9 December 2007

On to Minneapolis

Posted by BaBa under: Daily Life .

Today was a whirlwind of activity as I packed last night for the trip today to Minneapolis. We started with going to church after waking up a little late. We made it to church flying out of the door to get there. It is really good that we only live a short way from Church. Really it is convenient. As long as he has a snack, Sheridan does really well at church.

I sometimes think back about Father Mike’s stories when he was our rector. They were short, poignant and memorable with a good dose of Irish wit and wisdom thrown in for good measure. I am glad that we have been able to tell he and Judy about Sheridan and our faith journey.

We left church with just enough time to get errands done before I had to leave to the airport. We went to Best Buy where I bought an early Christmas and late Birthday Present. I got a new digital SLR – a Canon Rebel EOS XTi. It has a 10.1 mega-pixel sensor and will shoot both raw and jpg formats simultaneously. I can’t wait to try it out. I had been shopping and looking while the price was dropping. I also was waiting to see the next serious amateur Canon come out. The 40D was just not worth the extra $ (over double the cost). So I used some money from my birthday and some rewards certificates that we got with AV equipment purchased this summer during the remodel along with some cash. Dad had a senior moment this year as he put 1/10 of the normal gift in the card and then later wondered why he had more money than he thought he should have.

I returned a video card at Circuit City that was not used in rebuilding the home tower which had died earlier this year. I have spent 4 nights rebuilding the photo catalog on it by manually reconnecting photos with their tags. This is a real job with over 20,000 photos from 2003 to 2006. 2007 is on the laptop and will get transferred after we get the catalog reconnected in the next few days. At least the photos are not lost. I got new software from Adobe to use with the new camera. The software I have is Photoshop Elements 6 and two professional programs — Lightroom and Photoshop CS3. This is thanks to doing some presentations for them and much appreciated as the programs are very very pricey.

We left Circuit City and on to Wally World for Mama while Magoo and I went to AutoZone for front brake rotors for her car. He did really well and is getting more comfortable going with me and being apart from MaMa. He will also let her nap in peace and be downstairs with me. Thanks be to God.

We got his photo made at Wal-Mart with Santa and me. We will have to try the mall later this holiday break. I then left for the airport. The flight was uneventful. I made it to Minneapolis without incident. It was neat to see the blanket of white below the plane with rivers frozen and snow everywhere.

When I arrived, I got my daughter on the phone and found out that she would not be able to see me. Her first review at the new job is on Monday. She found this out on Wednesday as she was leaving town. She had to prepare for the review on Sunday. They have just bought a house there and were trying to unpack as well as they moved in the weekend before. She also said she was too tired to hook up on Monday night. I could understand about the review, but it was hard not to see her at all. This is one of the main reasons that I accepted the speaking engagement. Otherwise, I would much have preferred to be at home with MaMa and Magoo.

I can only take consolation in two things. I did not pay to fly here or stay and I did not pay for MaMa and Magoo to come. The second is that she and her husband are coming to town for Christmas and we will see them in a couple of short weeks.

I decided to go out and see the HoliDazzle parade in the frozen weather. I left Atlanta in a record heat wave with temperatures in the 70’s. It was in the single digits and here I am walking looking for soda and taking pictures. I got a few good shots. The rest of the night, I worked on school grading and getting things ready for Monday for my adjunct and substitute.

Here are some photos from the HoliDazzle Parade.

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