Time is flying by these days.
My parents were in town last weekend, which is why that time seemed to disappear on me. I just haven't had that down time for everything to re-settle. But the end of the semester is only a few weeks away, and then I'll get a short break before summer session.
We went out to Boulder City and wandered around there for a little while. It's a nice little tourist town. Very clean with a very visible police presence. Maybe it was just coincidence, but they seemed to be everywhere. We also took a short train ride into the desert. It was nice, but a little disappointing because it didn't really go that far. There were some nice views, but when the trip is only a couple miles long it's hard to get many nice views.
We also went to the Sam's Town buffet, which was perhaps the funniest buffet I have ever visited. Their "enchiladas" looked and tasted like Costco frozen taquitos that were sitting in canned enchilada sauce. The potatoes tasted like KFC potatoes (which probably means they were powdered). In general, the food was just kind of bland and uninteresting. But then again, for a $10 buffet you can't have your expectations set too high.
I found out that my car has a transmission leak, which will need to be addressed soon. In fact, it was addressed today, but not in the way I had hoped. The car has less than 35000 miles on it, which means that it is still under the manufacturer's warranty. So I called up the dealership and took it in this morning to be fixed. I got a call in the afternoon telling me that the pan and gasket were after market parts, meaning that the warranty is void. Fortunately, when I bought it from CarMax, I bought an extended warranty, so I drove over to talk to them about it. Unfortunately, the CarMax people cannot work on the car until after the manufacturer's warranty has expired, because otherwise they would void the warranty. But since the warranty is already void, this shouldn't be a problem. At least, I hope it won't be a problem. I need to call up the CarMax warranty company to verify this before CarMax will do anything about it.
This evening was the faculty/staff appreciation dinner for NSC, which was basically just a nice dinner and short awards ceremony. It was a good time to just hang out with people and chat. We're also having a small faculty party tomorrow, and I need to prepare some food for that in the morning. I'll probably just draw and quarter a chicken and then let it sit in a basic poultry rub (paprika, cayenne, garlic powder, salt) to get flavorful. I also need to bring some chips, and I think I'll make a roasted vegetable spread, and if I'm really ambitious I'll make some peanut butter cookies.
I've been reading "What Do You Care What Other People Think", which is a collection of stories from Richard Feynman's life. It's a relaxing read, as it is written in a very conversational tone, as if someone is just transcribing the story from an audio of Feynman telling it.
On Sunday, I'll be attending a church membership class, which might be good, but might also be dull. At the minimum, it's a free lunch and a necessary bureaucratic step that helps me to become better connected to the church.
