We'll be leaving in a few hours to go to MN. I think I've got everything packed and ready to go. Sabrina had to go to a conference for work and should be back fairly soon, and then we'll leave sometime after that. I packed up her father's laptop and we're going to bring that with us too. I thought there would be a phone cord with it already, and so did her father, but it wasn't there so we had to dig around for one. We've got them all over the place when we don't want one, and couldn't find one at all today. I finally just took it from the back of my computer. I don't need it since we have the highspeed accesss now.
We had a huge storm yesterday, almost 4 inches of rain in an hour, and a lot of thunder and lightning and even some hail. The roads around town were flooded and cars were stuck and everything. I think it might've killed some of the stuff in the garden, but I'm not sure. It isn't looking so good, but once it dries out and has some sun it might be ok. The raddish seems ok, but the lettuce is pretty flattened. We'll see when we get back if it recovers.
I started packing for the trip to St. Paul today. We're leaving thursday evening sometime, and just driving 4 hours or so. The next two days are 8-10 hours of driving/day. We've got our hotels reserved, and got half off 4 of the 6 nights we're gone because we have the Entertainment Book. We were going to do the entertainment book for the other nights too, but the hotel I had picked out said we couldn't use it because they only honor it on sundays, even though the book says it is valid anytime. So we said nevermind and picked a different hotel completely. Now we're staying at the Holiday Inn in St. Paul, and Days Inn for the other nights., in Liverpool, NY and Elkhart, IN. The Holiday Inn is right next to River Center, where Chris' graduation is, so we can walk to it instead of trying to drive around the city and park etc. That's why we picked it.
My radishes are supposed to be done growing this Friday, so of course I'll be gone on the official harvest day. I took a look at them today and I don't think they're going to be done growing yet, the plants are huge, but the radishes themselves are pretty tiny still. Hopefully when we come back they'll be ready to eat. Some of the mesclin mix could probably be eaten right now, but I'm not going to pick any of it yet. It still has a long way to go before it finishes growing. The bibb lettuce on the other hand, is not doing so well. There are a few plants that are looking ok, but half of them are really tiny and clearly not going to grow well, if at all. They're just tiny splotches in the dirt. Oh well. I'm not sure about the cucumbers either. The plants are there, but they're hardly growing at all. There's no sign of vine or fruit at all so far, and it's half way to harvest. If something doesn't happen soon I'm going to have to give up on them. Overall something of a mediocre experience with the garden, but that's ok. Not bad for a first attempt.
I'm registered for my first class at Strayer now, and have started doing the financial aid stuff for september. I should get something soon saying I'm officially enrolled in the school. I ordered the book for the class I'm taking, which is about using databases. It should be a pretty dull class, but it'll be something anyway.
We went out to dinner tonight to celebrate going back to school. We went to the chinese buffet again, so that was good . I got pretty much the same stuff I always do, and it was as good as it ever is. I also found out that you can get fried icecream for dessert, which I didn't know. I was too full by the time I found out to get it though, so I'll have to do that next time.
Well, it appears that I'm going back to school. I applied to Strayer University, and managed to pass their vigorous screening process. As far as I can tell, if you graduated high school they'll let you in. They offer a BS in Computer Information Systems entirely online, and that's what I'm planning to do. I already sent in a FAFSA for financial aid starting in the fall, and will take my first class starting early June. I'm paying for that class without aid, so I can see if taking classes online works for me. I would think that it would be fine, but I don't want to commit to a full schedule without trying it first. I should get some credit for "life experience" and other classes I've taken before, and that'll make it a bit less than 4 years, but it's still a lot of time and money. Hopefully it'll be an ok school, and the classes will be interesting. The program actually looks slightly better than some of the other online degree programs. It's not as good as going to a brand named school, but it's a start. I can always transfer after a year or two and go somewhere else.
I also applied for a job at Bertucci's Brick Oven Pizzaria for a job as a server. Supposedly they'll call in a few days for an interview. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows. It'd be a bit weird for me to be a server, but I actually think I might like it ok. It's a nice restaurant, and the one I applied to seems nice enough. We've eaten there a couple times now and the service has been really good, and the staff seems to keep busy instead of standing around talking to eachother, which is a bonus. And the food is really good too. So as far as restaurants go, it seems like a good one to work at.
My garden is still going. The cucumbers are almost looking like they're going to do something soon, and of course the radishes are huge. The mesclin mix is looking pretty good too. Some of it is almost big enough to start picking and eating. It's only another couple weeks until it'll be time to pick the radishes already, so that's almost exciting.
One of the stray cats has a kitten now. It's really cute. You would think that there would have been more than one, but as far as we know there aren't any others. It is clearly not a new baby, it must be several weeks old. It explains why she's been so hungry lately, and so tired all the time. We were worried about it. We'd like to adopt it, but still don't really dare bring any other cats in the house, since we don't know how Bud would react. He's been an only cat for his entire life, and it might not be a good idea to bring a stray into the house. They're hard enough to take care of to begin with without another cat being jealous all the time.
Not much else new. The garden is still growing every day. The radishes are definately the best growing plants I have. The lettuce is generally doing well, but the bibb isn't doing great. I think I planted way too many seeds, there are quite a few plants, but there are a lot of clumps, rather than being spread out, and I think they're crowding eachother. They're still too small to thin out easily though, so I'm not sure what to do with them. The cucumbers are growing, but slowly. I don't think its really a problem, they seem healthy enough. They just take a long time to grow.
Not much new to talk about, but it's been a few days since I said anything, so I wanted to put at least a quick update in here.
I did finally thin out my radishes. I had to take out quite a few of them to get them spaced the way they should be, but it came out ok. I really shouldn't have planted so many to begin with, but I didn't realize how well they would grow. I could've planted some more later if I hadn't used all the seeds. That's ok though. The cucumbers are starting to really grow now, so that's good. I was worried for a while because they seemed to be getting such a slow start compared to the rest. They're still only half an inch tall or so, but they've got bigger leaves, and should grow fairly quickly now.
Not really anything else new here. I don't have any plans for the rest of the week so far. Sabrina isn't working again until Thursday, so we have a few days off to do something if we ware so inclined. I don't know what we'll do though.
Today was Sabrina's first day at her new job. We both got up early so I could drop her off, so I had an early start to the day for a change.
I didn't do much with all my time. I spent quality time on the treadmill, and otherwise just sat around until it was time to go back to get Sabrina. Tomorrow I plan to bring her again, and probably go to the library. Other than that, I have no plans. I really should thin out my garden, but I'm not sure if I'll do that tomorrow, or this weekend.
Today we decided to try going to Foxwoods Casino since we had tried Mohegan Sun the other day.
We were very dissapointed. It's the "largest resort casino in the world" but the place wasn't at all for us. We were off to a bad start when we couldn't figure out which parking garage we were supposed to go to, and once we were in one, it was like a maze. Just driving around in it was bad enough, but we couldn't figure out how to get out either. And the garage was practically full too, we must've been in there 15 minutes before we found a single empty spot to park in.
It didn't get much better after that. We finally got in the casino and started walking around, and just didn't like it at all. The decor is very tacky, and trying to look like a village in a way, with the shops inside looking like houses and stuff like that. There certainly are a huge number of slots, and alot of non-smoking areas, which was nice, but it was far too crowded. We couldn't believe how many people were there on a tuesday afternoon. Don't these people have jobs? We didn't even get around the whole place once before we decided to leave and go back to Mohegan Sun.
Once we were at Mohegan Sun again we wanted to get something for lunch, so we went to Todd English's Tuscany. It's a fairly fancy restaurant, and a bit pricy, but wasn't bad for lunch. The host looked at us like we shouldn't be there, but the servers were nice. The food was pretty good but not really anything spectacular. You are paying for ambiance as much as anything. The pasta is made right there, which is nice too, you can see the person making it. They have a very big wine selection too, but that didn't interest us any. It was a fine place, but not really our style and I doubt we'd go back again.
As far as gaming goes, we did our usual video poker (including Jacks or Better, and Double Bonus), and some various slot machines. We did well again. We started with $20 in quarters this time because that's what I had. I didn't have a $10 bill to use. We immediately set aside $10 so we wouldn't spend it, and divided the rest up between us. We had a couple good hands in Poker again, and each did at least one good run at the slots, and at one point we were probably up $20-25 or so for the day, but then hit a losing streak and ended up with $5 extra. So we were still up for the day, and are up around $30 for our two trips, so we're happy.
I'm sure we'll go to Mohegan Sun again, but definitely won't bother with Foxwoods.
Very slow day today. About the only thing of interest was that I went to the track again. I think I'll go tomorrow too, but don't know for sure yet. I did pretty good, I went 5 miles in a little less than an hour. 3 miles of that is all jogging, and the rest is walking. Walking on the track is far superior to using a treadmill. There wasn't anyone there today when I got there, and only one person came right before I left. It's the least crowded I have seen it so far. I thought there would be a bunch of people since it was so nice, but maybe it was too early. I got there around 3pm or so I think, maybe a little later. The weather has been really nice lately too, it was about 60 today, and a bit of a breeze. It'll be about the same tomorrow I think, so that'll be good.
We went to Holyoke today, to go to the Holyoke Mall. We just felt like going somewhere different and look around. We had gone there to get Sabrina's bench for the garden the other day, but didn't get to look around much. It's a very big mall, with a Target and Christmas Tree Shops in the mall, rather than stand-alone like most places. It's pretty nice, but nothing great. Lots of stores that we would never shop at, as usual. Malls aren't really good for shopping anymore, unless you are trendy and looking for clothes.
We ate at Kahunaville which was entertaining. It's themed like a jungle, sorta. There are fake trees all over the place and things like that, and every 20 minutes or so there is a water show with fountains tossing water to music. It was fun, in a silly sort of way. It's similar to the Rainforest Cafe or Bugaboo Creek. We both got sandwiches, which were very good. We also got an appetizer, which was ok, but a little small. They had some very good looking desserts in the case up front, but we didn't get one. We went to Mrs. Fields a while later and got something for dessert. Sabrina got a cookie, and I got a brownie, which were both very good. The drink was huge and a really good price, which is a nice change of pace. I hate spending alot of money for a small drink.
The only other place we really went in the mall was the Lindt store. We got a small assortment of different flavored truffles to try. I didn't even know they made some of them, like the mint. I tried that one and it was pretty good. I didn't try the others yet. It was almost worth the trip just for that. It was raining when we decided to leave, which makes the trip a little more difficult. Neither of us really likes to drive at night in the rain, but it wasn't too bad by the time we left. Earlier it had been raining really hard, and could see lightning through the mall skylights. Once we were on the road a little ways it was hardly raining at all though, so it was fine.