Off to Toronto

 

 

 

Off to Toronto next week - last trip before vacation.  Interviewed a potential new babysitter today.  Summer is waning.

Vacation ahoy

Made the final arrangements for our upcoming family vacation.  3 days in Portland, ME followed by a week on Cape Cod.  I can't wait.  

Drove to Mt. Laurel, NJ today. It took about 5 hours with the obligatory stop at the Vince Lombardi rest area for some chili dogs. There is a sickening heat wave across all of the Northeast. I think I pretty much covered it end to end.

I started fantasizing about the hotel A/C in the last third of the drive. Not that the car A/C wasn't frigid, but you can't really walk around in your underwear and stretch out in a Hyundai. I arrived to find that my hotel room was a) on the 3rd floor - not a problem, until I also realized that b) there's no elevator, it's a walkup, and so I walked around the building twice before I climbed the stairs, huffing and puffing, only encounter the c) non-functioning air conditioning unit.

Now, I should also mention that the event for which I specifically booked a room at this particular hotel had been moved to another location, which made the subsequent a/b/c discoveries above more disheartening.

It's probably not fair to say that the A/C "wasn't functioning". According to the original designers plan, it was working just fine. After fiddling with the knobs and pushing the blue "down" arrow several hundred times, I called the front desk.

Front Desk: "Hello, front desk."

Me: "Hello, this is 1233. Do you know if there is anything I can do to make it cooler in my room?"

(I like to consider myself open-minded and non-confrontational. This seemed like a good way to start. I wondered how I would answer this question if I was a front desk clerk in New Jersey.)

Front Desk: "You're in 1233? Did you just get in your room, sometimes it take a few minutes for the A/C to start - it automatically senses when you are in the room."

Me: "Well, I've been here about 45 minutes, and it's been off all the time that I've been here."

Front Desk: "Okay, no problem. I can send someone up to take a look at the unit."

Me: "Okay, great".

(As I said this, the room rumbled and the A/C fan came to life, spewing life-giving freon from 4 different vents.)

Me: "Excuse me, I think it just came on. It must have just realized I'm here. Maybe because I'm talking out loud."

Front Desk: "Oh, okay...so you're all set?"

Me: "Yes I think so. I'll just keep talking to it. Thanks."

Happy baby!

I power Blogger, indeed. Been commuting into Boston (actually Cambridge) for the past week. The new cartoon in the Metro sucks, the old one was better. The weather is noticeably warmer.
Looks like I will be home for the month, then in Jersey at the end of April.

So, I've been a dad for something like 150 days. I've only dropped her twice, and it was in the same 5 minutes. Not bad. My wife was less than impressed with this statistic.

Ugh, still full from Pappadeaux last night. I am on a mission to rid the world of crawdads, one deep-fried bucket at a time.

Click here to see the Pappadeaux Menu.

The weather here is unbelievable. I am actually getting a sunburn. There is like, no atmosphere protecting me.

Cadence's blog is up and running, check it out.

http://www.littlecape.com/cadence.html