I must go down to the seas again ...

 Superbowl Day! YAWWWNNNNNNNN! Did you know that there are 51 players in an American football team?  We used to be happy if we got 13 to turn out for a rugby game (yes, there were supposedly 15 players on a team back then plus, something I've never experienced, a reserve or two).  Super Bowl XXL kicked off at 6:30 pm, I think and so the only possible thing to do was to go out to dinner where there would be no television - more on that in a second. The day dawned beautifully clear unlike yesterday's fog so I resisted the temptation to go for a pee and then hit the sack again and got my arse into gear.  #1 target was to get my daily 5000 steps under my belt somewhere other than the beach so it's off to Brookgreen Gardens - https://www.brookgreen.org/ .  A lot of the old slave-time equipment is still there, a lot isn't.  So I walked around for nearly 4 hours enjoying the sights and trying not to think how little fun those who'd built the place probably ha...

 A busy week done It ain't all play here.  I'm in the throes of finishing out my contract with Rocket Software at the end of March.  This leaves me in the multiply cleft stick of saying "Sod it", getting in as many hours (and dollars) as possible before the end of March and trying hard not to drop the next guy in the cart.  I mustn't give away too many trade secrets but, at the moment, I have but one outstanding problem which I plan to work on with my replacement chap to introduce him to the fun and games of looking after the chunk of software I work on. So most of last week was done doing boring stuff like shopping and doing software stuff.  Today is thickly foggy which didn't stop me going for a wander northwards up the beach.  Here's how the beach looks from my balcony.  Stunning, huh? It being Saturday today I managed to get stuck in the traffic of people moving in - I've never experienced that in winter but it wasn't as bad as it is in mid-Jul...

 I have gone down to the seas again As has become fairly traditional, I have wandered off to the coast again, leaving Susan to handle tax returns for her clients without worrying what wreckage I have wrought upon the house (or myself - I'm under a strict "no ladder / chainsaw" rule, imposed by me, when she's not home.  She rescued me from an unscheduled sky dive last year).  My destination again is Surfside Beach - half a day's drive from home in a south easterly direction.  I usually get here in January and even got snowed upon last year.  The air is definitely warmer in Feb than in Jan though the sea isn't (or maybe my loss of 7kg of fat has messed up my insulation). I stopped by at the grocery store on the way in last night for a quick shop with a bonus senior moment thrown in for good measure.  I'd chucked a gallon of proper milk (not Lewis Road Creamery, just silver top) in the bottom of my shopping cart yesterday and forgot to take it out when I chec...

 Last day at the beach After three rather cool and blowy days during which I fought with some Assembler code that refuses to work, it is finally warm and sunny.  So back to a few favourite spots and a fun chore.  First of all the fun chore.  As I may have mentioned, I was given a pair of sneakers by a guy in Ingles supermarket.  They went well - maybe a bit narrower than I would have spent real money on but what the heck.  And then, a few days ago, the sole of the left one fell off.  Close examination showed that the Chinese peasant who assembled them had used three drops of glue.  So I contacted Merrill who offered me $30 off a new pair: tempting but no - I'd really quite like a pair of sneakers now.  So they made a better offer which was for me to take them to a local shoe repairer and they'd pay up to $25 of the cost.  Or, says I to myself, I could go to Walmart and buy a tube of suitable glue and call it all quits.  So that's wh...

 ... how cold is it in Asheville?  And other deep thoughts. Yesterday was also jolly cold so I hopped in the car to brother-in-law Bryce's house (as I had no work to do and was not going to kid anyone to the contrary).  It's quite a long boring slog to Topsail Island from here and I spent most of the drive trying to decide whether I'd feel better if I got 30 mpg out of my tank or if I got there a few minutes sooner.  The few minutes sooner and the 70 mph speed limit in NC really kicked the arse of my mileage so my final average for the day was 26.7.  Still not bad for the heap of metal I drive around.  I'm waiting for a Tesla with the cargo capacity of an Outback. Had a goodly few hours with Bryce including lunch at the Sushi Gem Asian Bistro.  Susan very kindly verified for me that they served more than raw fish (which Bryce had) and I had a brilliant Shrimp Massuman curry.  It was such an enormous serving that I planned to save half of it for lu...

 After all that walking yesterday, half my legs (i.e. one) said "Stay in bed" and the other said "Hup two three four" so I headed north for half a mile on the beach.  For an hour.  Bugger but it's a long way back and walking into the sun.  Oh well.  Time to open the Christmas jigsaw from Aunt Rosemary in the UK.  A right sod it is, too - a picture of a bayou in the twilight, I think (not allowed to look at the picture: it's a family thing.)  I've got the entire edge put together and am now staring at two huge piles of pieces - one of lily pads and the other one of not lily pads.  And a third pile of neither.  This is going to take a while. Blogger.com has stopped letting me wrap text around my pictures which sucks.  Oh well, what do you expect for free?