• Tonight - Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• Tomorrow night - Nashville, Tennessee - downtown, walking distance to the music.
• who knows from there

There is nothing too exciting to report about our first day on the road except for a nice visit with Bronwen and Eryn in Guelph. We all had lunch together. Bronwen gave Eryn a dill pickle and she really seemed to enjoy chewing and sucking on the vinegar. Occasionally her face would pucker up but she would keep on going.

The drive seemed long, with fog in the morning as we left Collingwood and the 401 closed at Tilbury for a multi-car prang. Stopped at the Outlet mall in Fremont, but the Calphalon store had gone out of business. Today we start in Fort Wayne and head to Nashville. I have been scouring the internet for music in Nashville hoping to go to the Bluebird Cafe but it is American Thanksgiving. Looks like Tootsie's might be open though.

Tried to book a room in Baton Rouge, but the prices are sky-high - $300US plus a deposit of another $300 if you live within 50 miles of Baton Rouge. This being a deposit for damages. There must be a local college football game. So - - we will shorten the drive on Friday and stay in Jackson Mississippi. By Saturday morning the storm in the mid-west should have subsided and we can shoot across the lower part of Texas, to California.

Here is a photo that I just found from earlier this spring. It is of the tennis team that I played for in the BNP Paribas Indian Wells Seniors Tournament. We did not do well this year. Must have been over-confident from last year.

We are home. Had a great winter/summer. There was lots of opportunity to update the VOX but I am just a lazy pig - play tennis, drink beer and think about what I am going to have for dinner. The ride home was uneventful, the usual - Holbrook, Amarillo, Springfield, Fort Wayne, Collingwood.

Indian Wells PNB Paribas was good. We were treated to some of the better seats by our friends Ken and Carol. Carol and I had free tickets in the nose bleed section (I shot this photo from that section using a 300mm lenses.) Ken and Carol had tickets where you could order a glass of champagne and actually get it. It beats me but they wanted to arrange it so that Carol and Carol (yes) would watch the ladies final from the champagne section while Ken and Fred held Kleenex to our nostrils way up high. We would switch seats for the mens finals. See if you can spot Carol and Carol. The only clue allowed by the rules is that both were wearing sunglasses.

Home - what can you say. It is good to be here but quite a shock coming from the warm sunshine to the cold and cloudy. Canadians like to have their guilt rewarded and the last few days at home has felt just about right. There is still snow on the front lawn. The Japanese Maple has been clobbered by a snow plough and will not survive. There is ice on the pond behind the house. It is raining. I opened the garage today and a robin was shivering in the rafters. The house was standing though and we were glad to be here.

The BBQ will be used for certain in May.

Carol and I visited Bronwen in Guelph Monday and Tuesday and had a meal with our whole family. Kate, Jay and Billie joined us for an Easter ham dinner (recipe provided by Jim Johnson.) We are thrilled that Bronwen is in a new home. Unborn baby is doing fine and scheduled for very early May. Sentimental fool that I am - I am hoping for May 6.

You should not be able to complain (to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief; find fault) unless when things change you express the opposite. Lately I have complained about lack of pavers, rain, and who knows what else. Today everything changed - the pavers have all been laid, the cacti have been planted, the mini palms are planted, and the fruit trees have been planted. On top of that I had a great game of tennis. Here is a photo of Jay and Katie at Jay's corporate Christmas party. Jay was honoured as a top salesman at this get together. Congrats Jay.

All of the pavers have been cut and laid.

I may have been wrong about both. The spaghetti dinner at Frank's place was more fun than I have had in a long time. Agreed there were Frank impersonators but they were in their 70's, 80's and 90's and put on a pretty good show. A good time was had by all. It turns out that Dolly Sinatra Lodge is Lodge # 2400, Order Sons of Italy in America. It is named after Dolly Sinatra of course. There was a sense that you should contribute or someone would shoot out your knees. Great night. Our next cheap and cheerful outing is going to be Bowling at the Fantasy Springs Casino. Black lights, strobes, the whole bag of tricks. The wives have all agreed to wear white bras.

A couple of weeks ago Carol and I coerced some folk into going to the Ace Hotel to see Sissy Bingo. "Trust me" we said. It was not bad, nothing that you would do twice in one season, but not bad. I think that tonight could be pay-back time. We have been invited by one of the couples to go to Frank Sinatra's mother home for a spaghetti dinner. I do not think that Frank's mom is hosting, but I will bet that there is a Frank impersonator and that he will sing a Paul Anka song or two.

The paving stones arrived yesterday. I pulled one from a pallet and had a good look and again it was not what we ordered. We have already had the wrong pavers once, how can this happen. The landscape designer was here in 15 minutes to show us that I had pulled the paver from the wrong pallet - it was scheduled to be moved to another worksite this morning. Relief.

This morning the pavers started to be installed. And yes, that is Carol doing laundry in the garage - click on the photo, you will see for yourself.

Tonight we will be hiding from the party hats and noise makers. New Years Eve will probably be celebrated by watching the goings-on in Times Square. The good news is that midnight there is 9PM here. We will still be awake.

We are still in construction hell and it is starting to be a bit tedious. A week ago some of the bricks for the courtyard arrived and they were laid. It took just a few minutes to determine that they were not the right brick. We have been waiting patiently tracking sand back and forth while the manufacturer pours new bricks and gets the finish right. We have now been promised January 2 for arrival but I will bet that it will not happen. I think it is more likely that we will see them early next week.

Carol and I had an invite out for dinner during the past week. The chairlady of the Tennis Committee is a very nice person and it was wonderful of her to include us in her gathering. One of the gentlemen (we will call him Peter, oh - that is his real name) turned out to be the first Republican wing-nut that I have had a chance to meet. Part way through a forkful of salmon he requested assurance from the other guests that we believed that Obama was a muslim. The responses varied from "No" to "Excuse me". Then he started in on Michelle Obama, but was cut short by his wife before the dunk was completed. One by one the Canadians at the table challenged the wing-nut. He finished chewing his mouthful of food, pushed his chair back, stood up, and went home (leaving his wife sitting there.) I think he was meeting Donald Trump for a beer.

Gasoline is $.64US per litre. It makes me want to go for a drive. There is lots of snow in the mountains today.

Happy New Year All!

Here is the firework display from Sydney today:

Carol and I received a wonderful Christmas card from our family. It shows all of the most important aspects of the Christmas seasons - children, couples, and couples having children. It made the old couple in California a little homesick. We sure do miss them. Then we think of the snow - Santa rides a surf board here. We are not going to have a traditional family Christmas. We will play some tennis at 9:00AM, and then go to the movies. There was talk of seeing the movie that has caused all of the trouble between North Korea and Sony. Who knows.

So far as Christmas presents are concerned I will place money that my gift to Carol weighs more than anything you give or receive - 1100 square feet of inter-locking brick. Carol gave me a dump truck load of sand. We are so good to each other. The bricks started to arrive yesterday but they were not the right ones and I had to return them. We are eager to get them installed as we have some friends visiting in January (although if they are not installed when Billie visits in February, we will just get her a pail and shovel and let her go to it. That should work too.