"Two to three hours" ended up being six hours by the time it was all said and done, including travel time. The day was not, however, a total loss. Let me explain:
I got a road tour of much of Lee County. We went down to Dad's old office in south Fort Myers to pick up some furniture, along with Dad's handyman who helped with the lifting. The handyman drove the U-Haul truck, while I rode with the old man in his blue Caddy. Once we got everything loaded up, we stopped off in Jamaica Bay where we picked up a computer desk that Dad had bought from a little old lady. The next stop would be Dad's new office in Cape Coral.
Dad gave the handyman the directions, but unfortunately, when we made the turn into the little strip mall, the handyman missed the turn and drove on down the road. Dad had me stand by the road to watch for him and wave him in when he came back. Five minutes passed, then ten. This was getting ridiculous; the handyman could have made it all the way to Pine Island by that time. Finally, Dad and I got in the car and drove down the road a few miles.
We didn't see the U-Haul, which should have stuck out like a sore thumb. After a while, Dad decided to turn around. We drove back and I spotted the U-Haul parked at the side of a building. About this time, Dad's cell phone rang: It was the handyman. Well, we pulled into the parking lot by the building and Dad went in, chattering on the phone as he walked in.
I followed him in. The store was a Maytag appliance store, but interestingly, in one corner there was an amazing collecti0n of vinyl record albums, 45 RPM singles, VHS movie videotapes and even a few compact discs. Among the latter, I spotted Styx's Greatest Hits in a plain jewel case, no liner notes. $2.99. It had a bunch of great songs on it, and at that price, I wasn't going to say no. I paid the lady at the front desk and left with my souvenir of the day. Then we went to Dad's new office and unloaded the stuff, back to his new manufactured home in North Fort Myers to drop off the computer desk, and then I was outta there.
The CD turned out to have some minor scratches on it, and one song ("Renegade") skipped a bit on my car's CD player. However, when I got it home, it imported perfectly into iTunes. That'll do.
I also found out that two CDs that I ordered from Amazon.com arrived today: Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme (1966) and Proto-Kaw's Before Became After - Special Edition (with a DVD) from 2004.
Who is Proto-Kaw? Well, the band Kansas that you are probably familiar with was the third incarnation of the band. Proto-Kaw is the lineup from the second incarnation, including Kerry Livgren. They had another CD out before this one, which I'll get if I like this one, which was mostly demos and unreleased tracks from the early 1970s. This CD/DVD set is the 21st century reunion of the band. Progressive rock, like Kansas, unsurprisingly. I put the CD on my iPod and will listen to it tonight at work.
