Movies and such

We did not watch the Oscars last night, but we did go see "The King's Speech" for a second time yesterday and we were quite pleased that Colin Firth got best actor. We wished that both Rush and Firth could have gotten an award. But Firth really had the more difficult role and did a splendid job. I also noticed that Inception got best cinematography, and since I thought it was a spectacular movie, I was happy about that. In fact, it looks like it got quite a few awards.

We are having lovely "Spring" weather. Hope it stays spring for a few more days.

Haven't sold my pickup yet, but will keep trying. I have lowered it by $500 and hope that will help.

What's up with you all? Kelly, have you started planting anything yet?

Selling cars is no fun

I am trying to sell our little black pickup because we don't need it (it just sits there 98% of the time) and I want to use the money to paint the house. But when I list it on Craigs list, I get all sorts of scam artists. Just had a guy tell me he was an oceanographer and needed to buy the truck today for his son via PayPal because he was leaving tomorrow morning and would be out at sea with no connections for who knows how long. He would have someone come pick it up and take care of the title for him.

He didn't mention the bridge he wanted to sell me, but I'm sure he has one. Or am I being too cynical?

By the way, do any of you need a pickup?

Retirement - hmmmm

You know, at one time I thought "retirement? Why bother?" But now I have several friends who have retired and all of you are retired - sort of. It is sounding better and better. But I still have 6 years in the system to go. I think it is 6 years. It is far enough away that I haven't done the real calculations.

I am reading a book by a Scottish writer that is one of the most beautifully written books I have read in a long time. It follows a Scottish woman through her life and her thoughts. At times it reminds me Ulysses (the James Joyce one), but not with the same endless stream. It's called "A Scots Quair" by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and is actually a trilogy.

Tomorrow we get another cold front with rain or ice. We had "snow" on Friday - enough to make many businesses and schools decide to close to be on the safe side. I hope we don't get enough ice to close everything again - although the day off was nice - just not the ice. I said that twice. Is that a vice?

And down we go!

I tried to download a video of some musicians jamming in a tea house, but it won't load? Suggestions? It was taken with Brad's phone, but it works on the computer. ????

Anyway, here we go on the toboggan!

China Music

Okay, since the first video came through, I'll try another. This video is from the Tea House in in the Yu Gardens, Shanghai. We were having tea in an upstairs room and this group just started playing. Brad tried to film on his phone...without making a scene. I was really neat to watch other people come and go for about 20 minutes of "jamming".

As I'm sitting here with workmen replacing all the PB pipes in my house, I guess I'll try to post again! All is well here. I'm just now starting to feel "balanced" in retirement. I still can't quite imagine that I can do what I want pretty much when I want. Brad is saying that by April he will retire. We'll see, but I do think he is very close!

I went to Florida in January to watch Erin and her friend run the Disney Marathon. The wait time went pretty quickly watching the kids and all the runners. The best news was that both Erin and Laurie finished in 4 Hrs 34 mins. with no injuries and the feeling that it was well worth it. I told her Mi-Mi would be proud!

Here we are on the Great Wall of China! We took a crickety ski lift up and a toboggan down!

Kelly came by

We had a great visit from Kelly. Very relaxing, but we did get some BBQ in at Opies. The weather was beautiful and we got some porch sitting in as well. Now the cold front is here. 79 degrees on Sunday. 18 degrees today. Man oh man. How is it where you are?