Labor Day Weekend Day 0

No better way than to kick off a new adventure than a long holiday weekend. Southern Man must work in the morning but as soon as he's done with his lab at one o'clock it's off to The Land to grab The Titan, hasten back to the apartment, finish cleaning it out (all that remains is the bed and a few baskets and boxes, plus a bit of a mess in Teen Daughter The Elder's room), check the mail one last time, and turn in the keys. Sadly, he's not leaving the place all that clean and will probably not get much (if any) of his deposit back. But, face it, the price on their charge sheet for new drip pans is less than what they run at Wal-Mart and it's worth $20 to him to not have to scrub that oven. It didn't help that when faced with the horrible mess that was the carpet Southern Man's old vacuum cleaner first groaned in agony and then burst into flames. That was the point where he pretty much gave up on actual "cleaning" and just focused on packing instead.

Then it was off to The Land to unload and unpack and start to settle in to actually living there instead of just visiting. High on the agenda is to get all of the kitchen goods safely packed into sealed plastic tubs, as there is still a bit of a mouse issue with The Trailer. And there's lots going on this weekend - meeting with friends tonight at a local lakeside eatery to dine and dance, morning coffee with the church singles group, church and then lunch with Southern Parents on Sunday, and then a big cookout on Labor Day at an area park. And of course there will be plenty of geocaching! The weekend will also be Southern Man's first opportunity to take advantage of the new Gold's Gym membership, which will be Southern Man's place to shower must mornings. The one he chose is the newest in town (he got in on the tail end of the "grand opening" special) with a saltwater lap pool and hot tub and lots of shiny new equipment. They even have an exercise bike room in a cinema that shows movies all day. This will hopefully inspire Southern Man to work out four or five mornings a week and get back into some semblance of shape. A good sign is that while signing up with the two cute Gold's Gym girls he ran into Trip, a young man who used to run student activities at Southern Man's workplace (the go-cart racing on Valentine's Day 2011 was one of his best). A former basketball player, he's about six-six and built like a tank. The conversation started like this:

Trip: Hey, Dr. Southern Man!
Southern Man: Hey, Trip! How's it going?
Cute Gold's Gym Girl #1 (to Trip): Wow, you do know everyone!
Cute Gold's Gym Girl #2 (To Southern Man) You're a doctor?

The evening entertainment was to meet up with friends at a local bar and grill that sits right on the big lake for dinner and dancing.

Was there a geocache hidden near this lovely lighthouse? Of course there was.

Not a group you'd want to meet in a dark alley.

The band was one that Southern Man has seen before; they call themselves the Wise Guys and have a lot of fun playing covers (ranging from hilariously awful to stunningly accurate) and poking fun at them, each other, their friends, and the crowd in general.

Setting up the stage.

For the hilariously awful cover of Werewolves of London they dragged a pack of kids up on stage to howl. Of course Helicopter Mom had to be right there to spoil all of the pics.

The band's guest tonight was Johnny Barbata, who's played with Jefferson Airplane and CSNY and Eric Clapton and many others. They made fun of him, too, but did some pretty good Neil Young covers with him on stage.

These pics were all taken with the new phone camera.

We had a good time eating and drinking and dancing tonight. It's going to be a good weekend, a good month, a good semester, and a good year. Lord, thank you for your many blessings, and continue to watch over me and my family. Amen.