The World of Grandpa Don  

Last Friday after lunch an excursion was made to replenish provisions for the coming week As I checked out of the store the bagger seemed to me to be less than enthusiastic about his situation. When I asked how he was doing his response was a dull "OK." But he did add, "How about you?" I told him that when I got up I decided to have a great day and that everything was going according to plan ... to which he replied ... "But sometimes things happen!". .I responded with, "It is not what happens to you that determines the kind of day you are having, but how you react to what happens." The checker chimed in with ... "I have got to remember that!" As I departed the bagger cheerily said, "Continue with your great day ... but watch out, I may be catching up with you."  The exchange was one of those "Random Acts of Kindness" that my friend Bob keeps touting. You don't need to wait for the opportunity to rescue a damsel in distress or give a stranger a hand with a heavy load. An uplifting word or two will often do the job. Everyone benefits.

The rest of the afternoon as well as the best part of Saturday was devoted to reading and communing with nature in the gazebo, on the patio or on the swing. Mikey and I both enjoyed being out in perfect weather. The B&B on Friday afternoon enhanced the experience, at least for me. Mikey is a tea-toteler.

It is too. cool for swimming ... unless you are a duck. The photo at the right was taken by Karen not too many days after their pool was opened. All was fine until the bevy reached the end of the pool. Mom hopped out but it was beyond the ability of the little ones. When the mother walked back to the stairs, the little tykes tried to get out there but it was still too high. Karen put a piece of plastic down and with great difficulty the ducklings made it out, sometime slipping back into the water but eventually all but one was reunited with their mother. Evidently she decided that it was more important to protect the ones that did get out and getting all (but one of) her ducks in a row, led them away.  This is probably an example of the survival of the fittest. With the help of the net, Karen was able to get the little duckling on to dry land and get it started in the direction taken by the rest of the brood. Hopefully the family was reunited.

Karen sent some photos of a couple more 'chicks', this time in front of the house.

The Midwest Sliders were in town to play the Chicago Thunderbolts for a spring exhibition game. Anthony and a friend drove in ahead of time to bring his car back and spend the night. He did well but they lost. The game was delayed in starting and lasted late into the night. In the mean time Joe, exhausted from a day of hard work at the boat yard was warming up pitchers in the Thunderbolt bullpen. He got a heavy workout and may curtail that activity in the future. Anthony joined his team mates for the bus ride back to Michigan including an overnight at a motel. Because the team is still overpopulated until the final cuts, they were three to a room. The bus was crowded as well and actually broke down. On top of that, the uniforms are poor quality and skimpy, to say the least ... not an auspicious start to the season. Anthony informed the team officials that he and several others were going to purchase decent pants from a friend of his in the sporting goods business and was told to include the rest of the team in the order with the team picking up the tab. In speaking with the new head coach of the RM College team he arranged for the school to order two complete sets of uniforms from his friend. Back in Michigan, the Sliders won a double header to brighten up the picture a bit.

Sunday evening I went scouting. A new restaurant opened in town, Hollywood Bar and Restaurant, and I wanted to see if it qualified as a "Dinner & Cards" establishment. Not every place meets the standards of our little group. The place was the former "Fire & Ice" which did not qualify and was closed down after it's late night bar got into trouble for over-serving a customer who was responsible for a fatal accident. Entering the attractive place I was soon seated surrounded by photos of movie greats and scenes for well known films. My waiter took my drink order as I scanned the menu which was attractively setup as a Hollywood billboard but difficult to read. I selected a salad and the Judy Garland   "Our Petit Filet, Grilled to order, with Your Choice of Sauce". The salad was very good and my medium steak melted in the mouth. My choice of sauce was ... no sauce. I checked the desert menu before leaving and there were some very interesting selections. The Appetizer menu was equally attractive and so the establishment is definitely on the qualified list. Later I checked their web site and found menu items I had  missed in the resturant. Me thinks I will print the web site menu and bring it with when I go back since it is much more easily read. The paper table covers belied the pricey-ness of the place, a Greek restaurant with ambition.

. I have been using Expression Web for this web site for several weeks. At times it plays tricks on me but I have been slowly discovering it's secretes. One difference in it compared to FrontPage is that is has no built in  "previewer" but allows you to preview your page giving you the choice of any browser installed on your computer and using various sixe windows..  In using the Netscape browser I found that the heading of this page was not right, elongating the text into a long thin column. However in Internet Explorer it was fine. I found the problem, using one of EW's .setup tools. And that little problem is fixed. I also found that EW does not have the ability to use "WordArt" and that is because WordArt is not compatible with strict web standards, It will use it if pasted into the page from another source but I have found that it is best to convert it to a jpg file so that all browsers will display it properly. The same applies to Microsoft's Clip Art. I no longer use a traditional visitor counter on this site (except for the welcome page) but my tracking code, imbedded in each page tells me that last Friday 30 page titles were viewed a total of 169 times. This included 45 unique visitors of whom 54% were returning visitors. 38 of you use Internet Explorer and only one used Netscape. Several used Firefox or Mozilla which are now combined as one. I went on line and downloaded Firefox and discovered that it was as unforgiving of the mistake I had which caused the problem in the heading. It is now repaired on this page and as I make changes to other pages I'll check for proper functioning in all browsers..