What an expensive day!

Oye, I took part of the day off today to get some chasing done that I just couldn't get done this weekend (was too busy with personal things to do much this weekend). Yoiks was it a spendy day!

First, I got up and worked until about noon. More on that in another post (let me just say that alpha 3 has some large UI changes in it that I've been working on for the last few weeks -- hopefully people will like them).

Then I went over to Amcon block in St Cloud to pick out my landscaping block. I ended up going with slate grey keystone blocks -- 3 palettes worth. :-P Those should be dropped in my driveway either tomorrow or on Wed. Then I can start the fun task of laying block around the exterior of the house. w00t!

From Amcon, I went over to Home Depot to talk sprinkler pumps. What a waste of time -- no one in town seems to have a clue about what I'd need or how they work. Every place I went, I ended up feeling like I was teaching the person who was supposed to be teaching me. I ended up nabbing the 1-800 number for FloTech (the people who make the pumps). I figure I'll call them direct tomorrow and see if I can get a straight answer out of one of them. But all was not lost, I did end up picking up some wood putty and a weed remover. Oh yeah, and a gas grill. :-P

From Home Depot, I went over to Menards to see if perhaps they had a clue. That guy was the dumbest person I've yet to run into. I walked away from him mid-sentence when he told me I'd need to drop 3 sand points for my 1/3 acre lot. Obviously not much going on upstairs for him.

From Menards, I went up to Avon to go visit dad at Lumber One. He was gone (ran into town, missed him by about 5 minutes), but that was fine since I needed to talk to the yard about getting my deck materials. Ended up drawing out a deck with Tom and he's going to get me some sketches and a parts list in the next few days. Then I can order all my decking materials and get that job started too.

From Avon, I came back home to drop all my loot off. But I wasn't done! Then I went in to Target to pick up a good mixer and a deep fat fryer. My arteries hate me, but my tummy loves me. :-D I'm actually about to head out to get some goodies to make tonight. :-D

Then I came home, manually de-weeded the lawn and assembled my new grill. w00t!

All told, I spent too much money. But it was all worth it, and I'll get my money's worth out of everything. Though I must admit, I'm not looking forward to laying 150+ linear feet of masonry around the house (at least I don't have to mortar them together).