Pat's Journal

I'm glad it's your birthday

Happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Sharon. Today is her birthday.

I didn't have much of a clue about how to celebrate it this year, since much of our social life is based on what our son is doing. He goes out in the evenings quite a bit, and we don't like to leave K alone for very long, so we've got to schedule our nights out. Then the perfect idea came to me - let's go to a Sunday brunch at a nice restaurant with the whole family. I made reservations and we went for brunch at the Afton House Inn, the same place we celebrated my parents' 50th anniversary a few years ago.

The atmosphere was elegant as always, but strangely enough there was only one other couple at the restaurant when we arrived. It was probably due to the bad weather and the fact that Mother's Day, a big Sunday brunch holiday, is only two weeks away. About 10 minutes later, a large group of 14-16 people showed up, and suddenly it didn't seem so empty. Most of the food was excellent, especially the prime rib and omelets made-to-order. There were also "bottomless" mimosas which we took advantage of. S and K also enjoyed the large selection of food, and K had some green tea - she's quite the tea connoisseur.

Sharon also went out for lunch on Saturday with her friends from college, who also helped her celebrate her birthday. Prior to lunch she stopped by her parents' house, where they were having a garage sale. Her mom is 81 and still loves to go to sales and hold one every year in her neighborhood.

I didn't have to worry about a birthday gift for Sharon, since she got it earlier from me. About a month ago, Tiger Direct had a sale on a refurbished IBM ThinkPad laptop for only $299 - an excellent price for a quality laptop. She's wanted a laptop for a long time, so I immediately ordered it. I'm also bringing home some roses tonight.

As far as the rest of the week went, we had an orchestra rehearsal Tuesday night at a new location, a church in Grant, a far northeast suburb of St. Paul. The location was convenient for us and there was plenty of space to practice. If we moved there permanently in the fall, that would be fine with me. I was going to arrange a sectional rehearsal with a few of our newer members this Thursday night at our house, but there are too many other things happening this week, so I think it will have to wait until next week. Our next concert, and final one of the year, will be on May 31st.

I talked to Mom a few times during the week. She still feels lousy about every other day and tires easily. I wish her doctor could find the cause of her illness.

In geek news, I figured out how to scan negatives from Kodak 126 film, the kind of film used in Instamatic cameras back in the 1970's. Most scanner software that scans film negatives is designed for 35mm film, and the dimensions of a 126 negative are different than the 35mm negatives. However, by going into the scanner driver and using the advanced manual mode, you can scan any shape negative you desire. This came in handy for scanning images of Fleetwood Mac taken during the "Tusk" tour in 1980. To see the results, go here. I also purchased and installed a couple of hard drive enclosures to make use of old hard drives from discarded computers.

That is all for today.

Labels: 'K', 'S', Birthday, dining out, Dreary weather, electronics, family, food, Mom, music, orchestra, pictures, rain, Sharon, Sharon's birthday, Sharon's mom

posted by pat @ 2:45 PM