Wrapping Up

Beyond Atlantis is wrapping up. We are traveling through space!

We are not sure which game we will do next. I can not find Beyond Atlantis 2 although I know we own it.

Bold Move

Wow. What a bold move. Dr. Kroger died from a heart attack on Monk. Everyone was so respectful when they referred to Dr. Kroger, we all had the feeling that they were discussing Stanley Kamel. Very well done.

Although everyone appreciated the symmetry of the new office, we all agree that we like Dr. Kroger's office better than the new doctor's (don't remember his name!) office. Kroger's office was more "organic" and open. Esh thought maybe he liked the old office better simply because he was more used to it. Excellent show!

It was done tastefully and with the regular hunmor of Monk. What great writers.

To China We Go

After having finished Ireland, we have now moved onto China. We are tyring to helpthe monks get past the shadow so they can get water!

UVA Credits

It's official. Esh has 71 credits already at UVA; 37 from AP's, 23 from college courses other than UVA, and 11 from UVA itself. This also means that Esh has standing as a third year student and he is only 16!! I guess he could graduate within a year but he has no desire to do this.

This coming fall, Esh will be taking 19 credits: 3 credits in anthropology, 6 credits in physics (300 level courses), 3 credits graduate level math (500 level), 4 credits undergraduate math, and 3 credits in language. His schedule is going to work out really well with most of the classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so Tuesday and Thursday can be study days. I think at least most of, if not all, of Saturday and Friday night should be fun social time!

--------------------------------

Oops!! I forgot about this summer's classes totaling 8 credits. The total transfer credits will be a whopping 79 credits!!! Only 11 credits short of being a fourth year -- in fact, I just realized that as fourth year starts at 90 credits, then Esh will be a fourth year after his first semester at UVA as he will then have 98 credits! Terrific!

Traveling Through Beyond Atlantis

Last night, we listened to endless Irish music, searched for at least a million things (slight exaggeration), kept returning to the fox hole, freed two Gods, got a silver hand and sword for another God, spoke to a man who was half blackbird, rode a beautiful white horse across a lightning filled sea; and all of this while being an Irish monk! Next we go to China...

Cell Phone Saga

A month ago my battery fell out of my cell phone and would not stay in. So I glued it in. That has been working well...until today.

I was trying to call home and my phone said calling but never did. So I figured I'd just turn it off and then back on to reset it. All was going well until the message "Good Bye" showed up on the screen and stayed there. Was this my cell phone telling me it was going to die? I pressed all manner of buttons to get it to do anything, but nothing. Just Good Bye staring at me.

Now I know I can take out the battery to shut it down but I had glued it in. If I broke the glue, then the phone would not hold the battery and I would not be able to turn it on.

I spent 30 minutes or more (staring at Good Bye), carefully tweaking the battery away from the glue just enough to have it shut down but not fall out. Finally it worked. It shut down, the glue held and I was able to turn it back on.

I suppose the the cell phone was telling me a message and suggesting I might be in denial over its future. We'll see but at least I have another day with my cell.

Brilliant Idea

UVA and other colleges have developed a truly brilliant idea. An appliance referred to as a "microfridge" can be rented. It has a refrigerator, freezer and a microwave all-in-one! Absolutely brilliant! We will rent one for Esh, definitely!

Beyond Atlantis

After searching and struggling to find games that would install, we have started Beyond Atlantis. We are the light bearer and have a tattoo on our palm. We are currently ancient Mayan culture and trying to find the chulel in order to save the king's daughter from sacrificed in order to help the corn grow. We have already used the obsidian foot but we think we have to use them to do something. We cheat-guided after spending almost two hours trying to build the rain bow bridge (although Esh and October did a great job on it).

Drainage

This morning I have drainage going down the back of my throat. Gravity added a whole new perspective -- it is better to have drainage than not have it. SO true!

Searching

We rescued Yeesha!!

We are having a hard time getting some of the next possible games to start on the computer we are using so we might install all of the Nancy Drew games and redo them all! We will let you know...

Rainy Gardens

We are having another rainy day which is unusual for here during the summer. However, the gardens are gorgeous! Flowers are in full bloom and I am getting relief from watering plants.

The down side though is now Gravity will have to begin mowing the lawn again and bushes will need to be trimmed.

Dorm Room

Esh is thrilled! He got the dorm room he wanted. It is the room across from the room marked "triple". Great!

-------

P.S. I am in this posting frenzy because I am between paintings and we have a thunderstorm -- and this is the fourth, maybe fifth, day in a row of thunderstorms!

Open House

We are ending up having a very open house which is great! Last week one of Esh's friends called, asked if he could come over and then spent the night! It is so good that Esh's friends are so completely comfortable with us and our house, pets and all, that they want to visit often. In fact, we have had several requests from Esh's friends for us to adopt them... The best kind of compliment ever!

Hah! Not Room A-2

Ah hah! A-2 does not refer to room A-2. Instead it refers to bed A-2. Wow. They are very specific dorm assignments.

Monk Starts Again

July 18 is the day for the new season! And the questions keep mounting...What will the new doctor be like? Will he be in the first new season episode? Will he be in the same office? What reason will they give for the change? Etc., etc. etc.

And it will be broadcast in multi-languages!

MacGyver

Esh made a MacGyver discovery the other day. Wikipedia has an amazing web page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_problems_solved_by_MacGyver

Amazing!!! I can't imagine the time it took to construct this list.

Serenia

Serenia has too much water! We can't get it turned off so we can get into the old memory chamber and rescue Yeesha....

Room A-2

Esh and his room mate JL will be in room A-2. At this point, we are not sure exactly which room that will be but below is a floor plan for Esh's UVA dorm.

Roommate

Esh found out who his roommate will be next year. He is from Shanghai! His room will be on the third floor which will be lots of exercise.

Revelations

Exile has been finished so now we are beginning Revelations. The embedded movies are amazing! This is such terrific family fun!

Study on Sargent's "Poppies"

New Paintings by October

Best Song Ever?

Esh sent me the following:

"Best song, possibly ever?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0 "
"

First Checking Account

Esh got his first solo checking account today! He has had a debit card linked to an account shared by Gravity and me so he could purchase gas this summer; but he now has his own set of accounts. he was not able to get a credit card because he is not 18 but this is another big jump for him. This fall when he becomes a grader in the physics department, his pay can be directly deposited into this account! These are exciting days....

Orientation

October and Esh attended New Student Orientation (NSO) for the past two days at UVA. Esh was able to register for classes and he is planning on taking 19 credits next fall spread between six classes. These classes will consist of two math (one graduate level), two physics junior level classes, one anthropology/linguistics class and one language class. Esh got all of the classes that he wanted!

Esh spent the night but October came home as C'ville is only 75 miles from home (plus she has such a fun car). According to October, the parents' first day sessions were all in an auditorium where the rows of seats were so close together it was difficult if you had knee caps. She decided not to return the second day, and instead went to art galleries along Ivy Road. After registering for classes on the second day, Esh read a book for four hours until it was time to check-out.

Swamp On Fire

We are filled with smoke again. The Great Dismal Swamp in both VA and NC is on fire. Supposedly, the fire is deep in the ground and only a tropical storm or hurricane will give us enough rain to extinguish the fire. It stinks outside and apparently will all summer!

Myst to Riven to Exile. The saga continues...

Yes. We finished Riven. And we got to die! -- more than once. It took a while but we did it. But being the brainy wits we are, we were able, by using cyber linking books, to save Catherine and Atrus also. "The end has yet to be written."

Now to the post. The next in line is Exile. We have not started the game but we have started Drooling (not drooling and walking in to walls -- that's Spawn.).

October and I were thinking of starting last night while Esh saw Get Smart with friends but ended up watching Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. Great books and movies.

Exile next...that seems appropriate. "As I fell through that starry fissure..."

River Weekend

Esh had a great time at the River. Six kids were there; two girls and four boys. Esh was the youngest, the two girls were about 19 and the boys were 20 and 21. Water skiing was cut short because the stinging nettles were out early this year. One even got up in one of the girl's shorts and stung her fairly badly. They watched movies, played card games including poker and did tons of talking. Esh came home tired but feeling good. Three kids were from TJ high and three were from Clover Hill High. Most are UVA students but Esh thought one boy attends William and Mary.

Gravity and I played Riven almost all day today. So now the question is, how do we get to the rotating dome out on the island?

Hmmmm.....

Gravity and I pulled out ladders and washed the windows. I scaled the ladders and did the actual washing while Gravity did the heavy work of moving the ladders from window to window. I also cleaned off the tree crap that had collected on the screen porch roof which is relatively flat.

Got inside to admire our work and the windows still looked a bit dirty. then I realized, now we have to do the inside! Ah, a project for tomorrow and a couple of day this week!

Esh At The River

Esh will be spending the weekend with friends at the Potomac River. Should be tons of fun!

While he is gone for the weekend, Gravity and I will do stuff around here. We might wash the outside windows. I will undoubtedly work more on my painting. Maybe we will go see the new Indiana Jones movie. Play Scrabble....

Flooded Bridges

Remember the bridge collapse in Minnesota? Hopefully, in the Midwest where there has been such bad flooding, they are checking all of the bridges as the waters recede. The extra pressure on the structures from the rushing high waters will be significant.

Riven

We are now doing the sequel to Myst called Riven. It is amazing; and again, none of us have done it in years. Great time to be had by all!

Myst

We just finished playing Myst and loved us. As it is an older game, it would not install on our newer PCs so we hooked Esh's tower to the TV and ran with it! None of us had played it in years and it was great to do it all again. So now...onto the next game.

Tim Russert

We will miss him. Several Sunday mornings all three of have enjoyed "Meet The Press" while munching cinnamon twists. Farewell, Tim Russert.

Smoke

We are getting smoke from North Carolina forest fires all the way up here; and it is thick and acrid. The air quality here has been Orange for the past couple of days which is very unusual for here. Unpleasant!

(Actually, this may have been the source of Gravity's headache yesterday!)

While The Son Is Away...

Esh is with the stupendous six at one of their houses from 2 to 9 today. It might be nice if I could write that while the son is away, mom and dad play, but... Poor Gravity has an awful headache and is soaking in the tub. He didn't even feel up to dinner. Hopefully, it will get much better soon.

Search Us

We are showing up on the various search engines! I got both of our family blogs to show up. What total fun.

Heat

It has been so hot here that the concrete roads are exploding and crumbling.

Monk's New Doctor

Monk has a new doctor played by Hector Elizondo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Elizondo

Monk is on right now on USA HD. It is the episode where Dr. Kroger decides to retire because he thinks one of his patients committed suicide. Monk and another patient are stalking Dr. Kroger at Kroger's house. Dr. Kroger has infinite patience! Great show!

Guardians of the Realm

We have several guardians for different purposes. Shown are some pictures. Dottie (dog) guards the house, people and plants. She is grounded and exudes stabilty. The China Man exudes peace and harmony, Saint Francis is the protector of all animals on the earth, Tiki man wards off evil spitits and adds fun to our woods and the eagle (Aquila) is an indian spirit and is wisdom and freedom.

The Pantry Is Safe Now

Wow. It was disgusting. With mall of the driving, etc. over the past couple of years, the pantry had been neglected. it finally go to the point nothing more would go in it. So today, while the tremendous six are here, Gravity and I cleaned the pantry. Under a stack of can we found the treat -- an exploded can of tomatoes. Totally gross! Black mold everywhere. Maybe we should clean the pantry more often. Didn't take a picture as it was just too.....

Go Green

The Hulk took "go green" very seriously.

The Saint

We finished Foyle's War and have now moved on to an old, old series, called The Saint. Fun to see the old "land boat" cars, old style hairdos, rotary phones (forget about "the brick" -- it was not even invented yet), even telephone booths! Roger Moore, as Simon Templar, is great as an expert jewel thief turned mystery solver.

The Heat Is Here

Today is muggy and already warm and it is only 8:50 in the morning. For the next several days, the temperature predictions are all over 90. Summer is to start a couple of weeks from now but it seems to be starting early.

Tornado

A tornado touched down in a neighborhood a few minutes ago where a lot of our friends live. We will be on the phone soon calling them to make sure they are okay. I don't think we have ever had a spring with this many tornadoes; they are not common to VA.
---------------------
More house fires from lightning again, too. Those of you living on cleared lots, plant some BIG trees!

Alton Brown

Tonight we (yes, all three of us) watched a great show on the Food Channel called "Good Eats". The chef (and much more) is Alton Brown and he is fabulous! The show was on puff pastry and pate a choux (pastry used for eclairs --yum yum -- and puff pastries). Brown covered all aspects of puff pastry and p.a.c.and with a great sense of humor. Watch the show if you can; you will learn tons.

Lightning

Every spring there are stories on the news about lightning strikes starting fires. And when they have pictures of the houses, they are always those that do not have surrounding trees. Trees give us so much.

Old Fashioned Fun

We do it about once a year, but I could not remember posting about it; then I realized that our blog is less than a year old! Every June. we hand wash the cars. No, it is not for sentimental reasons or even money-savings reasons. Sap. We have primarily hickories and they produce very little sap. But we have an oak right where we park. We love the tree. It has a specially twisted trunk that is wonderful so we can not cut it down. But it produces sap every spring. Electric car washes get some of the sap off, but by June, there is enough on all of the cars that we must hand wash them. Today was the perfect day; great temperatures and few mosquitoes. So now all four cars (one is in storage) are sparkling in the sun; until tomorrow morning when the sap sprinkles will be back.

P.S. The same oak produces tent caterpillars, too!

Related Meals

I have been in the mood for German food lately so I bought bratwurst and sauerkraut yesterday. Today for lunch they got cooked up. I had bratwurst and sauerkraut. Gravity had bratwurst but coleslaw instead of sauerkraut. Esh, who does not like either sauerkraut or coleslaw or bratwurst, had hot dogs.

३.३% Unemployment

It was on the news last night that our unemployment rate is only 3.3%. Bravo for us. That is probably why things are worse for others living in different parts of the US. Houses are selling more slowly but they are selling and not at reduced prices. VA is beautiful in many ways.