Picnics and Grills

The South Lawn at Picnic Time

Yesterday my boss had a picnic at the company to thank all the employees for their hard work in fielding the new fare boxes.  He had it catered so no one had to work at the grill or the serving line.  Did I tell you what a great boss I have?  The picnic was on what was described to me as “the south lawn”.  I’ve worked here for over four years and I didn’t even know we had a south lawn.  It’s funny how you can drive into and right by a place every day and not notice something.  It turns out this is a very nice, tree shaded area that was perfect for the picnic.  The lady who organized the picnic assumed an immense risk by storing two huge plates of chocolate chip cookies in my office for two days prior.  I’m not saying all of the cookies made it to the picnic but enough did that I escaped accusations.  It was a perfect day weather wise and a great chance to reconnect with a lot of employees I hadn’t seen since my return.  I got home to another picnic related issue.  My wife decided that our gas grill needed to be replaced and bought one during the day.  She indicated that I should abandon my planned sojourn on the couch and get right to putting it together.  Anybody who’s ever put one of these together knows how much fun that can be.  Aided ably by my trusty sidekick, Buddy the Wonder Pooch, I laid out all the parts on the back deck and got to work.  As I laid out the parts I was nervous because I couldn’t find the huge bag of nuts and bolts that come with every product I’ve ever assembled.  I discovered that this product came with the screws, nuts and bolts already prepositioned on the major pieces.  I had to either loosen the screws or remove and then replace the bolts from the pre-positioned locations.  THIS WAS HUGE!!!!  I want to publically state that whoever finally came up with this absolutely awesome idea deserves a Nobel prize for reducing frustration levels.  I always enjoy trying to figure out the directions written in English but definitely not by an English speaker but this took it to a whole different level.  It actually made the assembly easy.  I didn’t have to figure out what hole and which screw they were talking about.  The directions actually made sense – another revelation.  I started a little before 6:30 PM and was finished before it got dark a little after 8PM.  Life is all about surprises, enjoying and wondering at them.  This was a very small, but very welcome surprise – someone actually cared enough to make it easier.  Looking at the stats for this blog this marks my 200^th posting in the less than one year time I’ve been blogging.  That really surprised me but I’ve got to say I really enjoy it – much more so than I ever thought possible.  I don’t know if anyone other than my daughter, my sister, and a couple of my friends actually read it but it’s been fun and I’m going to keep doing it.

The Parts Pre-Assembly and my Faithful Assistant

Success - Cooking with Gas