Give 'em Wheeeels and They Will Roll!

Pat - "... and I'm going to Phoenix on Friday, for the weekend."

Me - (Trying to be cool about this bombshell) "So, you decided to keep the extra $2k from the loan? How much was your ticket?"

Pat - "No. I'm driving."

Me - (after picking my jaw up from the floor) "Oh."

Start address: Sacramento, CA 95831
End address: Phoenix, AZ
Distance: 747 mi (about 12 hours 9 mins)

So, why would he suddenly decide to drive across two states? His girlfriend, Alix, attends college in Phoenix. She's been in California this past week, playing volleyball for her school. Pat drove to the Bay Area for a couple of her games, and they cooked up this scheme that he would visit her in Phoenix on the weekend ...

In deference to his mom's anxious concern, Pat called twice on his way there - once during a rest stop in Needles, and again after he got to Phoenix. So, we know he can navigate with MapQuest's help, and we know his Mitsubishi made it to Phoenix, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed until he makes it back here.

Halona

I've wanted to find a great photo of the Halona blowhole for this blog and include it somewhere in the headers. I can't find out how to do that, so I borrowed this photo from "Melonman", who visited the blowhole in August 2006. He posted it on Flickr under a Creative Commons license, so I've taken the liberty of using it here to show how it spouts when the wind and waves are right. Great shot, don't you agree?

The Hummingbird Show

The Anna's Hummingbirds are about in flocks. Marty had been saying, while I was in Hawaii, that he couldn't keep the feeder full! Since I've been back (exactly a week), he's had to re-fill the feeder every other day. This afternoon, the feeder was empty, again, so I waited outside after he refilled it to see if I could capture a hummingbird with my phone's camera. I did! but they're so tiny and so fast, it looks like a shadow.

Sometimes the territorial little buggers put on an aerial acrobatic show, as they hover, dive, feed, and chase each other. They've even been known to challenge us, as we water the plants or sweep the patio. They are very bold, and provide a great deal of entertainment in the morning and evening as they compete for space at the feeder.

The End of Summer 2006

So, another Labor Day has come and gone, and summer vacation is officially over. Laurel starts 9th grade at John F. Kennedy, Jr. High School tomorrow morning, and I go back to work at the library "for real". I actually started yesterday, but used the morning to catch up on my saved e-mail and my stuffed in-box.

Sacramento Public has just unrolled a new subscription to Overdrive, which features downloadable e-books and audiobooks. (Hawaii libraries' Overdrive subscription is here.) So Laurel and I went shopping at Fry's this afternoon - she got an i-Pod for her music, and I bought a Creative Zen Nano MP-3 player. (Overdrive doesn't work with i-Pods.) We were competing for use of the laptop this afternoon as a result, since the computer I normally use is still running Windows98, and most new software is no longer compatible. Besides, the book downloads take too long on our slow dial-up connection; stealing the neighbor's fast wireless signal is more time-effective.

I've been using the Labor Day weekend to recover from the great send-off from Hawaii and the great homecoming in Sacramento. I lost 8 lbs during the time I was in Hawaii, and gained 3 lbs back due to pizzas and Portuguese sausage. So I've started walking again in the mornings, and also swimming laps for a half hour in the evenings. I'm hoping to negate the gain by my next weigh-in on Wednesday.

I've talked to Mom on the phone every day since I returned, and she sounds very good. In fact, the last time I talked to her, her enunciation was very clear, and she sounded in very good spirits. I'm sending her a "noodle" for the day she will be able to get into the swimming pool again. It was a gift from a neighbor who moved from our townhome complex to a duplex without a pool. No one here uses it, and Mom and Mary might get some fun out of it.