The Johnson Blog

Today is our last full day in Durham with David and Libby, which really sucks because I’d rather not go back to all the crap waiting for me at work. Anyway, we are heading to Wilmington, NC to go to the beach.

On Tuesday, due to the less than desirable weather forecast, we went to a mall and roamed around a bit. I had a beer in the food court, just because they offered it. (It’s very strange to be sitting in the middle of a food court and drinking a Budweiser…) After leaving the mall we drove over to Jordan Lake to view the large population of bald eagles before heading back for the day. We all went and saw The Village that night. Overall we thought it to be a crappy movie. Maybe I need to watch it again, this time forgetting about how the trailers portrayed it. I dunno.

Yesterday involved a little canoeing, my first time. It turned out to be a lot of fun and I expect we’ll do it again in the future. The portion of the river we went on was supposed to take 4 hours – Ana and I were done and out of the water in well under 2. Ooops. After that short boat trip we tried to find a place to picnic but ended up just eating in the car as we drove around. We wanted to go into one of the parks around the lake to eat, but they charge $5 – measley I know, but when you’re someone who rarely carries cash around, that $5 is hard to come by. We drove around for quite a while looking for an ATM, and finally found one at an IGA grocery store. Not turned on. No money for me. Eat in car. The evening brought a nice dinner in, followed by a showing of Gattaca.

So today we are going to the beach. I’m probably going to be taking quite a few pictures because we have a few rooms at home with bare walls. Anyone that’s seen our house knows that the majority of pictures we have hanging are products of my digital camera, so I have some work to do.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Smokey Mountains (Tennessee side) where we have rented a cabin for the night. Should be a lot of fun, and I’ll probably pull out the telescope I’ve brought along.

The past couple days have been pretty interesting. We woke up a little later than intended on Sunday becuase of our late night. We purchased a metro pass and went to the Capital, Arlington National Cemetary, and the National Zoo. We watched (pictures to come) the Changing of the Guard at Arlington, which was very impressive. Ana really wanted to see pandas so we went to the zoo in the afternoon. We topped off a tiring three days with a very nice dinner at M&S Grill and retired fairly early.

This morning we went to the Lincoln Memorial to get a daytime picture to hopefully end up in our reading/living room. After checking out of the hotel we went to the National Holocaust Museum. Wow, if you are ever in DC, you have to go visit. Be sure to plan for 3-4 hours too, we were limited in time and really regret it.

We are now sitting in David and Libby’s living room watching a movie. It’s great to see them and their beautiful new house. We had a very tasty dinner, Mongolian Grill of all things, topped off with an ice cream for dessert. I really wish we had a restaurant like that in Springfield.

I’m using their internet connection to start uploading pictures from the past three days, so check the gallery for updates!

The last thing I need to do to my car before going on vacation is get new windshield wipers because the current ones are in horrible shape and just not doing their job. It sounds like such an easy thing to do, yet every single time I go to replace them it turns into one big pain in the butt. Anyone else just HATE replacing them? I have memories of a cold and icy afternoon at a gas station in Champaign with David trying to get a pair of refills on his car. We both took turns trying to slide the wiper refill into the blade, with numb fingers and no gloves.

Have you ever seen what they pass as directions for these things? It’s a small sheet of paper with completely useless 3 pictures on it. They always say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but these words may as well have been in Japanese because they offer no help to me whatsoever.

My latest experience has been just as annoying, though thankfully not in the cold. It started when I forgot I had already bought the replacement “blades” a year ago and really only needed the refills this time. Ok, that’s fine – so back to the store I went. Then I was faced with a question… the replacement blades I purchased, were they plastic or metal? Instead of taking my lazy butt back out to the parking lot, I guessed. Incorrectly. Back to the store again, where I learned Meijer doesn’t carry the refill I need. Damnit! Now to go look at another store. I wonder how long it’s going to take to install once I finally buy the right ones; I’m definitely not looking forward to it.

Ok, enough ranting about the wipers.

Last day of work before vacation is tomorrow. I sure can’t wait to have that week off. I’ve been getting in to work around 6:15am this week to make sure I have everything done I need to before leaving; I’m tired but everything’s getting done.

Oops, a week since the last post…

The Soft Paws are working out pretty well. Both cats have had a few come off, but that’s probably due to us being new at putting them on. I think our cats are also a bit more active and put a little more stress on the caps than your typical house cat. Regardless, they are doing their job in keeping scratches off our furniture, so we ordered some more today.

This past week I had a bit of work done on my car so it can make the trip to the east coast for vacation. The work has included (or will include, repairs being finished early next week): oil system inspection, tune-up, two new front tires, and a four wheel alignment. For more than the past year, I’ve noticed excessive oil usage, to the tune of having to put more oil in two months (or 2,000 miles) after an oil change. It was annoying but I never took it in to get it checked out like I really should have. Anyhow, it turned out to be nothing big – the pcv valve had been clogged/stuck in the open position, allowing oil to just flow out at will. It created one hell of a mess (I’ve added a lot of oil in the past year…) but since it was under the engine cover, it was never visible. With all the work, the car is driving great again, probably even better than when I first purchased it.

Continue reading “Updates”

Softpaws we ordered earlier in the week arrived today. We promptly put the nail caps on all of Dozer’s paws and Neo’s back two (he’s declawed in the front). They were pretty easy to put on, although both cats gave a little fuss. So far we haven’t seen them really pay any attention to them, so we’re happy – hopefully they’ll keep the new furniture from being scratched.

Not much has been going on lately (hence the lack of blog posts). Went and saw Spiderman 2 tonight and was pleased. We have been busy planning our trip out to North Carolina to visit David and Libby. It looks like the first two stops on the way will be Gettysburg and Washington DC, we’re both really looking forward to it.

After mowing the lawn today, I got to try out the new edger. Since it was the first time using it, there was a lot of overgrowth so it took 3-4 passes to get it done. The lawn looks pretty sharp now and it should be a lot easier to do subsequent times.

More pictures can be found here.