Mrs. Ha is very anxious about her new job. The doctor and office manager did a poor job of getting ready for the move, and she's afraid that's it reflects poorly on her. She's also anxious about starting over in a new place. On the positive side, she says the new office appears to be a friendly place with a good sense of teamwork, something lacking in her current job. Today is the moving day, Monday is the new office. Based on historic patterns, the anxiety will ease in about six months, or be replaced by a different anxiety.

An example of the positives of the new place is that they're sponsoring a picnic at the local amusement park, Seabreeze. I'm glad, I was worried we wouldn't be able to take the girls this year since we're scrimping to save for our upcoming holiday/vacation. But her new office is paying, including a picnic (also glad, we have about $40 to last us until Tuesday). A bff from high school is having a picnic on Sunday that we're going to, two big meals out of the way. The girls are going with my parents to their friend's lake cottage today, and staying until 7 or 8, three meals out of the way. We may survive this middle class poverty until Mrs. Ha gets paid.

Thursday night eight year old had a playdate at teacher_girls, and we agreed to pick her up at the Swillburg Carnival. It was a tiny neighborhood party, with unlimited bouncing on the inflatables, and a fire truck, and a clown making balloon creations, and an animatronic remote control fox riding a tricycle while wearing a bicycle helmet. I think the last was some sort of anti-drug thing, when you see a fox riding a tricycle down the street while jauntily wearing a bicycle helmet, it's time to give up drugs.

Since it's Rochester, I saw two other sets of school parents there. Because we're concerned about the environment, and concerned about getting fat, we walked there and back.

In other eight year old news, she's making progress on becoming a two wheeler, my mom has been working with her. She's getting comfortable riding 50 feet without me holding on. We were trying the other night, and thirteen year old had to get out her three speed, but more on that below.

We got our street chip sealed Friday night, the guys worked until 8. I don't know why they worked so late, maybe it's something that can be only done on a dry day, which has been rare this summer. Maybe they were getting overtime, maybe it's the stimulus. It's already claimed it's first casualty, thirteen year old turned too fast on it and went down, she doesn't have much experience riding on gravel. It also makes me nervous to get my Kawi out there. More on the Kawi below.

Goodwill has been upping it's image lately, with new stores opening up in the 'burbs. We went to one that had just opened up across from the eastern mall, and I did very well, a few shirts at $2.00 each, a pair of Aeropostale jeans for $4, even a pair of shorts for thirteen year old (since blood speckled due to the accident above). One thing I don't like is the proliferation of shopping carts, people grab them without thinking, even if they're just browsing. It's unnerving to be reading the titles of the books on the shelf and suddenly see a cart roll towards you out of your peripheral vision.

The two week camp at Geneseo is over, thirteen year old and her bff had lots of fun, made an axial wind turbine that was able to make an LED flicker, took classes and had lots of fun. The dorm room where thirteen year old and her bff stayed was a mess, the floor was covered in dirty socks and granola bar wrappers, and they only stayed there ten days. Newspaper_mom thinks this will look good on the girls' college applications, I wasn't even thinking that far ahead, I was just thinking it was something to do to keep thirteen year old busy.

I finished Stephenson's The ConFusion, volume 2 of the Baroque cycle. Quicksilver left a not so fresh taste in my mouth, especially in the beginning where there was a lot of nothing, for pages and pages. The Confusion picked up the pace enough for me to get Volume 3 out of the local library on my lunch. There didn't seem to be as many long winded digressions either, which is good, all the various Dukes and Sophies and such get confusing.

In other book news, I finished The Power Of Gold, one of the books I rescued from the landfill a few weeks back. In an odd coincidence, Isaac Newton plays an important role in this book, too. It's mostly historical anecdotes about gold, and it's uses as decoration and money. Well worth the price.

Eight year old got some finger puppets from a vendor at the Rochester Public Market a year or two ago, and has been wanting to get more. We promised her we'd get there eventually, and Saturday was eventually. I forgot the most important rule, bring cash, lots (the second important rule is go in the back way and park on the street in the bad neighborhood). We did get some produce, she got a dragonfly bracelet, the puppet peddler was not present. On Sunday they have a flea market deal, after going to a VOA thrift store and being underwhelmed, we stopped by the Public Marker for a while. Twice in two days. We completely skipped the Park Ave Fest, save for driving by it a few times.

Tonight the Public Market is hosting Donna the Buffalo, for free, but we're probably not going, too much anxiety.

From another blog, the Gettysburg Address in Powerpoint.

I tinkered a bit on my bike trying to get to an accetable idle; my float levels are fine, the butterfly appears to fully close, it's on to more esoteric things to check, valve clearance, timing gap. I went to Walmart one morning, no feeler gauges, so I went to Autozone instead, and also picked up a 12 v multi-outlet, some assorted emery paper, and more red hardener cream. I just need to pick up a few extra hours of time here and there.