It was a good weekend, low key, with garage saling, flea marketing and even a workout. I haven't had a decent workout since June, it felt great. We didn't go to the big local Arts Fest, but we skirted around it checking out the various garage sales. At one, a lass from London (really, another customer asked where she was from) was selling all sorts of cool clothing, Mrs. Ha got a very nice red dress. She also had a pair of Lederhosen, and I was sorely tempted, but decided I would only wear them once or twice a year, so why bother?

This weekend's movie was The Boxer, a good flick set in Northern Ireland where Daniel Day Lewis is a boxer just out of prison trying to bring Catholics and Proddies together, while Emily Watson plays the yummy mummy with a husband is still in prison yet she still bears a torch for Lewis. Bad things happen when a prisoner's wife is caught with another man, yet the end is relatively happy.

We dropped a bundle at the flea market, mostly on clothing and flowers, and a flea market bundle is a lot less than a mall bundle.

I may have mentioned that we had a daycare mixup, I guess when you don't have a job to go to, it's easy to mix up the days. It wasn't a total loss, taking a half day, I now have a carboy of nut brown ale bubbling away. My liquid yeast didn't perk up like last time, so I threw in some reconstituted dry yeast, it will make an interesting experiment.

Twelve year old was complaining that Kings and Queens of England/UK have boring normal names, I explained she had it backwards, the reason they're boring is that Americans chose them for names. Fortunately the World Book had lots of Anglo-Saxon Kings listed, Ethelbert, Egberd and Canute were all names she had never heard.

Seven year old is still trying to ride without training wheels. She also found my old skateboard, and wants to learn that. It's a real old board with narrow trucks, new ones must be easier to ride on.

I mentioned that I found a trove of books in the curb, the first one I read was James F,. Dunnigan's How to Make War, the 1993 edition. It was a good oversight of the modern military, nice reading if you want more indepth reading than you get in a news magazine. Well worth the effort to walk half a block.

The second book was also a Dunnigan book, the 1993 version of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War, lots of detail on potential wars across the globe, including the countries, factions, capabilities and reasons. A decent reference book, if not very enthralling.

One unexpected thing about the Dunnigan books is that for someone who's career is based on war (he was first known as a wargame designer) is that he holds a dim opinion of war, it's almost always more expensive and less effective than the people who start wars suspect.

The third book was Invaders: British and American Experience of Seaborne Landings, 1939-1945, mostly anecdotes about people involved in various sea invasion of World War II, from North Africa to Burma. Well worth the price.

Do you love your job? I consider myself fortunate to have a job that's often interesting, pays well enough, and has benefits. Free color prints are also a nice benefit, but I can't say I love my job. Do you?