A "me" day

My wife had some shopping to do, then a Pampered Chef party to attend today, so I had most of today to myself. I took the opportunity to get a few things done, and do some relaxing.

Started out by being very lazy this morning, rolling out of bed about 8:30. Didn't even shower & dress until about 10:00. I finally made a solid backup of my C drive, something I had been procrastinating on for quite a while. While that was going on, I replaced the left taillight on my car, as the lens had been destroyed about 2 months ago in an unfortunate incident involving me, the car, Reverse gear, and the automated payment device at a car wash. That only took me about 20 minutes, but now I don't have to worry about getting a ticket.

The car fixed, I put my to-do list together hit the road. First stop: the mall on the far side of town. I went into Dick's Sporting Goods to check out their pocketknife selection. They didn't have the Leatherman Squirt S4 I was looking for, only the P4, the Leatherman Micra, and the Gerber Shortcut. The Leatherman Squirt P4 goes about $30, the Shortcut about $20. And while a little smaller & lighter than the Micra, both seem to be short on tools and long on something extra - eye candy. Both have a little "cover" on each handle for color, and while they look nice, they seem flimsy. Further, the Shortcut is considerably wider than either of Leatherman's offerings. I told the guy at the counter "thanks, I may be back in a few minutes" and walked down the mall to EMS.

EMS apparently doesn't carry Gerber, but they did have the original Micra, 100% pure Stainless Steel, nothing extra, and a good tool selection. And only $22. Did I mention that EMS also had a sale going, 15%-20% off everything. Such a deal. Of all the tools I had looked at, the original Micra I think was the smallest (in total volume), simplest (no extra colored covers), and best overall package deal. EMS also had the Mag-Lite Solitaire I had been looking for, only $9. Keychain is complete. I'll post pictures later.

I also picked up a pair of full-brimmed hats for my wife and I. We really need to start keeping the sun off us while working in the yard and for vacation, and a ballcap doesn't fit the bill (HA! I made a pun!). I walked out of there with over $75 of stuff for about $60.

Back to Dick's, to check out their selection of Crocs (for my father in law). No luck there, but I did pick up a pair of shirts for $15 each which will be very nice this summer. One is button-down, the other a CoolMax T-shirt which should be comfortable while working in the yard. I love cotton, but once you start sweating, it sucks.

Then it was across the street to CompUSA to check out the MacBook and MBP again, and just browse. The MacBook's keyboard felt really weird. Those keys are spaced really wide. I much preferred the MBP's keyboard, I think. Bought nothing, then went next door to PetSmart just to look around. Bad idea. They were having one of their regular adoption days and I really wanted to bring home a few of the kittens they had. There was one named "Smokey" who looked almost identical to a cat my parents have by the same name. I thought I was looking back in time 11 years to when he was a kitten. They also had a year-old cat named "Ben" who is a displaced resident of New Orleans (courtesy of Hurricane Katrina). If I were to give our Juniper a haircut, this cat would be his twin. Walked out empty-handed, then had a 6" Tuna sub at Subway.

My next to last stop was Home Depot, mostly to browse but I did want to get some supporting cages for oue Peonies which can't support themselves. They didn't get any in this year. Also looked at Dremel tools, and briefly considered some landscape timbers to put alongside the driveway by the garden. I meant to buy a magnet for picking things up in hard-to-reach areas, but forgot. Again, left empty-handed.

Last stop: haircut! But I didn't get it, the wait was 30 minutes and I didn't want to sit around doing nothing.

Came home, assembled my new keychain, emptied the dishwasher, washed some dishes, tossed some laundry in the washing machine, and then came outside to hang out on the porch, as it was cooler outside than in. Enjoyed a nice frosty mug of beer and some hummus on crackers while bopping around on the 'net. Gotta love WiFi. My wife will be home Real Soon Now after a stop at Blockbuster to pick up the original Superman and we'll watch that tonight as I've never seen it, and we're getting excited about seeing the new one next weekend.