin 2 for some Chinese delivery and all of us were in bed by 1230. I woke up about 8 to the little dog crying and decided to post the pictures, have coffee and work on clipping out images for Mary Jane Bags.

So we’ve spent the morning drinking coffee and the afternoon drinking beer that she brought back from out west. As for tonight, we’re talking about loading the bikes up and riding to downtown and watch the fireworks. The girl and I will mount cameras on tripods and work on long exposure pictures of the fireworks.

Well that’s about it. Cheers.

But the law got laid when it was explained that if they weren’t built when she returned, “I’m going to embarass you about it by building them myself.” So, last night I borrowed the neighbors SUV and went to get all the stuff on the list of my plans for this 3 section compost bin and set it all in the backyard. I got started on mowing the yard where I was going to be working, an obvious stall tactic. Once that was done I saw how nice it looked mowed and showed the Girl how to mow with the auto drive. She went to work and did a great job.

I got going on the dividers and progress was slow. Eventually I got the wood cut and all the pieces hammered together to put the metal screens on. In the mean time, the backyard was getting mowed right down. Once the yard was done the girl helped me get the screens stapled onto the dividers with the new power stapler that was called for on this job. After that was done, it was time to get showered and head out for the Silver Scream Spook Show. This month it was the Forbidden Planet. What I saw was great 50s Sci-Fi but I did doze off as I always do at the Plaza during the movie.

After that we rolled over to the High Museum to look around. I got a family membership a couple of months ago and this is the first time I’ve used it. I haven’t been since the new addition and it was quite nice. We went through pretty quick but got a chance to see some of the modern stuff. I really love the Chuck Close self-portrait, makes me regret not getting over there when the whole show was up.

After that it was off to Castleberry Hill for dinner at Slice.

So after work I swung by Trader Joes and picked up veggies and chicken to make some damned good kabobs on the grill.  After dinner we were going to go over to Junkman’s Daughter so she get some stickers for her lunch box but were disappointed at 745 to find they close at 7. So we’re going to hit ‘em tomorrow before Florian comes over for dinner.

So we decided to get in the Mustang, which is out of the shop, put the top down and roll to Octane Coffee for some coke and coffee.