There was a lot of stuff on the jobjar list for today.
This morning had the exterminator coming to spray, and me mowing the lawn — both items needed badly! 🙂
This afternoon, it was around and about town. Beck and I went to be “swabbed” for the National Marrow Donor Program. That’s a cool thing. We’d been reading about a young boy in town that is looking for a donor match, and someone footed the bill to let anyone go to the fire station in Creve Coeur, get swabbed and sign up. I’d be surprised if I was a match for anyone — I get the impression that’s kinda rare — but you never know. Whether they call or not, at least I gave as much as I can to help.
Then, it was off the Creve Coeur Camera to drop off some images for printing. I’m still trying to figure out where to print my images for the show in August. We’ll see what they come up with. Today was “Meet the Vendors” day up there, so there was a truck from WIL, free food, and lots of vendors peddling this year’s new stuff. While there was a fairly large number of customers gawking at the new stuff, the vendors weren’t exactly grabbing Beck and I as we walked through the store. Guess we didn’t look like purchasers!
From there, it was off to Creve Coeur Lake to try out some kayaks. The Alpine Shop was throwing a “You Can Paddle Day” at the lake. The bad part was they picked the worst weather weekend. Here it is, the middle of May, and it was 56 degrees, with strong winds and a totally cloudy day — it was cold! I tried a LiquidLogic kayak, and prompted turned it over in the lake. That thing was terribly unstable for me. Now, I’m a big guy, and I don’t have the best sense of balance… add to that the decent sized waves and wind, and I was a goner before I set sail. After swimming back to shore — BTW, the water was much warmer than the air temperature! — I engaged my demo guide, and tried a Pungo 100. This boat was much easier to manuever, and didn’t feel like it was going to tip over and the drop of a hat. I liked it, but the conditions on the water were way out of my league, so I only took a quick spin and headed back to shore.
Once our demo guide layed the prices out, I could quickly see that this sport is something I’m not gonna be buying into anytime soon. Over $500 for the boat, and at least another $100-150 for a floatation device, paddle and mounting system for the truck… well, that’s a big investment that it seems I’m not yet capable of taking advantage of! Plopping into the lake wasn’t a satisfying experience, and proves I’ve got a long way to go before I think seriously about picking up a kayak and paddling around the lakes or rivers ’round here.