Bookshelf:

Recently Read & Reviewed:

• Julian May, The Many-Colored Land
• Julian May, The Golden Torc

Currently Reading:

• Max Barry, Jennifer Government

Next Up:

1. Julian May, The Nonborn King
2. Julian May, The Adversary
3. Margery Allingham, The Case of the Late Pig
4. Sean McMullen, Voyage of the Shadowmoon
5. Daniel Keys Moran, The Long Run

Vegetating

I'd like to say it's been a lively week, but actually it's been pretty nondescript. Many people at work have been preparing for the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, though my role has been fairly limited, so I've been fixing bugs. At home I've mostly been either working on my baseball statistics-processing scripts, or been reading (see sidebar). Or worrying over my fantasy baseball team, which has been having a much better week lately.

I did, however, start biking to work again - twice this past week. Thank goodness I finally went and bought a new tire for my bike, as it makes quite a difference just not worrying about getting flat tires anymore!

Deb and I did, however, have a fairly busy weekend. We started with a game of minigolf on Saturday, which was one of those unfortunate mismatches in that Debbi played one of her worst rounds of golf in quite a while, while I played one of my best. O well!

We also did more work on my garden, going to the nursery to buy a whole raft of flowers, and to Cost Plus to buy some shelving for pots for my porch upstairs, and then to Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) for soil and pots. We overdid it on the flowers a bit, which is why we needed the extra pots.

Anyway, I planted over a dozen flowers in my planter in my back patio, and then another eight or so in pots on my porch. It's looking quite nice! Achieving something close to the look I'd envisioned back when I bought my house.

My next outdoor chores will probably be dredging my pond - which really needs it - and getting rid of my dwarf orange tree, which is more upkeep than it's worth. I'll probably replace it with some more pot shelving, and maybe a miniature palm tree. Haven't decided yet. Then I'll want to look into a space to grow some herbs - like catnip! Possibly in some hanging pots to keep it away from the cats when I let them onto the porch.

Meanwhile, my tomato plants are merrily growing, and we picked the first tomato of the season today. I gave it to Debbi, since I know she loves 'em. There are a couple more which should be ripe later this week. Can't wait!

While we mostly ate out this weekend (MMMMMexican...) we did grill dinner tonight. Pork chops, and - for the first time - grilled corn. Very yummy! And very easy to make! It came out just about perfect, so I see we'll be eating this for the next few weekends. (Corn is darned cheap to buy at the farmer's market, too!) We also had some fresh steamed green beans, which were also terrific. This grill has been great.

I really need to clean it, though...

Another fun week with the kittens, too. Blackjack learned the joys of darting out to the porch and lying in the shade under my (huge!) daisy plant. (Yes, the porch is pretty well cat-proofed to prevent them from jumping off of it. None of the cats have shown any inclination to do so, and they only go outside with supervision anyway.) Newton was being strangely neurotic and swiping at Jackalope and Roulette all day Saturday, but Sunday morning around 3 am I woke up and he and Roulette were snoozing on opposite sides of my leg. Not sure what was up with that; I think he's still coming to terms with the fact that Blackjack is going to be bigger than he is.

Anyway, no big plans for the coming week. Debbi might spent Wednesday night here due to her schedule. I only need to go to the conference for one day, but I'll see whether there's anything I want to see on the other days. I think I'll take CalTrain, and see if I can experience the Baby Bullets they're now running. As long as I don't have to get up too early to catch 'em...