Archives March 2003

This is really funny stuff. I love these commercials.

I decided to make a pit stop at WalMart over lunch to replace my melted lunchbox milk container. I knew it is normally a mob scene there but I thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad today. Wrong. Wall to wall people. As usual I pick one of the slower checkout lines, I have a uncanny ability to do so. I am behind 3 mexican women, all obvious related. Each pays for their own stuff individually. The oldest woman of the three purchases not one, not two, not three but FOUR purses. I was trying to figure that one out for awhile, running scenarios through my head of why you would want to buy 4 purses. Hey it helped pass the time while the cashier opened all the pockets in each purse to make sure the old lady wasn’t lifting stuff.

Speaking of checkout lines. Has anyone else had any experience with those self checkout stations at Home Depot? Our one HD store recently got them. Being the computer savy person I am, of course I head right for the self checkout station when I see it on Sunday. It is quite interesting. You scan the item and then you MUST place it in a designated area on the machine. It MAKES you do this and tries to sense if you haven’t. I had the machine tell me I didn’t put the item there when I did, tell me I removed an item when I didn’t and I wound up having to have the clerk come over and clear an error. Not very self service at all. I guess if I had a simple checkout of a couple items it would have been ok. I had over 15 items, some that were quite small. Anyone else see these in other stores? I like the idea.

Puppy weekend number two. It wasn’t all that different from weekend number 1. By the end of the weekend we were stressed out and frustrated. Multiple accidents, incessant chewing, terrorizing the cats and crying when she is crated. It appears that Ali’s experiment with letting the puppy go through the night without being taken out is not working out very well. The cage has been getting progressively worse so I think she is going to have to go back to early AM dog walks. As cute as she is, it STILL doesn’t make up for all the drama, at least not at this point. I busted ass to get a floodlight in the back so we didn’t have to be eaten alive by bugs at night. Unfortunately it seems that she doesnt like going to the bathroom unless you are out there with her.

We had a VERY busy weekend. I got the pool all ready for regular swimming by putting in new filters. We totally cleared out the bedroom my mom is going to use when she comes down. I set up shelves in the garage and in the new storage shed to accomodate all the crap that was in this room. We still appear to have way too much STUFF.

On the plus side, I got to enjoy the pool a bit yesterday, we had some friends over Saturday night and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding (surprisingly good) and I got in some time with my RC plane.

I had a very scary moment on Saturday. Ali asks me if I lighted a candle. I said no, why???? I came out to the kitchen and smelled it. Something was definitely burning. Instantly I had flash backs to my Buick burning up. Oh my GOD is my house gonna burn up next? I started frantically looking around to see where it was coming from. I now see the smoke, I am really crazy now. Ah ha! It is coming from the dishwasher! We throw it open. Smoke comes billowing out. The plastic lid to my lunch kettle milk container had fallen on the heating element and melted. Crisis averted, but man did that freak me out. I will never take the smell of smoke for granted ever again.

Today is the one week puppy anniversary. It has been a difficult week but we are working through it. It is slowly geting better and I would expect it to continue. The puppy now has a name, Nicki. Nicki is either fast asleep or running around like a maniac terrorizing the cats and trying to chew whatever she can get in her mouth. Her house training is a work in progress.

Just applied for a mortgage refinance. I am hoping to do a 15 year term. My payment would initially be about 100 bucks more a month than what we pay now but I will be cutting my term in half. That means I could be mortgage free by 50. That would be nice, real nice.

I am making a concerted effort to cut down on the reality tv. There are several new ones coming on including a new bachelor. I am going to try to not get sucked in. It really becomes an inconvenience to be tied into that much tv. I’ll stick with 2 right now, just Survivor and American Idol. Don’t want to cut into puppy time. 🙂

This weekend will be a lot of work. I want to go on a shelf hanging bonanza both in the garage and in the new shed to help clear out the junk that has been cluttering the spare bedrooms.

Today the high is supposed to be around 90. It has been feeling like summer. No complaints, I’ll take it over the snow.

Whew. The PUPPY weekend. It was a weekend filled with ups and downs. Lots of crying by my wife, lots of puppy “accidents”, and much discussion about how this was all going to work. The end result is we still have the puppy. We spent another 100 bucks on puppy stuff over the weekend so that puts the total up to $300 invested so far. We have come up with work arounds for certain situations and are stilll up in the air about how to handle others. I find it next to impossible to believe that my wife would return the puppy at this point. She is already severly emotionally invested in it. There is no denying that the puppy is adorable and as good natured as you can ask for a dog to be. I give Ali credit for getting up every night at 1 or 2am to walk the dog. However, this schedule is really hard on her since she normally needs more than 8 hours of sleep to just not feel tired. I made my puppy concerns well known over the weekend but stressed the final decision is Ali’s and that I would go along with whatever she decides. It’s been quite the soap opera.

We had our shed delivered on Monday. It is fantastic and will make our house much less cluttered. As it was delivered and being set up, I realized I didn’t have any cash to tip them. They were busting ass and doing a great job so I needed to tip them. Luckily Ali had some cash so we decided to give them 30 bucks. I signed the papers and reached into my pocket to give the guy the money. He said thanks and was on his way. Later, I reached into my pocket to grab my home depot shopping list and pulled out a 20. Evidently I only wound up giving them a 10 buck tip. I felt bad cause they really were quite nice and they wound up probably thinking I was a cheap SOB. Oh well.

It was actually warm enough to go in the pool! Mid 80’s and humid! The pool is up to 78 degrees. Swimming in March, can’t beat it.