"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once". 
Either Albert Einstein, or Woody Allen

This week has been a busy one. Last weekend we went to the Lantzville Fire Station Garage sale. People donate things and the fireman sell them to raise money for equipment. We got all sorts of things, shelving for the garage, books, wainscoting, glassware, red glass vase, a nice wicker basket, and more. The fun thing about the Fireman's sale is that nothing is priced. You haggle. Marsha and I conferred and agreed what we got would be worth ~$40. We then walked up to the checkout table and the girl opened the bidding at $25. We took it, "Because after all it is for a good cause." 

Early in the week they held the Juno Awards. These are Canada's Grammys. Bobs & Lolo, the children's music group that our cousin and his fiance run was up for Best Children's Album. The next day in the Nanaimo Daily News was the headline "Lantzville Duo win Juno Award" along with a nice article about Bobs & Lolo and how they had won the award. The only problem was that they didn't win. The local paper picked up something online and didn't verify the facts. You gotta love small town papers. The best part was that even though they printed a retraction in the next issue, the article is still online (As of Sunday anyway).
http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/entertainment/story.html?id=836c39fa-3e91-4897-bbb1-e82dcdbd7e4e

Later in the week we got our Tax refunds. When we deposited it in the bank we also stopped and got half a yard of mulch for the back yard after stopping and picking a refill of a prescription.  Then we found out that the Windows we had ordered a few weeks ago were in and they would be out the next day to install them, then Zellers called and the gazebo/screen porch thing we had ordered was in. So we got the porch, moved the mulch to the back yard, moved all the furniture away from the front of the living room so they could get at the windows. Friday they came to install the windows. Unfortunately they found a problem and took the windows back to the shop. They were smart enough to check before they pulled out the old windows which was good. 

I've decided to put the old G4 Macintosh up for sale. I spent this week between other projects prepping it, pulling out the old giant drive, cleaning all data off the other two drives, and setting it up fresh. I have one person that may be interested. If that falls through I'll be putting it up on Craig's List. 

This weekend we laid the mulch in the back garden. Marsha filled the planters with soil and planted things in them, and planted other things in both the front and back yard. We also decided to paint the front side of the living room. After all it was free of furniture, rugs, and everything else. It was a good time. In the morning we ran to Home Depot and picked up a sample of Desert Moss. This was a nice grey green colour. Marsha painted one section and we let it dry. We were shocked to find that due to lighting differences in our house it looked like yellow green custard. Ewwwww. So we ran back and selected a nice blue. When we got home we found that it was the same colour we chose for the Entryway. Without realizing it we had bought a sample of the same colour we had half a gallon of in the garage. After trying other colours we had left over from other projects I ran back to Home Depot, it was now ~8:00 Saturday night to get a quart of Shale Grey, a very pretty blue grey colour. I placed the order, I think I was the only customer on the store and wandered around for a few minutes before heading back to the Paint counter. The paint lady pulled the paint out and then realized that being it was the end of a long day she had mistakenly mixed a gallon. After a bit of discussionI took the gallon, at a $20 discount and departed.  Today I painted the half of the room and it looks wonderful. 

To close if you are a fan of classical music I suggest you check out the Portsmouth Sinfonia. They were a group out of the Portsmouth Music School. They were all trained musicians, and put out several albums before they disbanded in 1979. The group had only three rules. First the members had to attend every practice without fail. They had to try very hard to play well and make the orchestra as good as possible. Lastly, they could not have had ANY training of any kind on the instrument they were asked to play. Their take on classical music is, well, interesting to say the least.

William Tell Overture/Rossini
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtVDazgT3ko&feature=related

In the Hall of the Mountain King
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wiRivDMIYM&feature=related

Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtVDazgT3ko&feature=related

Hopefully next week will be a little quieter.

Doug & Marsha

PIC.
Due to popular request here are some pictures from our trip a couple of weeks ago. 


 



 These are the flowers that greeted us in our yard upon our return.