You may be wondering why I'm being particularly quiet. I my readers will recall, Becky is out of town...still. Our anniversary was last Thursday, so I've been getting a few surprises ready for her return. I'm very excited about them, but, on the off chance that she should stumble onto my web log while in Germany, I will not mention them. I'll relay her reactions to you when she gets back.

Andrew and Sara came up yesterday evening. We played some ping pong and went to Red Lobster. For those of you wondering...yes, he can still beat me in ping pong. I usually lead until we tie up at 12, then he leads until about 21-19. I rationalize it by saying that I win the first half of the game.

I successfully fixed my broken sprinkler head. Today, I went through a full diagnostic of the system and targeted a few more heads to replace, as weel as an entire zone in the back that doesn't turn on. Not having a map of the pipe and valve locations will make that one a little difficult to fix. I'd say the whole thing's in pretty good shape for being 20 years old.

Yesterday was the "Grand Openning" of the Super Target openning in North Austin. My friend Jen (Dave's wife) works there and knew they were having fireworks to celebrate the openning. She and Dave invited me to come watch them. Many of you know I cannot pass up such a mixture of technology, fire, loud noises, and bright colors. Jen picked us a spot that was VERY close to where they were being shot from. I had assumed it would be a few rockets and mortar shells and it would be over....I was wrong. It turned out to be a show rivalling many of the 4th of July shows I have seen over the years. And being so close made it even better. It lasted for a long time, and the finale was absolutely deafening. We were so close that the fireworks filled practically the whole sky and made you feel as if you had ascended into the sky and were right there with them. It was really cool.