Legos are Grand, And So Are My GRANDS

Friday night, the GRANDS started a three night visit with us. I had to work late, so I think they went to McDonald's and their indoor playground that first evening. Saturday was brunch, and then mini-golf in the evening. Sunday lunch was with their great-grandparents at a local Mexican place. We had a lot of fun.

Does your town have one of those pizza places that has a big pipe organ (plus various and sundry other musical instruments) in it? Our does. Here is one of the songs that we heard Sunday night when we took the GRANDS there for ice cream. We also heard Phantom of the Opera and Be Our Guest (both requested by the GRANDS).

They went home last night. This is their Fall break, so no school in the morning. At first, we sat with the TV on, but no sound. Shh. Listen. Nothing. The grandkids like to have the TV on, plus their electronic devices, and an iPod playing music while they perform their concerts. We had a crazy few nights.

I always check beaches looking for this type of fence so I can take a photo like this. Do you like it? They had one like this in an early scene of Jaws that I remember, too.

Here's a photo from our garage. No, not really. I would have neither the patience to build this nor the money to purchase 500,000 Lego bricks. One man had a dream, though.

Have you ever heard of the singing group One Direction? I know they are a newer group, and the granddaughters like them. Anyway, they do a song called Story of My Life. However, this video is a parody of that song with same bad voices overlaying the original singers. You really should watch it. I laughed out loud.

Today's calendar entry:
I haven't heard the president say that we are at war, and that's why I too am not knowing, do we use this, the term "intervention"? Do we use "war"? Do we use "squirmish"? What is it? -Sarah Palin on Fox News talking about the action in Libya

Would you take a brisk walk for thirty minutes a day to have a 10% reduced risk of heart failure? Sure, that is what the government has recommended for a long time. If you upped that to one hour a day, it lowers your risk by 19%. But wait! There's more. If you doubled that to two hours per day for five days per week, it jumps up to a 35% reduction in risk. Is that realistic, though? How many of us will do that? You can read more about the study in this article.

Today's Clarity of Vision:

It turns out that Katy Perry's first album was a Christian Rock album. You can see one of the songs here from 2002 on TBS. You can also see Stephanie Germanotta's song No Floods here. Who is she, you may ask? Nowadays, she goes by Lady Gaga. There are other forgotten songs in this Yahoo Music article.

The other day, I realized that the popups in my pool were not all working as expected. Well, the pump itself was running, so that wasn't the problem. It had to be the A&A Water Actuated Valve unit. However, said unit was not marked with identifying information. How could I investigate? That was when I realized that there were US Patent numbers on the top (see photo). So, I Googled those and found it was the name I showed above, and I was able to find an online manual. What did we do before digital photos in cameras? And what did we do before the internet made searching for this type of arcana so easy? No, it is not fixed yet, but I think I know what the problem is. I am hoping I can replace only the center shaft and not have to buy the whole unit and do a bunch of plumbing work to replace it.

Hey, did you hear that? It was the sound of people arriving to start work. That means I should probably do the same. So, until the morrow, I bid you adieu. Make it a Tremendous Tuesday.