music and automotive

We spent the morning at Gwennie's latest piano recital, in which she played two difficult pieces, "Rustic Dance" and "Carpet Ride." (The latter, in particular, had a tricky syncopation which Gwennie struggled with for weeks. It was her hardest piece, which may be why she chose to play it at the recital.) After her success, she chose our destination for treats -- the little snow cone shack near our house. You know, the problem with snow cones is always that there is more snow than syrup, and you run out of flavor before making it a quarter of the way into the cone. Not an issue here, though. Casper's Mellow Yellow (chosen because of the rhyme, of course) was an unfortunately bright color for a snow-based treat, and Linus's Tiger's Blood dyed his tongue red after two bites.

Since the children had had opportunities to work on crafts and play with tools with Grandpa, I wanted to make sure that I got my chance as well. Some of the electric elements of our van's dash (the odometer, fuel gauge, gear shift markers, etc) had gone haywire and weren't registering at all. Jen had researched the problem online, and apparently a common issue with our van is that the circuit board which operates all this stuff gets worn out. Purchasing a new board is expensive, but it's possible to re-solder many of the connections to fix the problem. So Dad and I spent the evening taking apart the console, disconnecting everything, and soldering the electrical connections on the circuit board, then re-inserting the dash and trying to remember how to screw everything back together. Thing is, it actually worked! Thanks, Dad. I doubt that I would have ventured without your knowledge and support. Just add the $400 we saved to my cosmic tab.