Another slow week for the blog.  It’s not that nothing happens.  I just don’t feel the spirit to write about it.  It doesn’t sound interesting to me and therefore, probably not interesting to anyone else.  Now that made my life sound boring.  I assure you, it is not.

Sascha makes sure that I have things to do.  She is always wanting to be fed, put out, brought back in, play with me, what are you doing. That seems to be her world.  And she likes it that way.

I keep up with the house in the midst of working.  It’s gotten easier now that there are 5 of me around the office to handle projects, meetings, and requests.  I guess I’ve just gotten lazy since I don’t have to keep up with everything.  It’s really nice to have enough people to spread over the projects and requests so that someone is taking care of whatever is happening.

That doesn’t mean that I’m getting replaced.  Everyone seems to use my knowledge and expertise as part of their job.  I’m kind of like the old lady that you go to for advice.  I call myself the architect, but it’s more like I’ve lived on the block longer than the other kids.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to sort out transportation issues this week.  The Dodge has been having air conditioning trouble since late last year.  Rich and Rick tried replacing the evaporator and some other parts to fix it.  That didn’t work too well.  It would hold coolant for a couple of days and be running hot again.  After messing around for quite a while, I needed to get the problem fixed.  I need to use the truck to go to Southern Indiana at the end of August.  That means I need A/C that works.

This week proved to be just as hot as the last one.  I actually captured my weather station recording 101 on the screen.  It topped at 102 that day.  We had three days that topped at 102.  That’s crazy for the Chicago area.  It’s usually surprising that we can get the temp to cooperate for some good swimming days in the summer!  This was the first week of July.  I don’t even want to know what the dog days of summer will bring in August.

I got Rich to agree to take it to a new place.  So on Friday, we dropped it off and Ken promised to get back to us by the end of the day.  Turns out the last bit of issues might have been O rings on the valves.  We’ll see if they hold up for a few more days before we declare victory on this one.

In the meantime, I had to make Rich go and look at new trucks.  If I remember right, I had to make him go buy the Dodge way back when.  He wants a smaller truck and that means either a Toyota or a Nissan.  No one else makes a small truck.  We drove over to Crystal Lake to the Nissan dealer.  They were quite happy to talk to us and go for a test drive.  The truck was nice.  But it wasn’t a truck really.  It was more like riding in a car.

Then we went by the Toyota dealer in Crystal Lake.  It took them forever to come back and tell us they didn’t have a truck in stock.  They didn’t really go over anything with us either.  We got a book and managed to get out the dealership.  If the dealer is any indication, Rich will probably be getting a Nissan.  We plan to go into a Toyota dealer in Schaumburg over lunch hour on Monday and see how it goes.  No one appears to have the truck he wants in our area, so we’ll probably have to drive the larger model.

It’s time for Ren Faire again.  Rick really wants to see this band, Tartanic, at the faire.  This is a bunch of guys dressed in kilts, playing drums and bagpipes, and having a good time on stage.  Rick loves these guys.  They are only there for 3 weeks.  The weather broke around here on Saturday, so we are going to our first Ren Faire of the season on Sunday.  I need to get a picture of Rick with the band for the blog.  This would be brothers in skirts.  I forgot about the two ladies who help them out.  Erin and Sophia dance jigs to the bagpipe and drum music also. Brothers and sisters in skirts?

I’d have to say that the economy is looking up by the number and types of booths at the faire.  Everything was filled and they appeared to have a lot of inventory.  I’ve seen a bigger crowd for the faire, but there were definitely a lot of people there.  It’s always better for people watching when a lot of people are around.  They dress in a little bit of everything.

Even thought it was a lot cooler, it was still pretty hot.  I think I got a little heat stroke.  About 3:00, I felt sick to my stomach and like I wanted to pass out.  We managed to make it through the Dirk and Guido show.  It appears that Guido is not well and unable to perform.  His grand nephew, Bravo, appeared in his place.  It plays more like a father and son act now, but still the same content.  I got my pecans and cashew and then we headed home.

Sascha was really glad to see us when we got home.  It might have been the chicken we got on the way into the house or might have been that she got fed.  Either one, she seemed to enjoy them both.  It felt good to get into the A/C.  The temp only got up to 89, but it definitely was not as comfortable as I thought it might feel after the 100 degree temps.

We thought for a while that we might have to make a road trip to Georgia.  Our friends, Barb and Mike, sent their daughter, Gracie, to Florida to work in her aunt’s Physical Therapy clinic.  Gracie is contemplating taking this route for her career.  Mike flew down to help Gracie drive back home.  In Macon, GA, the car broke down.  We volunteered to drive down to get them and haul the car back.  Looks like Mike was able to get the part needed to fix it and hopefully they can drive back.  Darn, I like road trips.

Well, back to the regular grind on Monday.  I have a delivery on Wednesday, if I can get the mechanics of the online help I’m working on to cooperate.  I gotta come up with things for intern to do and keep myself busy.  At least the weather is supposed to cooperate and only be in the 80s.  That’ll be nice.