PILOTS HATE WET BALLOONS

Friday night was finally here.  It was time to relax and let the stress of work melt away.  After a long, hot week of work Robyn and I thought it sounded like a good idea to spend a quiet evening at our friends house and enjoy a glass of wine.  But as these things can sometimes go, a glass turned into a bottle and then a few bottles.   Here is a pic of me, Robyn, Julie and Paul as we begin to wind down from the hectic work week.

The calm before the storm

Saturday we had to work... well, I had to work.  Robyn wasn't feeling the best, and she wasn't happy I was taking this picture...

She may have wound down too far

I had a side job to get done.  A while ago I put in a microwave and tiled a kitchen for a client.  Because they wanted the micro hung at an unusual height, I had to make a special cabinet to go above it.  The client's father had made some decorative steel plates before he passed away and they asked if I could incorperate them into a door for the cabinet  Here are some photos of the proceedure.

some assembly required

looks like it came with the kitchen

Sunday it was off to church.  We were welcomed at the door by some members of our small group.  They serve as greeters one Sunday a month.

Doug, Jan, Dale and Gayle (You can see here shoe behind Dale)

On the way out I spotted these two giant silk moths "wrestling" on the ground.  Each one was as big as my hand.  I was a little disgusted that they would be carrying on like that on church property.

Kind of a rare sight in the wild

Monday at work we began the process of demolding and polishing the tables for Johnny's Hall of Fame.  It is a sports bar downtown on Court Ave.  If you happen to be in the Court Ave district, these tables will be located on their sidewalk patio.  You should check them out.

lookin super sweet

On Tuesday we applied the second coat of slurry, let it dry and polished them up.  Each one has a built in umbrella stand in the middle.

Do I have a great job, or what

On Wednesday, I took my lunck break time to run over to the gold and silver buyer's shop.  Robyn had a small amount of broken old gold bracelets and ear rings and such that she just never wore so we decided to see what we could get.  Honestly, the pile fit in the palm of my hand.  As I watched the buyer check each piece and then weigh them he would scribble down information on a pad.  The numbers seemed high to me.  He totaled it and said One thousand blah blah dollars.  I don't think he finished his sentence and I blurted out SOLD!

Then I went into the area where they buy silver coins.  Here is a pic of the lady that helped me over there.  She was relucctant to have her pic taken, and actually I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take a picture in there but I was feeling a little giddy from the sale of the gold so I just asked.

note the small pile of coins in the box

I used to buy a little silver from my dad when ever I went up to Sioux City.  But I hadn't bought any in over a decade.  I don't know what I payed all together but I had 37 dollars in face value.  I almost fainted when she said it was worth 1200 dollars. 

That was quite likely the best lunch break I have ever had.

Thursday it was back to work where we poured the 18 foot long bar for Lawerance Kansas.  Here it is setting up.

Thats a lot of concrete

I took of an hour early because Robyn and I wanted to go to the annual hot air balloon festival.  They have a launch at 6:30, a band and a night glow(where they shoot the flames into the balloons in the dark, awesome sight) at dusk followed by fireworks.  There is a carnival that goes with it.  The last time we went was when Canyon was 6 or 7 years old and he's 16 now so we were excited to see it again.  We took my truck to avoid putting miles on our leased car but half way there we realized our camping chairs were in her car.  So we decided to stop at Wal-mart.  We were running late and I didn't want to miss the big balloon launch.  We quickly found the chairs and rushed up to the "speedy" check out lane.  The line wasn't moving to fast so we moved to the next open lane and waited behind the one customer in that line.  Unfortunately for us it seems it was a long lost friend of the checker.  The cashier actually stopped checking items and comenced to chatting up a storm.  So we went back to the "speedy" lane and the one customer in that line picked that moment to argue with the cashier weather the shredded cheese was supposed to be 4 dollars or 3.85.

PRICE CHECK on isle "speedy".  So we ran all the way down to the self check out lane where the machine decided to take this moment to tell me my credit card wasn't mine!  It did take my cash though so we were on our way.

This was the first day in a long time that the temperature was below 90 and the humidity was normal.  It looked to be a really nice night.  Then it started to sprinkle.  I thought that it was great, that the crowds wouldn't be crazy and we might be able to get in a short line for a balloon ride.  As we pulled into the parking lot the gate keeper told us the balloons were in a delay until 7.  Great.  We hadn't missed a thing.

The rain was a little heavier now but still not too bad.  We walked onto the fair grounds to a sparse crowd.  Most were in the souviener shop or under the canopy of a food vendor if they didn't have an umbrella.  And that's exactly where we headed.  We stood under the awning of a vendor who had taped a paper plate to the window with the message 'back tomorrow' scrawled on it.  We ate (the mildly warm pulled pork sandwiches we got at another food stand) next to a woman who told us she used to be with one of the balloon teams.

She told us that it wasn't looking good for a launch.  I said what about the night glow.  She shook her head and said "Pilots don't like wet balloons".  I looked at Robyn and she said "The Griswalds strike again"

We headed home a little bummed but it's not all bad, at least we have an extra 2 grand in the bank.

Tomorrow night we are going to the baseball game with some people from church.  Pray for no rain.

Peace

Dan