Sunday, Busy Sunday

Started the day with a couple cups of coffee. The Yuengling Lagers at the wedding last night left somewhat of a dent. Wrote a blog entry then got ready to head to the city for Sara and Jeff's engagement brunch. Of course that's when CJ had his little deal with his cast. Finally get in the car to head downtown and find ourselves sitting in the Rt. 76 parking lot. Take an exit, jump on rt. 23 and take the scenic route.

I once worked for a man that told me there weren't really that many rich people in America. Take a spin on 23 between Conshohocken and City Line Ave. and you'll see why I don't work for that man anymore.

We make it to the brunch forty-five minutes late. Oh well, the lox was still fresh.

A bit of an oxymoron, the brunch was at a nice place in West Philly. Kirch and Amanda were there. We hadn't see them since they got engaged (congratulations again to you too as well). Some Pimms, coffee, champagne and we were headed back home to the burbs.

I had mentioned a few weeks ago our pool skimmer troubles. Today i got around to some investigative work. The problem apparently is a crimped flexible hose buried somewhere in the ground between the skimmer and the pool pump. Visions of digging up flexible hose wrapped all around our backyard have plagued me now for some time. Since the skimmer is anchored in concrete, I took the easy route and started digging at the pump. After shoveling a few piles of dirt away, I discovered some very good news - I think.

The flexible appears to only be used as junctions from the devices (i.e. pump and/or skimmer) to hard pvc pipe that runs between the devices. I was afraid they (the original pool installers) ran flexible all the way from one device to the other and I'd have to dig up the whole yard to replace it. With my limited understanding so far, they (the pool service/repair people of today) should only have to cut (through concrete) the old skimmer out, replace the crimped flexible pipe at the skimmer (since it looks good at the pump), replace the skimmer and pour a new patch of concrete. Shouldn't be too bad. I'll keep you posted.

So what was Jen doing while I was getting my hands dirty with this? She was getting her hands dirty of a different kind. The black raspberries are ripening, so she picked a bunch.

There's some mulberries in there too. I can't wait for my oatmeal and black raspberry breakfast tomorrow morning!

Last on the list was cardboard. We've accumulated a small forest worth of recyclable materials. It was time to break some of it down and haul it off.

Uh that's a wagon... Unfortunately everyone and their cousin lovn' brother had already been to the cardboard recycling drop off spot and there was no room for my deposit. Now it sits packed in the car till Tuesday I think. Essentially I moved the crap from one inconvenient spot around the house to a more inconvenient spot. Genius!

And one final note, the baby praying mantis that were running all around last week are growing pretty fast. This guy is at least twice the size he would have been a week ago. They'll probably be too big to pick up next week. Maybe I'll get Jen to try.

- b