Yesterday, a couple of lingering chores were erased from the list. After posting my blog, Pedro from San Diego Auto Glass arrived. He repaired the ding in the windshield that happened when an oncoming truck with an uncovered load of gravel threw a storm of stones at us.

Pedro didn’t mind me watching him work. It was interesting to see the process. The resin he used to repair the windshield has a very low viscosity. It slowly flows into the cracks surrounding the chip in the glass. As it fills the cracks, they magically disappear. He used a device to force the resin into the chip and cracks. He covered it with a shade to prevent UV rays from hardening the resin. After 15 or 20 minutes, the cracks were filled. He then used a UV light to harden the resin. After the chip was filled, he scraped it flat with a razor blade, then he polished the surface. Job done!

While Pedro was working on the windshield, our neighbors in site 149 drove away in their truck. Once Pedro was done I took advantage of our neighbors absence to work on the sewer connection. It wouldn’t be nice to disassemble sewer hoses while the neighbors are sitting outside next to us. I built the new extension from the dump valves to the outside of the wet bay. I trashed the old one. Then came the moment of truth…I opened the black water valve. Whoosh…no leaks!

New hose extension from dump valves to wet bay opening

With that job behind me, I was feeling pretty good. There was one fly in the ointment yesterday though. On Tuesday night, I downloaded the European coverage of the Moto GP race. I used a file sharing torrent program to capture the file. I went to bed with the torrent program running. The torrent program was simultaneously uploading my race files to other users while downloading the latest race to my computer. Left open all night, a large amount of data was transferred – several gigabytes.

I was connected through the Mission Bay RV Resort wifi. Apparently the administrator didn’t take my data usage too kindly. As of yesterday, I’m blocked from using their wifi. It was a dumb move on my part. I’ll have to use my Verizon Jetpack and watch my data usage.

In different regions of the country, you’ll hear things phrased in different ways. California is no exception, there are idiomatic figures of speech. I grew up here and understand them. Some of them are new to Donna.

For example, the beaches are often referred to by their initials. Imperial Beach is IB, Ocean Beach is OB and Pacific Beach is PB. I thought Donna was really getting it when she called Pacific Beach Drive  “PB Drive.”

The other day she made me smile though. One of her friends sent her a text saying he was in RB. She asked, “What beach is RB?” I told her I thought he meant Rancho Bernardo in north county. Later, when Brett and Cheri were coming down to visit from Dana Point, Cheri texted, “We’re leaving OC.” Donna read it aloud and said, “OC…Ocean…umm?” I told her Cheri meant Orange County.

Another difference to a non-California speaker is the way interstates and highways are referred to. Californians don’t say I-5. It’s just “the 5.” When my daughter came to drive me up to visit my step-dad in Sun City, she asked me what the best route would be. I replied, “Take the 5 to the 52 east then get on the 15.” This is California speak.

Last night, Donna wrapped scallops in prosciutto which I grilled. She served them over spinach with a lemon vinaigrette and a minestrone side dish. She made this scallop dish before; these were a little smaller than the last time. The minestrone side dish was new to me. It basically has all of the ingredients of minestrone soup, but it’s not made as a soup.

Prosciutto wrapped scallops over spinach with minestrone

This morning she made a parfait for breakfast. It had grapefruit and orange sections layered with non-fat Greek yogurt, slivered toasted almonds and pure honey from our home state of South Dakota. A great start to another beautiful day in San Diego.

Breakfast parfait