Great week at the beach. We stayed at the same place on Flagler we did last November and enjoyed it just as much the second time. The fishing wasn’t all that great – no wait, the fishing was great – the catchin wasn’t so good. The wind was blowing about 15 knots out of the east or Southeast all week which made for a rough, dirty surf with a strong current. Lots of seaweed. It calmed down nicely on Friday, our last day. I caught a half dozen small bonnet sharks but that was it. Found a couple of new restaurants and managed to spread happy hour around the area. For me it peaked on Friday night. We went to Rossi’s, had a couple of wines, and then I was back sitting on the beach about 7:30. The surf was perfect, the sun mostly down, and the moon mostly up. I poured myself a major red in one of those wine glasses that looks like a brandy snifter, tossed out my rod with a new strip bait that I was fairly certain wouldn’t result in any nasty old fish and then just sat back on the sand and enjoyed the next half hour. That made the whole trip worthwhile. On Thursday Nancy did the Heavenly Day Spa. I had got her a gift certificate for a day at the spa for her Christmas present and made the appointment for when we’d be on vacation there. That worked out perfectly and she was glowing.
Unfortunately (maybe) we were not able to get reservations for next November since somebody booked the place for a whole month. We did nail down the same week for next April and will cast about for another place in November. Who knows maybe we’ll find some place even nicer. We’re thinking maybe farther north – possibly Crescent Beach.
The treatment week was not so smooth. On Monday, the machine crashed just before my turn. We waited around until about 11AM. I could see the same look on the technicians trying to repair it I saw as an engineer when things were heading downhill. They told us they’d call if and when they got it running. No call Monday then Tuesday about 8AM they called to say it was still down and they were flying in a part from Chicago that was due in within an hour and maybe they’d have it up and running by noon. Yeah right. I called about 2PM and they said it was getting close and would I like to come in 9:30PM. Not happening. By Wednesday everything was back to normal so I ended up with 3 treatments this week instead of 5. That means I’ll finish up on the Tuesday after my niece’s graduation in SC rather than on the Friday just before the graduation. Still feeling great with really minimal side affects. If you’re interested the part that cratered was the servo motor that controls the rotation and I’m sure that probably took out the drivers as well. They did fly in the part from Chicago – a $97,000 spare part with $10,000 in air freight. But I figured the 2 days downtime cost them $250K in revenue plus all the expenses associated with a full time staff.
The garden survived me being gone a week. We’ll be picking brocolli by next week for sure; picked jalapeno peppers this morning; crooked neck squash and banana peppers in the next few days. Beans have blossoms and so does the eggplant.
What a great stock market. I decided to help the economy by spending some of it and was torn between taking Nancy on that cruise she’s wanted or getting a new lawn mower. Man does that thing start nice.