Weekend happnin's

Spent a fairly relaxed weekend up in PA with Jeff's 'rents. And Kodi. And, for the first time in a while, Kodi again tossed his doggie biscuits all over Jeff a mere ten minutes from our destination. Perhaps this would not have happened had we not been delayed due to trees being blown into the roadways by a storm that got into town about a half hour before us.

It was also our first visit in quite a while, so we needed to make up in the way of Mother's and Father's Day presents. At our past exploration of a new Best Buy in Columbia (which is basically the same as the old one, which is the same as every other BB you'd wander into), we spotted a Westinghouse digital picture frame. We thought it the perfect gift for his mom, so I loaded it with some of the nicest and most memorable shots I have taken over the year of his family members. Turning the thing on, you are greeted with a configurable slide show of pictures on a very bright and sharp 8 inch diagonal LCD. It was an instant hit! I was later presented with a stack of pictures to be scanned and put into the frame. The thing even does video (actually, more like silent movies. No sound. But that's kinda a good thing here).

We got his dad a pressure washer. He wasted no time trying it out. Another hit. More Gerberra daisies for the front of the house and some other trinkets were bought while wandering about in Lowes.

Went out later that Saturday to do some shopping for the new trailer and to see Shrek 3. We liked it, but it's clearly the weakest of the three flicks.

Got back today and futzed around the house and the trailer. This week, the evenings will be spent doing chores, working on the yard, the truck and whatnot. More busybusy stuff. But we are making nice progress I think.

The trip up and back was accompanied by my new portable GPS, a Lowrance iWAY 600C. This little bugger rocks. In addition to the usual 2- and 3-D maps, it has detailed US waterway charts and topographical overlays, and satellite imagery to boot. It's like Google Maps in a box. Plays mp3s and Ogg Vorbis audio files, and can display photos on it's incredibly bright and sharp 640x480 screen. It seriously kicks ass, and can be used in anything that moves. It's waterproof too. Highly recommended, especially if you are a geek like me.

Off to bed, it's gonna be a long week.

Safety first

While surfing around tonight I came across one of those early/mid '70s 'safety films' that quite a few old codgers like me remember from high school shop or employee safety classes. This is one of those almost campy films that use simulated injuries, cheesy music and characters together as a kind of shock value to get people to think. Yeah, they were rather corny, but at the time, they did get the point across.

This one deals with hazards one might encounter working on construction equipment. I can relate, since I have done things like this in my ever-so-varied past.

Shake Hands With Danger (from the Internet Archive)

Those of my readers who cannot relate in any way to the tasks being undertaken can amuse themselves with the eye candy or critique the film's production.