For extra credit, thirteen year old brought home a baby simulator last weekend. I'm too young to be a simulated grandpa. The thing would shriek randomly, between 45 minutes and two hours, around the clock. The only way to stop it was to hold a key in place for ten to fifteen minutes.

By Sunday, thirteen year old was exhausted and suffering from a sinus headache. She's generous, we suffered, too. She was sitting on the couch, in the early morning sunshine, and complaining about the sunshine, but she didn't want to move, since she was watching TV.

I've had worse weekends, but not recently.

It wasn't all bad, when the kids were finally in bed, we got caught up on our Desperate watching. More room on the DVR for Pokemon. We also gathered a lot of books to donate, four boxes for my sister_in_law's elementary school, a few boxes of adult and public school inappropriate books (you know, they mention God), for the Salvation Army. We had to, we bought a few books at the library book sale.

Eight year old also won an award in her Art Class, and I did get some beer brewed, an Oktoberfest.

Speaking of books, I finished the next book in Martin's AGOT series, A Clash of Kings, in which there's more murder and mayhem and fighting, with fewer big characters dying. On to book three.

I also finished Deighton's Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain, I picked it up for fifty cents from the discard pile of our local library branch. It's good, a gearhead oriented view of the Battle of Britain, delving into why fuel injected plans could pull negative gee manuevers that carb planes couldn't, why the Bf109's cannon was not so good, why Messerschmidt's glider bias made for a less effective fighter, and all about radar.

In final book news, I finished A Man Called Intrepid, one of the big thick paperbacks I picked up at the AmVets last month. It's the story of Sir William Samuel Stephenson, a Canadian who flew in World War I, and ended up heading the illegal British Security Co-ordination in New York City leading up to World War II (remember, it started on December 7th, 1941) and acting as an intermediary between Churchill and Roosevelt, helping Roosevelt in his impeachable actions violating neutrality to support Britain, and trying to keep J. Edgar Hoover from interfering. I was surprised to learn that Camp X, a spy training camp, was just around the lake from us. I'm also surprised that the American right doesn't bring up Roosevelt's impeachable and possibly illegal actions in helping Britain, just the New Deal and Japanese concentration camps.

Speaking of the English, AF_mom was in town, and eight year old got to spend a few hours with her Wednesday. She was hoping for a Thursday afternoon visit, no luck.

In final, final book news, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
In short, the New World was much more advanced and populated than is commonly recognized, but Old World Pandemics (smallpox and measles mostly) wiped out 90=97% of the population and destroying most of the native civilizations. It's got lots more to do, a high level summary of various newer theories.

Money money money

I've been trying to deal with my HSA so I can get reimbursed for our $2,600 drug problem. It took a while, the ATM offered three account choices, checking, savings and credit card. It's called a Health Savings Account, so I tried Savings. No luck. They gave me a credit card to use with it, I tried Credit, no luck.

Eventually I got some of my money out of my HSA, I'm only $2250 down. Of course there was a slight complication, an armored car was blocking the ATM lane, so I had to get out of my car (in the midst of New Wave Wednesday) and walk up to the ATM inside the bank lobby. How unAmerican can you get?

But that's not all the good financial news, my wife was offered a job in a clothing store know for selling overstock and last year's fashions. It may end up being about half what she was making at the doctor's office, at first (a lower hourly rate, fewer hours), but still, $400 a month really helps with the bills.

In work news, I should mention that fifty years ago my corps' immensely disruptive product was first shipped to a customer.

The weekend will be busy, we have a birthday party for my mother in law at 1:00, and in the evening, my niece is having her First Baptimunion. I also want to drop off wedding presents.

We're also hoping to take eight year to her last art class for most of the class, we'll need to leave early to get to the birthday party in Tonawanda by 1:00.