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Well, I'm slowly settling back into my apartment after a two week
holiday adventure. This year I went to my mom's in St. Petersburg FL
(actually Treasure Island) for Christmas and then to a church camp south
of Miami from 12/26 to New Years Day. With the itinerary and other
travel considerations, I chose to drive. Plans included after Christmas
shopping squeezed in and a visit with Mark Millère and family in
Charleston SC on the way home.
I didn't get any LEGO for Christmas (didn't ask, actually, I haven't
really talked with my mom about my hobby), but that was ok since I'd
actually rather dispense with the present thing at Christmas. I helped
my mom by a new old car. She was just about settled on a new Toyota
Corolla when the dealer spotted a 1989 Corolla while showing her what
was available in the used cars. After the test drive, and a visit to my
mom's mechanic, the deal was closed. It's a rather nice car, in very
good shape (only 49k miles and the mechanic saw nothing to suggest that
was anything other than the truth), sporty, CD changer (to hold my mom's
TWO CDs!), power sun roof, and more.
I didn't get to do any shopping 12/26 because by the time I got on the
road and then actually bothered to open the information for the camp and
find out when check in was, I realized I was going to have to trust to
schedules never being met exactly since check in was scheduled to end
and 4:00 and my estimate for arrival was somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00
(I actually arrived before 4:30 in plenty of time, except that there was
limited choice for my volunteer slots so I ended up with everything on
New Year's eve including breakfast and dinner clean up and helping with
the party from 11:00 to 2:00 - but that all worked out ok).
The camp was a lot of fun. One activity I did was a service project at a
wildlife rehab center which specializes in big cats. The center had
about 30 lions, tigers (sorry, no bears, oh dear!), panthers, pumas,
bobcats and whatnot, a few monkeys, some parrots (etc.), peacocks, emus,
geese, children, and other miscellaneous wildlife. The afternoon started
with a tour of the facility and the opportunity to pet some of the
animals (I only got up the courage to pet one of the panthers, who
enjoyed back an ear scratches [the guide even scratched it's chin]).
Some folks helped feed the cats (I ended up only dumping some produce in
to feed the emus, one woman got to feed the lion who was extremely
defensive while eating). I think most of the animals at the center were
ex pets, but they also had some animals the circus had dumped, and a few
injured wildlife (none that were there at the time were candidates for
release that I could see, though the center does do that).
During the camp, I found a couple handy Targets and scored a little bit
of 30% off. On the way out New Years day, I checked again. Still plenty
of stuff (both along US 1, one near Homestead south of Miami and one in
a vertical mall somewhat north of Kendall in case anyone wants to see
what I left - the mall one had the most, lots of Women's Soccer Teams
and Slave I value packs [like 10-20 of those]).
Between a late start New Years and my shopping, I only got as far as
Daytona Beach that night, and got to bed around 1:00, and figured I
needed to get up at 5:00 to get to the Millère's by noon. I pulled up in
front of the Millère's at about 11:30. Mark gave me a tour of the ware
house (you need to listen to a song on a CD I have...). I estimated that
he might have a million bricks based on the quantities of sets and my
approaching 500k. We went out to lunch with the family (and was that
David?) and then did some shopping.
Mark's daughter walked over to a store and found a 30% off sale during
lunch so we drove over and cleaned them out of Tie Fighters. We then
stopped at a K-Mart and looked at a huge display of Hagrid's Huts and
Forbidden Corridors. Mark and Melissa then applied their retail dealing
skill and got us the 50% sale so they took 40 sets total I think, I took
20. Back at the Millère's, Mark shared some of their earlier Harry
Potter sale loot (Mark - remember to send me the Paypal invoice!). I
also brought in my water tower and some 70s trains for show and tell.
Mark showed off his stock car and we talked about possible changes if
TLC were to make a set from it.
I then decided at about 5:00 that it really was time to be going
considering the weather (in reality, I should have skipped Charleston).
I headed off in freezing rain and drove through the storm all the way
home. I got home about midnight. Driving was reasonable as long as one
considered the situation properly. Once I got almost to NC, the driving
got somewhat better as the weather changed to snow. Fortunately NC got
almost exclusively snow and by the time I got within 30 miles of home,
the roads were actually practically clear.
I went out this morning to fetch my mail, bread (thank heavens for in
store bakeries), milk (they were just putting today's delivery on the
shelf), and other groceries. It took me two trips to get the mail in
(too many eBay winnings). I also popped in to a Target (which Mike has
already reported on). I did try and get a deal on some crushed Women's
Soccer Teams but didn't feel up to finding a manager to try and get
better than 10% off. Maybe after the storm dies out they'll get around
to doing the 50% markdowns (it wouldn't surprise me if they just decided
not to try and do markdowns with reduced staff).
Frank
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