Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 13:38:32 -0500
Subject: Weekend Update: March 7-10, 2002

I had settled into my favorite corner of the couch for
an evening of television last Thursday night when my
son beckoned.  Joy had trapped herself in the little
bathroom on the main floor.  The doorknob wouldn't release
the latch.  I thought to remove the knob which should only
take a moment and I could get back to the History Channel. =20

I unscrewed one doorknob screw and then saw that the other
screw head was stripped.  I did manage to get it out far
enough to use pliers and slowly remove the second screw
a quarter of a turn at a time. With the doorknob removed,
the latch mechanism still refused to work and Joy was=20
still trapped. I began to think about what if we HAD to=20
get her out in a hurry. What if fumes were accumulating?
I turned my attention to the hinge pins.  Once removed,=20
Joy had to  kick at the door from the inside to knock the
door from its hinges.  Finally, she emerged unscathed and
I had rescued the damsel in distress.  I laid the door
against the wall. Joy bought a new doorknob the next day
for me to install on Saturday.

On Friday afternoon, I had lunch with Don Silva up in=20
Nashua.  On the way home, there was a backup on the
highway.  When I got to the cause of the backup, I
recognized a co-worker standing next to her car, which
was perpendicular to the highway with its front end
sheared off.  I pulled over and waited with her until
her car was towed, then drove her back to the office.
Another distressed damsel rescued.  I was on a roll!

The weekend's activity picked up steam when my father-in-law=20
accepted our repeated invitation to come and visit.
Emily and Andrew were shutteld to the church where that
participated with the teen group in a 30-hour fast to raise
money for others in need of food and other necessities.

Spring Break at Eastern Nazarene College is this week so
Miranda, Jessica, and David Young came home for the weekend.
They stopped at at the church because Miranda was staying
overnight with the teens. Jess and Dave came home
to soft, warm, separate beds before heading back the
next morning.

Joy also went to the church Saturday morning to hold a
Children's Musical practice, leaving me and Dad home=20
with a doorknob to replace.  My father-in-law said, "it's a
5-minute job."  I knew then and there, he jinxed the whole
thing. I replied, "NOTHING is EVER a 5-minute job when it
comes to house maintenance!"  Sure enough the door latch=20
mechanism was too fat (1") to fit into the hole (7/8"), so
we headed to the local hardware store in town.  I returned
the doorknob and got just the mechanism in 7/8" size.  It
fit into the hole but stopped short of the goal of a good
fit because it was too LONG!  Back to the hardward store,
this time with the old doorknob assembly to ensure a proper
replacement.  Everything was fitting together nicely except
- remember the stripped screw head?  I hunted in my basement
for something that resembled the appropriate screw and finished
my 5-minute job in about 2 hours time.

After lunch, we went out into the balmy Spring air to
attack the fruit trees, and I do mean attack.  Pop C was
turned loose on the apple trees.  Dad has a reputation of=20
drastic pruning and he reinforced his reputation. The apple
trees now look like shaved poodles.  We've had no luck in
our years at the Manor with the apple trees so we gave the
job to Dad and dared not to look or get involved beyond that.
Joy busied herself about the yard, pointing out the first
yellow crocus of the season. I busied myself cutting out
cankers from the plum tree, intentionally avoiding the apple
tree area.  We made another burn pile of the tree branches
for next weekend.

By late Saturday night, all were home.  On Sunday afternoon, four
of us took David Young to Manchester (NH) airport so he could
visit his parents in Virginia for Spring Break.  The other three
headed to church for the evening service.  We stopped in at the
Nashua church on the way back from the airport but discovered=20
that they were meeting in "small groups" on every other Sunday
evening.  So we went home and I popped in a tape of my Dad,
preaching in Wollaston in 1987 (Romans 7). Then we heard another
sermon from my father-in-law. ;-) (Both are retired preachers.)
Actually, we had a good "Berean" discussion; nothing he likes
better than that!

Mark
+---_-----------+ Mark Metcalfe, metcalfe@cadence.com
| c a d e n c e | Cadence Design Systems, Inc.    Phone: (978) 446-6451
+---------------+ Manager, PCB Enterprise Publications