Here we go for Tuesday, May 5, 2009!

1. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a Cinco de Mayo event, ever. Today I finally looked the celebration up in Wikipedia and learned that Cinco de Mayo refers to an unlikely victory of the Mexican army over the French. It’s an interesting article about an event I didn’t have any clue about until today.
2. I’ve been re-reading the Wheel of Time series. So far 11 books in the series have been published, with the author Robert Jordan dying after book 11 was published and before he could complete the series. He was working on what he thought might be the last book when he died and another author Brandon Sanderson was engaged to finish. However, he and the publisher have decided to finish the series up with three more books. Book 12, A Memory of Light will come out on November 3rd this year. So, I decided to reread the initial 11 books and be ready by November for the next book in the series. This is at least the fourth time that I’ve read them. The series is so interesting, though, that I can’t put the books down. I just finished reading Lord of Chaos, book 6 yesterday. At this rate I’ll be done by June! So, for the time being, I’ve stopped reading so I can get something else done.
3. While the Avalon is indeed undented, the door now makes wind noise and at highway speeds it whistles. I’ve been assigned the task of taking it back into the shop to get the noise taken care of. Hopefully that’ll happen Thursday morning.
4. A very clever and talented young lady I follow on Twitter (@katieblair) recounted the last paragraph of her grandfather’s obituary. It was delightful!

In lieu of flowers, the family asks you to take a friend to lunch, call a favorite teacher, or reconnect with a long time acquaintance.

5. I’ve got several things to get done for the next Farmers Market on Saturday. The weather is not forecast to be favorable, however. I’m hoping it at least will be a bit warmer than last week.
6. The most important item for the market is to get Much Bigger Signs. While we were sitting at the market last Saturday trying to stay dry and somewhat warm, Nina suggested that we should make up some signs and get them … and she couldn’t think of the word. She kind of described what she was thinking, but my brain was completely blank as well. Several hours later as we were driving somewhere else, I suddenly blurted out “laminate!” We both laughed very hard and long. It’s not that we forget, she reminded me, we just remember later.
7. The charter event for our new Portneuf Rotary Club was last Tuesday afternoon. It was a very fun event and an attendee took a number of pictures. I was given the opportunity to upload those pictures to the Rotary District Website (link to the pictures on the bottom of the left column). That turned out to be a very painful process. Their website is set up for uploading the occasional picture. Every picture has to be uploaded individually and every one of the fields in the process has to be precisely correct. And, the website doesn’t remember anything from one picture to the next, even the date of the event. After uploading about 66 pictures, I was glad to be done and won’t avail myself of that opportunity again. Maybe I can have our new Rotary club let me make their webpage?
8. I was over in Montpelier on Monday meeting with the Mayor and the City Clerk. They were having huge computer problems trying to print out the past-due water / sewer notices. For some reason the print on the page was so small it couldn’t be read. There were a couple of technicians working on the problem, one in the office and one on the phone. The problem was finally solved … it was an issue with Microsoft Word. A patch automatically installed by Microsoft caused the problem. I don’t like auto-installed software updates.
9. My motorcycle is ready for the summer. I needed a new front tire and new front and rear brake pads. Now I just need some decent weather so I can do some riding! We’ve been getting plenty of rain which also is not a bad thing (except for riding the motorcycle).
10. Nina came in a couple of minutes ago to get an envelope. She saw I was still writing this missive and expressed her pleasure that I wasn’t ready to go to bed yet, as she needed another ten minutes or so. I think she still got done faster than I did!

And that’s another ten things in the bag.