Happy Birthday to Kuma

Lisa got Kuma Bear fully eighteen years ago on her way to Seaside, and as I hope everyone has realized by now, Kuma is very precious to Lisa. So she decided to have a little birthday party for him here in Seaside. Lisa was home for less than twenty-four hours -- arriving Mehama about 3 PM Thursday and leaving for Portland to get me about 10 AM the next morning. During that time she had to move things from the little pickup to the Vanagon (more comfortable for driving both of us; she decided not to drive the Big Orange Van for economy purposes, as it gets but only 9 MPG). She had to wash clothes and, oh, yes, get some sleep. But she also promised Bear a Seattle Mariners t-shirt and a cake for his birthday, and she managed to get those things done. After we came back from our post-dinner walk along the Seaside Promenade, Lisa broke out the cake and goodies. I was delighted that my post-dinner blood sugar was a mere 79, meaning that I would be allowed, indeed encouraged to have a slice of birthday cake.

( Lisa took lots of photos. Beware of The Cute Bear. )

After the little celebration of Kuma's 18th birthday, I fired up the computer and found that we had both wireless and wired internet service, seemingly pretty solid, and of course included with the room. It even looks like I could hook up my computer through the S-Video cable if I wanted to watch the Super 14 Rugby final. (Which is on right now, but as I know I wouldn't be able to stay awake long enough to watch it all, I'll have to download and watch it later. I had to spend some time cropping and cleaning the photos, but I know it means a lot to Lisa.)

Now I must get to bed very soon, as I've been running on insufficient sleep. I'd actually like to sleep in tomorrow, but if I do that, we'll miss the included breakfast that comes with the room, and I hate the waste.

At the Convention

I talked yesterday about our walk down the Promenade at Seaside yesterday. This evening, I went to the Gmaps pedometer tool to see how far it was.

( About a different kind of convention )

Sea-Pac has program items, but there was nothing that caught Lisa's fancy. We hung around through the large prize drawings at 2:30, but then it was time to, more or less, have some vacation.

( Around Seaside )

Grumble

Good news: I could indeed connect my computer to the TV in the room, as it has an S-Video port.

More good news: Lisa said it was okay for me to watch the Super 14 Rugby final.

Bad news: At the 51st minute, the playback stopped. Apparently the download this afternoon was corrupted without it having said so, and only included the first 51 minutes of the match. (For the benefit of those who don't know -- rugby is played in two halves of 40 minutes each, to the game stalled eleven minutes into the second half.)

I'll have to do a fresh download when I get back to a more dependable internet connection at Lisa's father's house on Monday in order to watch the rest of the game.