Friday!

And not just any old Friday, but the end-of-the-summer-semester Friday! And it was a busy one.

After breakfast with Teen Daughter the Elder (who is slowly recovering from her bout of shingles) she headed out to yet another top-secret meeting with her military masters and Southern Man checked Craigslist, as is his habit, and saw an offer for twenty free cinderblocks. Now Southern Man is a building materials whore and will jump on something like that in a hot minute but the lister said they were just stacked up by the curb and he'd delete the post when they were gone. So there was not much chance of getting them but it was on the way to work so Southern Man leaped into The Titan to check it out. The address was strangely familiar and it turned out to be a guy from whom Southern Man had gotten a load of firewood a while back. The cinderblocks were still there, plus he had PVC pipe that he'd used to build a little greenhouse and some bricks. In fact the entire pile was from tearing down his greenhouse and since he's moving he gave it away. So Southern Man got a full truckload of goodies. There was no rush so he brought it all home and switched to The Hyundai for the rest of the day.

A Titan load of goodies. The battered north roof of The Barn is the next major project.

Then it was off to work, to deal with paperwork (including the upcoming year's contract, which includes a nice raise, and final details for the upcoming supercomputer conference, and some travel-grant applications) and grading final exams and post grades for both summer classes (one at each school). That last required a trip to the community college on the south side - yes, it's 2012, but they still require a signature on a hard copy of the electronically-submitted grade form - so Southern Man printed off a list of geocaches to hit while he was on that side of town. These were all fairly challenging, many in wooded areas, and Southern Man had a lot of fun hunting them down. But at the very last cache The Hyundai wouldn't start.

Well, it did this once a while back and Southern Man suspects that he's gotten all he's going to get out of the factory battery so he put the hood up and stood by the road to flag down help. And now an observation: not a single woman stopped, but every guy stopped. Every single one. The third had cables and a quick jump had the car running again. Then, happy and tired and covered with burrs and scratches Southern Man headed home for a shower and dinner and rest.

But when he got out of the shower the phone's voice mail light was on - it was RCJ, and could I run over to his mom's house and help him fix an air conditioner? Of course, so Southern Man threw on some clothes and headed out in The Titan. We took care of the chores and had pizza with his mom and sister and brother-in-law (they all share a big house that's only a few blocks from the mini-mansion that Southern Man and his ex bought in '04) and then RCJ went to work (night shift) and Southern Man headed out to the land to unload his truckload of goodies.

And after unloading and stacking the goodies and clearing out a corner of The Barn Southern Man relaxed for a bit in The Trailer and finally solved the mystery of the occasional stabbing pain in his left foot - a rusty nail that had come through the sole of that boot, so there will be a tetanus booster in his immediate future - and relaxed for a bit. And then he came home for another dinner (cold chicken and hot veggies and cold beer) and to reflect on a busy and productive and fun day and plan tomorrow's activities with Teen Daughter the Younger, who is back from Teen Camp but was scooped up by her grandmother until tomorrow. Lord, I'm so lucky. Please continue to bless me and my family. Amen.