Independence Day

Happy late 4th of July, y'all.

Work has been bothersome for Bob this week. First off, he learned that he flunked the book test for promotion. Then he was told his shop chief was being "fired" - not kicked out, but moved to a position of less authority. Then he was told that his name was one of a list of 1 for possible step-promotion (this is where a general decides to let some people be promoted even though they didn't get it by the usual means), but a few hours later word came back that he was turned down because he'd failed a PT test in 2004. So by Thursday he was a little stressed out. Just after lunch Thursday the shop chief told him to go home, so he did, and our weekend began.

Thursday night we decided to go look at computers, to replace the desktop. In spite of previous promises of new items in July, the BX only had one desktop, and it was out of stock. So Bob asked for a deal on the display model and they offered him 10% off, and I said that was silly. So we came home, where I discovered that we could order from Best Buy and get more computer for about the same price, including shipping, and not have to deal with the BX. WooHoo!

Friday we had planned to look at an '82 Jaguar listed on Ebay and residing in Newmarket, and get a part to fix our main toilet which isn't flushing right now, come home to fix the toilet, and maybe go to Feltwell this afternoon to the July 4th thing. I looked up a "home" store, and Bob called the car owner. Turns out he's busy on Fridays. Back to the drawing board. Not having a lot of success online, we decided to just go look. It was nearly 11 when we left.

First to the home store where we wandered around looking for plumbing, until we met a nice employee who showed us. They didn't have the right size piece that we wanted, so we left there and checked out the store next door, from whom I used to receive ads, but we'd never visited. Not much there.

Then we went on to Mildenhall for lunch, and yes, I stayed on diet. While there we bought birthday presents for our neighbor girl. Then we looked at cars. And we looked at cars. And then we looked some more. About 5 o'clock Bob made a deal on one over the phone, and then we went to eat - this time getting deli sandwiches from the commissary.

Oh, the car? A 1994 Toyota MR2 like the one seen here. It has 75,000 miles on it and seems to be in good shape. I tried to talk him into a VW Golf we saw at a dealer, but it just didn't have the appeal of the other.

We took our sandwiches to the park, ate and played for awhile - until the chorus of "I need to go to the bathroom" began. Taco Bell (nearest toilet to the park) was closed, so we went next door to the shoppette, which only has one toilet. A few other customers thought our line was too long and went elsewhere. Sorry.

Anyway, then we took a deposit to the car guy, since our bank will only let us get out so much at a time, and then it was about 7 so we figured we'd go on up to Feltwell. That was a nightmare - literally - I dreamed about it last night.
The line of cars going on base stretched for a couple of miles. To keep things moving, IDs were not checked at the gate, as usual, but all cars were ushered to a field near the carnival, the people got out and herded to a HUGE line and IDs checked and bags opened before being allowed into the carnival area (which was roped off and policed). So we got in line, and were almost halfway to the gate when one of the border patrol cops called to us that no backpacks were allowed inside. Oh. I have a backpack for the diaper bag combo with my purse, and Bob has a backpack for his camera gear, and we weren't going in without them.
So we walked down the perimeter, because we'd seen a bunch of people going that way and thought maybe there was something else up the road, but there wasn't. So we walked back and thought about sitting in the car for 2 hours and hoping we'd be able to see the fireworks from there, but we'd been in the car all day, and there was no guarantee that we'd even see it. So we went home, all the while wondering what about a bag having two straps that made it more dangerous than any other kind of bag. It was very tempting to get quite upset about it, but we managed to keep ourselves in check.

Home to bed.

Today we are going about an hour and a half south of here to Dunstable to see their Festival of Living History. You can read about it at www.dunstable.gov.uk

See you later!