What did you do today?

[episiarch]

Got a sitter and went out. Date night!

Finally tried the local Mexican place, after living here over a year. Didn't suck! Not award-winning either, but honestly we were just grateful for non-sucky Mexican food. The margaritas didn't suck either.

Then went to the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo. For fellow Americans saying "the whaaaa?" it's basically the orchestras, marching bands and cavalry exhibition teams from assorted services doing their thing, with occasional cameo appearances by war machines. They're popular here, and benefit causes like, in this case, The Royal British Legion.

Since it is the Windsor Castle, Royal, Tattoo each night it is attended, and in some theoretical (though not practical) sense presided over, by a Royal. On our night it was HRH the Duchess of Cornwall. As Americans we were oblivious to the fact that HRH the Duchess of Cornwall meant the infamous Camilla (you know, that Camilla) until our nanny/sitter clued us in afterwards. The audience's warmth and adulation could be described as "subdued."

The show began with the traditional English martial favourites Theme From Star Wars, Everything's Coming Up Roses, and That's Entertainment. Later God Save the Queen was played twice. Fair enough; I suppose that whole hung Parliament thing has put her through the wringer.

Had to smile when the woman in front of us attempted to Shazam the marching band. Didn't work, but can't blame her for trying.

[Salt Peanuts]

Took off the chair rails off the dining room walls and patched up the said walls. I had been putting off taking them off for a while since doing so meant patching up the walls, sanding them, putting another coat of plaster up, then painting them.

[Knuckledragger]

I am now sitting in my friend Dave's kitchen, with my thumb up my proverbial ass. We were supposed to leave for RI first at 7PM (I wasn't even here yet), then 7:30 (when I got here), then 8:00, and now who the fuck knows. Good thing my DJ set is, you know, in the morning or I might actually be upset.

[Salt Peanuts]

Took wife's malfunctioning EOS3 to a local repair shop get it checked out. They gave us a rough eatimate of $300 (mostly labor) so we just took back the camera. Now I'm at a mall avoiding the Apple store.

[Hopstretch]

Going to a wedding. First one in years. I guess that, being in our 40s now, we're about to start catching the wave of friends' second marriages.

Anyway, the groom is a bit of a wine fancier, I hear, so it should be worth the drive.

[Knuckledragger]

...now that was a hell of a party.

I should, uh, sleep sometime soon.

[aardvark baguette]

Did more toe kick installations in the public areas of the 1st floor. Only bedrooms remain, and those I dont care about. Yay.

Now I need to buy 2 new toilets, vanities, new kitchen cabinets and flooring. Booo.

[tyrion]

I hate Ikea.

[Augsburger]

Slow twenty eight mile ride with very little climbing. Two and a half hours of bitching about life. I need t get me some new legs and lungs.

[cetoole]

Four lungs are better than two lungs.

[Wmcmanus]

Drove the rig across much of NH and into Maine. Trying to decide whether to push on up another hour or call it a day. I'm just a bit North of Portland, heading towards Bar Harbor and Bangor. Should be a lot nicer than it was the last time I was here in the mid-90s. It was mid-March at the time so there were still remnants of winter, like black snow/ice. Hopefully it will be warm enough tomorrow for an Atom run, searching for lighthouses.

[Dreadhead]

Yesterday: Got up early and flew to SFO with my wife. Went out to Alcatraz on a tour. Had dinner at "La Folie" as a splurge and it was awesome.

Today: Got up early and did a 5 mile run with wife. It was slow for her but it was fine for me since I can't run worth shit. Then checked out where she used to live and had brunch where we used to go when we were first going out and I was in town visiting. Then went to the California Academy of Sciences which was cool.

Tomorrow: My wife running Bay to Breakers tomorrow and I'll go and watch her finish.

[Aimless1]

Day trip to the trailer. Tons of leaves at the back of the camp site to take care of. Made certain the tires are properly inflated and covered them to prevent ozone damage. Moved 2 yards of pea gravel. Hooked up the stinky slinky. Had a few Guiness, dinner and back home so I can travel in the opposite direction tomorrow. Looks like the hard work to get the site set up is pretty much over for this year. Time to go back and just enjoy it now.

[The Monkey]

Took Jack to a children's "play" about solving some sort of mystery. Lots of dialog in a play for children FTMFL. Then on to a 4 y.o.'s birthday party for fun and games at some party factory. The after cake, what can only be described as animalistic mayhem in a semi-padded room. During said mayhem, Jack managed to crack his head on some unpadded portion of a corner wall (WTF? Unpadded in a children's gym?). He got a pretty good gash that bled a bit, but no stitches needed. Still scary and never should have happened. Fuckers. Headache coming back. Time for a drink. Or seven.

[Knuckledragger]

Slept.

[Salt Peanuts]

Went to the local ice cream/mini-golf place where we got married last year to grab some ice cream. They have a seafood shack so we ended up eating dinner there as well. Got to take some pics while there. My wife told me that as I was taking a picture in a contorted body position, a couple walked by and the man quipped to the woman, "look, he's as bad as you are!"

[Salt Peanuts]

This is the place - Kimball Farm.

The place have few other things, but the big thing is their ice cream, mini-golf, and bumper boats. All the guests got to use just about all of the entertainment for free.

EDIT - We didn't get married ON the mini-golf course, but we do have few pics of us on the course.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Salt Peanuts

[Craig Sawyers]

On our night it was HRH the Duchess of Cornwall. As Americans we were oblivious to the fact that HRH the Duchess of Cornwall meant the infamous Camilla (you know, that Camilla) until our nanny/sitter clued us in afterwards. The audience's warmth and adulation could be described as "subdued."

Heh. Prince Charles basically ownes Cornwall - hence one of his titles is Duke of Cornwall. So Princess Diana was the previous Duchess of Cornwall, a title now held by Camilla. And yes - no-one in the UK now has much time for either Charles or Camilla.

Fair enough; I suppose that whole hung Parliament thing has put her through the wringer.

Nah. The Queen is a tough old bird - she's seen just about everything in her 50-odd years on the throne, so all the hung parliament thing will have washed right over her. While Queen she's seen 12 Prime Ministers come and go, starting with Churchill. Royalty has very little real influence over the Government anyway, although formally she does. The last time a British Monarch directly appointed a prime minister was back in the early 1700's. Surprisingly all this stuff is now on the inevitible Queen website Welcome to the official website of the British Monarchy .

What might not be known across the pond is that the family name was originally Saxe-Coburg-Gotha since the current British Monarchy has its roots in Germany - indeed George I (1714-1727) spoke German and had hardly any English. The name was changed from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917 because of anti-German feeling during WWI. Gets even more complex because the Queen's husband Philip was Greek, originally being Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gl

[Tyll Hertsens]

Built a fire pit off the patio in my backyard yesterday, and had a party last night to break it in.

The air hose from my compressor reaches. Lemme tell ya, there is nothing like a well controlled stream of air to make things happen with a fire.

A bottle of Pappy van Winckle and Hussong Tequila are dead soldiers on the table out back.

We laughed and laughed, and rode my trials bike around the back yard.

Good times.

[Knuckledragger]

Slept.

Tonight, I am supposedly going to Baaahston to see Shpongle play live. A lot of elements have to fall in place for that to work out, but it will be amazing if it does. I've been listening to Simon Potsford's music for 14-15 years now and never seen him live.

[episiarch]

Heh. Prince Charles basically ownes Cornwall - hence one of his titles is Duke of Cornwall. So Princess Diana was the previous Duchess of Cornwall, a title now held by Camilla. And yes - no-one in the UK now has much time for either Charles or Camilla.

Yeah, I got the Cornwall thing after I looked it up. Over in the US we don't get a good sense of quite how many titles these people have, so whilst everyone here in the UK probably knew Charles is Prince of Windsor and Duke of Cornwall and of Rothesay and so on, we only knew he was HRH and had Windsor somewhere in there. So when we heard Cornwall we just shrugged.

Nah. The Queen is a tough old bird - she's seen just about everything in her 50-odd years on the throne, so all the hung parliament thing will have washed right over her.

Did realise that. I was just joking. (Though the Queen I follow on Twitter made it out to be two weeks of much anxiety, Bombay and Dubonnet. )

What might not be known across the pond is that the family name was originally Saxe-Coburg-Gotha since the current British Monarchy has its roots in Germany - indeed George I (1714-1727) spoke German and had hardly any English. The name was changed from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917 because of anti-German feeling during WWI. Gets even more complex because the Queen's husband Philip was Greek, originally being Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gl

[Dusty Chalk]

... see Shpongle play live...

Oh, that would fucking rock. for me.

[shellylh]

Started major spring cleaning - now our house is a wreck.

[boomana]

Started major spring cleaning - now our house is a wreck.

Mine is a wreck, but it's because I haven't done any Spring cleaning.

So, in an effort to have a low-key, friendly afternoon, I took one of my best friends of the past 20 years, her son and her father to see Iron Man, but missed most of the movie due to drama. Though my friend just turned 40 last week, same week her divorce was finalized, she'd managed to fall in love (again) with some 63-year-old guy a couple months ago, and everything was just the bestest of the most perfectest everest until some woman showed up last week, who has apparently been living for free in one of this guy's rental homes for a couple years, and in exchange she comes to his home to cook for him and clean for him and sleep naked with him, but without having sex, and has now decided to stalk my friend like a freaking crazy lady because my friend is having sex with this guy, and because she is a good stalker, she showed up at the theater, which means she had to have been hanging out by my friend's home, and started shoving her cell phone at us to show us text messages saying things like "you are the only one" as some weird proof of I don't care what, and my friend, who is another excellent crazy person, starts screaming in Russian, but then tries to hug the stalker, which didn't exactly go over really well, and other than getting dad and kid out of there, I sure as hell didn't know what to do, but fortunately after about 10 minutes of a bad scene (surprised we weren't arrested), the stalker lady left to probably stalk from a distance, and I've spent the last few hours doing what I didn't want to do at all, which was listen to my friend talk herself down and turn this day into some kind of victory, which is naturally so far off the point of anything that makes sense to anyone remotely sane it pissed me off to no end, and I also missed the movie and then the hockey game, and now I'm typing this one long annoying sentence, but that's exactly how I feel right now. Time to cut crazy people that insist on staying crazy out of my life again.

[agile_one]

Wow, V, sounds like a lovely afternoon. I'm guessing no arrests were made because the combatants likely scared the crap out of all the bystanders. At least it seems you had the sense to stay out of it. Yeah, leave those crazy people out of your life, and come join us at CanJam - good plan.