Back and Forth Across the Pond

Murphy’s Law typically exerts some influence on our activities, but it really outdid itself on our trip here to England. At first, I was amazed at how Murphy-free Wednesday was going. Budget had the rental car we reserved ready when Steve got there. Steve got home earlier than expected. I got all the important stuff done. All the cases were packed and under the 50-pound limit. We even got on the road to Orlando close to my ideal departure time. Thursday was a lot different. First, the alarm clock didn’t go off. Well, actually it did, but the buzzer wasn’t working. So the clock was silently screaming at us to get up at 3:30 a.m. Fortunately, Steve’s used to being up early and he awoke on his own as it approached 4 a.m. Then, on the way to the airport, Steve realized that we needed to add yet more fuel to the car. We had filled it up the night before, but the gas-gauge needle had slipped slightly below the full line. If we returned the car with less than a full tank, we’d be charged a re...

It figures it had to get hot today; the day I'm the busiest getting ready for our trip. The problem is we don't currently have a working a/c unit. Steve took it apart when the heater crapped out. He's put it back together for the a/c, but it wasn't blowing, so he had to figure out what was happening. He was going to work on it this past weekend, but the forecast for this week called for temps in the low 80s. The house usually stays ten degrees cooler than the outside, so I told Steve not to bother. Indoor temps in the low to mid-70s are fine. The forecast lied. It got into the low 90s today, which means the house got into the mid-80s. That's not fine. That's quite warm. Factor in all the running around I've been doing today and you have one very hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable person sitting here. Guess what Steve will be working on when we get home! Tomorrow afternoon we head to Orlando and then it's hello New York Thursday morning. The final preparation...

. . . we will probably be snoozing at Mum and Dad's house after our overnight plane trip. I've been counting this down for so long, it doesn't always seem real. One more week. I got the rest of my UNF documents packed up yesterday. Steve popped them in the post this morning. I worked on my statement of purpose (aka letter of intent) for two days. I felt the original was too weak, and may have contributed to the no from UF, so I reworked the whole thing. I'm happy enough with it. I'm never completely happy with what I write, but this will do. So now I have to get into trip mode, but Alicia's bridal shower is tomorrow, so I also need to be in bridesmaid mode. It makes for a hectic brain. I'm going to craft a to-do list, so I leave nothing unfinished before I leave. One of my plans for England is a visit to the Lancashire Records Office in Preston. It's the county archive. I'm really excited about seeing what it has preserved. I did a lot of work on Ste...

I posted something on my MySpace blog and then completely forgot about this one. I received a reply from UF a couple of weeks ago. It was a very slim envelope, so I knew as I pulled it from the mailbox that it was not good news. Sure enough, it was a notice that I had not been selected for UF's history grad program. I was devastated. My professors were as stunned as I was. I couldn't rest on my laurels, though. So I began the process of applying to UNF's master's degree program within days of the news. UNF is a smaller state university in Jacksonville. It doesn't offer a doctorate program, but it has a decent master's degree one. And while the opportunities UF offers are superior, I think UNF's program may be a better fit for my needs. For one thing, it has a more balanced approach, so I'll have an equal dose of American history to go with my European history focus. I like that. Plus, shortly after starting my application process, I got an email from the...

We were having a quiet Easter Sunday, and Steve suggested we go to nearby Mike Roess Goldhead Branch State Park for a walk. We ended up hiking a little over two miles along one of the trails. We took some photos: the top of this dead tree stands like a lonely sentinal along the trail. Look at how gorgeous the sky is in this shot. But what really makes the tree interesting is its bottom portion. It's amazing it still stands. We had frost on the windshield the next morning, but the calendar says it's spring. Some of the plants are in bloom, like this Hawthorne. Or what I think is a Hawthorne. It's pretty, whatever it is. This lizard looks evil. He's also pretty darn fat. We encountered this fellow on our way from the trail to the car. After our hike, we wandered over to the picnic and swimming areas. This is Big Lake Johnson. The lake is only a fraction of its former size. Development and drought have done a number on it and the other lakes in the area. Here's a close...

When Steve was working on the drive way, I told him to keep his shirt on his back. He recognized the wisdom of my words, but he really wanted some color before we go to England. He lives in Florida, after all, and would like to be a bit more tan than his English friends and relatives. Well, he really should have listened to me. Remember the photo of Steve splattered with mud from working on the drive? Well, sunlight doesn't get through mud. The result was Steve had very strange coloring on his arms. About a week after the sunburn, the inevitable began: Peeling. The pain's all gone for Steve now. And he doesn't leave a cloud of dust in his wake when he moves. He also doesn't have a tan. And we'll be in England in nine days. C'est la vie.

One of Steve's friends from work had a few dozen bags of cement that had gotten wet and hardened. After experiencing our driveway, he offered to give us the bags as a way to start filling in the larger holes. This past Wednesday, he and Steve brought the cement bags here after work. It took two trucks to haul the nearly three dozen bags. Today, Steve used them to patch the largest hole that sits near the top of our drive. I took a lot of photos in between my own projects. Here is a photo diary of Steve's progress: We figure each bag weighs about 100 pounds. Steve shifted 30 bags into the hole. That's 3000 pounds, or 1.5 tons. And this after he ran a mile this morning. Four rows are done; the equivalent of a ton of concrete. He may be a white-collar worker during the week, but this weekend, he's definitely a black-collar worker. A large pine-tree root was in the middle of Steve's project area, so he used a pick ax to remove it. Guess this was the cheap pick ax. Look ...