Friday was a completely wasted day, in the sense that it was beautiful outside and I spent then entire day locked in front of my computer dealing with a million and one little problems. I ended up at 6 pm with a stiff neck, eyes that would no longer focus, and a poor outlook on life. I've got to remember to get up once in a while and take a break ...

Courtesy parked in Bridgewater MA

Eleanor and Emma spent the day visiting a friend and the local IKEA store. Among other things, Eleanor scored some stackable ceramic coffee mugs for $0.50 each (clearance price). She is tired of the oh-so-cool stainless or aluminum travel mugs that don't stack in the kitchen cabinet. They may be great looking, but they take up too much space. We'll see if the ceramic ones hold up.

Inspired by an essay I read on the Scambuster website, I've decided to play our scammer a bit longer. The next message from Ayres will be his claim that $1800 was sent via Western Union. Of course we won't really send a penny. That should cause our scammer some further consternation and delay as he/she tries to collect the money.

Then Ayres will probably die in one of the horrible manners suggested by our readers on yesterday's blog entry (see comments), and legal action against Velecia Farmer/Alvaro Mendoza/Dr. Lilian Williams/Larry Inc will be threatened. Ayres may even have an uncle ("Avion") who is a private detective, to seek out the wrongdoers and hopefully put some fear into them.

Today we are going to pack up and tow about 130 miles down to Connecticut to stay with Don and Amanda, who we just met last weekend. They are the new owners of Vintage Thunder. We'll spend the weekend with them and Emma will get to play with Donal (Jr.), who is five years old.

Bert Gildart called yesterday. He and Janie have finally emerged from Canada, and will be in Massachusetts this weekend. We are trying to cross paths in the next few days, so we can yak about our travels and they can give us a pile of Canadian generic Zyrtec that they bought for us. We may meet them in New Jersey on Monday, if all goes well.

By the way, Bert has been doing some wonderful writing and photography in Canada, and it's on his blog. If you haven't read it, I can really recommend it. He is doing a superb job telling stories of the Maritimes.

Colin Hyde called yesterday too, from a rally in New Hope, PA. He says it's much warmer down there, which makes me VERY happy. I like fall but a few more days in the 70s would feel good too.

My final office task yesterday was to do some trip planning. We've now got an itinerary worked out all the way down to South Carolina. After that we've got about a week to just wing it until we arrive in Orlando. It's a great itinerary. So I guess Friday wasn't a total waste after all -- at least I have nailed down some cool stuff to look forward to.