Lows to Highs

Today began a bad day. A bust. The weather crap, cold, and a dismal rain. The night was really bad, with enough of a wind to carry off the tent, had it not been for me lying in it. By the time the birds showed up at 5:30, I was exhausted. A shower didn't help. The weather meant that no siding was going to get done, no yardwork, and the wind made sitting in the tent a stupid option. the lungs bothered me all night, to the point where I chewed an OTC antihistamine to help avoid an actual asthma attack. A day best spent indoors. Unfortunately it was not possible for me to do that at the house, so, after what all parties would consider too much deliberation, I found myself dropped off downtown in the rain. A cup of rank coffee later, I settled in at the City Library for a potentially very long long time in a chair in the Biography section. Luckily, they didn't have lock sleeves on their CD collection, so, after getting hooked up to WiFi, I listened to various CDs while typing emails.

Grandpa and Dad picked me up after noon, and we went driving up to Black Hawk, not greatly far from Estes Park. The rain had turned to snow at some point and I have the pix somewhere in my camera, which is in the house. I've run the weedeater extension cord out to the tent so that I might be able to surf the Internet without further pulmonary shutdown, so instead of a general picture of snow on pines, how about this?

Grandpa, ever the man to grease the rails toward Perdition, handed us each $20 gambling money and set us off on the slots. There was a point where I was actually winning at computer blackjack, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Doubling Down? Splitting? What the hell, I'll try it. I got a free Fat Tire beer, which I figure was worth the five bucks I subsequently lost. My biggest coup was when I stuck in 50 cents in a penny slot and came back with almost five bucks. This, however, didn't make up for the $20 of Grandpa's, that I really hoped I'd make good on, considering how nice he was to get things rolling. We all did just as one would expect.

By the time we were through gambling (Dad and I hazarded a stint at the $5-bid blackjack table, which was very short-lived), the sun was on its way out. By the time we were back home from our picturesque drive back to Loveland, the skies were clear, and the weather tomorrow will be in the 80s and sunny. The wind has picked up, though, which took the tent and flipped it like a bug downwind. I've staked it in the yard, hoping that things are dry enough for me to not have soakthrough at 2a.m.