Day One-hundred-and-ninety-seven: Before dawn

I got up this morning with a renewed purpose and an expanded "to do" list. I won't go into the details but I did make it up before dawn. I'm sure I'll get more of it done if I leave the TV off. Besides, other than my vast collection of movies, I'm not supposed to have TV. If Comcast ever comes back and tries to collect for my TV watching after I cancelled the service, I'll sue for them not putting on the trap like they were supposed to and thus enabling my TV addiction. I have to have better will power than that. Today will be a good test.

Renewed purpose meets a lazy day of summer. It is over 70 degrees out there. After I got my haircut, I had to walk down to the ocean. I only spent a couple of minutes because the sun was positively warm. I even had to take off my fleece vest. It was too hot with it on. Of course, it is also black.

I posted another flyer in the Palo Alto Whole Foods. The flyer I posted at my "stylist's" is still up. I was hoping to have to replenish the cards but it didn't look like any were taken.

I traveled all the way down to Fry's, in Palo Alto, for a rice cooker. They didn't have the model I wanted in stock and wouldn't sell me the display, so I just ordered it online. With shipping, it actually costs more but the time it takes to drive 50 miles round trip plus the $2.039 for the gas makes it more convenient to have it delivered.

I tried to make reservations at Marilyn's and my favorite cross-country skiing place, Bear Valley, for our upcoming anniversary. I don't know about skiing in my lack of shape or alone but I do want to do it. I will have to see if I can stay in Murphy's but that is at least an hour away from the trails. Around this time and specifically the 27th and 28th the Bear Valley Lodge is swamped with a school or schools from down the road. The last time Marilyn made the reservation, she must have done it much earlier.

I won't be posting my Toastmaster's speech, although I will write it out for timing. If you've read my posts over the last 45 or so days, you will have far more information about my trip than I will put into a five to seven minute speech. Except for my faulty memory of what I have written about as I don't reread the entries after I have published them, at least not so far, I have tried not to be too duplicative, even in the associated use of my Life after Layoff tag line. However, I have mentioned that I do now see the end of this blog coming. This doesn't mean that I won't be making daily blog entries again but it will be in a new blog with a new theme. Maybe several new blogs, just not all at once.

It's been a good day even though my "to do" list is mostly still in that category. Perhaps it is the two things I got done: my hair cut and my car washed.