The Ladies Pick Their Fantasy Football Men

Ladies Fantasy Football Draft Night - Boy Was the Tension High in This House.

It was a dramatic, long evening of checking multiple computers against multiple lists to see who is left on the market. It was sometimes tense when the Head Coach (Erica) ignored the frequent advise of the team water boys. (I heard the coach utter this phrase more than once: "Picking from a hat may just be more accurate than your ESPN Talking Head Chatter. Go get me some water." And she said it in such a way that both of us were getting her water at the same time - we were fighting for the ice left in the tray as we were not sure who she was talking to.) All I know is that it will be an interesting season - we are all anxiously awaiting the real season so that we can determine who wins the fantasy season. Will it be the Queen of random-draw-rules-the-sports-world or the King of the ESPN- talking-head-land.

(Boy, I'm glad Carol doesn't follow the NFL...)

No Teeth Yet But I Finally Caught A Tongue Picture

We went shopping on Labor Day at the Mall and while Carol and Erica shopped we ran willy nilly down the aisles and made sudden turns. Sometimes, when I knew there were no bars imbedded in the clothes rack, I would "miss-a-turn" and baby would be buried in expensive clothing. However, she would dig herself out promptly with chocolaty Dairy Queen hands. (Just kidding - no ice cream yet.) At any rate, we had fun!

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I finally caught a picture of her elusive tongue. I have been trying to catch a good photo of it for some time now. The tongue is perhaps even more elusive photographically than the splayed little toe. At least I got a good picture of one of them. No teeth yet... you will see it here when the first one finally comes!
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Nashville Labor Day Weekend River Walk Jazz Festival

It is the 3-day Labor Day weekend and we thought we might go to downtown Nashville to see what is happening. We viewed the 2nd Annual Jazz Festival area from up above on the River Walk Bridge and collectively decided to go eat rather than go to the Festival - it was rather hot and humid. In the picture above, you can see the stage set on the river barge (The attendance was very low at this point but it was day 1, hour 3 - we later saw alot of people going down as we were vacating downtown to go see Panama and her family.) You can also see the distinctive AT&T Building, which many people dub the Batman Building. The city is a nice one - we enjoy living near here.

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The Three Amigos trying to hide from the Papparazzi behind their sunglasses, but I caught them! What a cute little family. You can see the LP Titan's Stadium in the background.

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A few miscellaneous pictures if you are still with me on this post. I noticed an abandoned butt, in the back of someone's pickup parked near the Hard Rock Cafe. I suppose that there is probably an explanation as to why someone would leave a butt in the back of a pickup. Perhaps this butt is really not that useful anymore since there is a metal shaft stuck in it. (I am sort of sensitive to broken butts as it has not been that long since Steve and I took a two week long Broken Butt Tour. Not that many people give proper homage to posteriors and their importance in daily life.)

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Whenever I get to the Hard Rock Cafe, I always take a picture of the Benjamin Moore advertisement. For those that know me well, they know that I am a huge Warren Buffet fan and Berkshire Hathaway owns Benjamin Moore. I am an partial shareholder and Warren is proud of me.

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Another view of the AT&T Building from the middle of the beautiful garden that they designed in the front courtyard entrance of the building. It would be kind of fun to go to work in this place everyday. What a view of the city they must have.

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Carol and I felt at home, being Californians, when we saw these two old Indians sitting on the curb. The last Indian Motorcyle, to my knowledge, was made in California (Gilroy perhaps?). Last I heard they went bankrupt trying to get the name competitive. I believe that Harley Davidson and others were just too much for them and they filed several years ago.

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A short video of the General Jackson Sternwheeler as it passed under me while on the River Walk Bridge. It is a big boat for sure although there were not alot of people on it.

A Visit to Megan, Eric and Panama's Place

We stopped by to visit Panama, Eric and Megan on our way home to Clarksville after the visit to the downtown Jazz Festival. Panama tried on an outfit that Nana brought to her and she decided that the outfit would go really good with her Monkey Hat. I think she looks great!!

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Eric and Megan went out in the heat for a short ride on their bikes. It was hot out.

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They live on a nice, wide quiet street so they can ride the neighborhood freely anytime they catch a sitter.

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Panama had Strep Throat this last week and has been feeling really lousy - although Eric says she was a real trooper, despite her sore throat and medications. They could tell she was feeling good today because she played in her bed for two hours instead of taking a nap. At any rate, the lack of a nap caught up to her later when Nana had her sit with her in the rocker. She is a sweetheart and we miss her when we do not see her for a week.

Toe Talent, Looks Alot Like Peas But Its Not and Beautiful Dresses

Amaya has really long little toes. Sometimes I see her littlest toes splayed out practically perdendicular to her other toes. I am going to capture a shot of that occurrence eventually. In the meantime...

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Amaya gives me these funny looks when she sees me taking close-up pictures of her toes. She will thank me though when I get the right picture - she may win some kind of like, Most Talented Toe Award or something. (I do not want to presume how far she might go with her most unique little toes - I suspect she could go to the top, she justs needs a tad of Toe Promotion. Thats where I come in. An older, wiser retired engineer that is not afraid to 1. Start at the ground up, 2. Toe the line, 3. Win by a foot, 4. Shoe away the competition, or 5. Let the little piggy go to the market. Anyway, stay tuned in, these little toes could be big.

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First baby food was rice, the adult assumed baby preferential taste rating was 8 out of 10, second food was peas, approximately a 4 of 10 taste experience. We were going to try the above thing, cannot remember the name of it, but after blending, the adults nixed the baby taste test. It was really quite tasteless. We are not inclined to go so far on the negative side of the bell curve as to risk the unpaid baby quitting her baby food taste test job.

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So we went with another food in the green family...

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Green beans... baby appeared to give it about a 6 of 10.

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Carol helped me sit Amaya for a couple of days this week. She dressed Amaya by noon on one of those days in a beautiful dress that Megan brought back from Nicaragua. Erica thought she was a real doll and asked me to take a picture. Don't get me wrong, I too think that she is cute - however from a comfort perspective, I think that a T-shirt and Diaper (T&D) is not a bad outfit. Most days that I sit with her, we attempt to abandon her pajamas just before lunch. There is general consensus (Amaya and I have discussed) that there is no reason to mess up an outfit with afternoon feedings and general floor crawling so we try to go from T&D to a nice outfit just before her mother gets home at 4. At least that is the understanding that Amaya and I have worked out - she has not mentioned that she would like to change the routine so I guess all is well. (She really did look good in that dress though...)

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Five Pea Eating Pictures

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There must have been some "ham" in those peas.
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Interesting Building Downtown and Funny Sleep Positions

Since I have started blogging, I am much more interested in unusual things that I can take a picture of and document. Carol and I were buying deck paint and we took a detour through downtown Clarksville. We spotted this building and I asked Carol to take some pictures. It has a very interesting architecture, with the novel roof features and all. I will do some research on it later and find out its design history.

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An overexposed view from down the street when we first saw the building and I said "Whoa, what is that?"

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Another view from a parking lot across the street. We have been close by here before because two years ago we watched the fireworks from this area. I did not notice the building then.
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Funny sleep position... Amaya was sleeping comfortably in Erica's arms as we left church. Her legs were a flapping with each step toward the car - it would have made a better movie but a picture was all I could get. I just noticed that Amaya's feet framed her Nana who was ahead of us. Nana still has some nice looking legs.
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Another unusual sleep position - picture taken on Monday morning - Amaya's first day with Grampa as head sitter. She rooted around on the floor for 10 minutes on her soft blanket with pacifier in her mouth. She finally stopped moving as she got into this position. She slept for 30 minutes and then let Grampa know that she noticed that he was not laying next to her anymore.
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Peas Please? -or- No Thank You Please Peas!

First bite of peas, she knew the spoon contained some kind of goody...

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Second bite of peas, not quite so excited...
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The family gave peas 5 out of 10. with rice being an 8 or so... stayed tune, more delicious flavors to be explored.
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Amigos had a fund raiser at a nice gallery in upcoming east Nashville, it was a fun, first class affair. We are all proud of Megan helping the young people have a world class experience.
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Beautiful cumulus clouds caught on my last hanglide trip...
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The Baby is Now Growling for Attention

In the last couple of days, Amaya's high pitched chirps, squeals and giggles have taken a new twist. She sometimes ends her noise campaign with a low tone growl. We are not sure that she will be doing this growl very long so we captured an episode on tape for posterity.

Yannis Was Here!!

I missed dinner with Megan's friend Yannis who is visiting from Santa Barbara because I was at Lookout. However, since the hangliding did not look good, I came home early and Megan took us out to lunch as I passed through Nashville. We went to the popular Mexican place over by the Vanderbilt Health Mall. Great news: Yannis is dating a son of a Benicia high school teacher who cannot be more excited about the budding romance. Rumor is that he serenades them as they sit on the front porch while his son is courting her whenever Yannis gets to town. (The teacher is also an accomplished musician and singer.) We are hoping soon that Yannis will tell his son that his father is playing her song, or something like that. We love you Yannis - Good Luck!!

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Two very beautiful young women...
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Sidewalk art in Megan's driveway caught by an avid family blogger.
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Laid Up at the VW Dealer in Chattanooga

One Saturday morning, I went one way (Chattanooga) and Carol went the other way with a car load of girls that she works with. (They went to Memphis or thereabouts.)

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This post is not chronologically organized and I am too lazy to make it so. Please (if you care to) read the entire post and figure out how it all fits together. This is my dream car, a 2009 candy white Jetta 5-speed with light brown leather and Sirius radio with built in GPS.
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I had lots of time (days) to wander around the two dealer lots and this car was all about Rolly Keith. The old western line in the bar was "Barkeep, make it a Double for my Friend." My line is "Carkeep, make it a Quatro for my Really Good Friend."
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This vehicle was all about my KC friend Vinny. If he wasn't Italian, he would be a great Englishman that would relish this Jaguar (and definitely pronounce it right). Vinny is a no toothpick until he gets to the smoking room kind of guy. He is a class act, except when he is with me, then he acts up. (He is Italian, he can't help it.)
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" Tony the Tiger" I called him. He is the parts and customer driver for the Village VW dealer. He and I had a good time driving to the Mall, to WalMart and Downtown as well. He is a character, as you can see from our short stop at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Complex (CCCC).
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This is the CCCC railroad engine in the museum/courtyard.
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Room 701 - this railcar is a motel room. I want to explore this one with Carol someday. Toot Toot!!!

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A sculpture outside of the Chattanooga Aquarium.
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In between charging batteries, drinking coffee and using the bathroom to take a bath, I checked out the new cars in the showroom. I really liked the VW Convertible; the showroom was quite big so I took it for a test spin. Nice driving machine. Wonder if it will pull the teardrop?

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I haven't met any security yet but today the General Manager of the dealership stopped by to see why I was camping in his lot. I showed him my trailer and told him that I was waiting for service tomorrow. He said that he would do everything he could to get me on the road. He came back a few minutes later and asked me if I wanted to spend some time in the dealership. I told him that I would certainly like to charge up my batteries - computer, phone and camera. Since one of his Technicians was working on a personal car, he let me stay in the waiting room. He also made me a pot of coffee and showed me the facilities. I thought that was right nice.
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The Waffle House down the road some makes a good omelet and they let me charge up my computer. I had a bit of wifi access from somewhere if I hold the computer next to the door of the teardrop just right.

So far my dealings at the Village Volkswagen have been good. I met the Sales Manager, Ron K who told me he was working late on Saturday nite on the Clunker program. He sympathsized with my plight and said it was ok to stay in the parking lot. I have yet to meet the Security guard. Plenty of places to eat around the corner so I think I will be alright here.

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Bobby, the tow truck driver, looks alot alike and talks just like the comedian Larry the Cable Guy. He is a Tyson chicken truck driver that helps his buddy do tows on the weekend. He did me ok although the trailer has never been towed as fast as it was coming down the mountain into Chattanooga.
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Bobby the driver told me early on that he could also haul my trailer for an extra $40 over the AAA no-ccharge. Sounded like a good deal to me so I said Cowboy Up, he said Gitter Done so I guess we communicated.
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Alas, on my way to Lookout Mountain to work on my aero tow rating, I dropped into the rest area off of I-24, mile post 134, at the top of the mountain and all of the water from my engine gushed out almost immediately as I turned off the ignition. (Boy, that was a long sentence.) What luck I was not on the freeway when my babie's water broke. The hoses were ok but I noticed that the plastic body holding the hose to the engine block was broken. Should be an easy fix depending on the cost of the part, the coolant flush and labor. ($275)
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A Second Birthday Party for Angela

Keith just retired and invited me to his place. He did not realize that I would almost beat him to his house. (He arrived Tuesday and I arrived Thursday.) We went over to the golf course 1/2 block from his house and admired the beauty of it all. I took a picture of him and his grand daughter Anglea - she is a beautiful, brown curly haired little lady.

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His grandaughter was having her 2nd birthday. It was a fun evening - I caught Tracey and Angela with birthday balloons in the background. We all had a great time!

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Keith has just retired and is trying to look the part. I glanced over at one point and told him that all he was missing was a "lap dog." Tracey found one... now his look is complete. He is retired, sitting in his favorite chair with his blanket and lap dog. Note that he is sipping his G&T with his grand daughter's curly sippy straw.
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Ellen and Anglea sharing a birthday secret.
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Angela eating the frosting first off of her cake.
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Ellen and Keith - what more can I say about this picture.
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Keith took me over to look at the golf course near his retirement house. We looked a bit and then spent the next 25 minutes trying to catch up to Angela. She took off down the cart path of the 6th hole. I literally had to jog some to get her before the street came up at the end of the 400 yard hole.
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We wandered over to the club house and was talking to the marshall when I felt a little curly head on my shoulder - I guess we finally wore her out.
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